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Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5326 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian
| Message 569 of 586 08 December 2013 at 8:44pm | IP Logged |
Emme wrote:
I must admit that Russian defeated me this year. Back in January I didn’t set my goals too
high: I said that reaching A2 by the end of the year would have been more than great for me. And even with
such a modest goal I still couldn’t make it.
The truth is that Russian is the first really demanding language (for an English- and German-speaking Italian
native) that I’ve tried to learn on my own and I probably didn’t put enough effort and time into it. If you can
make visible progress in a language like Swedish and still keep it as a hobby, with Russian you need to work
as hard as you did back at university and that’s something that I find very difficult to reconcile with my lifestyle
nowadays.
But enough with making excuses: I tried and failed this year, even though it wasn’t a complete waste of time.
Just yesterday I was watching an interview with a Russian theatre director and I noticed that I could
understand some words and a handful of sentences (of course for much of the interview I had to rely on the
subtitles to understand what he was saying). So, I did learn a little Russian, but much less and a lot more
slowly than I had in mind when I joined the TAC.
Now I must decide what to do next year, especially since the signing up for TAC2014 is already going on. On
the one hand I don’t want to give up Russian altogether, but on the other hand I’m not sure whether I really
want to keep it as a focus language.
Whatever I decide to do, I just wanted to thank everyone here for a really great year: I’m very happy I got to
know you guys and I’m very proud I was part of this team with you.
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It was great having you here - and we would love for you to continue on to the next Russian team :-)
Edited by Solfrid Cristin on 08 December 2013 at 8:44pm
1 person has voted this message useful
| zecchino1991 Senior Member United States facebook.com/amyybur Joined 5250 days ago 778 posts - 885 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, Modern Hebrew, Russian, Arabic (Written), Romanian, Icelandic, Georgian
| Message 570 of 586 08 December 2013 at 9:11pm | IP Logged |
Hey everyone, I kind of got out of the swing of things once I finished my Russian class, but I am planning to
revamp my Russian for this year's TAC. I am about to finish my last semester of university, so I will have
much more time to focus on languages now. Just want you all to know I will be much more active this time
and I look forward to studying with you all next year.
1 person has voted this message useful
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5326 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian
| Message 571 of 586 08 December 2013 at 9:30pm | IP Logged |
zecchino1991 wrote:
Hey everyone, I kind of got out of the swing of things once I finished my Russian
class, but I am planning to
revamp my Russian for this year's TAC. I am about to finish my last semester of university, so I will have
much more time to focus on languages now. Just want you all to know I will be much more active this time
and I look forward to studying with you all next year. |
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Great!
1 person has voted this message useful
| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5218 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese
| Message 572 of 586 13 December 2013 at 11:35am | IP Logged |
I guess I owed the team some feedback and/or status reports even without our dear Cristina reminding me --thank you for the wake up calls anyway ;) -- but I'll use her template to make it easier. As always I'll try and leave strictly personal issues and tragedies and language-unrelated stuff for the closing post of my own log, which I have neglected even more than this one... those interested in further details of what I'll tell you, and especially everything non-Russian, stay tuned for my '13 log final update.
-What have you accomplished over the last few months?
I have made friends (always kind of an accomplishment in my case) with another Russian family (which is why I mention that here), the Vasilyevs, especially their two lovely little kids.
While this happened more or less accidentally, I soon became determined to take full advantage and pump up my Russian by combining study with the so necessary interaction with real, live people I like. Stuff happened that made me study much less than intended (and study German instead) and the planned 'interaction schedule' --my regularly dropping by at the Vasilyevs'-- was cut down by 50% too, so I didn't exactly accomplish a lot.
I did, however (and still do, although a bit less), spend a huge amount of hours as one more in the family. So far I have watched quite a few films in Russian with my new friends (films with action --not action films-- are not that difficult, the less if you have someone translate the vital parts), and I'm not sure what level this leaves me at but I'll tell you I am somewhat versed now (say 101 course) in what we could call 'Russian for specific goals', such as 'sibling rivalry', 'children scolding', 'telling on', and 'children say the darndest things'. Something I deem difficult to measure in CEFR terms, and definitely on the passive side, but not to be dismissed either. Sometimes they don't even bother to talk to me in Spanish until I tell them I need a translation.
Oh, and the fun I had -- but I'm not sure that goes in spirit with this post ;)
-What are you working on right now?
I was and I still am very slowly re-vamping the Princeton Russian Course hand-to-hand with EricOunet (and I owe him an update on that too -- just in case he's reading us here).
-What is your goal for the next week?
I don't remember. To be on the safe side I'd bet it was 'eventually getting something done'. It's been exactly that for a while now :D
-What will you focus on for the next three months?
Er... swimming, gardening, and butterfly rearing... oh you meant Russian? I didn't have the time to even think of it, really.
Edited by mrwarper on 13 December 2013 at 11:39am
1 person has voted this message useful
| Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5548 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona
| Message 573 of 586 13 December 2013 at 7:53pm | IP Logged |
Friday 13th...what better time to leave a quick update! :)
I've been working full-out this year in both my work and studies, so not much got done despite all the best intentions. I still managed to squeeze in a little bit of Russian along the way, but it is ashamedly чуть-чуть. With this in mind and tail between my legs, I've already written to Saint Nick and his happy pointy-eared helpers to send me a Tardis to assist me next year (although I'm half expecting a piece of coal in lieu of the dream time machine).
I'm also toying with the idea of switching over mainly to speaking Russian at home from now on, although I might more realistically take up the challenge at the start of 2014. I have several projects to write up between now and the end of the year, and a new course to prepare to teach in January; however I think I'm about ready to go the distance in speaking predominantly Russian with my wife and not just give up in abject frustration after a few days of communicating like a three-year-old. *fingers crossed anyway*
My goal for next year will be to reach an advanced level in at least one of the four core language skills (ideally speaking), and although I aim to continue studying a whole bunch of languages, Russian will take its place centre stage in 2014.
1 person has voted this message useful
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5326 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian
| Message 574 of 586 28 December 2013 at 8:46am | IP Logged |
CAN ALL REMAINING ACTIVE MEMBERS PLEASE WRITE THEIR FINAL REPORTS IN THEIR LOGS
ASAP SO I CAN LINK TO THEM IN THE VOTING THREAD?
I know some of you already have, and in that case it is enough that you just say so here. -and possibly link to
it. Those of you who have not written an end of year report please do so today or tomorrow.
Go team MIR :-)
1 person has voted this message useful
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4699 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish
| Message 575 of 586 28 December 2013 at 10:14am | IP Logged |
Second
post is my SUMMARY
Yay for summaries.
1 person has voted this message useful
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5158 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian
| Message 576 of 586 28 December 2013 at 10:16am | IP Logged |
Here's
mine (last post)
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