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Lorren’s Language Log | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4244 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 73 of 212 21 October 2013 at 9:56am | IP Logged |
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So very tired this evening. It might have affected my ability to correctly remember some of the words in my Anki deck. Nevertheless, I managed to finish the article that I was reading on Kinshasa. Maybe I'll start reading the article on Antarctica tomorrow. There's only really four pages of reading, and a lot of pictures, so it shouldn't take too long if I can find the time to do it. I only did one segment of Rosetta Stone Spanish; I was just too tired to do more. Tomorrow I start the very last Rosetta Stone lesson in the entire series. Finishing will be quite an accomplishment for me. I've tried several languages in the older versions of RS, but never finished even one level. So I'm pretty excited to finish.
For Russian, I finished lesson 2 with the review. I'm still at the stage where I can't say much that is useful... just stuff like "he has a cat" or "she is not driving a car". I suppose I'll make a little bit faster progress once I finish Rosetta Stone Spanish, right now the process seems very slow. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4244 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 74 of 212 22 October 2013 at 8:39am | IP Logged |
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It's hard to believe that I have started the last lesson in Rosetta Stone Spanish. The lesson talks about the neighborhood, and includes a few new phrases, like the words that make up "driveway". In addition to starting the last lesson of Rosetta Stone, I also was able to read one section of the next article in National Geographic, about the Antarctic. I needed to look up 25 words. There were a lot of words that described some sort of loud noise; I may end up finding a lot of those confusing.
I also started lesson 3 of Unit 1 of Rosetta Stone Russian. The Russian adjective endings threw me off a little bit. Of course, the same thing exists in many other languages, but not having them explained sometimes makes it difficult at first. That is the major drawback, I think, of Rosetta Stone compared to some other language programs. Things like verb conjugations and adjective endings are not explained well. Russian has noun endings that can change as well, which is a little confusing to me. If I can't find where I put my Russian grammar book, I'll probably want to end up buying one. I browsed some on Amazon this evening, but my Prime status ran out and I don't really want to pay for shipping. Perhaps all I need to know is in my Russian textbook... which is entirely in Russian, but I might be able to figure out my questions from that. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4244 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 75 of 212 23 October 2013 at 10:49am | IP Logged |
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I am seeing the light at the end of the Rosetta Stone Spanish tunnel... if I do two segments a day, I'll be done in three days. Outside of RS, I also read some from National Geographic - I read about a column and a half and had to look up 10 words. I also got Forrest Gump in Spanish. I love that movie, in English at least. I didn't really have the time to watch it today, but I watched a little bit in the beginning. I'm surprised at how much I understand. I also practiced Anki... I was forgetting a lot of words today. Maybe I just needed more sleep. That's okay, I have the next two days off. Yay!
When I get to Russian... I don't know if there will be as much for me to watch as there is in Spanish. I guess I'll face that challenge when I get there. Today I did the pronunciation segment of lesson 3. I ended up getting 100%, although there were a couple of syllables that they made me say more than once. It definitely seems a lot easier for me to pronounce than Spanish. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4244 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 76 of 212 24 October 2013 at 9:01am | IP Logged |
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Woo hoo! I was so close to finishing Rosetta Stone Spanish today, that I just went ahead and finished it. It feels good to have accomplished my goal. In addition to finishing Rosetta Stone Spanish, I practiced my Anki words, and watched about 1/2 hour of Forrest Gump en Español. I've seen the movie several times before (in English), so I pretty much know everything that is going on in the movie, but I was surprised at how much I understood of the Spanish.
So now that I'm finished with Rosetta Stone, my Spanish journey will certainly be changing. I'll probably be listening to more podcasts and will do more magazine and newspaper article reading. I'm not really into movies, but when I do feel like watching something, if it's something that I've seen before, I'll probably be seeking out movies with Spanish audio tracks. For Russian today, I just did a section on vocabulary. This lesson is definitely more challenging. I think that I experienced the same thing with Spanish though. There was a point where it was difficult, but towards the end, as long as I did it, it wasn't so hard... other than the fact that sometimes it wouldn't recognize simple words like gracias, or that it asked me to memorize long passages. So if things get really hard, I'll have to keep that in mind and realize that things will get easier. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4244 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 77 of 212 25 October 2013 at 10:35am | IP Logged |
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I didn't have much time for languages today. I took the kids to the science center, then we went to church, and then we tidied up our house... the owners of the house that we're renting are stopping by to take a look at the house, so we wanted it to look good.
Nevertheless, I still studied a little bit. For Spanish, I used Anki. I couldn't remember about 20 of the words today, which is fairly good for me. I should have more time tomorrow and hopefully will be able to finish the article that I'm reading on Antarctica, and with that, there will be more words for me to add. The more I read, the fewer words I need to add, but that's because it's getting easier. For Russian, I just did a segment on Grammar in Rosetta Stone. It was going over adjective endings. Russia is like German in that it has a masculine, feminine, and neuter case (instead of none like the US, or just masculine and feminine like Spanish). I don't know whether I'll have to make a list of noun genders or not. I'll have to see how easily it comes to me or not. I'll have to memorize the adjective endings, but that probably won't be too difficult. If it was November and the 6 week challenge was on, I probably would have pushed myself to do a little more Russian today, but I want to take it a little easy for the rest of the month so I can hit the ground running for the challenge. 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 78 of 212 25 October 2013 at 11:56am | IP Logged |
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Hi Lorre,
I see that we share a passion for Spanish and Russian. Congratulations on finishing Rosetta Stone in Spanish! I see so many complaining about the course - are you happy with it? As for genders in Russian, they are thankfully a lot easier to figure out that in German. German genders are a pain in the neck :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4244 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 79 of 212 26 October 2013 at 7:51am | IP Logged |
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Thank you.
I do like Rosetta Stone, although I know a lot of people that don't like it. I've found that there are times when it's helpful (especially at the beginning) to look to an alternate source for some explanation when it comes to grammar explanations, but at least for Russian and Spanish, I do have some background in the languages, so I know what to look for... plus I have textbooks that I can look in. Outside of the grammar, which could be a little better, I like how I'm only looking at pictures and that language while I'm practicing, so I think more in the language that I'm learning, instead of translating. We have more than just Spanish and Russian in common. I've also taken German (the first foreign language that I studied) and Italian (I lived there for three years). I do plan on picking up both of those languages again at some point in the future, but for now my focus has to start somewhere. If all goes well, I will probably pick up German sometime next spring... I don't know when I'll work on Italian again, but I'd like to get back to that at some point too. I feel bad that I never really pursued the languages further than I did and let them atrophy, but at least I'm working on it now. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4244 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 80 of 212 26 October 2013 at 8:04am | IP Logged |
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Today I didn't do much, and I'll probably do less tomorrow... tomorrow I get off work at 7 and have to be back at work at 6 for an early shift. So... I'm pretty much planning on doing nothing except eating dinner and going to bed after I get off work tomorrow.
For Spanish, I listened to Notes in Spanish Intermediate lesson 11, and went over my Anki cards. I'm using two Spanish decks, plus reviewing words that I got wrong the day before, so it does take a little while to do. I forgot 22 words: my mind seems to have been sluggish and tired all day, even while at work. Perhaps if I was more alert, I'd be up for more and might finish that article on Antarctica, but not today. There will be enough pushing myself in the language department once the six week challenge starts in a week. I did the next section in Rosetta Stone Russian - the Reading section of Unit 1 lesson 3. My Russian pronunciation is getting better, at least according to the RS program. I even said the Russian word for sandwich without them complaining. I would type it, but I'm still learning how to use the Russian keyboard. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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