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Solfrid Cristin’s way TAC 2011 Team Ohana | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5558 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona | Message 129 of 221 03 July 2011 at 3:52am | IP Logged | ||
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Swahili is very pleasant on the ears, and yet another budding hopeful on my language hit list. I'm keeping my fingers crossed you get the chance to practice some phrases in Zanzibar...
And all the best with getting back on track with Russian. It sounds like you've already made a good leap back onto that slippery Slavic hay wain! ;) Edited by Teango on 03 July 2011 at 3:52am 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 130 of 221 03 July 2011 at 9:25am | IP Logged | ||
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Both Turkish and Swahili are languages I'd love to learn.. I'll stick to Russian for now, as I have no time for study, but good luck and I'll be following your progress!
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| 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 131 of 221 17 July 2011 at 6:55pm | IP Logged | ||
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@Teango: Thanks, nice to know there are more people who like Swahili!
@Joanthemaid: And you too! Perhaps we could do a mini-Tac challenge later! ------------------ Ok. So I do not exactly have an impressive track record for the last couple of weeks. Will it be counted as an excuse that I have been on holiday most of the time? I have received Pimsleur II, so I have put CDs from the course all over the house, in my walkman and my car. Since they keep repeating the same vocabulary, and give translations, it doesn’t matter of you operate at four different places at the same time. I listen to it whenever I have the chance. As for holidays, first I was in Sweden on a rose tour – visiting beautiful rose gardens in the Gothenburg district. I talked a little Swedish, but most of the time I spoke Norwegian. If we do not speak extremely fast or with a peculiar accent, we understand each other perfectly, but I still enjoy speaking a bit Swedish, just for fun. Then for the first time in 15 years my husband and I got a full week on our own, and since I have been flying and travelling around like mad lately, to a number of foreign countries, we decided that this time we just wanted to get in our car, and go to the see the West Norwegian fjords. I tend to forget how spectacularly beautiful Norway is, but the point was really driven home to me on that trip. We passed mountain ranges, cascades and lakes, and old stave churches that are close to a 1000 years old. We also almost got killed. Had it not been for my husband’s good reflexes, I would not have been sitting here now. The thing is that we passed areas with lots of free range animals, sheep, cows, goats and wild animals, and at one point we had a giant moose with her child running right in front of our car. Fortunately my husband managed to hit the brakes of the car in order not to hit the mother (the crash would have killed us) or the child (the mother would probably have killed us). At Geiranger we were also reminded of how tough life used to be in the old days. Norway of today is a highly industrialized and sophisticated society, but 100-150 years ago we were one of the poorest nations in Europe, and both then and now, we have extreme weather conditions, and people would build their houses at places where one would have sworn you could not get to without a helicopter, let alone build a house or live there. We took a trip on the Geiranger fjord, and passed houses where you needed a rope ladder in order to get to the house. Practical when the tax collectors came and you could just roll up the ladder until they left in frustration. Another house was abandoned in the 1870ies because of a rock hanging over the house threatening to crush it. The ironic part being that the house and the rock are both still there, but I understand why they did not want to take the risk. At another house, they used to have to tie a rope around the waist of the children to prevent them from falling down the cliff when they were playing in their garden. Another house had no ground floor that you could access from outside, because it would routinely be covered in snow in the winter, so the outside stairs went straight to the 1st floor. There was a reason why Norway is second only to Ireland when it comes to emigration to the US. Poverty, hunger and very harsh living conditions made America a very tempting option. The fjords are very narrow and up to 500 meters deep, and the steep mountains rise up to 1400 meters, so it is really breathtaking. On the ferry there was guiding in Norwegian, English, German and a language I could not immediately identify. It sounded Asian, and I first thought of Japanese or Mandarin, but neither fit the bill. It turned out to be Korean. Now I have to admit, that it felt weird listening to Korean sitting on a ferry in a Norwegian fjord, but they explained that when they knew there was a big group of any particular nationality (among the ones that visited regularly) they would add the language to the guiding. Norwegian, English and German would however always be included. We met and talked to lots of German and Dutch and Spaniards, and saw lots of Eastern Europeans. I spoke English, German, Spanish and even a little Russian on the trip. On our way up to a viewpoint we had to pay a 20 dollar fee (in Norwegian kroner). Right in front of us there was a motor cycle with a guy with a Hells Angels-looking jacket, and the guy and his friend were trying desperately to use their credit card, but it wouldn’t work. It was quite a long drive from anywhere, so I could see his despair at not getting past. As I then realized that they were Russian, I decided to come to their rescue, got out of the car, greeted them in Russian, asked them if the machine did not work, and gave them the money in Norwegian coins. They were quite obviously unaccustomed to having people just giving them money (Russian bikers are not at the top of the list of people who can count on the kindness of strangers in Norway), but thanked me profusely, and got in through the gates. After about 100 meters, one of them, who had a woman sitting on the back, came back, and I got out again and asked them if there was a problem. The woman insisted on paying me back, but I said no, it was a gift, and then she thanked me as well. The woman had a camera and a microphone on her helmet, so my husband later joked about me becoming a celebrity on a Russian program about Norway. I doubt that, but if I helped giving them a better feeling about their stay in Norway, I am happy for that. At the top I spoke with a Spanish couple who asked me if I were Spanish (yeah – I can still pull it off on occasion – even if just for a little while ), but unfortunately the fog had descended just 20 meters before we got to the top, so we saw nothing from the viewpoint. Once I came home I was given the most peculiar of tasks. The good thing was that it gave me lots of English and Spanish practice, the bad thing that I had to do something without being prepared. Yesterday it was one year since my Peruvian friend lost her husband in cancer, and she wanted to unite with her friends and family. She had asked me to say some words at the grave on her behalf, so I asked for some key words, but she just said “You’ll know what to say”. I often hold speeches without a manuscript, but usually I do it as myself. Standing there at the grave, speaking on her behalf, and telling him how this was a day of both sorrow and joy, sorrow because I missed him every minute of the day, and joy because our children were doing fine, and his family and friends were being very supportive of us, was one of the more weird things I have done in my life. I had both written and held the speech on her behalf at his funeral, but in that case I was given some key words, then I wrote the speech, she made a couple of minor adjustments, and had approved of the end product. Here I had to interpret her feelings and emotions as I knew them after many conversations, and turn them into a speech to a dead man – all at the spur of the moment and in a foreign language, and in front of a crowd. Seriously scary. When I came home I could not sleep until 4.30 in the morning, and finished a book in English. Today I have listened to a bit of Pimsleur Russian, but I so need to get into some more structured study habits. Edited by Solfrid Cristin on 17 July 2011 at 6:57pm 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 132 of 221 18 July 2011 at 8:57am | IP Logged | ||
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Glad you're still here. You description of Norwegian Fjörds really makes me want to go there. But I'll have to learn Norwegian first. Anyway, you seem to have had a very interesting holidays, sorry it ended on a sad note. If I get lost biking one day, I hope to come across someone like you!
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| 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 133 of 221 18 July 2011 at 9:23am | IP Logged | ||
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The Norwegian Fjords are absolutely wonderful - and on UNESCO's list of World Heritage. Do come! Did I mention that Norwegian is very easy to learn once you know English and German? :-)
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| 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 134 of 221 20 July 2011 at 2:56pm | IP Logged | ||
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REVISION OF GOALS
I went through my original goals today, and since unlike the clever ones among you I had not thought of counting what I have done along the way, going through all my posts to remember what I had acheived was quite a lot of work. Given my “5 minutes here and 20 minutes while I am doing housework there” schedule ,I have chosen not to list my goals in term of time passed. The math would be too complicated. I have listed what material I wanted to go through, and I figured it was time to look at what I have achieved, and which goals I either need to revise or to work harder towards. If a state can have a revised budget at the beginning of each autumn in order to make it more realistic, I think we should be entitled to the same for our language goals. RUSSIAN My original goal was to finish Assimil and Pimsleur 1, and possibly have a look at Sosiedi, read Cuk I Gek by Easter and some bilingual short stories by Summer, attend Russian language classes, finish Teach Yourself Russian Grammer, revise Teach Yourself Russian Script, finish Russian for Dummies and finish Basic Russian – a grammar and workbook and watch 12 films in Russian. What I have achieved so far is to finish Pimsleur 1, I have (sort of) read Cuk I Gek, but will need to read through it properly, I have attended some Russian classes and have finished Russian for Dummies, Teach Yourself Russian Script and have seen 10 films in Russian and 1 film with Russian subtitles. I have not made all that much progress with Assimil, because the method demands that you actually do some serious work sitting down and concentrating, which is something I don’t very often have the chance to do. I have done selected chapters from Teach Yourself Russian Grammar but have not read any bilingual short stories yet. I have however worked on some things which were not part of my original list of goals, and need to add some more material. I have therefore revised my goals for the rest of the year to the following: REVISED RUSSIAN GOALS Repeat Assimil 1-30 Work through Assimil 30-50. Finish Pimsleur II Finish Michel Thomas Vocabulary 5 bilingual stories Cuk I Gek – properly 5 films in Russian 20 chapters from Teach Yourself Russian Grammar 10 chapters from Basic Russian REVISED GOALS IN OTHER LANGUAGES FOR THE WHOLE YEAR GERMAN: Original goal: Read 20 books see 10 films: Achieved: Read 3 books. Revised goal: 5 books, 5 films FRENCH: Original goal: Read 10-15 books see 12 films: Achieved: Read 1 books, seen 4 films. Revised goal: 5 books, 5 films. SPANISH: Original goal: Read 20 books see 12 films: Achieved: Read 1 book, seen 1 film. Revised goal: 5 books, 5 films ITALIAN: Original goal: Read 12 books see 10 films: Achieved: Read 1 book, seen 1 film. Revised goal: 2 books, 2 films. GOALS FOR NEW LANGUAGES It may seem crazy to add on new languages, when I can’t achieve my goals for the first ones, but priorities shift. GREEK: The equivalent of two terms of study, which is the first 16 lessons of “Nygrekiska”, included the exercises. I have skimmed through it already, but I have not actually worked through it. So I’ll start at the beginning, and work through it properly. TURKISH Here I will set very modest goals – 100 words and 30 sentences (which should include the words). SWAHILI My goals here will be even more modest. 80 words and 10 sentences (which should include the words). I do not know yet if I really need this. In less than three weeks I go to Estonia and Russia for a week end, so I need to focus mainly on my Russian for the next three weeks. Done since last time: RUSSIAN Comprehension/Repating sentences I have listened to several lessons of Pimsleur 2, I have listened to Michel Thomas: Vocabulary part 1 and part of part 2. I also worked through Assimil lesson 31 today. There were quite a lot of words I did not know, and since I have not done much about Russian since Easter, I felt quite rusty, but I copied both the lesson and the exercises, in order to get my head into the Russian sphere. I am having trouble focusing however. My father, who is 91, started feeling unwell last week, and I was down there (he lives 1.5 hour away) on Thursday and Friday. Monday he was hospitalized with pneumonia and kidney failure, and an hour ago, we were told that his condition had deteriorated, and he has been brought to the emergency room, so I am really worried. I guess life was never meant to be easy. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ReneeMona Diglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 5337 days ago 864 posts - 1274 votes Speaks: Dutch*, EnglishC2 Studies: French | Message 135 of 221 20 July 2011 at 3:49pm | IP Logged | ||
The reason why I personally keep track of my study time is that it gives me a sense of progression and achievement which helps to keep me motivated even when I don’t feel like I’m improving. However, I think there’s definitely something to be said for your approach, since you focus on what you’re doing instead of the time you spend doing it. That’s why for next year’s TAC, I will probably use a combination of the two. I am sorry to hear about your father and I will keep my fingers crossed for a quick recovery. Good luck with the second half of the TAC! 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 136 of 221 22 July 2011 at 10:20pm | IP Logged | ||
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@ ReneeMona Thank you, it still looks bleak, but being with him may have saved my life.
I work just 100 meters from where the terror bomb went off in Oslo this afternoon. Since I was at the hospital with my father 110 km away I was safe, but several windows in my office building were blown out. I still do not know if I have a window in my office on Monday. The centre of Oslo looks like a war zone. Some government buildings are totally destroyed. They are asking people from a two hour radius from Oslo to come in and give blood. Lots of teen agers were massacred by a shooter at a political youth camp, and the shooter is also involved in the bombing. Norway is a small country where everyone knows each other, so I am dreading to find out if any of my friends have been killed or injured. I do however count on the Norwegian people to remain calm, collected and to show each other love and compassion. Edited by Solfrid Cristin on 22 July 2011 at 11:47pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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