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Cristina’s travels TAC 2015 Team Pushkin | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4700 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 137 of 297 14 October 2014 at 12:35pm | IP Logged |
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Nu är jag riktigt svartsjuk. Nästa gången vi träffas måste vi ta den över en kopp kaffe
(eller rysk te, eller kanske en hel maltid) och du får berätta allting om professorn och dina upplevelser! Jag ber om ursäkt, men det kan väl bli så att jag inte hinner att åka till Berlin andra gången heller - jag kommer att bo i Kina... 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5327 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 138 of 297 14 October 2014 at 3:33pm | IP Logged |
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@Tarvos: Bare si fra når og hvor vi kan treffes så kan vi snakke så lenge du orker, og du skal få alle detaljer
fra konferansen :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4700 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 139 of 297 14 October 2014 at 4:40pm | IP Logged |
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Jag är rädd för att jag inte har råd med att resa igenom hela Skandinavien en gång till
just nu, men vi ska bestämma något senare på PM. Det är i alla fall väldigt trevligt att läsa om historien här! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5002 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 140 of 297 18 October 2014 at 11:49am | IP Logged |
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Thanks for your Serbia report, Cristina. It must have been an awesome experience! I loved every sentence you wrote and read those posts as a novel.
It's great to hear from you. So, do you plan to learn Serbian as well, now? :-) And did Russian and a bit of Polish you know give you any insight into the language? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4837 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 141 of 297 19 October 2014 at 8:09pm | IP Logged |
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Here's another envious follower of your log. Sounds like you had a hell of a time in Serbia, Cristina!
I've always wanted to meet the Professor since I saw his YouTube videos for the first time. Must be a very interesting person. I hope I can make it to such a polyglot event some time, although I'll probably be awe-struck by all the incredible polyglots. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5200 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 142 of 297 20 October 2014 at 12:34pm | IP Logged |
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Another good read Cristina! I need to make it to one of those conferences sometime. I only ever seem to find out about them after they happen...
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5327 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 143 of 297 24 October 2014 at 9:21am | IP Logged |
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@Cavesa: Thanks, I must admit I am sorely tempted. I have Pimsleur Croatian, and I would love to know
some more before I go back, because I definitely will go back to Belgrade. And, yes, both my Russian and my 15 remaining words of Polish helped immensely. I had no problem getting around, in spite of not actually speaking any Serbian. @Josquin: Yes, I had a great time, and it was an amazing experience to meet the professor. Why don't we all meet up in Berlin next April? @garyb. Well, like I said to Josquin: Berlin in April :-) Edited by Solfrid Cristin on 24 October 2014 at 9:23am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5327 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 144 of 297 24 October 2014 at 9:24am | IP Logged |
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MADRID IN OCTOBER
Having travelled alone since I was 11, I think I have come across every possible thing that can go wrong when you travel. Well, I have never been forgotten in an airplane, stranded in the desert or mugged, but all the normal little things that can happen I have gone through. Today's problem was in principle not an uncommon one - I missed my connecting flight from Amsterdam to Madrid because the Oslo-Amsterdam flight was delayed due to storms in Amsterdam. Or so they said. I was hoping that the flight out of Amsterdam would be delayed as well, but no such luck. They had booked me on a flight tomorrow morning at 6, which would have given me a nightmare of a night, so I managed to get on the last flight to Madrid. That one was however delayed, due to the 'storm that you can see outside'. I looked outside and saw - nothing. Not even a little wind or rain. In Norway we operate both trains and flights in very demanding weather conditions, so I could hardly believe my eyes when they referred to the storm. I wonder what they would have done with a good Norwegian storm. Shut down the country? And when in addition I for the first time in my life saw a queue in front of the transfer desk which was 100 meters long, I was all in all not terribly impressed. My expression of disbelief and outrage, got me into a conversation with a German guy who was friendly and funny, so we had a great half hour of exchanging travel horror stories. I told him about the time I was in Finland for a business trip, and found myself driving my own reindeer sleigh for half an hour in the dark in 20 degrees below zero, and he told me about his female colleague who had been sent to Taiwan to chair a meeting, and whose flight also got delayed, so by the time she got there they had moved the meeting to the bar and brought in a supply of non business related girls. Who they had to send away when they realized she was a woman, so the next day everyone was mad at her for ruining all their fun. When I finally got to Madrid, after midnight, my suitcase had gone missing. So here I am at almost 2 in the morning, wearing the complimentary T-shirt KLM sent with me,. At least it is warmer than Chanel nr 5.The taxi driver was very sympathetic, and they were super friendly at the hotel, and gave me a lovely room, so I decided to try to keep smiling. Just being here and being able to speak Spanish makes me happy. I have no clothes I can wear for my meeting tomorrow, but I have a black belt in shopping, so I'll just have to put those skills to good use, and fortunately I know the closest shopping centre very well. I think I was the luckiest one of those who had lost their luggage. One was taking a train to Valladolid tomorrow morning at 7, another couple were leaving for Ibiza tomorrow at noon, and two Swedes had left their computers and their cell phone chargers in their suitcases, which they needed tomorrow at 9 o'clock, so they were really upset. ---- The next morning I had originally planned to go to El Prado, but as I mentioned, I had quite literally nothing to wear, so I had to go shopping instead. On the positive side I found two pairs of shoes, and it takes years (sometimes decades) between each time I find any decent shoes - I am one of the very few women who loathe to go shoe shopping. On the negative side Spanish clothes sizes take all my confidence away. After watching my weight very carefully for a long while, I am down from size medium hippopotamus to size 44/Large, which became XXL in dress size, and XXXXXL in panties in Spain. Really? They cannot find anything better to do than to kill women's self confidence? I asked the sales assistant about it, and she explained that it was particularly small sizes because I had not gone to the part where they sold "moda de señoras" (because those clothes were too frumpy for words) but had gone for the "moda juvenil" -for the young. Excellent. So I can have half my confidence killed in a frumpy dress, or all my confidence killed in a decent one. Reminds me of the story that when women in the US started to make it in working life, recommendations for women's weight was lowered with 5 kg, so that half the female population became busy dieting in stead of focusing on their careers. I even saw some statistics with it, but since there is no way I could have dug those up - it must be 20 years since I read the article - I'll just treat it as a good story. I have not done much organized Russian studies lately, but I had a Russian class with my teacher, who was satisfied with my progress in speaking, but said I needed to slow down and think about my grammar. As if that would help... They all seem to miss that I may be a low B1 for talking, but I am A2 for listening, and possibly A1 at writing and grammar. My reading abilities I would not even attempt to categorize, but they are not B1. I am still struggling. On the bright side I have come to a stage when she thinks I speak too fast, and that is a victory in itself, even if her point was the sloppy grammar. Am I the only one to talk better than I read and write? In Madrid I have spoken masses of Spanish, of course, a little Italian and quite a lot of French. We had a new French member, and his French accent was on a scale from 1 to 10, an 8 in sexiness and a 2 in comprehensibility, so I asked him to speak French with me. Then I could at least understand what he was saying. I insist that for me a pronunciation which is as clear as possible - not native mind you - but clear without a heavy accent - is the most important part. I could not care less if there are grammar mistakes, but when I struggle to understand what they say because of the accent, I get really grumpy. And why do every Frenchmen pronounce "law" like "low"? We had three French speakers there today, and they all spoke about things being against "the French low". It drives me crazy. I feel like saying 'Good moaning' to them. On the other hand God only knows which pronunciation mistakes I make which drive them crazy :-) The Finnish delegate spoke about "the fright business" (freight), and I know I made that mistake in the beginning, and the Spanish delegate over lunch spoke about "tomato soup with jam" which turned out to be tomato soup with ham... Another reason I insisted on speaking French with several of my colleagues, was that while speaking with professor Arguelles it became clear to me that even my French and Spanish, which I have held to be indestructible, are deteriorating under the pressure from Russian and the lack of using them at that level. I have zero problems talking everyday French and Spanish, and can even sound pretty convincing, but when speaking it over several hours in a formal register, I now and then had to search for words. My Peruvian friend refused to believe me when I told her, but when she and I speak we use a different register, and both my Spanish and French are languages I have used mostly in informal settings over the last years. I have a university degree in both, so I have of course used them at that level too, but in all honesty, the Spanish and French you use while studying them at a foreign university, is miles away from the language used at Spanish and French universities. Although my English accent would not impress anyone, that is the language I am most comfortable in when I have to be precise and use the highest registers. Too bad the professor would not let me use that with him :-) I was on the verge of having another tiring train ride today. Again I had a first class ticket, but was told in Norway there was no first class wagon on the train. When I finally found the train, the first thing I saw was of course the first class wagon... Since it is almost a 4 hour train ride, I would really like a comfortable seat, so I explained the situation to the conductor, and offered to pay any supplement, but he just said' You most certainly shall not pay any supplement, come with me', and led me to a free seat. So here I got the train ride I was expecting in Serbia. Comfortable seat, quiet, and my feet up while I make this update. Trains really are the best transport mode :-) They even had newspapers and a film, Cinema Paradiso. Since I saw that it had some subtitles in Spanish I hoped it would be in Italian, but no such luck. The security measures at the train station took me by surprise, by the way. First we had to show our ticket, then our luggage was scanned and then we had to show our ticket again. And they have been doing this for about 10 years. 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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