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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Silenz Newbie AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4905 days ago 23 posts - 33 votes Studies: French, German, Russian | Message 1 of 11 03 July 2011 at 12:17pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Since the theme of this log is changing somewhat, this post will be modified
accordingly. This journal is now about my French, German and Russian adventures!! Where was I when I started this? German: Beginner, can express thoughts to some extent, can form mostly grammatically correct sentences. French: About to become a beginner Russian: About to become a beginner First of all, Russian is just such an amazingly different language, with a reputation for being difficult. The culture associated with Russia is also amazing, such a rich history in so many different disciplines and areas. I just love Germany, and almost everything about it. I hope to spend some part of my university degree over there. French was just something that kind of happened to be there, so I checked it out and decided I liked it. Pretty cool country, also with a lot of contributions to many areas, and a huge amount of literature. Initially, I will be using mostly Michel Thomas courses, FSI courses and listening to podcasts. Afterwards, there are lots of books I've found for all of these languages that I can't wait to begin using. At this stage, most days I'll be spending most of my shift at work on languages, splitting it with mostly German, and the rest divided between French and Russian in whatever manner is most appealing at the time. Other time I have during the day will be split similarly. If anyone has any advice or tips on how to maximise my output to effort ratio, I'd appreciate hearing your thoughts. Edited by Silenz on 07 July 2011 at 6:47am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5047 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes  Speaks: Russian* | Message 2 of 11 04 July 2011 at 10:57pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Many people praised Princeton Russian course.
http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=26915&PN=1&TPN=1 Edited by Марк on 04 July 2011 at 11:56pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Silenz Newbie AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4905 days ago 23 posts - 33 votes Studies: French, German, Russian | Message 3 of 11 05 July 2011 at 9:43am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Thank you, Марк. I have downloaded it, and shall have a look at some point today,
hopefully. Small update: Reading is not so difficult at this point, though my vocabulary is basically non- existant, so, to my ears, I'm basically just making meaningles noises at this stage :P I spent about 3 hours or so last night listening to my Russianpod101 podcasts to get a basic feel for the language and its pronounciation. Hopefully, on the next listen through, I'll be ready to start drilling words into my skull, now that some of the word structure and sounds are a little more familiar and I've had some practice reproducing them. I will hopefully start on the Princeton course in the next few days. Side note: I came across a copy of Michel Thomas Basic French. Uh-oh. I sense a distraction. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| 236factorial Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6531 days ago 192 posts - 213 votes Speaks: Mandarin, English*, French Studies: Spanish | Message 4 of 11 05 July 2011 at 5:43pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
By the FSI course, do you mean the Russian FAST course? I don't think there is a "basic" course (like for German and French), at least none that I've found.
Russian definitely is different from English. While you'll get saved by a few cognate-like words (especially sports and tech-related things), some other words will seem long and difficult. Russian also will have noun cases, which I think is also found in German, but the Russian declension system is much more pervasive and complex.
I can't help you too much here, since I'm currently learning Russian myself (through the Princeton Russian course, which I like and I'm keeping a log of my progress as well), but I would say that at the rate of a few hours a day, you'll break into the Intermediate level at 6-8 months, at most a year. Learning German simultaneously will somewhat slow your progress (and you may experience information overload at times), but you still should be seeing considerable progress in each language. For your reference: the US Government says that 1200 hours are necessary to reach a rather advanced level. I would say that after three semesters of a solid college course, you'll definitely be "intermediate". That's about 400-500 hours of work in total. One small tip: NEVER try to learn all the cases at once, or, I might say, even more than one per week. Otherwise, you'll find yourself mixing up all the endings and taking ages to search for the right ending in your mind while you speak. Good luck with your studies! I hope you keep updating this log! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| DanWorld Groupie Thailand Joined 4892 days ago 40 posts - 50 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Thai, Spanish, Russian | Message 5 of 11 05 July 2011 at 11:18pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Good luck with your Russian plans. I'll be watching your log.
I started a Russian log recently too. It's cool that we have several people learning Russian together here. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Silenz Newbie AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4905 days ago 23 posts - 33 votes Studies: French, German, Russian | Message 6 of 11 06 July 2011 at 1:14am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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236factorial: Yeah, I meant the FAST course, lol. I'm not entirely enthusiastic about
the case system, however, it does seem somewhat interesting, so it's not worrying me too much. The fact that I found a Michel Thomas Russian course to listen to is also encouraging me, as I learned more about German grammar from my progress in the German course than from anywhere else (And honestly, probably more about English than my English classes ever tought me :P). 236factorial & DanWorld: Yeah, I noticed quite a lot of people are undertaking Russian studies. I'll probably find myself in Russia one day, and the only people I'll meet will be HTLAL-goers :P. Log update: This log will now be about Russian, German, and French ( I got sucked in ): ). After listening to the first CD from the MT French Basic, and getting a basic feel for the language, it just seemed like such an easy task compared to Russian. There was no way I could pass up an opportunity like that, was there? Currently I spend about 6-7 hours at work, and also a few hours at home on language learning, so I'll probably try to split it somewhat like this: German about 2-3 hours. Russian about 1-3 hours. French about 1-2 hours. And whatever time I have leftover will be dedicated to whatever language has the most interesting lessons on that particular day. At the moment, I'm using the Michel Thomas courses for all 3 languages. Today, I went through the first CD for both the Russian, and the French courses once or twice each. With Russian, I'm still just trying to get used to the feel and sound of the language before I start commiting words and phrases to memory. I'm probably going to have to dedicate a few hours at some point for each lesson to just drill all of it into my skull. This should get a lot easier in the future, as the words become more familiar. In French, I learned a few basic phrases, and my first 1200 or so words. I'll have to repeat the first lesson a couple more times though, as I wasn't aiming entirely for commitment to memory. In German, I just had my iPod set to random, and listened through whatever came up. I think the new lesson I came across may have been something about something that my tired something can't something right now...(It's now 7:14 am, and I'm just getting to bed after work). All in all, I'm feeling more comfortable hearing and reproducing Russian sounds and words, confident that French will prove to be an interesting, and not entirely difficult language to learn, and that my German will soon be able to take off into the land of awesome, though I have perhaps slacked off the intensity slightly in the last few days. Now that I have my refined plan, though, I should be fine. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Silenz Newbie AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4905 days ago 23 posts - 33 votes Studies: French, German, Russian | Message 7 of 11 07 July 2011 at 6:31am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Ok, so I decided listening to some French music would be useful. After searching for
about 5 seconds, I came across the music video for 'Baby Baby Baby,' by 'Make the Girl Dance.' I'm now thinking a total immersion trip is in order. In other news, I bought a little Lonely Planet French phrase book yesterday. It came with some audio CD's! I shall give them a listen today. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| kylexy Newbie Egypt Joined 4909 days ago 16 posts - 17 votes Speaks: Arabic (Egyptian)* Studies: English | Message 8 of 11 07 July 2011 at 12:25pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Hi, I'm studying some French these days too, I see that you're interested in French music, you can try to liten to "Mireille Mathieu","Dalida", "Claude François" and "Céline Dion" -her last album was so perfect!- You see, somehow that I'm very classic, but after all they are great singers in the French history!-except Céline Dion of course because she's from Canada!- bonne chance! Я люблю русский язык, и я желаю вам удачи. Edited by kylexy on 07 July 2011 at 7:09pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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