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Solfrid Cristin TAC 2012 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 4798 days ago 614 posts - 782 votes  Speaks: English*, Arabic (Egyptian)* Studies: Russian, Japanese, Hungarian | Message 65 of 270 13 February 2012 at 7:13am | IP Logged | |||||
OMG, the visuals on that :)))) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5335 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 66 of 270 13 February 2012 at 9:08am | IP Logged | |||||
I have got to admit that there are days when I get so mad that I could very well imagine letting my husband be both sedated, shaved and tattoed, but I draw the line at castrated :-) 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5335 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 67 of 270 14 February 2012 at 11:30pm | IP Logged | |||||
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So my brain in officially turning to mush due to overload of studies. Let me give you a piece of my day. I got up at 6.15, and turn on Pimsleur Russian. No I do not turn him on. I just turn on the CD. Then I listen to Assimil Russian – or was it Sosedi – I cannot even remember – from my home until I sit comfortably behind my desk with my computer on, and my caffe latte poured in my cup (No, not Starbucks, just the machine at my job, not top quality, but free)
I then turn to my work and read tons of railway documents in English about Authorized Applicants, Key Performance Indicators and Interoperability on High Speed lines and other railway related topics that someone who majored in literature just finds fascinating... When I had done that for a few hours, I made a few calls to schools in Spain, as I would like to get my daughter into one. The good news was that I got compliments for my Spanish, which sort of made my day. And no, there were no bad news. Then I had a brisk walk to Berlitz, where I first have three classes of German, and then two classes of Russian. At this point I thought I was going to have a meltdown, as my ability to answer questions in German rationally simply stopped at one point. Fortunately I was so jazzed up by the time I got to Russian class, that for the first time I spoke most Russian to her, whereas she spoke most Norwegian to me. It has always been the other way round. And she was pleased about the amount of Russian I had done! After leaving the school I realized that I needed to call my Peruvian friend, to find out where her legal case was at, which took more than half an hour (in Spanish of course). When I got to the station, and started the car, Michel Thomas Russian started automatically, but I turned it off. It is a 3 minutes drive from the station, and my brain was Russian saturated anyway. Then after a chat with the children, we watched two episodes of Bones in English, with English subtitles. Then a phonecall to a friend in Spain (in Spanish of course), to discuss details over the exchange this summer. I had then planned to do some more Russian, but my daughter needed me to teach her to play the guitar. Ok, factor in that 1) I have not really played the guitar since I was her age 2) I had to tune the guitar using YouTube, 3) She has only done about an hour or two previously 4) She was supposed to use chords like Cadd9, that I had not even heard of before, and 5) She is going to perform with a Taylor Swift song and sing along on Thursday – and you’ll get an idea of the magnitude of my task. Fortunately she is a good singer, so I suggested that she sing forcefully, play as little as possible, and dazzle the audience with her beautiful smile. And practice for about four hours tomorrow:-) So now it is half past eleven in the night, and I am considering some more Russian before I go to sleep. 20 minutes of Russian grammar before sleeping should work like a charm... Edited by Solfrid Cristin on 14 February 2012 at 11:33pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5335 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 68 of 270 15 February 2012 at 6:35pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I had a conversation in Russian today!
And she said my Russian was really good! And she wants to meet up to help me with my Russian! And I know I am using way too many exclamation points, but I am just so excited! I overheard a woman sitting next to me on the train speaking Russian on her cell phone. So I grabbed my Russian book and had planned to just sit there quietly and read it, but decided to just jump in and talk to her. If she got mad, the worst thing which could happen was that I would have to move to another wagon. So I asked her in Russian if she was Russian, which she confirmed, and I told her that I was studying Russian, and she asked if I needed any help. Since I was not sure whether she meant help with Russian, or whether she thought I needed help in general, I said no, no, that I just wanted to talk to her to practise my Russian, Then I asked her if she was married, which she also confirmed, and I asked if she was married to a Norwegian or a Russian (or actually, as I figured out later, I asked her is she was married to Russia or Norway, but details, details:-) She said she was married to a Russian, and that she worked here in Norway. I do not usually ask people if they are married 40 seconds after I strike up a conversation, but I am on a budget when it comes to Russian vocabulary here! She gave me her business card, and I had to excuse myself for not having business cards with me, but that my colleague was making them for me just today. I then asked how long she had lived in Norway, and she said she had lived here three year and I then said that then she probably spoke Norwegian, which she also confirmed and then I thanked her, and continued in Norwegian. She said that she would like to help me with my Russian, and that I spoke Russian very well. (O.k. So not true, but still nice to hear.) She told me that she was also trying to improve her Norwegian, so naturally I offered to help her. It was actually amazing, considering she had only been her for three years, I would say she was close to fluent, but I am more than willing to help her with the icing on the cake. We found out that we had both taught English, that we both loved languages. She spoke English, Estonian and some German in addition to Russian and Norwegian. She suggested we meet this weekend already, but since I am going on a vacation on Saturday that was not possible, but I said we could meet next week. She is really friendly, and she is called Irina, and I felt so lucky for meeting her. I would guess she is in her early forties. Since I didn't have a business card with me I had to dive into the deep end of my hand bag to find paper and pen, and probably looked like a homeless person with too much clutter before I was through. I could fit a small dog into my hand bag. I once said to my daughter, "I do not know why my hand bag is so heavy". She just sighed, and said: "That is because you basically have your whole room in it, mom". I was so happy on my way home from the train, that I could use the Norwegian saying "If my ears hadn't been in the way, the smile would have gone all around". Sorry for all the gushing, but I just had to share that little nugget with you guys immediately! 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5557 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona | Message 69 of 270 15 February 2012 at 7:57pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Прекрасно, Кристина! :D
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4708 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 70 of 270 16 February 2012 at 1:06am | IP Logged | |||||
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это какая интерксная история!
J'espère que ce rendez-vous ait vous donné un peu de confiance! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| fabriciocarraro Hexaglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Brazil russoparabrasileirosRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4716 days ago 989 posts - 1454 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishB2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, French Studies: Dutch, German, Japanese | Message 71 of 270 16 February 2012 at 1:23am | IP Logged | |||||
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That's great, Cristina! Lucky you to find her! =)
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Tecktight Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member United States Joined 4977 days ago 227 posts - 327 votes Speaks: English*, Serbian Studies: German, Russian, Estonian | Message 72 of 270 16 February 2012 at 4:16pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Fantastic updates, as usual, Cristina. Your writings are a real joy to read, and always make me laugh. Of course, I
tend to read HTAL during lectures and, thanks to you, I've been known to laugh aloud at times, to the chagrin of my professors. Oops! But it's worth the glares. Congratulations on the conversation with Irina! She sounds like she'll be a great resource for you, and, hopefully, a good future friend, as well! You've really racked up the hours in the past few weeks. How you can do so with all that you already have on your plate is a wonder, but, even more, an inspiration! From now on, when I find myself lacking motivation or a language muse, I'll announce aloud "In the style of Cristina, I shall henceforth put my nose to the grind-stone!" and then delve into the books. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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