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Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5562 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona
| Message 1 of 96 04 January 2011 at 2:40pm | IP Logged |
Nu, pogodi! - Introduction
Last year I toyed with a new method for learning vocabulary during intensive listening and reading called study-and-click (also in Travels with Teango). In my initial experiments, I reached 92% reading scores with Spanish in 86 hours over 12 days, and later went on to hit 95% with Swedish in just 55 hours over a much more relaxed 19 days. Having got my feet wet in some level 1 languages (which the FSI designate as being the easiest for English speakers), I think it's time to up the ante and dive into something a little harder. I intended to give this a try last year with Russian, but with one thing or another, just didn't get a real chance. But now it's the start of a new year, I feel overly optimistic and primed for another crazy little challenge to kick things off, so I'd like to give Russian a second go.
With previous study-and-click projects, my original aim was to achieve consistent B2 level reading scores (approx. 90%) in as few hours as possible, with an extended goal of hitting C1 (approx. 95%) if time permitted. This year I want to top this, and have therefore added a further twist... Not only will the challenge be in a more difficult language this time round, but I also want to move from high beginner to high advanced in reading (A2 to C2, approx. 98%), with a view to reading contemporary Russian novels for pleasure completely unaided by next month. If I could achieve this, it would be a big tick next to one of my top language goals this year, and may even offer some answers to people in the same beginner boat who would like to learn how to read Russian and acquire a large passive vocabulary quickly to bootstrap other language areas.
As for the title of this ambitious endeavour...it simply means "well, just you wait!" in Russian, which is the catchphrase of a frustrated wolf who constantly chases after an elusive hare in the much-loved Soviet cartoon series by the same name (just think Wile E Coyote and Road Runner here). This is how I've felt about reading in Russian for years...I really want to catch those Cyrillic-charged words and delve first-hand into Russia's great treasure-trove of literature, but the prize always seems so far beyond my reach or something heavy falls on my head before I've even got started (lol). This year, with my clicker, audio, and parallel texts in hand (and of course a bit of Lego on the side too), I'm hoping to change all this...well...I guess we'll just have to wait and see. Nu, pogodi!
Edited by Teango on 11 February 2011 at 11:59am
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| Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5562 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona
| Message 2 of 96 04 January 2011 at 5:19pm | IP Logged |
My initial reading score taken for the project this afternoon is 58% (Сергей Лукьяненко, "Дневной дозор", Пролог, 300 words), which most likely places me somewhere in the rusty mid-beginner range ( A1/A2).
Edited by Teango on 12 March 2011 at 4:04am
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meramarina Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5973 days ago 1341 posts - 2303 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Italian, French Personal Language Map
| Message 3 of 96 04 January 2011 at 6:42pm | IP Logged |
Good luck with your new project! I love the way the Cyrillic alphabet looks and might study it one day, but I've got enough language stuff to do for a while. Reloading + study-and-click sounds very sinister, so I like your new title, too.
I should make more objective measurements of my language levels, as you and others do - probably something to try in the New Year. Congratulations on your TAC win!
Edited by meramarina on 04 January 2011 at 6:42pm
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| aloysius Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6246 days ago 226 posts - 291 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, German Studies: French, Greek, Italian, Russian
| Message 4 of 96 04 January 2011 at 7:54pm | IP Logged |
Good luck! Hopefully your project will run more smoothly this time. I will follow your progress with great interest, since I share your ambitions.
For fun, although the result wasn't fun at all, I did a known-words count from the same text you used and scored a lousy 54% ...
/aloysius
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| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5340 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian
| Message 5 of 96 04 January 2011 at 11:15pm | IP Logged |
Hey, this looks exciting! I will follow this eagerly!!
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| Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5562 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona
| Message 6 of 96 06 January 2011 at 9:27pm | IP Logged |
Nu, pogodi! - Day 1
Study-and-click: 3 hours (3 total)
Current text: Евгений Замятин, "Мы"
New words clicked whilst listening and reading: 153 (153 total)
New words clicked whilst listening only: 143 (143 total)
Reading test score: 70% (+17%, "Дневной дозор", Глава 1, 100 words)
Current estimated reading level: A2
I started off with "The Little Prince" this afternoon, but soon discovered that the English and Russian translations didn't match up too well. So I switched to Zamyatin's "Мы" after half an hour of going cross-eyed over the text, and then crossed my fingers instead and hoped for the best. I was initially worried that the reading level would be too high and well out of my comfort zone, but much to my pleasant surprise, the Russian text and English translation were very easy to cross-reference and therefore enjoyable to study.
@meramarina
Haha, I probably have more chances of winning roulette than hitting 98% next month. And cursive Cyrillic is indeed beautiful, and what actually got me interested in improving my own tangled excuse for English handwriting too (having since acquired a fancy fountain-pen and a manual with copy books in Spencerian script).
@aloysius
Cheers, comrade! Although not a fun result, I feel so much better that someone else got 54% on that first passage. I found it pretty tough going and can't quite imagine that I'll be able to read through all this with ease one day. I scored 50% on a different novel by the same author during my first attempt last summer, which rose a bit after studying for a week, but the little progress I made seems to have all but evaporated away without ongoing review - yikes!
@Solfrid Cristin
Spasibo! I notice you're using "Beginner's Russian Script" to get to grips with Cyrillic handwriting - probably the same little book I used a while back (blue "почта" on the front). I think you're probably around the same level as me right now, so I just had to smile when I read this comment in your TAC log recently: "Ok, so rationally I know that the chances of me going from A1 – low A2 to understanding everything after two Russian films are extremely remote, to say the least, but it just felt so good! For one glorious second I was at the top of the world, looking down at creation, and I want to have that feeling again...". :)
Edited by Teango on 11 March 2011 at 10:11pm
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| Préposition Diglot Senior Member France aspectualpairs.wordp Joined 5120 days ago 186 posts - 283 votes Speaks: French*, EnglishC1 Studies: Russian, Arabic (Written), Swedish, Arabic (Levantine)
| Message 7 of 96 06 January 2011 at 9:45pm | IP Logged |
I just have a quick question or two…
The words that you click, do you remember them, do you research them, learn them, or are you just familiarising
yourself with them to be able to recognise them quicker next time?
Also, were you expecting such a result, or did you believe it'd be higher/lower? Had you ever use this technique for
Russian before, or is it the first time you're applying it? Sorry for all the questions, I'm just curious, as I've got a
couple of bilingual stories and was wondering if the method would work with me!
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| aloysius Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6246 days ago 226 posts - 291 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, German Studies: French, Greek, Italian, Russian
| Message 8 of 96 07 January 2011 at 5:43pm | IP Logged |
Those are encouraging numbers for a first session!
I seem to remember that the English version of The Little Prince didn’t match the French very well, but I believe there’s a more recent translation, don’t know if that one works better. I think I’ll use the French original though. I actually went on a crazy bender yesterday listening to the first chapters of The Prince in English, French, Spanish, Italian and two Russian versions. I must try to procure a Swedish and a German version as well... By the way, which Russian audio did you use? I found this one (remove space):
http://www.skazki.com/audioknigi/antuan_de_sent_ekzyuperi/m/ malenkii_prints/
which I believe is unabridged, but I actually prefer the abridged, dramatized version with the funny background music.
//aloysius
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