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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 65 of 212 14 October 2013 at 9:53am | IP Logged |
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What I did today:
For Spanish, I did two more segments of RS 5 Unit 1 lesson 2. After that, I read another section of the article on Kinshasa, and I needed to look up 19 words. I was on a roll for a while there though, reading a paragraph or two before I had to stop and look up anything. Some of the words that I needed to look up included peanut, sleeve, and barefoot. Someone had the suggestion of making word lists of words that you don't know and creating a vocabulary list of those words... peanut would probably be on a list of food words that I don't know. For now, I'm pretty busy with the word list that I currently have, but should I ever be lacking in new words to learn, that's an idea. I also listened to podcast #9 of Notes in Spanish. Once I finish Rosetta Stone Spanish, I'll probably want to listen to podcasts regularly to improve my listening skills. For Russian, I did the core and pronunciation segments of unit 1 lesson 2. It did pick up in difficulty in this lesson, which is a good thing. Some of the words were a challenge for me to pronounce. I had the hardest time pronouncing бутерброд, or the word for sandwich. In the earliest lessons, they will break down the syllables for you: тер was absolutely the worst. I'm sure that I said it incorrectly more than 20 times. I had similar problems with pronunciation of some syllables in Spanish... although I know for a fact that some of the words that RS says that I have no clue about how to pronounce, like gracias, are perfectly understandable to natives. I'm sure that I'm going to have the toughest time saying Здравствуйте properly. 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 66 of 212 15 October 2013 at 7:46am | IP Logged |
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I had the day off today, so I had the chance to do quite a bit of language work. I did three segments of Rosetta Stone Spanish 5 Unit 4 lesson 2. I also read another section of the article that I've been reading on Kinshasa; I needed to look up 13 words. I can probably finish it next time I do some reading. I listened to podcast 10 from Notes in Spanish Intermediate as well. These intermediate podcasts are becoming easier to understand. There are 46 podcasts total, so I have plenty of opportunities to improve before moving on to the more advanced podcasts.
In Russian, I did the lesson on vocabulary. While it seemed challenging after finishing the core lesson, it's getting much easier now, although the pronunciation is going to be a challenge... although I think that it will be more doable to me than rolling the rs is in Spanish. I was able to do it in the past, I'm sure I'll manage it again. I recognize quite a few of the words in this lesson from high school, such as the words for newspaper or "what is this?" or "this is a". I really like working on two languages at different levels. With Russian, I'll be progressing quickly; with Spanish, I already understand quite a bit, and it's nice to have the sense of accomplishment that comes with being able to listen to a conversation and understand most of it, or being able to read a magazine article and understand most of the words. 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 67 of 212 17 October 2013 at 6:28am | IP Logged |
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I'm still ahead of the game for finishing Rosetta Stone Spanish by the end of the month. If I stay on schedule, I should finish by next Friday. I started Unit 4 lesson 3 today. There aren't too many new words, but there are a few new phrases. Most of them I have encountered in other places.
Russian is going fine; I did the reading segment today. If I hadn't already remembered how to read Cyrillic again, then I would be so thankful for these lessons. For me, it was more of a pronunciation/listening lesson. Yesterday's lesson was a little challenging though... I encountered different noun endings, like книга and книгу. I don't remember anything about that. For some reason, I can't find the grammar book that I used in my high school Russian class. If I can't figure it out, I may end up buying a Russian grammar book later on to get some help. I have been doing some of the Notes In Spanish Intermediate podcasts; I've also been doing an extra deck in Anki on the top 5000 Spanish vocabulary words. For the most part, it's been asking me to do words that are in the top 1000 word list; a good majority of those are easy and I don't have to see them again for a while. It's been starting to ask me some of the more difficult words in the 1000-2000 range now. A lot of those are easy too, but not quite as many. If I learn them now, it will save me the trouble of looking them up when I end up reading them. I worked yesterday and today, and will be working tomorrow, so I probably won't get around to finishing my article on Kinshasa until tomorrow night or Friday. It will give me another day to learn the words that are currently giving me trouble. The other day, it felt like I couldn't remember anything... I went on a streak where I couldn't remember about five words in a row. The other day while driving in the car, we were listening to the radio and they played "Neunundneunzig Luftballoons". It reminded me of when I took German in the seventh grade or so, when my German teacher made us learn the song and what the words meant. So we were driving along, and I could still sing along with it; I still remember what most of it means. While it's probably a little early to start thinking about the next language that I want to tackle, German is pretty high up on that list. Since I took it for six years in middle and high school, it should be pretty easy to pick back up; plus, it's a very easy language for me to pronounce. My husband and kids just started French... I've always wanted to learn French, but have never done more than dabble in it. So many languages, so little time. That being said, if I worked on German after Russian, I wouldn't exactly be starting from scratch, while with French, I'm almost at nothing. Edited by Lorren on 17 October 2013 at 6:32am 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 68 of 212 18 October 2013 at 10:51am | IP Logged |
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I was pretty busy, so I didn't get a lot of extras done today. I did two segments of Rosetta Stone 5 unit 4 lesson 3, along with Anki for Spanish. I wanted to find time to finish the article I'm reading on Kinshasa, but I just didn't have enough time.
For Russian, I did the writing segment of lesson 2. I really don't like RS Spanish's writing sections, at least in the higher levels. Even at the lower levels, the accent marks were always giving me trouble, but it's so easy to make a tiny mistake. At any rate, it seems like RS Russian is mostly trying to teach how to read Cyrillic (something I have already re-remembered from my high school Russian class). For me though, I am trying to learn how to touch type on the Russian keyboard. Unless you change it in the settings, RS Russian uses the English phonetic keyboard, but I changed it to the real Russian keyboard, because I don't have access to it outside of RS, and at some point I'm going to want to type in Russian, at the very least to look up Russian words in the dictionary and to type things into Russian web sites. So I was happy to practice the writing segment, and even did the review writing segment. Every other segment of Rosetta Stone is usually a review from a previous lesson; I don't generally do them, but I did in this case. I'm getting better at finding a few of the letters now. So tomorrow, I have a day off. I hope to finish reading that article on Kinshasa, which I only have a page and a half left on. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Via Diva Diglot Senior Member Russian Federation last.fm/user/viadivaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4178 days ago 1109 posts - 1427 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: German, Italian, French, Swedish, Esperanto, Czech, Greek | Message 69 of 212 18 October 2013 at 4:12pm | IP Logged |
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I'm too lazy to read the whole log, so I'll just ask: do you do everything that RS asks you to? I just skipped the lessons to repeat for they were super-boring to me. I ended up with too difficult article tasks (RS German), but I don't think that they were difficult because I wasn't repeating lessons. What's your opinion?
Btw, I wish you luck with Russian on 6WC :) 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 70 of 212 18 October 2013 at 8:08pm | IP Logged |
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Thank you! I'm looking forward to 6WC.
I almost always skip the repeating lessons. I started skipping them at the beginning with Spanish, thinking that since I had already taken Spanish in college, I really didn't need it. It turned out, that I didn't really need them at all. Even at level 5, I don't need to repeat it. I made an exception with the Russian writing lesson. I'm trying to learn how to touch-type in Russian, and it's so different than the US keyboard, that I think that I need the extra help for now. I know that there's a phonetic Cyrillic keyboard, and I did use it when I was in high school, but my operating system doesn't have it, and someone recommended to use the regular Russian keyboard, so I just decided to learn it. I'm already starting to learn where several of the letters are, so I should be up to speed quickly. 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 71 of 212 19 October 2013 at 9:50am | IP Logged |
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Well, I didn't get to finish reading the article on Kinshasa like I had hoped to today. My husband wanted us to take most of my day off going to his friends' house and playing games... so I got about a paragraph done (with two words that I needed to look up). I did finish my Anki decks and continued my progress with Rosetta Stone. I did the writing lesson today... I only have one more writing section to do in the entire course. Yay! At least not being able to read more means that I can continue to review the words that are giving me trouble, before I add too many more that I don't know. Once I finish this article, I'll be reading an article on the Antarctic, so I'm sure that that will come with a lot of vocabulary that I don't know too.
I did an other section of Russian... I think that I will skip over the Listening and Reading section, since it's a lot like some of the other sections that I've already done, and at least for a little while, there is a lot of vocabulary that is review. I signed up to do Russian for the Six Week Challenge. This will be the first time that I will actually be home for the entire six week challenge... I went to Mexico during the first six week challenge that I did, and I went to visit my family during the second challenge that I did. While I won't exactly have a great deal of time to work on languages, I'll be able to be consistent throughout the entire challenge. More than likely, there will be times when I'll want to get just a few more minutes in so I can move up a place in the rankings. This will be the first time that I'll be working on a primary language plus doing some work in another language. I'll have to figure out how to balance that out. I won't be doing Rosetta Stone Spanish anymore, but I will be doing Anki, and perhaps either will do some magazine reading or will listen to a Notes In Spanish Intermediate podcast. That will take a little bit of time, but will leave me with a little more time to focus on Russian than I am now. Edited by Lorren on 19 October 2013 at 9:51am 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 72 of 212 20 October 2013 at 9:45am | IP Logged |
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It seems like there's never enough time to get all that I want to get done on workdays. I did get three segments of Spanish done today, and practiced my Anki cards. I read about a column of the article on Kinshasa, and had to look up 13 words. I have Monday off, so I should be able to finish it either tomorrow night (because I can stay up late) or on Monday. The only thing that I really have scheduled for Monday is grocery shopping and doing school with the kids, so I should have plenty of time to get a few things done.
In Russian, I skipped the "Listening and Reading" segment, and just did the speaking one. I got 100%, even though I had to say Здравствуйте twice. Although the "zdr" combination of sounds is a little challenging to me, I do think that I can pronounce it better than the rolled r sound in Spanish. I don't think that I was doing this well at all with the Spanish pronunciation at this point in time... and RS still sometimes will tell me that I can't pronounce simple words like "gracias". I should start unit 1 lesson 3 on Monday, which is my day off, which will allow me a little more time to get the core segment done. That's about it for today... other than the thought that language learners are so blessed today compared to 10 or 20 years ago. I keep my little Google translate screen up almost all the time on my computer. It will look up individual words, or phrases like "leather shoes" or "walled compound" for me. Ten years ago, I would have to look that up in a paper dictionary, and it might not have all of the phrases like that in it. I have access to foreign television from all over the world, or podcasts on tons of subjects. There was nothing like that when I was trying to learn Russian or German for the first time. Edited by Lorren on 20 October 2013 at 9:46am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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