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Cristina’s travels TAC 2015 Team Pushkin

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ellasevia
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 Message 185 of 297
28 December 2014 at 8:42am | IP Logged 
Cristina, I'll admit that I haven't followed your log as closely as I would have liked to over the past few months, but from what I've gathered you seem to have had a very productive year. As always, I admire your dedication to forging onward with Russian and I think that this dedication has really shown itself in your progress this year.

From the sounds of it, it also seems like you had a lovely Christmas -- Tania and Cesar must feel so lucky to have been able to spend it with such a wonderful hostess. I'm sorry I didn't make it up to Norway this past summer (though oddly enough I got to both Finland and Iceland), but I hope to visit soon!

I can't wait to hear about all of your progress in Russian in the coming year, as well as more exciting accounts of your travels.

С Новым Годом!

Edited by ellasevia on 28 December 2014 at 8:45am

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Solfrid Cristin
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 Message 186 of 297
28 December 2014 at 8:50am | IP Logged 
Hi, ellasevia, good to hear from you! Yes, I am finally getting somewhere with my Russian, although I am still
not at the level where I'll change it to 'speaks'. That will be one of my goals for next year, though.

And we have had a lovely Christmas. One of the best I can remember. So sorry we did not get to meet up,
but let's hope that there will be room for that too in 2015!
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tarvos
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 Message 187 of 297
28 December 2014 at 11:19am | IP Logged 
Solfrid Cristin wrote:
Serpent wrote:
It definitely sounds like you've reached the
intermediate level in Russian ;) You probably
just flew by it so fast in Spanish/French/Italian that you didn't notice :D


If a low B1 in speaking qualifies, then yes, but reading and writing are still in the
A2 range, and grammar
more in the A1 range :-), so I am not quite sure. It is just that unlike almost
everyone else (with the exception
of Tarvos) I have focused more on speaking than on reading and writing. It seems that
usually people go
more for the passive or written skills.


Your grammar isn't A1. You don't make that many elementary mistakes anymore.

As for speaking, I've done a lot of online tutoring and I've spent some time in Russia
of course but I don't hugely speak much Russian (though it isn't a problem to switch
into Russian at all). I've actually got all right grammar mostly because I text so
much through VK and Interpals and so on in Russian that I've gotten very good at
reading personal messages fast. I used to lack writing and reading skills, but that
was because I never bothered with literature very much. So I think I should say that
my skills holistically speaking are quite all-round nowadays. The speaking focus has
helped though.

Edited by tarvos on 28 December 2014 at 11:21am

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Serpent
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 Message 188 of 297
28 December 2014 at 2:52pm | IP Logged 
Well, changing it to speaks is not intermediate but basic fluency ;)
I also don't think the CEFR levels correspond directly to beginner/intermediate/advanced.
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tarvos
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 Message 189 of 297
28 December 2014 at 3:49pm | IP Logged 
I usually (vaguely) correlate beginner to A levels, intermediate to B levels, and
advanced to C levels, but that's an incredibly basic simplification. Sometimes I make a
distinction between A1/A2/B1 and B2/C1/C2 because the latter require a certain sense of
accuracy that's less common at the lower levels.

But I don't turn it into a science.
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Solfrid Cristin
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 Message 190 of 297
01 January 2015 at 5:33pm | IP Logged 
@tarvos: My capacity for making beginners's mistakes is infinite, in any language :-)
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Solfrid Cristin
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Winner TAC 2011 & 2012
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Joined 5333 days ago

4143 posts - 8864 votes 
Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian
Studies: Russian

 
 Message 191 of 297
01 January 2015 at 5:34pm | IP Logged 
STARTING THE YEAR 2015

TAC 2015

For those who do not know me I am a 52 year old Norwegian philologist with French, Spanish and English as
part of my degree. I started out as a high school teacher, but have now worked within international affairs in
the railway sector for 23 years. I am a language nut. Always have been, always will be. And this is my fourth
TAC.

Soooo. What will be my priorities for 2015?


RUSSIAN

This language will again be my main priority. This is the year that I intend to get a firm grip on a B1 in
Russian, and if possible pass the B1 exam in it. This is the year I want to be able to change my status to
'speaking' for Russian, and this is the year I want to get enough confidence to speak Russian with friends
and colleagues and not chicken out and speak English. And this is the year I will dive even more into the
culture of both Russia and other Russian speaking countries.

For those unfamiliar with my background in Russian, I have been studying it in my non existing free time for
the last four years, use a private tutor when I can squeeze in the time and have been a total of two months in
Ukraine for Russian courses there. I also went to Moscow twice last year, and hope to go again as soon as
possible. Absolutely love the city and the people living there :-)

I intend to reach my goals by trying to catch every opportunity to talk Russian (I have an appointment with a
Russian speaker in two days), take Russian classes when I can, and will watch films and read books for the
Super Challenge plus doing a little grammar now and then. Resources: I have three meters of them :-)

ITALIAN AND German

They are both on their death bed. They need resuscitation. I do not quite know what to do with my Italian, but
I hope I'll get creative some time during the year. I can take some private classes for my German - if I can
manage to find the time.

FRENCH, English AND Spanish

I never thought I would need to do much with them, but this is the year when I will need to do some upkeep.
Not sure what yet, but I get to use my English a lot - I just need to remember to proof read properly. French I
will try to use with every French speaker I meet, and possibly seeing some films and reading some books for
the Super Challenge. Spanish I speak quite a lot, but I would need to speak it at a more advanced level.

KAZAKH

This is really more of a dabbling language - and my only resource so far is my Kazakh friend, but I will try to
learn a little in case my dream of going to Kazakhstan this year comes true. I'll see if I can find some free
Internet sources in addition to my friend :-) I'll set 200 words and sentences as my goal for 2015.

JAPANESE

There is a tiny possibility that I may go to Japan for my work this year, so just in case, I will dabble a little in
Japanese as well. I have both Pimsleur, Michel Thomas and Assimil and Japanese, plus some easy
beginners' materials, so I should be all set. I'll put 100 words and sentences in writing, or 200 spoken ones as
my goal for this year.

So: I look immensely forward to being on team Pushkin, and hope we can motivate each other to reach all
our goals in Russian, be they at beginner level or advanced level.

And I look forward to keeping this log, which has become as much a life blog as a language blog for me.

Good luck to every TACer out there!
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tarvos
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 Message 192 of 297
01 January 2015 at 8:09pm | IP Logged 
Solfrid Cristin wrote:
@tarvos: My capacity for making beginners's mistakes is
infinite, in any language :-)


I made a few beginner's mistakes just some weeks ago. But the question is - is it an
incident or a regular occurrence. If it's the first, don't worry about it. If you're
still seeing regular problems with very basic distinctions, that's when you need a
strategy to combat it. But like I said, you do not make those mistakes structurally (at
least, not as far as I can tell).


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