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| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4243 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 57 of 212 05 October 2013 at 11:20am | IP Logged |
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I got a lot done today. I finished RS 5 Unit 3 lesson 3, two days ahead of the schedule that I have set for myself. Then I went and finished that article on the oceans that I've been working on for a while now. I also worked on Anki.
It seems like Rosetta Stone has added a new level of difficulty to their lessons: on one screen, there were just pictures, and they expected me to remember what the pictures were supposed to be about. They wanted me to remember that "They couldn't go play on the beach because it was raining." It was a picture of two girls looking out a window. How do they expect me to remember that? I know that I saw the picture of the two girls looking out a window earlier in the lesson, but I don't memorize every sentence that goes with every picture. Of course, they also had the speaking screens where they expected you to recall two medium-length sentences and speak them perfectly. There were two points where I had to write down what I was supposed to say today, because I just couldn't remember it all. Fortunately, I only have five lessons left, because I can't imagine what they would want to expect us to be able to do next. In the final section of the article I read today, there were only three words that I needed to look up. Considering that earlier in the article there were probably 30 or more words that I needed to look up, I was pretty happy about it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4243 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 58 of 212 07 October 2013 at 7:43am | IP Logged |
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Over the last couple of days, I haven't had a great deal of time to spend learning languages, but I did do a little... I went through Anki and did a bit of Rosetta Stone 5. I'm still two days ahead of schedule for finishing the entire Rosetta Stone Spanish series by the end of the month.
I've also started to dabble in Russian a bit. I finished the core lesson of RS Russian 1 Unit 1 Lesson 1, and today I also did pronunciation and vocabulary. I'm excited to start working on it more. I seem to completely forget Spanish while I'm doing my Russian, although once I finish, I can remember the word in Spanish. For example, I was looking at the world малчик, meaning boy (I think that I spelled it correctly, but I haven't actually written it in more than a decade), and I couldn't for the life remember that it meant niño in español. Perhaps it will get easier as I get better with both Spanish and with Russian. The Cyrillic keyboard layout is going to take some time to get used to. When I took Russian in high school, I used to know how to do it, but it's been a while. I'm sure that it will get easier after I've had some practice. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4243 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 59 of 212 08 October 2013 at 9:10am | IP Logged |
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I started work today, but I did manage to do some language study (today and tomorrow I work full time, but I'll be part-time once I finish orientation).
For Spanish, I did Anki and two sections in Rosetta Stone level 5 unit 3 lesson 4. I did the dreaded writing segment (only four more of those left). In the reading segment, I had another page where they expected you to memorize a longish passage. After making several attempts to try to remember it, I just wrote it down and read it. I'm still two days ahead of schedule for my goal of finishing the entire series by the end of the month. I brought the National Geographic en Español lesson that I had finished to work with me, just in case I had some free time, but I didn't really. I can't really read the magazine that I'm working on because I need translation help, but I figure that I can try rereading the articles that I've already finished. Not only have I already read the material and have looked up the words that I don't know, but I've been practicing the words that I don't know in Anki. Perhaps rereading the material will help me reinforce the words that I've been learning, especially the ones that have been giving me trouble. I think that I can say that I've officially started working on Russian. I did the grammar section today for lesson 1. Since I've already taken a year of high school Russian, I understand the conjugation stuff that's going on, although I haven't rememorized what ending goes where. Perhaps when I get a little more time I'll find my Russian textbooks and get them out. It won't be difficult because when I moved, I cataloged all of the books when I packed them, and wrote down in what box they went to. Then, I wrote a sheet for the movers telling them what room to put each box... I was able to do that for most of my stuff, until I ran out of time. So it'll probably take about 5 minutes to find it. The pronunciation of Russian seems to be easier for me than the pronunciation of Spanish. I'm not perfect, but it seems easier. I cannot roll my rs correctly, so that doesn't help Spanish... plus, I took six years of German in school, so my German pronunciation is not bad. I think that the Cyrillic writing has come back completely already. I don't have any trouble reading the words in the first lesson, and figuring out which letter makes which sound. I'm starting to be able to translate some of the simple words directly from Russian to Spanish. I think, that when I start using Anki for Russian (which is months away, because I really don't need it until I start going outside of RS to use more authentic materials), that I might make some cards where I give the answer in Spanish instead of English. Of course, they'll have to be words that I know well in Spanish, otherwise I won't know what either word means. There are many words that I know well though. Edited by Lorren on 08 October 2013 at 9:14am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4243 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 60 of 212 09 October 2013 at 5:13am | IP Logged |
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Second day at work. Once I got home, I managed to do my Anki words (the word list that I don't know is getting smaller again, yay) and to finish the third unit of RS5, with the exception of the milestone. Tomorrow I will finish the milestone and start my final unit of RS Spanish, two days ahead of schedule (assuming all goes well).
I also had time to do one segment of RS Russian 1. I did the pronunciation segment. I really like how RS version 3 (and I assume RS version 4) is helpful in teaching how to read the alphabet of the new language. Because I am not completely new to Russian, I already know Cyrillic, but when I tried learning Arabic with version 2, I never really could get the hang of the Arabic alphabet. I started recognizing a few symbols a little, but it was very confusing to me. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4243 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 61 of 212 10 October 2013 at 8:08am | IP Logged |
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It looks like I'll be super busy through Sunday. I have Monday off though from my new job. So hopefully then I'll be able to get some extra stuff done.
Today I finished RS level 5 unit 3 lesson 4, and started Unit 4, still two days ahead of schedule. I completed my Anki words as well. The last unit is on the family. They've already talked about family before, but it's introducing new words like nephew, niece, grandson and granddaughter. Today I did the writing lesson of Rosetta Stone Russian level 1 unit 1 lesson 1. I was confused at first. The Russian keyboard that I have is not like the Russian keyboard in RS. After trying to find what keyboard RS uses, I realized that they use a phonetic Russian keyboard that roughly matches the US one. It was the one that I remembered from when I took Russian in high school. Reading some advice online, it was suggested to use the Russian keyboard instead of the phonetic one, as it makes it easier to type in the Russian language long-term. I decided to take that advice and change RS's settings to use the Russian keyboard that I have installed on my computer, rather than finding the phonetic one and installing it. So now I have a new keyboard layout to learn. Fortunately, RS makes it really easy by putting the keyboard up for us to look at. I know the location of a couple of letters now, but I have a while before I'll be using it on a regular basis outside of RS. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4243 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 62 of 212 11 October 2013 at 5:19am | IP Logged |
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Today I had a little bit more time to study Spanish because my dh made dinner tonight after I got back from work. I did some Anki and Rosetta Stone Spanish (I'm three days ahead of schedule now to finish by the end of the month), I also did another section of Rosetta Stone Russian. The Russian lesson is getting to be pretty easy, although sometimes it is difficult to hear the difference between the plural and singular at the moment.
I also had time to read the first section of a new article on people living in Kinshasha, in the Congo. There were 37 words that I didn't know; however, I did notice quite a few words in the article that I recently learned from the last article I read, so I'm guessing that the words are fairly commonly used. I ran into a couple of words from a couple of recent Rosetta Stone lessons as well. Of course, adding 37 new words also has made my Anki deck grow, as well as the daily words that I need to review. The next few days are probably going to be pretty busy though, and I am unlikely to have time to read more from my magazine for a few days, so that will help me learn the new words better and perhaps shrink my daily list of words that I need to do a bit. Like the other articles that I have read, the next four sections of this article will probably repeat some of the words that I just added today, so there probably won't be as many new words on Monday, when I have a day off, and will hopefully have the chance to read some more. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4243 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 63 of 212 12 October 2013 at 6:50am | IP Logged |
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Today I finished an extra segment of Spanish today... I should be able to finish RS 5 unit 4 lesson 1... which will put me four days ahead of my scheduled goal. I may do a little reading this evening as well, if I have a little more time. It will make my Anki deck grow bigger, which I don't particularly like, but I really want to do more work. I know that slow and steady wins the race, but I would love to see more progress.
Did another segment of Rosetta Stone Russian 1 Unit 1 Lesson 1. While it seemed a little overwhelming at first, right now it's pretty easy. I have vague memories of my Russian teacher Ludmilla explaining Russian verb conjugations and making nouns plural. I guess that it's an advantage that I have over people that are beginning Russian without a background in the language. This is one of the reasons why I'm rekindling my language studies with languages that I already have studied before... I eventually hope to move beyond the languages that I've already worked on, but I figure that I might as well start with what is still somewhere in the back of my head. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4243 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 64 of 212 13 October 2013 at 8:15am | IP Logged |
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Good day today. I finished both RS Spanish 5 Unit 4 lesson 1 and Russian 1 Unit 1 lesson 1. I started the next lesson, and it seems really easy. It seems almost like a review with a little bit of extras thrown in. I'm five days ahead of my goal of finishing RS Spanish by the end of the month.
I had time to read another section of the article about Kinshasa that I'm currently reading. I had to look up 21 words, and recognized some of the words from earlier in the article. I've been doing pretty well with Anki, and although it currently has a little more words than I would like, it's doable. Since I have the next couple of days off from work, hopefully I'll have the chance to finish the article, while at the same time learning more of the new words. I'm still practicing the words that I get wrong the next day in a custom deck before I go over my regular deck. I think that it is helpful because it does help me practice the words that I'm having trouble with more than once, yet at the same time, if I can learn the word, I get it out of the daily Anki rotation a little bit faster. I'm glad to get lesson 1 out of the way in Russian. After I go over the core lesson, if it's super easy to me, then I might skip parts of the lesson. It was really overkill for me to go over saying man, boy, woman, girl, he, she, they, and the few other words that they had in the lesson, as many times as they had me do it. If it was a new language, then that would have been needed... but those few words quickly came back to me. I'm sure that it will get difficult quickly... my Russian is the weakest of the four foreign languages that I have studied formally... but for now, I think I can go through the first little bit fairly quickly. I will need the typing practice, since I don't know the Russian keyboard layout, and probably the grammar review, but I can probably skip 2 or 3 of the vocabulary building segments and I'll still be good. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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