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Russian Read&Speak - TAC 2013 Team Mir | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| 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 105 of 142 12 June 2013 at 5:31pm | IP Logged |
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Sounds like a nice combo, tarvos. Chinesepod got exactly the small chunks that will keep your Mandarin alive and going on.
I'm not that fond of drilling. Apart from a shared Anki deck which gets beyond my level too easy, i'm doing Peng's Fun With Chinese Characters. I've also done Heisig's Remembering the Hanzi 1 if I'm not mistaken. As for writing, for the first lessons I used to type the characters at e-strokes, where I got them animated. And I did write down all the exercises for Assimil as well as for Méthode 90. 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 106 of 142 18 June 2013 at 8:08pm | IP Logged |
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I had a look at Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, I planned on reading it in Russian-English parallel and maybe I'd find the audiobook, but it would still be too tiresome. Still a lot to do regarding my Russian. I'm currently at lesson 71 of Assimil Le Russe 2008 and I expect to finish it in about two weeks.
I think that the same will happen with Russian as it did with Chinese. I might spend at least 1 and a half year browsing through beginner's textbook till I move into an intermediate one, which won't mean I will have consolidated the beginner's knowledge. There is just so much to learn in terms of vocabulary, and the declensions seem so impractical. Right now what I need the most is passive reading skills, so that I don't need to worry about them that much, but I still need to work a lot on my Russian. I may do Méthode 90 after Nina Potapova's and then there are many other options. At least shortage of resources is not a problem. 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 107 of 142 24 June 2013 at 11:00pm | IP Logged |
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Time for some update. First, Russian, as this is the title of this log. I'm dying to finish Assimil's latest book. There are so many other books I want to study from, namely Nina Potapova's and Méthode 90, but I'm also tempted about restarting Princeton's course. I'm still slow and retaining nearly nothing on declensions, but some words and roots start to stick into mind. The sentences at my Anki deck aren't a blurr of words I can't report to their translations any longer. The Georgian textbook which is in Russian, otoh, isn't of great help. I can't seem to make much sense out of the Russian being written there.
As for my schedule as a whole, I'm able to keep it. I'm usually done with Russian and more than halfway through Georgian when I leave home, which leaves only one or one and a half Georgian textbook to finish at work (usually it's the lesson from ice.ge, which is long), and Norwegian of course, which has been easier in the past weeks as my reading skills improve. It's still tiresome to watch two series episodes plus a short video in Papiamento, and I'm more and more convinced that I won't do that anymore once I'm done with watching Ghost Whisperer in French. I'll rather watch Fench films out of any fixed daily goal, only a little each day, just like I read books only by a few pages each day. And that will last until I can watch films in, for example, Norwegian, which will replace French. I think the commitment to watching two series a day; the Georgian textbooks in foreign languages I can't read properly yet; the monolingual Georgian course with no transcribed dialogues and the Chinese book with no pinyin for the exercises (Méthode 90, which I plan to finish in two weeks) are the main sources of stress over the past days. It's always more comfortable to have lessons with translations and transcriptions, and that's why I praise Assimil so much. Even though it sometimes crams up too many words, as in the Russian books, it's still a predictable course. You won't need to check extra sources while you're with Assimil. One thing about my choice of materials is that most of them demand computer-based learning and a fully-immersed studying process. Sometimes I need both the iPad and the desktop. I need to be able to play audio and to translate unknown words BOTH from target and from source language. Only a few resources can be used standalone, and these are Peng's Fun with Chinese Vocabulary and Assimil Russe. That's still not optimal, because I miss the translations, the audio, the exercises being written down on a notebook. Still, those two books are my option when I am a bit behind schedule and need to hurry up to at least start with Georgian before I leave home. As for the post-textbook learning, the series are obviously compuyter+headphone dependant, but the French book isn't; I can read it extensively and miss almost nothing from the plot. The Norwegian book (Kabalmysteryet) still requires the Portuguese translation and a dictionary/online translator, leave alone the Georgian one (translation of Lord of the Flies). I do want to be able to do more studying by comfortably lying on bed, but that tends to happen at intermediate to advanced stages. 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 108 of 142 01 July 2013 at 7:46pm | IP Logged |
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I'm done with my third and last Assimil Russian, the 2008 edition. It is better than the previous two, but the Russian vocabulary is still too overwhelming. All of those three books still don't allow me to go for an intermediate textbook. I'm going to start over again and again, this time with Nina Potapova's book.
I'm not happy with my progress for whichever non-Romance-nor-Germanic language. Russian, Georgian and Chinese. I don't feel like I'm making a consitent progress in any of these. It's all about filling in a vocabulary that never seems to be enough for me to read a simple text and get the overall meaning of it. At the last Assimil Russian things started to make sense, but I'm far from reaching a consolidated A2 level. Once again i'm going to start over with a textbook. I really hope this time things will start to stick around. 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 109 of 142 17 July 2013 at 9:56pm | IP Logged |
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It's time for some Russian update. I haven't been enforcing my Russian studies as much as I've been trying to do with Chinese and Georgian.So far I've only been using the Nina Potapova's book in the morning, during the normal schedule time. (As for Chinese and Georgian, I've added up more study in the afternoon after I'm done with all other languages). I got the suggestion of Beginning Russian Through Film, but I have limited access to it and I'd have to do it also in the morning, only to overcharge my morning schedule a bit more. Besides, it's a bit annoying to watched a video and read the subtitles when you have to translate almost all words. My Chinese is better than my Russian at this respect, and I hope that after 2 years of Russian I will be closer to my current Chinese status, which doesn't mean more than an early A2 anyway.
So, I'm considering podcasts, namely Russianpod101, for which I also got the transcripts. They have light target language info in the beginning with loads of cultural info,and I hope this will call up my interest in Russian which still isn't that high. 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 110 of 142 05 August 2013 at 7:16pm | IP Logged |
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I was recalled as a member of Team Mir who eas still active, so I better update on my Russian =D
Still studying it, though much less than Chinese, Georgian or Norwegian. I'm having a good time with Nina Potapova's book. When I tried it several years ago, I still found it overwhelming. Now that I came back to it with a prior knowledge, I think it is working efectively as a graded reader, besides clearing up some grammar topics. It's always better to have a good resource in your native language! (The book is in Portuguese). I'm keeping my Anki deck but I'm about to complete, turn all cards into mature. I'm also studying from Russianpod101 tho I'm still at lessons that deal more with culture than with actual Russian language. Still, it's helping me wonders to boost my interest. 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 111 of 142 21 August 2013 at 10:54pm | IP Logged |
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I am enjoying Nina Potapova's lessons. Slowly learning to decypher the texts. I believe
my Russian is about to change to A2. The podcast lessons are also helping a lot. I have grammar and text input at Nina Potapova's and I get loads of conversational sentences from the podcast. Well, I'm finally starting to believe I will learn to read Russian one day! As for the other languages, yesterday I came close to burnout as I watched too much video, at least 40 min in French and 30 in Georgian, besides the 40 min for English and 20 min for Norwegian I usually take and all the podcasts, audiobooks. Still, I think the end of the year reserves me good surprises, that is, if I manage to keep the current rhythm after september's holidays. 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 112 of 142 10 September 2013 at 12:20am | IP Logged |
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I like the way my Russian studies are evolving. I think they finally moved into the
"fun" way. The textbook in Portuguese is really helpful as I don't need to worry about obscure vocabulary. If I come across a word that is the name of an obscure flower, I just overlook it. Meanwhile, I'm finally internalizing some important words that so far looked the same. I start to get the hang of the Russian sentence and recognize the diverse case endings. Still learning mainly passively: I'm nowhere concerned with actually writing my own sentences. Starting from last week I changed my work-time but it didn't have that big impact on language learning. It is only that now I'll have to do the video watching when I'm back at home. I'll be taking almost 2 weeks of holidays as I'm busy with some paperwork before my trip to Aruba and Curaçao, which will then last for 1 week. I don't think it will represent much damage to my TAC, though, as the most significant difficult which was Russian is being overcome, and my Georgian vocabulary has grown steadily, not to mention my Norwegian which I may as well stop studying from textbooks/learning material by the end of the year. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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