|
 |
Nihil to Всё - Watch me learn Russian | ||
Tags: Russian | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Sollos Newbie United States Joined 5990 days ago 15 posts - 19 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Russian, Danish | Message 1 of 9 13 July 2011 at 12:41am | IP Logged | ||
|
For some quick background, I have completed two semesters of Russian instruction at
university so far, and have plans on getting another two years in before I graduate. My progress is important to me - if my future career goals go right I will need, at the least, a reading fluency of academic text. Where am I right now? No where really. I have a Soviet children's book I have begun to try to translate, and wanted to post my progress here to hopefully get some constructive feedback on how I'm doing. I have a little over a month before I get back to university, so after finishing this translation I would need to start to review what I had learned over the past two semesters. 
This will be the text I'll be working on: Сказка о военной тайне, о Мальчише-Кибальчише и его твердом слове by Аркадий Гайдар. Apparently an animated and live action film have both been made based on this work, so I look forward to enjoying those pieces sometime later on. [I'm going to end this first post here right now. The preview is showing some encoding issues with Cyrillic, but it's appearing fine elsewhere. If everything goes fine I'll post back with the translated first page.] Edited by Sollos on 13 July 2011 at 3:30am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Sollos Newbie United States Joined 5990 days ago 15 posts - 19 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Russian, Danish | Message 2 of 9 13 July 2011 at 12:58am | IP Logged | ||
|
Great! The font worked out fine, so here we go!
– Расскажи, Натка, сказку, - попросила синеглазая девчушка и виновато улыбнулась. "Recount, Natka, the tale," the blue-eyed little girl asked and guiltily smiled. – Сказку? – Задумалась Натка. – Я что-то не знаю сказок. Или нет… Я расскажу вам Алькину сказку. Можно? – спросила она у насторожившегося Альки. "The tale?" thought Natka. "I somehow know not the tale. Or not(1)... I will tell you Alka the tale. Can I(2)?" She asked the "prick-eared" Alka. – Можно, – позволил Алька, горделиво посматривая на притихших октябрят. "You can(2)," Alka permitted, proudly glancing at the subsided October (3). – Я расскажу Алькину сказку своими словами. А если я что-нибудь позабыла или скажу не так, то пусть он меня поправит. Ну вот, слушайте. "I will tell Alka the tale with my own words. And if I have forgotten anything or speak amiss, then let him(3) correct me. Now here, listen! Translation Notes/Questions (1) I tried to look to see if this was an idiom, but being a children's book perhaps this was just a custom. "Oh... the story? Yeah, I don't remember it... <looks at kid> Ha ha! Just kidding, I'll tell you the story!" (2) It looks like a short-form adjective to me. So I imagined most literally what was being said was that - "Is this possible?" - <this> being a noun, the abstraction of the scenario in which Natka was speaking about. "Is it possible for me to tell you this tale?" (3) What on earth? (4) I can't imagine I translated this incorrectly. Perhaps I am just unfamiliar with its use? Who is he? Is Natka here referring to a man that we have not met yet - perhaps the protagonist of the story to come? My main concern here is to make sure I translated everything as correctly as possible - to make sure I grammatically understand everything happening. Only once I've finished, will I want to go back and make it a more natural to read English story. Edited by Sollos on 13 July 2011 at 8:15am 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 3 of 9 13 July 2011 at 2:48am | IP Logged | ||
|
I can't help you with the translation, but I just want to say I also have a Russian log here also and I will be watching
you learn. Good luck! 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 9 13 July 2011 at 7:17pm | IP Logged | ||
|
Interesting way to learn Russian! I've been learning for barely two months, so you should take my advice with some caution, but here's what I have to say:
Я расскажу вам Алькину сказку = I'll tell you Alka's story. where вам = синеглазая девчушка. I believe that the possessive of names ending in -a can be formed by replacing the "a" with -ин-. Then you add the appropriate ending (-a, -o, etc.) depending on the gender/case of the following noun. In this case, "Alka's story" is in the Accusative. This would explain one of your confusions in (3), since Natka is asking Alka to correct her if she tells the story incorrectly (I'm assuming Alka is male because of the phrase "позволил Алька"). притихших октябрят = quiet October? What case is October in (I don't know)? The verb притихать means to quiet down, so I think this may be the adjective version. not too sure of this. Я что-то не знаю сказок: Hmmm... I don't know what to make of this either. It might mean, "I somehow don't know any fairy tales". Keep up the good work! I'm excited to see where you'll go with this! Edited by 236factorial on 13 July 2011 at 7:24pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Sollos Newbie United States Joined 5990 days ago 15 posts - 19 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Russian, Danish | Message 5 of 9 13 July 2011 at 7:57pm | IP Logged | ||
|
Ah! You've got a good eye there!
I thought it was suppose to be Alka's story at first but I was too hung up on thinking there were only two people (Alka and Natka) in the scene, despite the grammar showing otherwise. (3) Apparently, октябрят means Octobrist. It's in the animate-accusative case. притихших is apparently also a participle. (1) This would make more sense with the corrections made. Natka is being asked to tell a tale, she suddenly remembers Alka's tale, and asks if it would be alright to retell it. I'll be back later today with the fixed corrections and hopefully the next page translated. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Sollos Newbie United States Joined 5990 days ago 15 posts - 19 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Russian, Danish | Message 6 of 9 14 July 2011 at 1:47am | IP Logged | ||
 
– Расскажи, Натка, сказку, - попросила синеглазая девчушка и виновато улыбнулась. "Recount, Natka, a tale," the blue-eyed little girl asked and guiltily smiled. – Сказку? – Задумалась Натка. – Я что-то не знаю сказок. Или нет… Я расскажу вам Алькину сказку. Можно? – спросила она у насторожившегося Альки. "A tale?" thought Natka. "I somehow know not of a tale. Or not... I will tell you the tale of Alka. Can I?" She asked the "prick-eared" Alka. – Можно, – позволил Алька, горделиво посматривая на притихших октябрят. "You can," Alka permitted, proudly glancing at the hushed Octobrists. – Я расскажу Алькину сказку своими словами. А если я что-нибудь позабыла или скажу не так, то пусть он меня поправит. Ну вот, слушайте. "I will tell the tale of Alka with my own words. And if I have forgotten anything or speak amiss, then let him correct me. Now here, listen!" 
В те дальние-дальние годы, когда только что отгремела по всей стране война, жил да был Мальчиш-Кибальчиш. In those far off years, when war had just died down in the whole country, there onced lived Malchish-Kibalchish. В ту пору далеко прогнала Красная Армия белые войска проклятых буржуинов, и тихо стало на тех широких полях, на зеленых лугах, где рожь росла, где гречиха цвела, где среди густых садов да вишневых кустов стоял домишко, в котором жил Мальчиш, по прозванию Кибальчиш, да отец Мальчиша, да старший брат Мальчиша, а матери у них не было. In that far off time, the Red Army had dispelled the cursed bourgeoisie's white troops, and it became quiet upon those broad fields, at green meadows, where rye grew, where buckwheat bloomed, where among dense gardens and cherry bushes stood a shack, in which lived Malchish, called Kibalchish, and Malchish's father, and Malchish's older brother, but a mother there was not. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Alexander86 Tetraglot Senior Member United Kingdom alanguagediary.blogs Joined 4972 days ago 224 posts - 323 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, German, Catalan Studies: Swedish | Message 7 of 9 14 July 2011 at 9:09am | IP Logged | ||
|
That's an interesting way to learn. I often think I would have learnt to speak better Spanish if I'd read more children's
books and less newspapers! I can talk about politics well, but when it comes to the day-to-day... How much have you learnt in your semesters at university? Were they useful or do you learn more on your own? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Sollos Newbie United States Joined 5990 days ago 15 posts - 19 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Russian, Danish | Message 8 of 9 14 July 2011 at 10:30am | IP Logged | ||
I have to have a classroom environment to actually motivate myself to learn anything of substance. This first year we covered the basic grammar: verb conjugation (tenses included), and noun and adjective declensions. Then different sorts of things, such as the two forms of numbers. We haven't touched upon adverbs or participles (the two tings I've come across already in this book) though, or anything more advanced than that? We did a few of the verbs of motion. Subjunctive. Probably a number of other important stuff that I'm leaving out. I will admit though, the two days I've worked on this book, I feel like I have a better comprehension of the grammar than I did on the day of my final. One thing we didn't do much of was text translation. Being able to go through a long work of "naturally" worded text I think is a great benefit - you're not coming across contrived instances where every sentence makes use of the instrumental to make a point, or uses one instance of each declension throughout the work. Work on my own, for me, is best used as a supplement to whats learned in class. That being said, reading right now is the most important skill I need. All I need is a reading fluency for graduate school. Although, I'm expecting that I may end up abroad anyways for some length of time for study or teaching, in which case I'll want to have speaking fluency. 1 person has voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
