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TAC 2011 - Team Я Russian Returns! | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| handfulofkeys Diglot Newbie CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5259 days ago 20 posts - 20 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Italian, Russian | Message 1 of 25 30 December 2010 at 7:39am | IP Logged | ||
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Всем здравствуйте!
Alright then, thus begins my first log entry of TAC 2011! You may remember me from such posts as that time I tried to learn Japnanese and made a log about it. And if you do remember me, then you must be thinking "this guy is pretty pathetic! He's given up already, and is on to a new language." And to the naked eye, you are, alas, correct. But one must not judge these things at face value! Yes, I did indeed give up on Japanese (with the full intention of one day returning to it! I swear!) I am guilty! Mea culpa! And this is, as you might suspect, one in a long line of languages started and then forgotten; abandoned at the beginner stages, because I got distracted by the sweet siren song of wunderlust. I confess! I admit it all! But I have decided to try it all again! To make it right: to go back to the very first language I failed to learn when I was but a wee lad in sixth grade, his eyes opened to the world of language learning. To go back.... to Russian. So really, it's not so bad, when you really think about it! :) Alright, now that I got that melodrama and silliness out of my system, lets get down to business. So I made the decision to finally learn Russian properly this summer. I actually worked all summer on it, and made a lot of progress. By the end, I could get the gist of what was going on in simple TV shows and have reasonable conversations via text online with a dictionary. Then school came, and the rigours of my first semester of university set me back considerably. Well it's a new year, and it's time to pick myself up, brush myself off and start all over again! For the most part, my method has been almost entirely input based. I happen to subscribe to the theory that the method you use isn't so important as how much time you spend practising, which is why I try to use the most pleasant methods possible, which for me is AJAT-style input. I watch as much Russian TV as I can, and try to find Russian dubs of movies and TV shows I already know. Besides that, I use Anki for all the vocabulary from the New Penguin Russian Course. I find this lets me really notice when I hear words in the TV shows I watch, and then I remember them and after a few times, the meaning sticks. Maybe not the best method, but it's working pretty well for me, so I won't tempt fate by changing it. I do study grammar, although it's mostly when I hear something that sounds weird and I want to know why. I've been thinking this isn't enough lately, 'cause there are some holes in my understanding of the case endings just because certain cases aren't as common, so I might try to do some old fashioned copying of charts and such, just to re-enforce stuff. The only grammar thing that I find really difficult to grasp (I've read a decent amount of the Penguin course, and I'm gonna go over the Princeton one soon, seeing as I have it), is aspect. No matter how many times I read about it, I don't really understand aspect. Hopefully, listening to more Russian will make that clearer. I've read about the Listening Reading method. It intrigues me. I may just do that with Crime and Punishment, since it's my favourite Russian novel. We'll see how things go. Right now, my goal is just to do my daily Anki requirements, as well as 2-3 hours of Russian audio per day. I tend to get about 1.5 hours at the moment, so I really need to step it up. Also, I want to do daily readings both from my textbook, and from other sources. More on this later. My goal for the year is to have basic fluency. Maybe I'm dreaming in technicolor. Okay, I am dreaming in technicolor, but hey, reach for the stars right? I will post my updates on Fridays before shabbat (I'm Jewish). I kind of like the idea of writing a summary of the week's accomplishments before my day of rest! There you have it folks. Sorry for the long/silly post. I'll try to keep it more businesslike in the future. I have a good feeling about this contest. Good luck to everyone! :) Удачи всем! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| snovymgodom Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5669 days ago 136 posts - 149 votes  Speaks: English*, Russian | Message 2 of 25 30 December 2010 at 7:51am | IP Logged | ||
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Привет!
I know we're technically on different teams, but good luck! I started reading Crime and Punishment sometime last year but I got distracted. I still have some parallel texts that a banned user posted on here, like Master & Margarita by Bulgakov. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5278 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 3 of 25 30 December 2010 at 11:22am | IP Logged | ||
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All the best from me too - you were supposed to be on our team, so I choose to consider you as our twin team, and will cheer you on too! Go Russian teams!!
When it comes to aspect, I will not in any way pretend that I have mastered it, but I have made a little rule for myself, by which I try to translate the perfective verb by "finished to XXX". Let's say that the verb is "to read", and the situation is that I yesterday read a book. Then I would use the perfective if I could translate it by "I finished reading the book" and the imperfective if I "was reading the book" without focusing on whether I actually finished it or not. I know there are several more cases where you can use the perfective, but this rule works for me to get my head around one of the concepts which do not exist in my language. Kind regards, Cristina 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5500 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona | Message 4 of 25 30 December 2010 at 4:29pm | IP Logged | ||
The way I understand aspect is along similar lines to how Splog expains it in his video: Imperfective aspect = stopped or present tense action; Perfective aspect = finished action (i.e. never present tense, and assume future tense unless otherwise indicated as past). However I think the best way is to simply put in lots of hours of listening and reading and get a natural feel for the correct usage. That's my plan this year anyway. :) Udachi! Edited by Teango on 30 December 2010 at 4:32pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| handfulofkeys Diglot Newbie CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5259 days ago 20 posts - 20 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Italian, Russian | Message 5 of 25 31 December 2010 at 12:42am | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks guys! I've got to admit, I do understand it in a purely theoretical sort of way, mostly 'cause I make the comparison to French and Italian with "imparfait" vs "passe compose", but when I'm watching I have to really think about it to understand the difference. Oh well! Just keep practising I guess.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| joanthemaid Triglot Senior Member France Joined 5414 days ago 483 posts - 559 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Russian, German | Message 6 of 25 03 January 2011 at 2:34pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hi handfulofkeys,
I've been added to team Я recently, so we're teammates now. Sorry for not writing in Russian yet, I'm waiting for a Russian keyboard. In any case, I wish you a happy new year of language learning and above all, that you not give up ;). I'll try to do the same, and please kick me in the log if I don't. That's what teams are for, right? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| handfulofkeys Diglot Newbie CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5259 days ago 20 posts - 20 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Italian, Russian | Message 7 of 25 09 January 2011 at 5:58pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hey all! Sorry for the ridiculous amount of time with no posts. I had kind of a stressful week last week, with the beginning of school. And it took its toll on my Russian studies, which were particularly weak. Man oh man, it's gonna be harder than I thought to coordinate this with university. But I shan't give up! The second I finish this log, off I go for some practise!
I did manage to get a couple of hours of listening in this week. I find I'm understanding more than I did a while ago, but it's really hard to quantify in any clear way, and it's kind of frustrating. I kind of feel like I need a more organized way to study. So starting today, I'm gonna start doing the Princeton Russian course. I looked over the first few lessons, and, to be honest, they look way too basic for me, so I'm gonna skip them. Also, I think that weekly posts will never be enough to keep me learning responsibly. I don't have that kind of self discipline. So I'm gonna start posting every day on what I accomplished that day. And instead, every week I'll post something in Russian so that I'll have a measuring stick of my progress! And if any Russians decide to read, maybe they can reply or at least point out the particularly awful errors. The things that I've found most helpful for my learning over the last few weeks have been Disney movies. I can watch them over and over without getting bored (because I looooove them :D), I know them practically off by heart, and the language isn't super hard. Every time I watch them I learn a few more words, it's really a cool feeling. I just wish there were more of them... I need more English stuff dubbed in Russian. I have a bunch of things originally in Russian, but to be honest it's really frustrating to watch and not really be able to follow what's going on. And it's hard to find dubbed stuff, because half the time, they use these completely useless voice-overs, where you still hear the English in the background. So if anyone can suggest some good ones, I'd really appreciate it. So without further ado: Привет всем! Я не знаю что писать, потому что я не так много с русском языкам делал в зтой неделе. Я читал русскую книгу, но нет на русском. Зта книга был "Лолита" Владимира Набокова. Она была отлична, мне очень нравилась. Зто все для сегодню, потому что мне нет времини! Мне ножно изучать! Пока! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5278 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 8 of 25 09 January 2011 at 6:14pm | IP Logged | ||
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You seem to have found a good plan, I'll watch your log to follow your progress! I do not feel confident enough to start writing in Russian yet, because I have about 5 spelling errors for each word plus an extra 5 per sentence, but at least I understood everything you wrote, so that is a start! I envy you your Disney movies, I wouldn't mind wathching those either. Good luck!
1 person has voted this message useful |
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