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Swift’s Log - French and Russian | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Swift Senior Member Ireland Joined 4610 days ago 137 posts - 191 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: French, Russian | Message 65 of 91 24 October 2012 at 2:16am | IP Logged | |||||
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Thanks for the advice everyone. I don't know if it was one of you forum-goers that
corrected 5 or 6 journal entries for me yesterday, but that was great. Things are still going good, not much to report really. I'm getting to the stage where I want to start eliminating as much English as possible. I see that as a sign that I'm really getting into things. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Swift Senior Member Ireland Joined 4610 days ago 137 posts - 191 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, Russian | Message 66 of 91 26 October 2012 at 7:47pm | IP Logged | |||||
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So, I finally gave into my desire. Although I have a good few things on my plate at the
moment 'study-wise', I've decided to try out Russian. I've been wanting to for ages. I've said in the past that I should focus on French because I've got big ambitions, but the other day I just decided to say f*** it. My level of French is at a point where I feel confident enough to make some time for another language. Considering how much I've enjoyed French since February, I see languages as my newfound passion. So why not explore that passion more, like I've been wanting to? This is NOT switching French for Russian. French will still be very much so my primary focus. I am expecting this to be very difficult, both because I've never learned a language from the beginning by myself, and because Russian is harder for an anglophone than French is. I'm pretty freakin' excited, though. Here's what I ordered today: http://www.amazon.fr/gp/product/2700570073/ref=oh_details_o0 0_s00_i00 http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0199576432/ref=oh_details _o00_s00_i00 http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0140120416/ref=oh_details _o00_s00_i01 http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/144410392X/ref=oh_details _o00_s00_i02 Maybe I'm crazy to be trying to learn another language through French already. That's one of the reasons why I got the Penguin course too, in case Assimil is too difficult through French. I don't think it will be though, and I feel like I'll be thinking even more in French as a result. As always there are plenty of lang-8 journals that I've posted, I've been doing one nearly everyday for about two weeks. My name is Swift over there too if you'd like to see them. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Swift Senior Member Ireland Joined 4610 days ago 137 posts - 191 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, Russian | Message 67 of 91 07 November 2012 at 1:51am | IP Logged | |||||
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I just read through some of my first posts in this thread.I can't believe how much
progress I've made since. At the time of starting this thread, I didn't think I'd be able to reach my current level. That makes reaching my next goal seem even more possible. I happened across a great French film last week called 'Bienvenue parmi nous'. It's about an old painter who gets depressed and leaves home to find his love for life again. On the way, he meets a teenage girl who has been thrown out of her home. I found the film very touching and I loved the tone of it. Most importantly, I understood nearly everything! OK, there were subtitles and there was a lot of guesstimating unknown nouns based on context, but I was really proud. I'm reading a book now called 'Hommes entre eux'. It's kind of a weird book, but it's enjoyable. I tried reading it in the summer after Paris, but it was way too hard. It's only just manageable now. I think it's a good challenge, in fact. There is lots of literary and descriptive language that I don't know, so it's a good opportunity to learn some. I've been talking with a Belgian guy on Skype recently. If I continue to talk for 60-90 minutes every day or two, getting to C1 will be a lot easier. Skype is so much better than talking on Xbox, as there is an awful lot less distraction. Otherwise, business as normal. Newspapers, learning vocabulary, lang-8 most days, podcasts, etc. I now play nearly all my video games in French, when possible. Oh, finally I've been watching lots of French YouTube videos. I can't believe that I can nearly understand every word of an average 5 minute vlog. What I don't understand is great for learning more familiar language (although some of it can be a bit too far on the rude side). Edited by Swift on 08 June 2013 at 9:50pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Swift Senior Member Ireland Joined 4610 days ago 137 posts - 191 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, Russian | Message 68 of 91 18 November 2012 at 12:58am | IP Logged | |||||
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This type of stuff makes me realise how much work I still have left to do.
http://66.46.185.79/bdl/gabarit_bdl.asp?id=3499 Ok, sometimes people can go overboard with saying what is 'correct' and what isn't, because it's all relative to the speaker and how the language is changing. But there are inevitably some expressions that are definite anglicisms, that shouldn't be used. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Swift Senior Member Ireland Joined 4610 days ago 137 posts - 191 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, Russian | Message 69 of 91 14 April 2013 at 8:33pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Just wanted to write here for anyone that cares that I haven't gone away forever :P.
Since about December I've significantly cut down on my language learning. I did a bit of Russian for a while but I've stopped that, and I intend to restart in the summer. I've stopped any kind of focused French study like watching films regularly, lang-8 and so forth. However reading, YouTube videos and video games have allowed me to maintain a B2 level of understanding, although my speaking has suffered a bit. The reason is that I spend all my time studying for exams now. I have about two months left, so I really have to focus myself one hundred percent. I'll get the grades I need though, and the thought of returning to languages is nice motivation. See you all again in late June! Edited by Swift on 14 April 2013 at 8:36pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Swift Senior Member Ireland Joined 4610 days ago 137 posts - 191 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, Russian | Message 70 of 91 08 June 2013 at 9:47pm | IP Logged | |||||
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My last school exam is on the 21st of June. So close now. Can't believe it's been a month
and a half since I last posted in this thread. I've actually had a bit of time between studying to come on here and surf the forums lately. It's been too long! It'll be nice to trade all this boring studying for language studies. I'll certainly need a few days of rest from any kind of book work. I'll definitely be spending some time out of the house after two months stuck in it working away for exams. But by the start of July, I'll be back into the swing of things. I'm getting all excited just thinking about it :) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Swift Senior Member Ireland Joined 4610 days ago 137 posts - 191 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, Russian | Message 71 of 91 28 June 2013 at 12:27am | IP Logged | |||||
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It is finally OVER! My last exam was the 21st of June. Since then, I've spent some time
with friends and gone out to celebrate. But enough about that, because in the last few days I've been able to get back into languages. I can finally have fun on here! :D Russian I started a log for Russian a while back, but I realise now that I don't need it. This one will do fine (any mods reading this can feel free to delete the old thread: http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=34172). I relearned the alphabet using this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch? v=RhrSpf8kaqQ&list=FLxt0Y-575kt1Q370FN61WXA&index=44 It didn't take more than ten minutes for me to remember basic pronunciation and all the characters. So, I quickly moved onto ''Read and Write Russian Script'' from the ''Teach Yourself'' series. I'd already done the first four chapters in November, which mostly focus on teaching you all 33 Cyrillic characters in bite-sized chunks. One interesting thing is stress. I'm not sure if I'm doing it right, but I get the basic idea of an unstressed ''o'' being pronounced like an ''a''. It's really cool and new, but I wonder how I'll cope once the stress marks are taken away as I keep learning. Right now I'm on chapter 7 of 10, which teaches you the cursive script. At first look it seemed impossible to understand, with the cursive versions of ''Л'', ''И'' and ''М'' getting jumbled into a mess of indiscernable loops. Once I realised that M and Л use hooks, though, it began to fall into place. I'm still much better at writing it than understand it, though. One interesting French cognate that I found is
which sounds a lot like ''étage''. There's a few others I've seen. I feel like I'm cheating a bit when I see them, because the ''Teach Yourself'' book assumes you only understand English cognates. French OK, so here is my main focus! At least, it's supposed to be. At times I am so enthusiastic about learning Russian that I end up doing a little less French. I need to make sure that I don't do that too much, otherwise I'm just making advancing harder for myself... I decided to buy the first two Harry Potter books to start off my summer reading. I absolutely love the series, and so far it's just the right difficulty. It's easy enough to make it fun and simple to read through, but there are still lots of interesting words for me to learn. I still can't get over the fact that ''a magic wand'' is called ''une baguette magique''. My mind is filled with funny images every time I read those words. Speaking of words, I did some vocabulary exercises today. Some of the more interesting stuff:
I'm back on lang-8 again too, with the goal of writing one journal entry per day. I can feel that my phrasing is more awkward than before, but that's normal after such a long break. Before I go, here is something cool I found for language learning. I recently bought myself a Nintendo 3DS XL, and one of its benefits is the 'game notes' feature. Basically, you can use the stylus to write notes. Here's an example of using it for writing the months in Russian: 
You can probably do this using any precise touch screen device, like an iPad or iPhone. I find the 3DS to be a lot more sensitive than my phone, though, plus it's larger. For me, it's a great compromise between typing and writing using paper. I can still get the benefit of actually crafting the words with my hand, while I get the digital advantages of erasing quickly and not losing paper. The space per note is short though, so for now the whole thing is only really good for lists of stuff in Russian, or writing words to familiarise myself with them. Of course, it was great for learning the cursive script too. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Swift Senior Member Ireland Joined 4610 days ago 137 posts - 191 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, Russian | Message 72 of 91 03 July 2013 at 12:17am | IP Logged | |||||
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Russian
Jeez there are a hell of a lot of cognates with French! I'm too lazy to go copy and paste them or change my keyboard layout, but many of you must know what I'm talking about, as I'm only at the very start of learning. I finished the 'Learn Russian Script' book. It kind of became a chore after a while, because once you learn the alphabet and cursive writing there isn't much else new. Just lots of words on various topics that seem designed for someone who is going to be going to Russia on holiday soon. Although Russian numbers are important too, so I learned them. I forced myself to finish the book in the end, even though it became boring reading advertisements composed of cognates. So now I've cracked into the New Penguin Russian course. 'New' only by its name, of course. I'm taking things fairly slowly, because even the second chapter is intensive with all its information on the particularities of Moscow pronunciation. The book says they're not essential, but I'd like to have a go at trying to take them in. By the way, has anyone on here done that Penguin course all the way through? What were your thoughts of it? I'm still not sure if I'm putting the stress on words the right way, but that's OK. I kind of forgot what it was like to be a noobie and not know if I am doing something right. That's something I have to get used to if I want to advance! So overall with Russian, I'm enjoying it but I'm also making sure to lower my expectations, because it's pretty tough. French As when I did them before, I'm learning 20-40 words a day with my vocabulary exercises. The key thing is that I don't write too many words in my vocabulary copy. Getting literary proficiency seems like a long road, plus I don't want to get into the habit of looking up words that I should be able to understand by association (with roots, etc.). I also watched the first two Harry Potter films in French. The French dubbing is good, for the most part. The guy that does Hagrid does a particularly good job of sounding like a French version of Robbie Coltraine's character, which means that I don't even really notice that it isn't the real thing. Dumbledore seems really miscast, though. I need to start speaking French again (besides talking aloud to myself), so that's my new priority. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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