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Eric Blair’s Russian Journey

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19 messages over 3 pages: 13  Next >>
ericblair
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4653 days ago

480 posts - 700 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: French

 
 Message 9 of 19
17 May 2012 at 8:32am | IP Logged 
End of Day 3,

Lesson 3 of Pimsleur - 30 minutes
Michel Thomas Foundation CD 1, Tracks 17-19 ~ 45 minutes

45 minutes study time today.
2:45 hours total.

I just finished up the first MT cd. I know they are randomly split, but I didn't want to
start the next one and only do 15 minutes. I may burn through a lot tomorrow.
2 persons have voted this message useful



ericblair
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4653 days ago

480 posts - 700 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: French

 
 Message 10 of 19
18 May 2012 at 6:11am | IP Logged 
I did part of the 2nd CD for MT Foundation today.

I then went to a Russian import store in another part of the state (I had business
there earlier in the day). I'd never been there, but thought that real life exposure
would trump another plain study day.

It was quite the experience. First, it was cool to practice reading Russian on all the
random advertisements and different styles of food. Stylized Cyrillic can be tricky at
times! Then the owner asked my friends and me if we spoke Russian. I knew what I
wanted to say, but sort of froze up. It was almost like that feeling you get when you
make your move across a room to talk to a beautiful woman. Heart beat was rising and I
felt some nervousness rising in my throat. Sadly, when approaching a beautiful woman,
I can just say things I've been saying my whole life "Hi, my name is....How are you?"
and the feeling goes away. This was not to be, haha. It took me way too long to
process the info, but the guy was quite nice about everything.

I ended up saying hi, introducing myself, and saying it was nice to meet him in
Russian. He then gave me some free samples of a few types of Russian meats that were
quite tasty. He also gave me a couple of month old newspapers from Russia to practice
reading.

All in all, 10/10 for cultural exchange but about a 3/10 for language exchange as I
understand most of what he said but was not really able to get out what I wanted in a
timely manner.

Still fun though. I think I must encourage all other beginners to get out there and be
around the language you are studying if at all possible. I messed up, but no one
yelled, no one was disappointed, and I met a very nice person out of it. He said I was
welcome to return to his store anytime and practice speaking to him! Sadly, I won't be
out the way much and am moving in two weeks, but it was invigorating!
4 persons have voted this message useful



ericblair
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4653 days ago

480 posts - 700 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: French

 
 Message 11 of 19
20 May 2012 at 8:28am | IP Logged 
Started Assimil! I figured with my previous exposure the first week would be ridiculously
slow and boring. So I did Lessons 1-3 yesterday (Friday) with a few hours break between
each. Then lesson 4 this morning and Lesson 5 twice this evening. Tomorrow morning I'll
do Lesson 6 and then review all of the Lessons throughout the afternoon along with 7.

Then Monday I'll start Lesson 8 and go back to the 1 lesson a day pace. Though I'll
likely do it a few times throughout the day using the famous Dutch with Ease directions.

I really like Assimil :)
2 persons have voted this message useful



ericblair
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4653 days ago

480 posts - 700 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: French

 
 Message 12 of 19
21 May 2012 at 7:06am | IP Logged 
Just finished Lesson 7 of Assimil.

I re-listened to all the first 6 lessons and repeated each line out loud in Russian and
then tried to say what it meant in English. I had very high recall, only a couple
sentences were off. Then I went back and read through the grammar notes that seemed
less easy for me to remember and wrote down a few of the tougher vocab words (only on
average 1 per lesson, it is the passive wave after all). Then I read through the Lesson
7 grammar stuff and wrote out the grammar in my own words.

Then I did the final dialogue and had it all down except the negative interrogative
threw me off. Not too bad I'd say.

It has been interesting to start this and think back to how things were introduced in
my Russian class. 6 lessons in and I've already been exposed to 4 cases here. Very
intriguing.

As I said, tomorrow it is back to 1 lesson per day! Hopefully the positive stuff
continues.
2 persons have voted this message useful



ericblair
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4653 days ago

480 posts - 700 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: French

 
 Message 13 of 19
24 May 2012 at 6:03pm | IP Logged 
Chugging along doing one lesson a day. I do it once in the morning and once at night. It
takes about 20 minutes in the morning because I also re-write any grammar notes that seem
tricky to me. 10-15 minutes at night, tops.

I have a translation question, though. Lesson 11 is a dialogue between two people about
a film.

а мне он не нравится = Well, I don't like it.

So, I am still a beginner, but is this correct? I guess I don't get why the "OH" is
there since I am under the impression that OH means "he" or "him." Any clarification on
this would be greatly appreciated!
2 persons have voted this message useful



Марк
Senior Member
Russian Federation
Joined 4998 days ago

2096 posts - 2972 votes 
Speaks: Russian*

 
 Message 14 of 19
25 May 2012 at 10:26am | IP Logged 
ericblair wrote:
Chugging along doing one lesson a day. I do it once in the morning
and once at night. It
takes about 20 minutes in the morning because I also re-write any grammar notes that
seem
tricky to me. 10-15 minutes at night, tops.

I have a translation question, though. Lesson 11 is a dialogue between two people
about
a film.

а мне он не нравится = Well, I don't like it.

So, I am still a beginner, but is this correct? I guess I don't get why the "OH" is
there since I am under the impression that OH means "he" or "him." Any clarification
on
this would be greatly appreciated!

And to me, he doesn't appeal.
3 persons have voted this message useful



tarvos
Super Polyglot
Winner TAC 2012
Senior Member
China
likeapolyglot.wordpr
Joined 4649 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 15 of 19
25 May 2012 at 11:25am | IP Logged 
if you use a construction with мне нравится, then the thing that you (dis)like is in the nominative. So literally it translates as "he doesn't appeal to me".
3 persons have voted this message useful



Evita
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Latvia
learnlatvian.info
Joined 6494 days ago

734 posts - 1036 votes 
Speaks: Latvian*, English, German, Russian
Studies: Korean, Finnish

 
 Message 16 of 19
25 May 2012 at 1:59pm | IP Logged 
ericblair wrote:
I have a translation question, though. Lesson 11 is a dialogue between two people about a film.

а мне он не нравится = Well, I don't like it.

So, I am still a beginner, but is this correct? I guess I don't get why the "OH" is
there since I am under the impression that OH means "he" or "him." Any clarification on
this would be greatly appreciated!

Yes, this is correct. See here for more details.


3 persons have voted this message useful



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