|
 |
Josh’s Russian/Portuguese Log | ||
Tags: Russian | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| josh_badgley Newbie United States Joined 4237 days ago 33 posts - 41 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Portuguese | Message 9 of 20 29 April 2013 at 2:39am | IP Logged | |||||
|
Well I got in about two hours of study today, mostly with The New Penguin Russian Course. I tried to work on Schaum's Outline of Russian Grammar, but it was pretty overwhelming...I may save that one for later. I really like the Penguin course, it's packed with information and I feel like I'm learning a lot. Russian is definitely difficult, but not nearly the monster I had feared. At least the present tense of the verbs isn't too hard, I learned Type 1 and Type 2 verbs and I reviewed some vocab on Anki. I also have been spending some quality time with The Big Silver Book of Russian Verbs. I've been watching a lot of Russian TV and I listen to Russian music at the gym (Zemfira, t.A.T.u., etc.) The only problem with TV is that since I don't understand what's being said, it's hard to focus and watch any single thing at once, although I was overjoyed to find Game of Thrones in Russian! I'm a GoT addict and this just makes learning Russian even sweeter. I'm still waiting on Assimil to arrive, and on an impluse I ordered Michel Thomas Russian, which will supposedly arrive on Tuesday. I think maybe I should finish up MT and the Penguin book before I tackle Assimil, or at least MT. I've spent a lot of money on resources, but I really feel like I'm finally learning a language well and especially one that I enjoy! Edited by josh_badgley on 02 May 2013 at 12:13pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| josh_badgley Newbie United States Joined 4237 days ago 33 posts - 41 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Portuguese | Message 10 of 20 01 May 2013 at 1:20am | IP Logged | |||||
|
What a crazy couple of days.
So I've been puttering along with The New Penguin Russian Course as usual, and I really, really, really like this book! I almost passed it up but based on everyone's reviews here I decided to get it and I'm really glad I did. It's packed with info and I feel like I can really manage this language. So being the impulsive wastrel that I am, I ordered both Assimil and Michel Thomas Russian even though they're far out of my price range. I had planned on doing MT first and then maybe starting in on Assimil, since I ordered Assimil from France (even MORE expensive...) and what do you know? Yestrerday Assimil Russian shows up! I couldn't resist,so I did the first lesson yesterday and the second lesson today and I LOVE this method! I can see why Assimil gets such rave reviews here, I only wish I didn't hate French so much, because so many of the obscure languages I want to learn are available from Assimil. The pronunciation is becoming crystal clear now and the exercises are fun. I'm not sure how far I'll get in finishing it, but I'd say at least to a good intermediate stage. I'll probably stick to a lesson of Assimil a day and then back to the Penguin course to round out an hour of study. MT arrived today and I like this course as well. It's laid back, and also good on pronunciation, which makes me think that it would be ideal for evening time after work/school when I'm too burned out to look at another book. I did about 30 minutes of it just now, bringing my total study time to 1 hour 30 minutes today. I'm averaging about 1 to 2 hours a day so far. And, as usual, wanderlust and impulsiveness struck again yesterday and I picked up a copy of Teach Yourself Bulgarian, and I have part one of the FSI Bulgarian Basic course. I have no idea why Bulgarian is so attractive, maybe I'm becoming infatuated with the whole Slavic language family, but I need to type right here (to convince myself really) that I will not start Bulgarian or Ukrainian or anything else until I've gotten to an intermediate stage with Russian, no matter how tempting that FSI Bulgarian course is... I've also been doing about 20 words a day with Anki during my lunch breaks. So that's about it for today, hopefully I'll get more done tomorrow! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| josh_badgley Newbie United States Joined 4237 days ago 33 posts - 41 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Portuguese | Message 11 of 20 02 May 2013 at 12:44am | IP Logged | |||||
|
I got in an hour of study this morning, I did the third lesson of Assimil and I'm almost done with chapter five of the Penguin course. I reviewed my Anki deck as usual at lunch. I may not be able to get any MT today, my daughter is spending the night, but I'll probably get it done tomorrow. And I've been listening to Russian music at work and at the gym. More Земфира please! Edited by josh_badgley on 02 May 2013 at 12:44am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| josh_badgley Newbie United States Joined 4237 days ago 33 posts - 41 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Portuguese | Message 12 of 20 03 May 2013 at 2:11am | IP Logged | |||||
|
I studied for an hour this morning, 30 minutes of Assimil and 30 minutes of the Penguin course. I am super shocked at how much I am already able to understand watching Russian TV or reading Russian news. It's not much, but I'm already starting to realize when words are in the prepositional case, and I am infering more things from context. Google Translate helps a lot too. Yesterday I saw a detergent advertisement on TV and I was able to understand that the woman was saying "I don't believe (it)" based on the ending of the verb (first person singular). I'm also starting to recognize when verbs are Type 1 or Type 2. I also reviewed my Anki deck during lunch. I'm going to watch a little more Russian TV and then I'll get back to studying tomorrow morning. Edited by josh_badgley on 03 May 2013 at 2:12am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| josh_badgley Newbie United States Joined 4237 days ago 33 posts - 41 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Portuguese | Message 13 of 20 06 May 2013 at 2:05am | IP Logged | |||||
|
I've been pretty sick but I managed to get in 1 hour and 30 minutes of study time today, I did Lesson 7 of Assimil, worked on Lesson 6 in the Penguin course and listened to MT for 30 minutes. I like the MT course, although sometimes I could strangle the male student and the female student keeps wanting to pronounce her Р as if it were a French R. Other than that MT has proven itself enjoyable, especially for times when I'm too tired after work to slog through the Penguin course. I've been averaging about 1 to 2 hours of study per day, and am slowly understanding bits and pieces of music and TV. I'm watching an old Russian movie right now, or at least looking at it, and I have a movie from Netflix coming in tomorrow so I'll finally be able to watch a Russian film with subtitles! I like the way the language sounds, but it's hard to maintain focus when I have no idea what's going on! I also reviewed Anki after dinner. More to come! Edited by josh_badgley on 06 May 2013 at 2:06am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5062 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes  Speaks: Russian* | Message 14 of 20 06 May 2013 at 5:51am | IP Logged | |||||
Why do they do it? It's not unheard among native Russian speakers (several % pronounce it like that). 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| josh_badgley Newbie United States Joined 4237 days ago 33 posts - 41 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Portuguese | Message 15 of 20 06 May 2013 at 12:07pm | IP Logged | |||||
Interesting, I've never heard that particular pronunciation, but then again I've barely been at it two weeks. Still, I think the student just has trouble rolling her р or has likely taken French in the past. The male student though...he wants to put зто in every freaking sentence! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| josh_badgley Newbie United States Joined 4237 days ago 33 posts - 41 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Portuguese | Message 16 of 20 08 May 2013 at 1:17pm | IP Logged | |||||
|
Yesterday I studied for an hour in the morning (Assimil and the Penguin course) and did the MT course for about thirty minutes after work. This morning I studied for another hour. I've run out of new cards in Anki so today after work I'll add more...I should've done it earlier but I'm still learning the Cyrillic keyboard so it takes forever. I really like the Assimil course...I'm on Lesson 10, and at first I was getting frustrated because I didn't feel like anything was "sticking", but today things started getting a little easier. The Penguin course is very good but very dense and I'm finding myself having to constantly review grammar points. I'll post more later.
1 person has voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
