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| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4195 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 81 of 212 28 October 2013 at 9:01am | IP Logged |
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Yay! Tomorrow is my Friday. I managed to complete Anki both yesterday and today, and I also did two sections of Russian today - the writing sections. I mentioned before that I'm trying to learn how to touch type using the Russian keyboard... so while normally I do not do the review sections in Rosetta Stone, while I am learning how to type in Russian, I will be doing both. I know that the lessons are really designed to get people used to the sounds of the Cyrillic letters still, but it's also good typing practice.
I don't know what I'll get done tomorrow - these last couple of days have resulted in a backlog of things that I want to get done - but I should at least have the chance to do my normal studies. In church today, they were talking about how our pastor is in Mexico, and how it's dangerous, and how it's especially difficult when you don't know the language. While there is still much to learn, there is a lot that I can express in Spanish at least, and it feels good. I may have to carefully choose words, and my grammar would be horrendous, but I could get my point across in most topics that I'd need to say. Listening would be another story though. It's a good feeling to know that I have made so much progress since this spring. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4195 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 82 of 212 29 October 2013 at 9:16am | IP Logged |
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It´s my Friday... woo hoo! I'm pretty tired because I stayed up a little late to do some studying. I practiced my Anki words and finished the article on Antarctica. I read a page and a half and looked up 21 words. Perhaps I could have looked up a few more words, but I didn't really feel like it, and I was reading it well enough. I think that it would be interesting to read the first articles that I translated to see how much better I understand them, and see if I can read them without having to look up words. If anything, I should be able to get a lot by context. After all, the words have been floating around in my Anki deck since late summer.
For Russian, I just did one section. I'll concentrate on it more when the six week challenge begins. I'll probably get a little more done over my upcoming "weekend". The 31st will be pretty busy, even though I won't be working, but I still have two solid days where I don't have too much taking up my time. I'm not progressing fast yet... just going over colors and some basic words, but once I start doing the lessons more quickly, I'll start learning more. Edited by Lorren on 29 October 2013 at 9:17am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4195 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 83 of 212 31 October 2013 at 6:09am | IP Logged |
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I had two good days off the last two days... I don't work tomorrow either, but I'll be pretty busy taking the kids to a party and to the science center. While I didn't do a great deal with languages yesterday (Anki and a segment of RS Russian), today I did make a bit of progress.
For Spanish, I did my Anki cards. I also read an entire magazine article out of National Geographic En Español, which amounted to about two pages of text. I think that's the first time I was able to read that much at once. I only had to look up 11 words. I ran into several words that I had seen while reading the article on Antarctica, or other articles that I have read. On the other side of the foreign language spectrum, I finished unit 1, lesson 3 of Rosetta Stone, and did the core section of lesson 4. I don't remember Russian being so difficult in high school, but it's possible that Rosetta Stone is making progress more quickly than my high school Russian did. I do remember that it took a while to get through even one chapter of the book. I can understand everything in chapter one of my textbook, and most of chapter 2. Adjective endings weren't really even discussed in my textbook until chapter 7, and Rosetta Stone is already covering it. While it is challenging right now, especially at the beginning of each lesson, I remember that there seemed to be fairly challenging times while learning Spanish as well. It will get easier. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4195 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 84 of 212 02 November 2013 at 10:27am | IP Logged |
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Yesterday I didn't get a whole lot of language study done. I was gone for most of the day. Today was the beginning of the 6 Week Challenge, and while I didn't rocket to the top of the list due to lack of time (today was my Monday in terms of the workweek), I did push myself in Russian, finishing more than half of Unit 1 Lesson 4 in Rosetta Stone Russian.
I finished the section on writing. Touch typing is getting a little bit easier. While I still wouldn't be able to type without looking at the visual picture of the keyboard on the screen, it's getting easier. For the letters that I use most often, I pretty much don't have to look. Even for the letters that aren't used as much, I don't spend a lot of time looking for the letters, like I did when I first began using the Russian keyboard. The lesson is getting easier for me; it started out a challenge, so that's a good thing. It may take me a while to memorize all of the articles of clothing, but it's like that in any language... the Spanish word for spoon ended up in my Anki deck because I couldn't remember the word for it while reading an article. I think I have an early day at work on Sunday, so tomorrow's language work might be a little short. It may be a stretch just to finish lesson 4 in RS Russian. I probably won't end up at the top of the 6 Week Challenge, but that's fine. I'll just do my best, see what I can learn, and I'm sure that by the end of the year, my Russian will be much better than where it is today. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4195 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 85 of 212 03 November 2013 at 5:50am | IP Logged |
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I ended up doing more than I planned tonight, because I have an early morning tomorrow. Anyway, I meant to be doing Rosetta Stone Unit 1 Lesson 4, but I ended up studying some of the review segments to lesson 3. Wanting to finish lesson 4 tonight, that just gave me some extra work to do.
Tomorrow morning, there may be a period of time at work where there's not much to do (I'll be answering phone calls at 6 in the morning)... so... I decided to write down some Spanish words that I got wrong today, and some Russian words that I'm learning, and if things are slow, I'll just study them. It will allow me to make productive use of my time. It's hard to believe that I'm finished with Unit 1 of Russian 1 already. It seems like I hardly remember anything more than a few simple words. I'll only be doing levels 1 to 3 of Russian... it feels like I'll know so little when I am done with the third level, but I'm sure that that will not be the case. There will be much more to learn after I'm done anyway. I ordered a birthday present for my little boy today off Amazon.com, and while I was there I went ahead and ordered a Russian grammar book. While my Russian textbook does demonstrate the grammar a little, I think that it will probably be a lot easier if I have one that actually explains what is going on... especially one that is explaining it in English. The Russian textbook will probably get some use, but I probably won't end up using it for grammar. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4195 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 86 of 212 04 November 2013 at 6:25am | IP Logged |
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Today I went to work very early, and in the very slow time where I wasn't getting any phone calls, I broke out a piece of paper with Russian and Spanish words on it. So I got about an hour's worth of study that I otherwise wouldn't have gotten had I not thought ahead.
For Spanish, most of my study was going over words that have been giving me trouble for a while. Since I really had nothing better to do, I tried to imagine ways to remember the words. Hopefully some of these words won't be giving me so much trouble in the future. I went over my Anki decks, but since today was a work day, and I'm focusing on Russian for the six week challenge, I didn't do any reading or anything like that. In Russian, I went over about half of Unit 2 lesson 1. It went over the immediate family as well as the numbers from six to twelve. I found it interesting to note that the adjective endings change when you change from four to five people. While the photos and vocabulary progression between Rosetta Stone Spanish and RS Russian are similar, I've noticed that there are some differences. I don't think that they're major, but there are differences. Obviously, the pictures of letters are going to be different. I suppose that the grammar would need to be tailored to the language as well. Spanish doesn't have a change in adjective endings between four and five objects, and Russian doesn't have an equivalent word for the or a. The words that RS would need to focus on as far as pronunciation goes would have to change as well. It seems like I can actually say a few useful sentences at this point. Things like "This is my husband" "this is my daughter" or "I'm wearing black pants." I still can't say a whole lot, but considering that I've been working on this for less than a month, and most of the time I was only doing 1/10th of a lesson a day, it's not too bad. At least I'm moving in the right direction. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4195 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 87 of 212 06 November 2013 at 10:10am | IP Logged |
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I got a lot of language work done in both Spanish and Russian today. I also found a new way to study Spanish and also do something nice for the world at the same time :-).
For Spanish, I did my Anki words, of course, but most of my time was spent proofreading a Spanish book for Project Gutenberg. I saw an ad for proofreaders last night, and I thought that it would be a nice thing to do, so I signed up... and I noticed that they have some books in other languages to proofread. There are a few books in French (a language that I've always wanted to learn but haven't gotten around to yet), but there is also a book in Spanish. So today I read five pages in the Spanish book, proofreading it as I went along (making sure that the OCR matches what the page actually says). Do I understand everything that I'm reading? No. I understand quite a lot of words though, and I'll come across words that I recognize from my Anki deck. I'm not looking up any words or anything, but it's a way for me to get more study time in and help out Project Gutenberg, which I think is a great project. I have benefited from the free books that I can get from it in the past, so I'm glad to be able to contribute. For Russian, I was able to get more than 70 minutes done. I finished Unit 2 lesson 2 of level 1. It's nice to be done with the absolute basics and to start to be able to say actual things, like "I love my daughter" or "I hug my son". Obviously, there's a ton left to learn, but each lesson allows me to say more of the basics that I might want to know if I was meeting someone or traveling. The two short-term goals that I have for Russian is to 1) talk to my aunt using some Russian next time I see her (we don't live in the same state so that might be a while) and 2) use my Russian skills during the Olympics in a few months in some way. So each lesson brings me a little closer to those goals, although I might want to look up some vocabulary for the Olympics especially. Typing in Russian is still difficult, but it's getting easier. I can now type several letters in Cyrillic without looking to see where the letter is located, but there are still a few letters, like ш, щ, and э that can pose a challenge. I had to look up where the comma was as well. Knowing how to type will help me learn how to look up words when I need to. My Russian grammar book arrived. It will come in handy when I'm trying to figure out why книга becomes книгу, how to conjugate verbs, conjugating adjectives, etc. Grammar is one of the downsides to Rosetta Stone; while to some degree immersion does help you get this stuff, without an explanation, grammar can be confusing and it's very easy to make mistakes. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4195 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 88 of 212 07 November 2013 at 11:44am | IP Logged |
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Today my husband wanted to drive a couple of hours north, but that didn't stop me from getting language learning in: I took a Spanish magazine that I had already read (and translated) with me, along with a Russian textbook. I was able to get in almost an hour of studying that way.
For Spanish, I did Anki, and checked two pages for Project Gutenberg. There are only 35 more pages left in that particular book; when they're done, I'll have to wait for someone to upload another Spanish book if I want to practice my Spanish skills. While we were at lunch today, I was able to see that I actually know a little bit of Russian. We were talking about languages, and one of my kids asked if I could say "the boy is eating at the table". I Thought about it for a moment, and realized that I could say "The boy/man/dad/mom/woman/girl eats", but I didn't know how to say "at the table". I knew how to say on, in, or under the table, but not at. So I told my boy that I could say "The boy eats under the table", and the silly kid goes under the table to take a bite of his pizza. They were able to say "The boy eats at the table" in French (they're learning that with their dad) and I could say it in Spanish. I did a little bit more than half of RS Russian 1/Unit 2/Lesson 3. I did the writing section from lesson 2 again, as I'm still trying to get the hang of touch-typing Russian. I will probably be "good enough" by the time I finish this level. It's hard to believe that I'm almost done with half of Level 1. It seems that I hardly know how to say anything at this point. I felt a lot like that with Spanish at this point as well though. By the time I was halfway through level three, I was a lot more confident. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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