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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Icaria909 Senior Member United States Joined 5594 days ago 201 posts - 346 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 25 of 72 14 January 2010 at 2:09am | IP Logged |
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Today I spent another half hour studying Spanish and russian each. I was quite disapointed however to find out that the CD comes with Russian in 10 Minutes a Day doesn't work. Oh well. Here's a question to everyone though, when you're learning vocabulary do you like to hear the word as well as say it? And if you do like to hear the word, do you record yourself trying to pronounce the word on a tape recorder or something or do you rely on other programs? I'm trying to decide what to do, but I feer my russian pronounciation is lacking if I recorded it on a tape and I am afraid of screwing up my future progress by learning the words incorrectly now. What are your thoughts?
Spanish- 5 hours Russian-11.5 hours 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Sprachjunge Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 7168 days ago 368 posts - 548 votes Speaks: English*, GermanC2 Studies: Spanish, Russian | Message 26 of 72 14 January 2010 at 3:48am | IP Logged |
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Wow, talk about hitting a nerve: This is just where I am with Russian. Let me preface this by saying that I don't know what you should do. But here is my experience:
My ability to imitate foreign accents is about average (with perhaps the slight advantage that I'm not afraid to exaggerate--shamelessly--if I think that's how the people sound). But with German, I started speaking it with my host family and didn't pick up a pronunciation guide until, hm, maybe three months in. And even then, I didn't listen closely when Mama told me, "Your "ch" in "ich" is too strong." Now, five years later, I can very clearly "hear" a correct "ich" in my head, but I flub it when I produce it. I can produce it, but not consistently (I know because I do drills with my German friend, and sometimes his eyes will light up and he's like "Yes! That's it!" and other times it's like "It's understandable, of course, but I can tell it's not native.") How is this relevant? I don't know for certain, but my hunch is that if I had listened more in the beginning, I might have been better able to produce an accurate sound, and wouldn't have created this highly annoying habit that is now taking a great deal of effort to fix. So my instinct says, find a clip of native speakers saying the word/phrase online and use that, not your voice. Edited by Sprachjunge on 14 January 2010 at 9:27am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| joanthemaid Triglot Senior Member France Joined 5473 days ago 483 posts - 559 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Russian, German | Message 27 of 72 16 January 2010 at 2:10am | IP Logged |
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Yeah, I agree with Sprachjunge here. I always repeat the words right after hearing them, and replay the audio every time I want to repeat the word. And at the end I replay the word or phrase again so that the last thing I hear is the correct one. In the meantime I try different tones and moods and speeds while staying phonetically as close to the original as possible. But still I have doubts as to how exactly the Russian A or O sounds. I'm pretty good at imitating (even in French if I talk a bit too long with one person I end up hearing them speak through me) but it's also a lot of perfectionism I guess. Edited by joanthemaid on 17 January 2010 at 12:45am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Icaria909 Senior Member United States Joined 5594 days ago 201 posts - 346 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 28 of 72 16 January 2010 at 6:55pm | IP Logged |
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I am beginning to feel very frustrated with Russian. The pronounciation rules seem arbitrary and strange to me. Palatization and and hard, soft pronounciation rules are giving me a headache. From your previous commments, I'm going to find some way to listen to my target vocabulary while I'm learning it. But worse of all, many of the CDs I thought I could use to learn new words aren't working on my computer, so I am forced to only use Berlitz russian CDs. I think I am going to try these Anki cards that you guys are using (I think I read that you can listen to the words too?). To deal with the frustation I think I am only going to study half an hour of Russian and spend more time on Spanish. At least I feel much more confident learning romance languages than slavic languages.
I did however get another hour of study in for each. 40 minutes of vocab for each and another 20 minutes of listening. Thanks Sprachjunge for more music suggestions, I am downloading some right now. On a completely unrelated note, I am reading a book about an Englishmen's experience in the French Foreign Legion. He says almost all of the legion is composed of foreigners (at least in 1960) with Germans, spaniards, Italians, French, Dutch, Danes, and Englishmen fighting together. He talks about sitting in the mess hall hearing the chatter of a dozen languages and I was just thinking this would be a polyglots dream (at least being in the same room with all these different people). He uses so many french terms in the book it really makes me consider learning french in the future. Lastly, great job with your progress you guys, you're putting in some serious work. Spanish- 6 hours Russian- 12.5 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| joanthemaid Triglot Senior Member France Joined 5473 days ago 483 posts - 559 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Russian, German | Message 29 of 72 17 January 2010 at 12:50am | IP Logged |
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Why don't you try the Princeton course? Just google "Princeton Russian course" and you'll find it. You'll have to download it but the guy really explains hard and soft consonants well, not like I've seen in other places (such as: "try to pronounce a "y" at the same time as the consonnant, or just put and "y" sound behind, but not with all consonnants." *headache*). And it's fun too.
Yeah for French. You should definitely learn French. If we're in the same TAC team next year I'll help you with it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Icaria909 Senior Member United States Joined 5594 days ago 201 posts - 346 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 30 of 72 17 January 2010 at 7:57pm | IP Logged |
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I tried using princeton last year but while on the site i got a massive virus that trashed my computer. Now,
im afraid to go on the site again. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Icaria909 Senior Member United States Joined 5594 days ago 201 posts - 346 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 31 of 72 19 January 2010 at 4:09am | IP Logged |
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Yesturday I decided to skip my usual grammar and word studies and do a listening day. So I spent a lot of time listening to some new music. I really got into the Spanish music since I could at least follow the basics of the songs. I also listened to some russian, but I spent more time trying to find slot's written lyrics (so far I could only find 2 Vojny). I heard it's best to read the lyrics and try saying them while you're listening to a band, so I want to give that a try. I also tinkered with changing my keyboard so I could type Russian without transliteration, but I ended up putting on some other alphabet. Oh well, I'll fix it later.
I did, however, spend time watching a movie based in southern California with the hispanics switching into Spanish about 25% of time. I thoroughly enjoyed the movie because I could follow their Spanish as well as their English. I'm chalking that up as an encouraging experience. Tomorrow will be a russian day. Spanish- 8 hours Russian- 13 hours 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Icaria909 Senior Member United States Joined 5594 days ago 201 posts - 346 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 32 of 72 20 January 2010 at 3:07am | IP Logged |
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Here's a laundery list of stuff I did today:
1. I listened to 30 minutes of Las Solteras. I almost have the song memorized now. 2. 15 minutes devoted to La Gu(x)era Salome(x). 3. I ploughed through 5 chapters of Spanish Grammar and finished the work pages. 4. Reviewed vocab. 5. Reviewed Russian Grammar I think one of the reasons I'm frustrated with russian grammar is that I don't see it in action much, so I want to find some short easy books to read in russian. Hopefully that exposure will help drive home some of those grammar rules. Does anyone have any good suggestions for an easy russian book to read (I don't mind if it's a children's story or anything)? Spanish- 9.5 hours Russian- 13.5 1 person has voted this message useful |
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