439 messages over 55 pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 ... 2 ... 54 55 Next >>
fabriciocarraro Hexaglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Brazil russoparabrasileirosRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4712 days ago 989 posts - 1454 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishB2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, French Studies: Dutch, German, Japanese
| Message 9 of 439 11 January 2012 at 3:25pm | IP Logged |
I must say "shame on me" for not being so hard with my studies this week. My wife is now working at home, through the internet, and I must say it doesn't help my studies a lot =P
Anyway, some minimal progress was achieved since my last update, let's go to it:
DUTCH:
Today I've completed the 31th lesson from the Assimil Dutch With Ease. A little harder than the last one, but again, there were only 2 new words I didn't know ("tekenen" and "breed"). The listening part was also easy! Yay to me! =)
The "new vocabulary words" from this lesson:
(het) portret - portrait
tekenen - to draw
(het) oog - eye
(het) oor - ear
verbaasd - amazed, astonished
verbazen - to amaze, to astonish
(de) verbazing - amazement, astonishment
breed - wide
bijzonder - specially, particularly
(de) mond - mouth
(de) tong - tong
(de) broer - brother
I've also spoken to Dutch friends and new people on Livemocha chat, and I almost never used Google Translate! I'm really happy about it, but I still haven't ever talked in Dutch with my voice (to a person), so I'm still a little frightened of it.
RUSSIAN:
Not much actually. I read a new chapter from one of my books. In my opinion this is the best one! It's called "The New Penguin Russian Course", and it gives you a very strong grammatical basis, also encouraging your reading habilities, since the texts of the lessons get harder and harder.
The lesson was a quite easy one, about the use of "не" in a phrase, and how it can change it. Strange thing, in the book they said that if you have a phrase:
1 - Я люблю новые книги. (I love new books)
It's in the accusative case, right? But when you put a "не" there, it should change the object to the genitive case:
2 - Я не люблю новых книг. (I don't love new books")
Since I had never heard about it before, I asked my wife, and she said it is indeed correct, but NO ONE uses it in spoken language. Either her, her parents, people on TV would always use the accusative case, and say:
3 - Я не люблю новые книги. (I don't love new books")
Good to know! Anyway, that was pretty much it, and I've learned some new words, being the most important the verbs: расти/вырасти (to grow).
ENGLISH:
I think English was the most important "language" for me this week, because I made a decision! I know I would never study English for serious if I hadn't a strong motivation, because I feel already "comfortable" with my level in it, but I want to improve!
About 6 years ago I sat for an exam called FCE, and passed. It's the B2 level exam from Cambridge. Now I want to go for the higher exams! I think it will be a great motivation booster, since I'll "need" to study for it! And that's where I have a little doubt:
Should I sit for the CAE (C1 level) or the CPE (C2 level) already? I can sit for any of them either in June or December. I'm looking for advice with this, what do you think guys?
Uffff! Sorry for the long post! That's all, folks! =)
Edited by fabriciocarraro on 11 January 2012 at 3:30pm
1 person has voted this message useful
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5331 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian
| Message 10 of 439 11 January 2012 at 5:03pm | IP Logged |
fabriciocarraro wrote:
The lesson was a quite easy one, about the use of "не" in a phrase, and how it can change it. Strange thing, in the book they said that if you have a phrase:
1 - Я люблю новые книги. (I love new books)
It's in the accusative case, right? But when you put a "не" there, it should change the object to the genitive case:
2 - Я не люблю новых книг. (I don't love new books")
Since I had never heard about it before, I asked my wife, and she said it is indeed correct, but NO ONE uses it in spoken language. Either her, her parents, people on TV would always use the accusative case, and say:
3 - Я не люблю новые книги. (I don't love new books")
About 6 years ago I sat for an exam called FCE, and passed. It's the B2 level exam from Cambridge. Now I want to go for the higher exams! I think it will be a great motivation booster, since I'll "need" to study for it! And that's where I have a little doubt:
Should I sit for the CAE (C1 level) or the CPE (C2 level) already? I can sit for any of them either in June or December. I'm looking for advice with this, what do you think guys?
Uffff! Sorry for the long post! That's all, folks! =) |
|
|
On the Russian negation I was really surprised to hear that the genetive is not actually used. Every learning material I have ever used said to use genetive, I had no idea that it was redundant in speech.
As for the English exam I would go for the C2 level exam. Your English is strong.
1 person has voted this message useful
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5053 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian*
| Message 11 of 439 11 January 2012 at 6:34pm | IP Logged |
Genetive is used in some situations. Sometimes it is obligatory: with нет, ни одного
(ой), ни. На небе - ни облачка. Yes, but accusative is much more freqent.
Textbooks write about it because it is obligatory in some situations and because if you
find it some where you will be very surprized.
Edited by Марк on 11 January 2012 at 6:36pm
1 person has voted this message useful
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6594 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish
| Message 12 of 439 11 January 2012 at 6:47pm | IP Logged |
Yeah the genitive is such a mess. I use it too much (due to the influence of the Finnish partitive) and got this marked as a mistake in my final essay at high school.
2 persons have voted this message useful
| fabriciocarraro Hexaglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Brazil russoparabrasileirosRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4712 days ago 989 posts - 1454 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishB2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, French Studies: Dutch, German, Japanese
| Message 13 of 439 16 January 2012 at 8:22pm | IP Logged |
Good DUTCH news! =)
Talking with my friends, I found out that one of them had the Michel Thomas Dutch CD's! I told him to give me right away! Ahahaha
So I converted all the CD's to .mp3 and sent them to my cellphone, this way I can study while at work or at the bus... it's being really nice!
So far I've listened to all the first 5 CD's, and I was happy to notice that until the middle of the 4th one, I knew EVERY SINGLE THING! YAY! =D From then on, it got a little more complicated with the grammar (and about 2/3 new words I didn't know), but I also knew pretty much everything! =) Tomorrow I'll start CD number 6.
I've found this Michel Thomas method VERY useful for beginners, and also for low (and even upper) intermediates like me, because it made grammar easier and clearer for me in so many points! I would really recommend it for everyone!
All the first 5 CD's would do about 6 hours of study, in 3 days! Too bad they don't have the Advanced Dutch =/
Also, I wish I had the MT for Russian, both Foundation and Advanced levels. Would be great to practice my Russian grammar.
So, that's all for today! =)
PS: How can I lose the "MICROTAG" from all my posts? It's starting to annoy me =P
Edited by fabriciocarraro on 16 January 2012 at 8:25pm
1 person has voted this message useful
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5331 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian
| Message 14 of 439 16 January 2012 at 11:14pm | IP Logged |
Great Dutch news! And once you know English and Dutch it would be a piece of cake to pick up one of the Scandinavian languages, if you ever wanted to.
As for the microtag thing it has annoyed me for a full year. If someone knows how to get rid of it, I would be very grateful too!
1 person has voted this message useful
| s0fist Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5043 days ago 260 posts - 445 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: Sign Language, German, Spanish, French
| Message 15 of 439 17 January 2012 at 1:09am | IP Logged |
fabriciocarraro wrote:
Since I had never heard about it before, I asked my wife, and she said it is indeed correct, but NO ONE uses it in spoken language. Either her, her parents, people on TV would always use the accusative case, and say: |
|
|
True, I don't think it's used a lot. It feels passive, like passive voice in English.
But it is mandatory and in some situations even preferred. For example:
Никого/меня/его/их/Феди не было дома.
вместо
Никто/я/он/они/Федя не был дома.
I hope I got my example right -- it's correct Russian, I'm just not familiar with English terminology of conjugations in Russian language.
1 person has voted this message useful
| fabriciocarraro Hexaglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Brazil russoparabrasileirosRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4712 days ago 989 posts - 1454 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishB2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, French Studies: Dutch, German, Japanese
| Message 16 of 439 17 January 2012 at 1:19am | IP Logged |
Solfrid Cristin wrote:
Great Dutch news! And once you know English and Dutch it would be a piece of cake to pick up one of the Scandinavian languages, if you ever wanted to. |
|
|
Great to hear it, Cristina! Yes, I would love to! In fact, I'm thinking of starting with Norwegian or Swedish after I finish with Dutch and the CPE exam.
You convinced me that Norwegian is probably the best option between the Scandinavian languages, but I'm worried about the fact that the population of Sweden is twice the one from Norway, and I'd be able to speak with more people. Am I making any sense? Ahahaha
Anyway, thanks for the post! =)
Edited by fabriciocarraro on 18 January 2012 at 9:43pm
1 person has voted this message useful
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum - You cannot reply to topics in this forum - You cannot delete your posts in this forum You cannot edit your posts in this forum - You cannot create polls in this forum - You cannot vote in polls in this forum
This page was generated in 0.3125 seconds.
DHTML Menu By Milonic JavaScript
|