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Tecktight TAC 2012 Team Sputnik | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| 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 57 of 96 07 July 2012 at 8:48am | IP Logged |
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Can you tell us anything about your life in Russia? I was hoping for lots of tidbits from A day in the life of a Russian student in Moscow :-).
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| Tecktight Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member United States Joined 4974 days ago 227 posts - 327 votes Speaks: English*, Serbian Studies: German, Russian, Estonian | Message 58 of 96 21 July 2012 at 10:16am | IP Logged |
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Cristina,
Thanks for posting on my pitiful log. This thread reminds me of a dinner I had at a fish restaurant with my dad once. My so-called seafood consisted entirely of bones. Well, this is worse. This is a plate with peels of fish scales and a smattering of bread crumbs. Hopefully, I'll actually work on this now. Well, let's see, I have a lot of typing to do. My Russian has improved by leaps and bounds since I got here. That's undeniable. I came here having forgotten most of my Russian, and with my cases jumbled up like a ball of yarn. My Russian is a lot "cleaner" (in the words of my teacher) now. I've been here about two months, but I feel like I've lived here a year already, since I've gone an interesting up-and-down-and-up -again route. I'm on the upside now. When I first started, all was golden and it was a honeymoon sort of period. I went around the city nearly every day and stayed out late. I was exhausted because I was coming home past 11PM each night. It was great fun, but immensely tiring, and I didn't get any Russian practice in because I was hanging out only with my American friends here. About two and a half weeks ago, their program ended, so they left the country. Since then, I've made some new Russian friends, have improved in class a lot more, and have generally achieved a deeper level of assimilation. I'm really uncertain how to condense all my feelings into this post, so I'll try and write more when I'm back from the motorcycle rally I'm going to today (I don't know how I got myself into that one, either). Maybe it's my age, but, essentially, I've done a lot of growing up here. I thought I knew myself, but I guess I didn't, or maybe I've changed too much since those days of surety that what I once thought doesn't matter anyway. It was scary a bit, because I was/am so removed from my family, friends, and all that is easy and familiar to me, that I felt lost for a few weeks. I think I'm realizing now that it's OK to not know everything. I'm a bit too much of a sucker for self-analysis, and it gets me into trouble. The best way to move is forward, and I need to stop throwing my head over my shoulder or to the sides and wondering about other directions. Trod along is my new motto! I have loads more to write, but it'll have to wait 'til after this rally. And maybe it'll be a bit more comprehensible, too... 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 59 of 96 21 July 2012 at 10:54am | IP Logged |
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Hahaha, she'll be right, mate (this should be said in an Australian accent for the best
effect). Just remember that image you sent me a while back and I'll remember that image and we'll stop being self-conscious! Or something. Actually I like to quote a certain Barney Stinson nowadays: "When I get sad, I stop being sad and be AWESOME instead". I think more people should take this to heart. :D It's good to hear your Russian is improving! I hope you'll post more in the future 'cause I like having your encouragement around :D 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Tecktight Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member United States Joined 4974 days ago 227 posts - 327 votes Speaks: English*, Serbian Studies: German, Russian, Estonian | Message 60 of 96 22 July 2012 at 8:29am | IP Logged |
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Love that quote! I wrote it down and stuck it to my bathroom mirror. Said bathroom mirror is already
getting completely plastered in such things. Pretty soon, I'll have no mirror left at all. It'll just be a sticky-board full of notes. So I'm going to take a page from Cristina's book and start running weekly numbers on my language studies. I should have done it before, but, well, I didn't. Now, however, I have realized how beneficial they are to keeping my brain organized. First one, therefore, is below. Unfortunately, the motorcycle rally yesterday was a flop, because we couldn't find the place. It was supposed to be near the "Sparrow Hill" metro, but all we found there was a nature park. Not that I'm complaining, because I'm rather happy I discovered a place where I can take nature walks. Moreover, I finally discovered the access point of the park alongside the river that I've always wanted to visit. We strolled a bit along that park avenue--it was quite nice. Edited by Tecktight on 22 July 2012 at 8:41am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Tecktight Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member United States Joined 4974 days ago 227 posts - 327 votes Speaks: English*, Serbian Studies: German, Russian, Estonian | Message 61 of 96 22 July 2012 at 8:37am | IP Logged |
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LANGUAGE LOG--WEEK 1 of New Motivation
Monday, July 15 Russian Classtime: 5 hours Russian Independent study: 55 min Tuesday, July 16 Russian Classtime: 3 hours, 30 min R Indep. Study: 45 min Wednesday, July 17 R Indep. Study: 1 hour, 20 min Thursday, July 18 R Class: 3 hours, 30 min R Indep. Study: 3 hours, 15 min Friday, July 19 R Indep. Study: 1 hour, 20 min Saturday, July 20 R. Indep. Study: 35 min Sunday, July 21 R. Indep. Study: 53 min Total: 25 hours, 5 minutes. Edited by Tecktight on 23 July 2012 at 4:52am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Tecktight Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member United States Joined 4974 days ago 227 posts - 327 votes Speaks: English*, Serbian Studies: German, Russian, Estonian | Message 62 of 96 22 July 2012 at 9:36pm | IP Logged |
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Well, I’ll start posting a few tidbits, I suppose.
Russian class here is, in sum, hilarious. My commute is about an hour and 15 minutes, so I have to leave at 8:30AM ish to make it there by the time class starts. My productivity on the metro depends on how crowded it is. I have three line switches, and before the third switch, the metro cars are generally full to the brim, meaning I’m squished like a sardine and can’t do much but stand. When I have room to move my arms, I’m generally studying vocabulary. We have three vocabulary quizzes a week (i.e. one on Monday, Wednesday, Friday). I loathe these quizzes, because, for each one, I have to memorize 25- 60 words. Granted, I’ve picked up a fair bit of vocabulary, but I’ve forgotten a lot of it, too. My average score is 30%. Lately, I’ve managed to get 50% or more, and once even a 75% (my highest). It’s rather demoralizing because I’m used to getting perfect or near-perfect scores in German class (not to sound pompous or anything— German words are just so much easier for me to remember than Russian ones). Sometimes I’ll read my Spanish book. Unfortunately, the metro is waaaay too loud to effectively listen to Pimsleur or an audiobook, so I can only ever listen to music. Class is from 10AM – 1:30PM, with a 10 minute break. On Mondays, I have a 1.5 hours one-on-one session with the teacher (as every student in the class does). The class is divided by the following schedule: Monday: Literature + Discussion + Individual Session Tuesday: Grammar Wednesday: No class—English lecture Thursday: Literature Friday: Newspapers/Phonetics So we start Mondays off with these quizzes (called диктанты). Then we proceed to some piece of literature. We started off with Tolstoy and are now wrapping up a short story by Lermontov. After a bout of heavy reading, we engage in a discussion on some pre-ordained topic. We are required to write monologue things about said topic and then speak about them. Last week, we covered the legalization of marijuana and gun control. I have no idea what's on the agenda for this upcoming week. Grammar-wise, we are working on verb aspects and converting active voice TO passive voice. It's all very head- ache-ensuing. Still, I think I prefer grammar days to literature days, because I don't have to prepare so much in advance. Wednesdays we have a lecture series in English, covering topics about Russian politics and history. I haven't really been attending these the past couple weeks, because I've been super tired. Thursday is essentially a repeat of Monday. Friday, we do phonetics (tongue twisters, reading aloud, etc.) and read newspaper articles. At that point, the week is blissfully over. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| drsarvo Diglot Senior Member Mexico Joined 4710 days ago 143 posts - 149 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English Studies: Russian | Message 63 of 96 23 July 2012 at 2:08am | IP Logged |
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I think it's a great Russian learning system. I wish you luck.
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| drsarvo Diglot Senior Member Mexico Joined 4710 days ago 143 posts - 149 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English Studies: Russian | Message 64 of 96 23 July 2012 at 2:16am | IP Logged |
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Reading your learning schedule makes me realize how limited is my autodidactic approach. On the other
hand, a lang8 contact brought my attention on something called "verbal adverbs", which opens a new chapter in Russian grammar. By the way, thanks for the YouTube tips! I found some great movies. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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