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Solfrid Cristin’s way TAC 2011 Team Ohana | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5336 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 81 of 221 23 February 2011 at 8:11am | IP Logged | |||||
Actually, I used to envy those who lived in the middle of Europe, who could just catch a train, and be anywhere in a few hours. However with the cheap flights, we have the same opportunity. I can get a ticket to London, or Rome or Paris for less than what it costs to have dinner on a restaurant. But yes, from a language perspective, I do agree that it is an advantage. Living in the States you have to go so much further to get to a non English speaking country (unless you live close to Mexico). On the other hand, if one keeps ones eyes open, opportunities will turn up even for longer trips. Some years ago I read in the paper that Finnair was opening up a new route to China, and since it was March and still really cold in Beijing they were offering round trips for 350 dollars. I figured that I might never get such an offer again, and grabbed my husband and went there for an extended weekend. I had the mother of all jetlags after that, and we almost froze our tail off, but we did get to see the Chinese wall, the Square of Heavenly Peace etc. So to those of you who are young and dream of travelling, save up money, have your passport ready, and as soon as you are old enough and the opportunity comes along, go for it. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| joanthemaid Triglot Senior Member France Joined 5472 days ago 483 posts - 559 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Russian, German | Message 82 of 221 23 February 2011 at 12:39pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I live in France and I know lots of people who never go abroad. Though not so many young people. And when you don't have money it's hard to plan a trip, even if the plane ticket is cheap...
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| nogoodnik Senior Member United States Joined 5571 days ago 372 posts - 461 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Modern Hebrew, Biblical Hebrew, Russian, French | Message 83 of 221 01 March 2011 at 6:47pm | IP Logged | |||||
amen! I also envy you, btw. I would love to live in Europe some day. I hope everything is going well with your Russian :) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5336 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 84 of 221 13 March 2011 at 10:53pm | IP Logged | |||||
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@joanthemaid and nogodnik
I have always loved travelling. My father claims that my mother and I must have gypsy blood in our veins, because unlike most other women I do not need new clothes or handbags, and I can wear the same shoes until they drop off my feet, but I physically need to travel. I go nuts if I am in a Norwegian-only environment for too long. My husband is going to Brussels in May, and since we have a couple of days of public holidays and we found cheap flights there, we will be going with him. I have my daughters learning both Russian, French and Spanish words right now, because I have demanded that they must learn 100 words for each language that we will be using on our travels. LAST WEEKS OF STUDY I haven’t posted in a while, but that does not mean that I have been idle. I have been spending as much time on Russian as possible as well as doing some German and Spanish. GERMAN Two weeks ago we went to Kiel, and I was all geared up to use my German while shopping. Slight little catch. It was a Sunday. And the Germans are every bit as particular about opening shops on Sundays as the Norwegians are. Five girls all ready to shop, and nowhere to go. And no Germans to speak to. Really sad. The two 14 years olds and the two 11 years olds were ready to cry. Finally we found a couple of open stores in the railway station. My daughters got their satisfaction from a curious little tea shop with internet café where they also had quite nice clothes. Personally I got my smile back when I found a book store. I bought a number of German books, and I have read one of them: “Unter deutschen Betten: Eine polnische Putzfrau packt aus, by Justyna Polanska. It may sound like a strange choice for reading, but it was good fun. It was like the cleaning version of “Ganz unten” by Günther Walraff but with a sense of humor. I lent it to my mother in law when I came home, because even though she used to be a German teacher, she told me recently that she never read any books in German, because she thought it was too complicated. This one should be o.k. As usual I did not bother to look up any words, but there was this one word that came up again and again in a relation to a guy she was cleaning for, and in the end I found out that it meant gay. I also got a book called “Nackt duschen streng verboten: Die verrücktesten Gesetze der Welt". It contains laws like this one from Washington: “In der amerikanischen Stadt Fairfax darf nur in Schlafzimmern geschlafen werden. Das Übernachten in anderen Raümen ist gesetzlich verboten." Good fun. RUSSIAN There are just 4 weeks left until I go to Ukraine, so I am stepping up my Russian studies. I have finished Pimsleur 1 now, I have taken three private lessons in Russian, I have started reading Cuk i Gek (so o.k. it takes me an hour and a private teacher to get through one page, but I have started). Unfortunately there are so many words that I do not understand, but I have decided to go through it slowly and make sure I get everything. I know that I am an advocate for just reading, and not bother to look up words in the dictionary, and that works beautifully when on any give page there are less than 50 words that you do not understand, When there are less than 50 words that you DO understand, the method is less suitable. I am also trying to attack the motion verbs from every possible angle. I am writing down the conjugations for the most common words, I am trying to learn the meaning of the most common simple motion verbs, and I am trying to learn the prefixed ones. Ideally I would have done just one thing at the time until I had mastered it, but my Russian teacher has given me homework where I am supposed to fill out sentences with prefixed verbs, even though I have not learned about the simple motion verbs yet, so that is a bit of a drag. Could anyone tell me if the following sentences are correct in Russian: 1 Наташа здесь. Она толка что пришла. Она дома. 2 Наташа нет. Недавно ушла. Её нет дома. 3 Кто-то принёс цвиеты. Вот они. 4 Владимир утром увозит дочь в школу на машине, а вечером привозит. 5 В дверь постучали - вйдите – сказал Борис - В комнату вошёл Иван - Здравствуй, Борис – сказал Иван. – Дай мне, пожалуйста, словарь. - Вот, возьми. Иван взял словарь и вышел из комнаты. SPANISH Thanks to regular contact with my good friend from Peru I get to practice quite a lot of Spanish without even noticing it. Yesterday I was taken to my first baby shower - Peruvian style. We do not do baby showers in Norway. The custom here is to bring a present once the baby is born, and it is delivered by the way of individual visits. My friend invited me along to a baby shower she was going to, so even though I did not actually know the mother of the expected baby, I came along for the ride. That is in fact one of the things that I adore about Spanish & Latin American culture. They will quite happily include you to weddings, baptisms or whatever as long as you are a friend of a friend. So my only cultural reference to baby showers was from American films, where the female friends of the bride, and possibly some friends of her mother, unite to give presents, snacks are served, and presents are opened. A quiet and calm event. Peruvian style was - different. After a buffet meal the games started. Four adult men were dressed up as babies, then had to crawl across the room to have their “nappies” changed (toilet paper) by four young girls, and then were spoon fed and had to drink beer out of a “baby cup “. What is the English word for “biberon” again? I know this vocabulary in Spanish, but not in English. I will not tell the rest of the games, but you get the drift. The father of the baby participated, and given that all instructions were given in Spanish, and he spoke no Spanish, it got quite funny. I also met up with my friend today for a three hour chat which did wonders for my Spanish. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| geordie Diglot Newbie Canada Joined 5089 days ago 24 posts - 26 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Russian | Message 85 of 221 14 March 2011 at 1:45am | IP Logged | |||||
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I echo everyone else's jealousy! I haven't been out of Canada in over 5 years, and now that I'm spending all my money on school I'm afraid it'll be a few more years before I get a chance to travel :(
Glad to hear your leave from the forum was more productive than mine. I'm still amazed at the amount of time you find to study languages. Very inspiring. Are you enjoying Pimsleur so far? I'm just finishing up Pimsleur 1 myself. I just noticed that the five languages you speak besides Scandinavian ones are the same 5 featured in the firefly 5 language visual dictionary. Do you own that book? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5336 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 86 of 221 14 March 2011 at 8:49am | IP Logged | |||||
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Well,travelling runs in the family as a physical need. When my mother was my age she would hitch hike all the way down to Spain to visit friends. When I was young I would buy an interrail ticket which allowed me to travel for a month all over Europe. I actually travelled much more as a student than I do now. I would save up from my student's allowance or odd jobs, and just hit the road.
As for time I am often frustrated that I do not find more time, but I do try to be pretty focused, and take advantage of any 5-minute slot I have. I have an ipod in my handbag, one CD-player in the kitchen, one in the utility room and one in the car, and I will always listen to Russian tapes as soon as I get the opportunity. I figure that even if I do not learn active vocabulary, because my attention is elsewhere, I will still gain exposure to the language. The main "time thief" is actually this forum! I can not count the times I have had an hour to study, and I tell myself that I will just take 10 minutes here, and then the rest of my time to Russian studies, and then before I know it my hour is up. Ahrg! I do enjoy Pimsleur, and I am thinking of getting nr. 2 and 3. I am in the lucky position that I can order Russian materials through my work, and I think I'll do that. I cannot say that it is quite as effortless to learn the words as the commercial says, though. There must be parts there that I have listened to 20 times without retaining all of it, but I guess I must be satisfied with a 90% memorizing effect. I do understand everyting they say once I have listened to it a couple of times, but being able to actively produce anything is a whole different ball game. What is your experience with it, geordie? I am afraid I have never heard of the firefly 5 language visual dictionary, so I do not have it. :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| joanthemaid Triglot Senior Member France Joined 5472 days ago 483 posts - 559 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Russian, German | Message 87 of 221 14 March 2011 at 9:07am | IP Logged | |||||
Same here. Unfortunately my husband doesn't really understand it. He needs four years to get used to any one place. Personally I'd have like to live one year here, two years there, and on, but if I can make him travel it's already a miracle
Wouldn't it be Наташы нет? Other than that, for the motion verbs I haven't had the courage to go into them yet. I'm going to try learning them by reading. As for that, I'm also at the same point as you, except instead of a private teacher I'm using a bilingual book. I have to admit when you don't understand half the words it's much easier not to have to use a dictionary. Though I wouldn't mind having a teacher at least for some questions and conversation. The word you're looking for is "baby bottle". Have a good time in the Ukraine! Edited by joanthemaid on 14 March 2011 at 9:32am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| nuriayasmin Senior Member Germany Joined 5245 days ago 155 posts - 210 votes | Message 88 of 221 14 March 2011 at 10:46am | IP Logged | |||||
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I live in the middle of Europe but I haven't travelled a lot in recent years, either. Being a single mum whose ex doesn't pay a penny for the kids, our financial situation has always been a bit tight. Apart from that, my son hates travelling, he just wants to sit in front of his computer, and my daughter prefers all-inclusive holidays where she can spend the whole day at the beach or swimming-pool. Well, I like to travel around, meet people and get to see as much as possible. However, if my boy-friend and I manage to get some days off at the same time, we're likely to travel to Czech Republic and perhaps Slovakia in June while my daughter stays with my parents.
It's great that you manage to travel so much and that you're supported by your family. You're very lucky, it seems. By the way, I enjoy reading your log :-) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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