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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| 236factorial Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6548 days ago 192 posts - 213 votes  Speaks: Mandarin, English*, French Studies: Spanish | Message 17 of 42 28 June 2011 at 9:51pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Will do. I've posted in that thread.
You're right about the English construction for age. I don't know (nor have I really thought about) what the "old" means. However, at least it doesn't change case :) Седьмая неделя, часть вторая: "что тебе нужно" and the Imperative Princeton lessons 60-64, Sara story 10-11 After this week, I can say who I am and what I want, like, need, have, and am able to do in Russian! (I consider these the most basic constructions of any language). I can also give people orders (and receive them, since I, in principle, now should understand when something is in the imperative). Unfortunately, I still don't know how to order food in a restaurant or ask for/give directions, so I don't know what's with the delay in the course. I tried watching some Russian TV. That didn't work well. I understood about 5% of the words at most, and some of them were foreign names that I instantly recognized. I wonder if there are any children shows in Russian that I can watch online, because trying to understand political situations in Africa is way too advanced for the moment. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5064 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 18 of 42 28 June 2011 at 11:01pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Order in restaurant: Принесите, пожалуйста, ...
Asking for directions: (Извините), скажите, пожалуйста, где находится...?\как пройти к...? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| DanWorld Groupie Thailand Joined 4909 days ago 40 posts - 50 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Thai, Spanish, Russian | Message 19 of 42 02 July 2011 at 10:27am | IP Logged | |||||
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I just wanted to say I like your log and good luck with your plans!
I started learning Russian at a similar time as you and I started a Russian log on here recently. I'll be watching your progress. I think I will do the Princeton Russian course after I finish up the current things I'm working on, I hear lots of great things about it. What's the best place to download it? I have found links, but I want to be sure I get the best copy. Edited by DanWorld on 02 July 2011 at 10:49am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| 236factorial Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6548 days ago 192 posts - 213 votes Speaks: Mandarin, English*, French Studies: Spanish | Message 20 of 42 04 July 2011 at 7:01pm | IP Logged | |||||
Thanks! Hope you're having fun with your Russian studies too!
All the copies should be the same, as far as I know. I got mine from this site, and it was fine (although it takes a while to download). I would avoid torrent sites, since I hear that they give messy downloads. It's a great course. Although the organization isn't the best (you'll have to figure a few non-intuitive things out), it's one of the most comprehensive courses available, and is quite entertaining at times. Also, if you've downloaded it and are looking through it, nothing is missing (well, hmmm, can't really say that with 100% truth), although sometimes lesson numbering is a little strange. For example, there is no folder called "lesson 27". This is actually simply the first part of the Sara story, for some reason. There is also no such thing as lesson 29, so it has no folder. SLA 101 is the first part of the course, SLA 105 is the second. Princeton's numbering system is a little strange (the Russian sequence goes 101, 102, 105, 107; 103 is a class for heritage speakers). Anyway, enough technical details. So, I've been a little lazy with posting on this log lately, but here we go... Midterm: Week 8, Part I: Instrumental case Princeton lessons 65-68, Sara story 12-13 I didn't even know such a case could exist, but I'm glad that I've been exposed to all the noun cases! I can almost tell that the Instrumental will be the hardest case to master for me, because I'm already having trouble recalling the different endings quickly. Part of the problem might be that I had just finished up wrestling with the Dative case, so my brain wasn't quite ready to be smashed with another exotic case (with virtually no equivalent in English). This marks the half-way point of my summer Russian studies. I do hope that steady progress will continue, since so far I've gone from knowing nothing (besides привет) to knowing all the cases and most of the verb conjugations, with a vocab of about 1000 words (a VERY rough guess, and some of the words take me forever to recall). I have quite a ways to go, however, before I can comfortably speak Russian in many situations, so hopefully, the next 7-8 weeks will bring me closer to fluency. As I said, I don't expect to be totally fluent over one summer, but I wish for a good knowledge of the basics. I wonder how much easier Latin will be, now that I've learned a language with a sophisticated case system. I was talking with a Latin student the other day and noticed that the cases are almost the same in both languages (the Nominative, Accusative, Genitive, and Dative are in both languages, while the Latin Ablative case is roughly split into the two remaining cases in Russian. I don't speak Latin so this might be a bit wrong). While the perfective/imperfective stuff is annoying, I'm blessed that Russian doesn't have the subjunctive mood or tons of subtle tenses that all the Romance languages are plagued with. Edited by 236factorial on 08 July 2011 at 8:29pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| 236factorial Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6548 days ago 192 posts - 213 votes Speaks: Mandarin, English*, French Studies: Spanish | Message 21 of 42 05 July 2011 at 5:20pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Hey! I can read a little bit of this recent interview with an amazing Russian pianist! It's so interesting to read "real" Russian stuff for a change!
(as a small aside, I really wish I could go to this small concert today, since I'm a classical music fanatic [especially of Romantic period composers], and NYC is only 2 hours away, but I have numerous other commitments, including work). Edited by 236factorial on 05 July 2011 at 5:22pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| DanWorld Groupie Thailand Joined 4909 days ago 40 posts - 50 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Thai, Spanish, Russian | Message 22 of 42 05 July 2011 at 11:15pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I have to say I am impressed. After less than 2 months, you have down 1,000 Russian words and can make out
some of that Russian interview. I started around when you did, and I have to learn to not feel bad that I'm not the smartest person in the world :). I'm really happy with my progress, though, and it's mostly a lot of fun. You're obviously talented with languages. I'm wondering, how much does the French/Spanish help you out? I spoke with a girl learning Russian who also knows Italian and she said the languages have many similarities. With your talent and effort, I think you could become at least intermediate in all the Romance languages in a year, truly remarkable; shoot, maybe even intermediate in all the Slavic languages in a year! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5342 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 23 of 42 06 July 2011 at 2:15pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I am also impressed by your progress, you seem to have done as much in 2 months, as I have in a year and a half. Good luck!
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| 236factorial Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6548 days ago 192 posts - 213 votes Speaks: Mandarin, English*, French Studies: Spanish | Message 24 of 42 06 July 2011 at 7:09pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Thanks for all the encouragement! Spanish and French have helped a little (mainly for grammar-related things: for example, the idea of a direct vs indirect object, the notion of "politeness", and agreement of adjectives), but not as much as I had expected. This is good, however, since I intended to study a rather different language.
While it would be nice to speak all the Romance languages, my university coursework makes this impossible. I do very little language work during the academic year. I also like some diversity in language learning, so I would likely tackle something even more different if I were to start a new language (which won't happen for a while). Unfortunately, for me, the learning curve seems to flatten out very quickly after a few months. This happens in nearly everything, not just language study. After barely over a year of piano study, I passed the highest level of my state's piano auditions for pre-collegiate students, but in the seven or eight years since, I've progressed at a much slower pace. In French, it was almost the same way. I'm guessing that the main reason for this is that other projects start distracting me after a while and I start spending less time and energy on my current project. I know that the principle of diminishing returns applies to life in general, but in my case it seems to be much more pronounced in my personal interests. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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