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TAC 2012 Russian team - Team Sputnik | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Woodsei Bilingual Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Woodsei Joined 4795 days ago 614 posts - 782 votes  Speaks: English*, Arabic (Egyptian)* Studies: Russian, Japanese, Hungarian | Message 593 of 672 23 September 2012 at 12:43pm | IP Logged |
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Hi, I'm still here. I was traveling around, although I did manage to keep a daily
schedule, albeit tiny, with Russian. Assimil, youtube, and Euronews were the usual, although mostly Assimil. And of course dozens of hours listening to Japanese, since you could do that anywhere with an iPod. I'll post soon on my log, and looking forward to visiting everyone else's :) 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 594 of 672 07 October 2012 at 5:53pm | IP Logged |
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It looks like most team Sputnik members have had an oxygene problem for a while, but since this is the most
amazing TAC - team ever, I feel confident that we will shake off any motion sickness, and reach for the stars again! Report to the mother ship, how are you doing, what are you doing, and what are your strategies to get the most out of the rest of the year? Tarvos, since you seem to be the one which is strongest right now - would you like to start, then I trust that the others will follow. GO TEAM SPUTNIK!!!! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4705 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 595 of 672 07 October 2012 at 10:02pm | IP Logged |
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Ok, because you asked me nicely, I shall explain to you, in my own words:
A Quest for the Stars (and landing on an asteroid between Mars and Jupiter somewhere...) How are you doing: Fine, as far as I can tell. My Swedish has skyrocketed in three months. I am not sure how I do with it orally but the level you see me write at is pretty much an insta-write-up where I insert one unknown word through GT and then I fix all the grammatical nonsense afterwards. I am VERY happy with my Swedish. So happy in fact the only thing that's left for me to do is find some hapless Swede to practice on. I have not done this yet but that's ok. As I explained in my log, I have also bought Män som hatar kvinnor to check how I deal with reading a real novel. Russian: I am comfortable with conversations and FB-style messaging, but I have no idea how to deal with a lot of the unknown vocabulary I encounter at random intervals. I have worked through all but one of my courses (still got some Colloquial grammar units left to do). I am also planning to go to Russia in the summer of 2013 and travel Siberia entirely in Russian. (After that I hope to go to Mongolia, China, and maybe I will do one secret excursion to a forbidden land). My Russian is entirely focused on preparing for this trip and giving me the necessary tools to speak at about B1 level by the time I am in Russia - this is needed to understand most of what is said there. I think I can maybe read at that level but I am still unsure how I deal with rapid speech, but we'll see. I have some friends I am going to hopefully visit in Tomsk and that'll be fun (I talk to them in Russian.) French: Has improved drastically orally and conversationally since I started. I still have to be wary of gender accords and silly mistakes when I write, but I'm getting quite good at speaking this colloquially and understanding conversations. I can read novels, science magazines, play video games in this language - it deserves its basic fluency tag I gave it a while back. I still do not have perfect grammar and my vocabulary choice can be weird, and my knowledge of idiomatics is substandard, but I do not mind progressing at a slow tempo in this language since it's a language I can maintain for free (I can use native materials). I also spent six days in Bretagne earlier this year speaking solely in French, and despite one minor hiccup with a train ticket I bought that was invalid, I have otherwise managed to accomplish everything I would normally do in French (and spent hours on the Thalys speaking in just French). German: I have gone to Germany in August and socialized in German. My oral German is perfectly adequate as long as people do not speak with too strong of an accent. I can understand everything people tell me and react. I have to strain to follow conversations spoken with Bavarian accents or on extremely complex/unfamiliar topics (IT comes to mind). I also did a geocache ENTIRELY in German. I have also read a play entirely in German. The Future: Swedish: I still have four more units to go for Swedish. Most of it is reading, there are no dialogues - just texts read aloud. I will use these to test whether I can follow them and get the gist of the text without reading the transcripts. I plan to do my usual one unit a week rhythm - which I have kept to near perfectly. After that, I will read the novel I described and once I have finished that, I will be able to say "I can read Swedish". Once I finish FSI I will update my status to intermediate speaker of Swedish. Orally I don't know what I am going to do yet. Russian: I have subscribed to a Russian science magazine for three months to see how I do. I am going to spend each Sunday finishing one Colloquial unit (today is 16/22 and I have yet to start). I also regularly talk to native speakers. French: I am still taking a course at the AF. I plan to continue these courses for now. I also plan to continue having my surroundings being entirely in French and to continue to live my life through this language. I plan to upgrade this language to the status of C1, and be a professional user of this language. German: I am content to maintain my German at its current level, which is good in terms of speaking and horrific in terms of grammar. When I am satisfied with my French, this one will go through the cleaning routine and I will tidy it up. German forms one of my "core languages" - that is, one of the four languages I believe I should always be fluent in. (Dutch, English and French are the others). If I do not attain native-status in Swedish for example, that is okay. It is desirable, but not reaching it is not a failure. However German and French are both languages I learned years ago and I feel it's a shame not to build on the foundations every Dutch child gets at school. Plans for the rest of 2012 concerning languages not yet mentioned: In four weeks, I will hopefully be done with the FSI course of Swedish. I will then move on to native materials. This frees me up to put a new language in that open study slot, and I'll use it for the Assimil experiment which I will enter with Breton (not Hebrew). I still physically have too many reasons not to start Hebrew yet (even though it is a language I want to speak fluently in the future) and thus I won't. I was also planning to start Mandarin some time soon, but it will have to wait until 2013. As you can see, I always have one primary language at a time (it was Russian for the biggest part of 2012, and in August I was satisfied enough with it that I started Swedish). Russian is a secondary language - that is, I do not yet speak it to the level where I can use native materials, but I have basics in the language. This means I spend one day of the week attacking it. This is functioning well so far. I also know now that one (or two if it's an Important Language) coursebooks is more than enough. Daily use and using native materials is more important. I always finish my coursebooks to squeeze everything I can out of them (except if they are terrible like Ruslan), but after the coursebook and the basics I find I just want to do stuff with it. Languages are not courses, they're living entitities that need to be used. I try and tie in travels with them so I can check my progress. 2013 will probably be focused on improving my Russian to a solid B1 for use in Russia. I will probably start either Mandarin or Hebrew then. It all depends because I will be graduating from university next year and be looking for a job. I hope to have something to show for myself concerning my linguistic skills and maybe even to move abroad, although it makes me feel sorry because I hope I will not have to leave the band I play in now. Edited by tarvos on 08 October 2012 at 12:05am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5224 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 596 of 672 11 October 2012 at 2:57am | IP Logged |
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How am I doing? I updated y'all in my log when Tarvos bumped it ;)
What am I doing? Language-wise not much as you'd know already if you read the above. In real life, I'm trying to get everything ready and leave this goddamn country at once. After years of coming up with excuses not to do it, I finally see some light at the end of the tunnel. Since I've been saying this very same thing for god knows how long, too, believing it is highly optional ;) I should be able to go for a short ride (hopefully not more than 6 months) soon, so cross your fingers. Rest of the year: I hope to keep tying up loose ends and be able not to take in any unexpected projects / tasks (none in the pipeline right now, keep your fingers crossed until it hurts or I'll blame it on y'all ;). If that happens, I'll have some leftover energy and will only need the willpower (THE factor that remains uncertain) to sit and study, and lurk at Lang8, while bureaucrats do their stuff. That should land me an official German B2 around January, and put me in a position to begin thinking about Russian tests, and actually jumping countries (with some much needed confidence). Please repeat with me: by will alone I set my mind in motion... Edited by mrwarper on 15 October 2012 at 8:18am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| drsarvo Diglot Senior Member Mexico Joined 4710 days ago 143 posts - 149 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English Studies: Russian | Message 597 of 672 15 October 2012 at 12:38am | IP Logged |
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Привет! Sorry I have been out of touch for a while. Lots of trouble at work. I also began exercising, I am already running 13 km, but I had to slow down because of a knee pain. I hope I will keep running but I need to have my knee fixed first.
As for Russian, I keep reading euronews, and listening www.wrn.ru, radio broadcasts in Russian. Better understanding. Assimil: I am now studying lesson 63. I have now a lot of Russian followers in twitter, in fact much more Russian followers than Mexican ones. I understand now better their tweets. Well, I'll keep you posted. До свидания! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| fabriciocarraro Hexaglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Brazil russoparabrasileirosRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4713 days ago 989 posts - 1454 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishB2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, French Studies: Dutch, German, Japanese | Message 598 of 672 15 October 2012 at 3:38am | IP Logged |
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Last week I restarted with Assimil Russian, but since the first lessons are VERY basic for my level, I just went by them taking some vocabulary notes. I stopped at lesson 35, and I intend to continue doing that until I find a harder lesson, more coherent with my intermediate level.
Also, when I get to the active wave I intend to do it properly, translating the dialogues back from English to Russian. Also, I can't wait for the Assimil Experiment to start! I'll be doing French. 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 599 of 672 15 October 2012 at 11:04am | IP Logged |
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My life is always full of foreign languages, since I travel and work with international affairs, watch series in foreign languages and have friends from foreign countries. Real study time has been limited lately, though. I listen to Russian tapes in the bathroom and in the kitchen, but that hardly reaches an hour a day.
My plan is to get back on track with the Super challenge - reading and watching Russian, French and a little German, and I am considering to do the Assimil challenge with Mandarin. I am slightly hesitant about taking on a new challenge when I am struggling to find time and energy for my regular studies, but my trip to China showed me how helpful even a smidgen of Mandarin would have been. If I chose to take on Mandarin, I have very limited goals - an A1 level would be enough. 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 5554 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona | Message 600 of 672 01 November 2012 at 3:20am | IP Logged |
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Breaker, breaker...*cosmic static*...space shuttle Teangorius coming in to dock! I've been away from Mission Control for far too long already, and it feels good to finally be back amongst my fellow cosmonauts once again. I feel like my language learning skills have been in cryogenic sleep ever since I set foot on a jet headed for the other side of the world, so I don't have much to report language-wise just yet. I will however be beginning a brand new project this week as part of the overall Sputnik Space Programme, so hopefully this will fill you in regarding what I've been up to these past couple of months and where I'd like to aim my language rocket boosters next: 10 Languages a Day, 10 Minutes Each. Edited by Teango on 01 November 2012 at 3:21am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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