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Eric Blair’s Russian Journey | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| ericblair Senior Member United States Joined 4560 days ago 480 posts - 700 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 1 of 19 14 May 2012 at 8:17am | IP Logged |
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So, tomorrow will mark the beginning of my self-studying Russian. I have taken one
semester (Fall 2011) and enjoyed it quite a bit. I am sure I lost a ton since I've not had the opportunity these past 5+ months to really dig in. However, I've now graduated university (as of today!) and can really throw myself into it. My only plans this summer are to study for the June LSAT and study Russian. I will start tomorrow (Monday). My resources: Russian with Ease Assimil New Penguin Russian Course Michel Thomas (older versions, it is a bit cheaper than the new) Pimsleur (hooray public libraries and interlibrary loan) Game plan going forward is as follows: 1. begin with Pimsleur and MT. I may double up the Pimsleur's and do 1 in the morning and one in the evening if it seems I am still doing well with it. I'd do MT mid- afternoon. So, this way, I will be getting some contact with the language at multiple points throughout the day. 2. As it seems I will finish MT much faster than Pimsleur, I will then begin doing Assimil. I'll likely use the "Dutch with Ease" directions with some slight tweaking from my Assimil Italian experience to try to make it most effective for me. The reason I want to get into Assimil next is to expose myself to even more native speakers. Plus, the passive phase lasts a while and it will be good to get going on it. 3. Once I tire of Pimsleur or finish it all (seems to be a toss-up which will happen first based off what I've read around the site, haha), I will begin the New Penguin Russian Course. So, it seems that'd do well because I'd start to review some of the grammar in a different manner than how it is explained in Assimil and would hopefully understand it that much better. Not sure how long all this will take me as I may or may not do 2 Pimsleurs a day, etc....but, hopefully things go well. After I work through the Penguin book, I imagine I will be into the active Assimil phase. That'll take precedence, but I will begin trying for Skype chats with Russian speakers and such at that point and start to try to find podcasts and whatnot to practice my listening. My goal is to have good skills all-around, but the test I will eventually take to get bonus points for a job will be around 2/3 speaking and 1/3 listening, so I will tweak with an emphasis on that as time goes on, but the goal for now is just to elevate all my skills! Thoughts? Concerns? Criticisms? All is welcome! I am quite excited to get going tomorrow, but alas, I must head to bed first. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| ericblair Senior Member United States Joined 4560 days ago 480 posts - 700 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 2 of 19 15 May 2012 at 6:23am | IP Logged |
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Day 1:
Lesson 1 of Pimsleur - 30 minutes Michel Thomas Foundation CD 1, Tracks 1-8 - ~30 minutes 1 hour study time total. It went pretty well. I'd say about 98% of the Pimsleur was not a problem and I got all of the MT stuff so far with no issue. I do know the programs aren't going to start off going nuts, but it feels nice to have some early success. Also, just about all this is review from my one semester of in-class Russian. But, it is off to a good start so far. I unfortunately was out and about a little longer than expected today, but should be able to do more MT tomorrow than today. I like the feel of the program so far. It will be interesting to see how I like it once I get more into the meat of the course. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| ericblair Senior Member United States Joined 4560 days ago 480 posts - 700 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 3 of 19 15 May 2012 at 7:46pm | IP Logged |
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Just did the second Pimsleur lesson a little bit ago. First words that were totally
unfamiliar to me. I definitely had to type them into google translate to be able to read them correctly. I know some may say that will hinder me, but...I have to be able to pronounce the stuff the right way before I worry about speed! also, I do hit the pause button for the longer things. I'd rather make the correct construction a bit slower than get cut off or screw up from speed 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| ericblair Senior Member United States Joined 4560 days ago 480 posts - 700 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 4 of 19 16 May 2012 at 7:14am | IP Logged |
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Alright, end of Day 2.
Lesson 2 of Pimsleur - 30 minutes Michel Thomas Foundation CD 1, Tracks 9-16 ~ 30 minutes 1 hour study time today. 2 hours total. I like MT much, much more than Pimsleur so far. Tomorrow I should have a decent amount of free time in the afternoon, so I may try to do a few hours chunk of MT since there seems to be no reason not to do it all at once. It makes me feel more like I can actually go out and immediately use the stuff I am hearing. We shall see if this feeling lasts! Edited by ericblair on 16 May 2012 at 7:15am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| ericblair Senior Member United States Joined 4560 days ago 480 posts - 700 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 5 of 19 16 May 2012 at 7:48pm | IP Logged |
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Just did the 3rd Pimsleur lesson. This could be my last. It seems that the amount
gained for the time put in is incredibly low. I'm sure there is a breakdown somewhere on this site of the about of vocab, etc.... Also, it could just be that I don't have a commute to work or anything currently, so I find the audio even more boring since it is all there is to focus on. Am I way off in thinking the 45 or so hours (assuming no repeated lessons) could be better utilized in other ways to learn vocab and grammar? I think I will continue with the Michel Thomas as planned, and begin the New Penguin Russian Course tomorrow in lieu of continuing Pimsleur. Then Monday I will begin my Assimil Russian (I like to start Assimil on a Monday so the 7th day off coincides with the weekend). I am taking the LSAT at the start of June, so I will probably limit myself to the above 2 things in the meantime. So, spending around an hour a day working through the Penguin course and then however long on Assimil (I'll probably follow the Dutch with Ease directions that seem so popular). So, by next week I will just be working through the New Penguin course and the passive Assimil wave. Thoughts? Also, I have been saving bookmarks of tons of sites and resources and figured I'd share here to see if people at opinions. Anyone think any of these would add a lot to my learning experience? http://www.amazon.com/Oxford-Take-Off-In-Russian/dp/01995342 92/ref=sr_1_1? ie=UTF8&qid=1337183989&sr=8-1 http://www.amazon.com/Essential-Russian-Grammar-Language- Guides/dp/048627375X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1337184023&sr=8- 1 http://www.amazon.com/Schaums-Outline-Russian-Grammar-Levine /dp/0070382387/ref=sr_1_2? s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1337184109&sr=1-2 (or the newer version) http://www.amazon.com/Survival-Russian-Expanded-Second- Edition/dp/1880100568/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1337185 906&sr=1-1 None of them are very pricey, so I'd be fine to add them if they seem like they'd add a lot (from anyone that has used them), but I also don't feel the need to spend money just to spend money, haha. There are also these random free online resources (I will list many I've come across just so anyone viewing this thread and considering Russian can have a good place to start as well): Princeton Russian Course- I had considered this before, but it appears there is still not a complete answer key anywhere online as far as I know. Golosa: Appears to be a full textbook course available online for free http://www.gwu.edu/~slavic/golosa/ Thorough Reference Grammar: http://www.alphadictionary.com/rusgrammar/ A nice looking self study guide for beginners. Looks like it covers basic grammar and has some vocab building exercises along with tests: http://www.russianforeveryone.com/ Another free beginner course. Though the animations and website layout look a bit less refined than some others places, it does include some texts and dialogue with audio. It also has an Advanced Russian side, which I am obviously not on the level for, but that includes music videos, comics, cartoons, etc....: http://www.russianforfree.com/ Simplified Russian news for foreign listeners: http://nclrc.org/webcasts/russian/ This is another site that looks straight out of the 90's, but has many intro topics. It also includes some full side-by-side translations of Anna Karenina (by Constance Garnett) and Notes from Underground. http://learningrussian.net/ This is a full online textbook: http://www.gefix.net/sazov/ Many of these course links are dead, but "Interesting Reading Practice" and "Things to Listen to" appear to have lots of good options: https://sites.google.com/site/links4languages/russian So, after my LSAT test, does anyone think any of the above would compliment the New Penguin Russian Course and Assimil well? Or would I be better served just really focusing on those two sources and getting all I can out of them and not spreading myself too thin? I know there is no right answer for everyone, but any opinions from those of you that have self-studied successfully before in any language would be greatly appreciated. I just wasn't sure if, based off using the New Penguin Russian Course and Assimil if an outside perspective would help to say "Oh, that is good, but you really would be neglecting _________" and then I could use something from above (or other suggested courses) to fill in the hole. Thanks. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| ericblair Senior Member United States Joined 4560 days ago 480 posts - 700 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 6 of 19 16 May 2012 at 8:40pm | IP Logged |
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http://www.amazon.com/Hugo-Language-Course-Russian-Months/dp /0789435853/ref=sr_1_1?
ie=UTF8&qid=1337193297&sr=8-1 There is also this course, made by the same guy as the very well-regarded New Penguin Russian Course 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4871 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 7 of 19 16 May 2012 at 11:44pm | IP Logged |
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I would say it's worth continuing with Pimsleur, but for the pronunciation practice
more than for grammar and vocab. Maybe not all 45 hours though, perhaps just do the first couple of levels. Don't worry too much about how much vocab it doesn't cover, the stuff it does cover is very important, and you will end up knowing it very well. Pimsleur, although painfully boring, (sometimes) is great speaking practice. I would suggest going back and repeating lessons that you have had to use the pause button, and making sure you can do them without. This will develop a certain amount of automaticity which will be important when it comes to conversing. There is actually a great thread about this, started by Leosmith, called "its not just about Pimsleur" which discusses this in depth, with reference to the Russian Course in particular. Good luck! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| ericblair Senior Member United States Joined 4560 days ago 480 posts - 700 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 8 of 19 17 May 2012 at 12:38am | IP Logged |
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dbag, I actually was just reading through that thread before I saw your response. I don't
think that thread is that encouraging to stick with it, haha. Maybe if I had the full transcript. I like the comment from that thread of "I agree that Pimsleur is great IF you understand what you are getting and what you certainly won't get out of it." I guess that ties into what you were saying about it being for pronunciation practice and not much else. I guess I just feel like concentrating on nailing down the grammar and expanding my vocab in that amount of hours would do a lot more for me as my accent will get mainly developed from eventually doing Skype chats with Russians and such. But, I guess I'll consider doing a bit more Pimsleur. Thanks for your input! 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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