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Team Катюша - TAC 2014 - TEAM THREAD | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| chokofingrz Pentaglot Senior Member England Joined 5187 days ago 241 posts - 430 votes  Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Japanese, Catalan, Luxembourgish | Message 201 of 464 01 April 2014 at 1:28am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I have thought about this challenge several times during the month of March and even started to write a post on it twice. But whichever angle I choose, it always feels wrong for a novice to be explaining grammar points to more advanced learners. It feels like anything I write will either be too simplified and easy for the advanced people and the natives to pick holes in, or too complex for myself and other beginners to benefit from.
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| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4842 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 202 of 464 01 April 2014 at 1:04pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Yes, of course! Don't stress yourselves about the challenge. Anything that will be posted during the next few days will be counted as a completed challenge. I wanted to write something as well, but I haven't had time for it yet. I'll try to pen it down tonight. @chokofingrz: I don't expect you to explain a grammar point perfectly to others, so there remain no questions open. On the contrary, choose a grammar point you are dealing with at the moment, describe it in your own words, and then ask questions about things you don't understand yet. The purpose of this challenge is spotting problems and getting help with them, not explaining grammar to others. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5332 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 203 of 464 01 April 2014 at 2:22pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I try to look at most things in life the way I look at Scottish folk dancing. You are either good, and people will be impressed, or you are spectacularly bad, in which case the entertainment value for others is sky high :-). Me explaining grammar tends to fall into the second category. I'll try anyhow, since grammar badly explained will make everyone else feel good about themselves, and they may learn more from looking things up than from me explaining them. I have a few suggestions for tasks for the months to come by the way. I really liked last month's task, about the song, and since most of us know very little about Russian culture I have some ideas for culturally related tasks - where we could do a little in English, all in English or all in Russian according to our level and confidence. I am utterly ashamed that I know every insignificant detail of the life of American artists, but could not name 5 contemporary Russian artists if I was offered a million. So let us share our cultural gold nuggets with each other. And incidentally, if the Russian members would like to chip in with cultural tidbits - either one of the monthly tasks or what food is typical at Easter or anything else they would like to share, that would be great. An option would also be to each month chose between one cultural topic and one "speaking/writing topic" which should be in Russian, but where the beginners could do 5 sentences, and the really advanced ones could do a short essay. Cultural topics (and please insert Russian in every example here) 1 A film I like 2 A film director I find interesting 3 A city I would like to visit 4 A great writer 5 A great composer 6 A contemporary singer and one of his/her songs 7 Describe a monument which interests you 8 An historical event 9 A holiday - religious or civil 10 A person I find fascinating Writing topics (trying to find topics it might come in handy to have the vocabulary for) 1My hobbies 2 My best friend(s) 3 My work or studies 4 My family 5 The town I live in 6 My biggest dream 7 The best holiday I ever had 8 Things I would like to do in the future 9 Why I learn Russian 10 What I like about Russians/Russia 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Ogrim Heptaglot Senior Member France Joined 4637 days ago 991 posts - 1896 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English, Spanish, French, Romansh, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Catalan, Latin, Greek, Romanian | Message 204 of 464 01 April 2014 at 4:13pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I am only an observer here, but I still want to say that I like Solfrid Cristina's suggestions very much, and if allowed, would like to take part in a challenge writing a short text about a cultural topic. Several of the suggestions above are tempting.
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| Emme Triglot Senior Member Italy Joined 5345 days ago 980 posts - 1594 votes Speaks: Italian*, English, German Studies: Russian, Swedish, French | Message 205 of 464 01 April 2014 at 7:01pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Thank you guys! You’re so kind! I hope I haven’t caused undue worries. I’m actually fine, it’s only that life (mainly work-life) has intruded and has ruined my momentum in language learning. Due to a change of schedule earlier this year, I ended up opting more and more often for extensive reading rather than studying because the former was better suited to the odd moments of free time I had available. But now I find myself hooked on novels and even though I could probably squeeze in a little studying at least a few times a week I’m actually choosing books. That happens: I go through these cycles every few months, but I’m sure when I come back to languages I’ll be even more enthusiastic than usual. So, please, don’t worry. I’m still here and still committed to my long-term goal of learning Russian, but right now I need to satisfy my literary crave. ---
I have, and I find it works when I want something with a very slow and gradual progression. The audio is pretty bad, though, especially for the first videos (maybe later on I got used to it). I’m just wondering whether you’d find it too boring and not challenging enough: after all you’ve already gone through several beginner’s courses. You could try their more advanced “Russian World 2” (after the first 70 videos on the playlist). That’s probably closer to your level. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5164 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 206 of 464 01 April 2014 at 7:56pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I see, Emme...I don't think I need more 'classes' but rather a series similar to French
in Action, FocusDeutsch, Destinos etc. I already have long lessons from Russianpod and I'm already listening to the Upper Intermediate level. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| milesaway Triglot Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 4329 days ago 134 posts - 181 votes Speaks: French, English*, Russian Studies: Finnish, Sign Language | Message 207 of 464 01 April 2014 at 8:19pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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This is something I remember studying in class at university, but I could not figure it
out for the life of me. It completely stumped me, and looking back now, I'm not entirely sure why. Деепричастия (verbal adverbs) These are a form of verb, and they do not change. They don`t have a tense, so they only get a meaning of time in a sentence. Читая книгу, она плакала. Читая takes on the time as the verb cry. So it would mean: She cried reading the book. They are mostly used in writing, and are more literary. I don`t think I`ve heard anyone use them frequently in speech, although I can think of one expression that uses them, so maybe I`m wrong and I jut haven`t noticed. They are formed in different ways, depending on the verb aspect. Imperfective verbs form their Деепричастия with either а or я on the stem. Читать - читая говорить - говоря Perfective verbs take в: Прочитать - прочитав Reflexive verbs would end in ась or вшись. I don`t know if this has helped anyone, but hopefully it has. Edited by milesaway on 02 April 2014 at 8:08am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5332 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 208 of 464 02 April 2014 at 7:16am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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@ Milesaway: Would that be the equivalent of the English "Having read the book..."?
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