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Russian Journal -- LN | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| LN Groupie United States Joined 6215 days ago 39 posts - 36 votes Speaks: English Studies: Russian | Message 1 of 5 08 June 2008 at 8:02pm | IP Logged | ||
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After reading here for the last few months, I decided to start this log. For quite some time now I have been attempting to keep track of what I had done for the day in my daily planner, but there was not much room to write in those tiny boxes (I had to write very small with all abbreviations) and this should also give me a place to add any notes I may want to make so I can look back on my progress (hopefully ;-) )
As to my resources, I am taking lessons for 1.5 hrs one day a week with a native speaking teacher. I also have an assortment of grammar and exercise workbooks, and recently picked up a new one called 'Intermediate Russian Grammar and Workbook' that looks very promising. The other books I own are also good, but I wanted to try something with more of a challenge to it. Yesterday I started it, doing exercises 1-4 in unit one and although I did get all the answers right, quite honestly it took me some time to complete and I struggled a bit with it. Maybe this could be just what I need. Besides these, I also use Vocabulearn and try to introduce 15 new words and 10 new phrases a day. That is if I am satisfied with my review and ability to recall what I have previously learned first. If not, then I just keep reviewing for that day until I have them all memorized again. I also try to keep up on Rosetta Stone, doing a lesson each day. At first I found it a bit difficult as I had to memorize a sentence and how each word was spelled, noticing that the word endings kept changing and trying to figure out why. But lately as I have become more familar with the case systems, it has become easier and more predictable. Still, it is also a good source of vocabulary and it does help with my biggest problem which is speaking/listening. I have already come to the conclusion that its one thing to read and write, but listening and speaking are quite another and sadly are far behind my reading/writing skills. While listening to someone speaking Russian, I usually can only catch a word here and there, just enough to get the basic idea of what they are saying, but unfortunately I still miss many key words and therefore often misunderstand exactly what is being said. I am sure that at least part of the problem is my hearing, I have a 40% loss in one ear and 60% in the other, but I need to find a way to overcome this. As far as speaking goes, again I have a lot of difficulty even forming the most simple sentences. But just as in the listening, someone can repeat the same sentence two or three times and I still have no idea what they are talking about but once they write it I know and understand every single word, if I attempt to speak myself I can not recall the words I want to say but if given a pen and paper I can write it out correctly, without the slightest bit of hesitation. I will have to work on this also. Hopefully, by the end of this year I will be able to look back on this and see a lot of progression in all these areas. I was supposed to go back to Moscow this July, but the trip got pushed back to next year so this should give me more than enough time to become very familar with the language. No excuses, so here I go.... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| LN Groupie United States Joined 6215 days ago 39 posts - 36 votes Speaks: English Studies: Russian | Message 2 of 5 10 June 2008 at 5:09am | IP Logged | ||
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I didnt get as much done as I would have liked yesterday. I reviewed vocabulary and finished with the nouns in Vocabulearn 1.
I also did just a few pages of homework consisting of some new vocabulary words and colloquial expressions, and I managed to do RS 1.4.5 and finish it with score of 95. I should mention I do not allow myself to score under 95, or I have to repeat the entire lesson again. That still leaves room for 2 or 3 small errors. In last nights case, both were spelling. One was just outright carelessness, it was getting late and I was trying to quicken things up and hit the wrong key and the other is obviously going to be a problem because this is the third time in the last few months I have misspelled the word in the exact same way, instead of writing эскалатор I tend to write ескалатор. I dont usually make a habit of confusing these 2 letters often at all, so I can only think its because the word is just too close to its English equivalant and this is somehow influencing me but I think I finally got it now. I also found my first problem with RS program, though not a major one. The printed word is грузовик. The photo is of a грузовик. The voice in the program is trying to convince me it is автобус. Well, sort of close in idea but not really the same to me. At least the basic lesson involving these words was accusative and genitive cases, so they behave very similar anyway. I am hoping to start on adjectives, adverbs and prepositions in Vocabulearn today. Last week I came up with an idea that works for me, though actually I got it from here and other sources that suggests that we waste much time during the day that could be used for language study. At one of my jobs I spend approximately 6 hours standing at a table doing mindless assembly work, so I figured this could be turned into an opportunity. Above my table is a shelf, the bottom of which is just at my eye level. So before I leave for work, I jot down on a small notepad paper the vocubulary words I need to study then when I get to work I tape the paper to the bottom of the shelf so its hanging in easy view. I can then work and study the words at the same time, and by the time I get out of work I usually know them well enough that the next day I can bring in a new list. This saves me time that I used to use after work studying these words that I can now use to do exercises or some LR, which I would also like to get back into the habit of today if there is time later. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| polikaru Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6091 days ago 206 posts - 215 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, Italian, Dutch | Message 3 of 5 10 June 2008 at 9:25am | IP Logged | ||
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This is interesting, thanks for sharing.
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| LN Groupie United States Joined 6215 days ago 39 posts - 36 votes Speaks: English Studies: Russian | Message 4 of 5 16 June 2008 at 2:08pm | IP Logged | ||
Well I hope I can keep my interest (as well as motivation) up there, but thanks for the comment :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| LN Groupie United States Joined 6215 days ago 39 posts - 36 votes Speaks: English Studies: Russian | Message 5 of 5 16 June 2008 at 2:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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As known by many, things never really go as planned. I had wanted to do so much more last week, but I lost Monday and Tuesday working 18 hour shifts both days. Wednesday I went back to my regular shift, but needed to catch up on everything I put off the previous 2 days. So basically, I did not get back into the Russian until Thursday.
Thursday June 12- Reviewed my homework consisting of nominative case plurals and genitive case plurals (nouns and adjectives). I was rather happy that the genitive plurals of nouns seem to be getting easier for me. This was always a problem for me, as I was constantly being tripped up with what seemed like far more exceptions than the rule causing me to have an overwhelming urge to bang my head on the desk until I lose consciousness. This time around, it all seemed much more intuitive. I really did not have to think to much about the endings, I just sort of knew them, perhaps just memorizing them from previous readings. I would just write the word and be like, 'yep, that looks right'. The only word I stopped and thought on was ёлка. My first instinct was to write ёлк, but as soon as I did I felt an irrational but yet somehow very strong need to stick something between the л and к. So о it was- ёлок. This seemed to work. I also reviewed a 4 page text to read, though I knew about 85% of the vocabulary from a reading standpoint, again its a whole different thing for me to actually say the words. I tried marking off the accents and practicing it out loud a few times. Overall, it is a very simplistic text, but it is very obvious that I still need much help in this area. Friday June 13- Went to class. Did well on the homework exercises, some problems with the text as far as reading out loud but I think it went a little better than it has been. I have noticed for some time now I am having difficulty adjusting to the slower more drawn out way Russians speak. Having spent most of my life in NYC and the area, it is very natural for me to speak very quickly (and in NY even 'very quickly' is never really fast enough) and my teacher has mentioned to me several times I have a problem with condensing vowels (which it seems I unknowingly do on a constant basis). I can not say I am 100% sure exactly what that means, but I believe I am just not drawing them out long enough? Also, my other problem would be accents. I have difficulty in guessing where they are going to land. Intuition does not help here. What 'feels' right to me is just as often not. I can not seem to find any general rule to go by here, and it gets worse when it moves all over the place in the same word such as окнО and Окон. Makes me want to grab the little sucker and nail it in somewhere permanent, look I dont care if it falls in the beginning or the middle or the end of a word, all I ask for is just a little consistancy, is this really too much? Oh yeah, this is language we are talking about here...*sigh* Saturday June 14- Started on my homework, the exercises were pretty easy. Accusative plurals of adjectives and nouns (both animate and inanimate) and some imperatives. I did a few of the active translations, they are harder. I have 6 to do by next Friday, I did 2 so far. More importantly, I started LR. I am using Ночной Дозор - Night Watch. I did the first page consisting of approximately 4 paragraphs. I know a popular method is to go much further than that, some even doing a whole chapter or more at once, but the method I use besides the reading/translating and practicing speaking is once I feel comfortable with my speaking and understanding the vocabulary I then put away the Russian version, and use only the English to translate out loud into Russian while writing it in Russian in a notebook. Then as I finish the page, I go back to the Russian version to check for mistakes. A page gives me a couple of minor mistakes, I can correct myself and live with this. If I did an entire chapter this way my notebook would be filled with so many mistakes and crossouts I would be back to banging my head on the desk again and after finally gaining a fair understanding of genitive plural nouns, I am rather enjoying the rest from that thank you :-) Sunday June 15- Did one more of the active translations. It was a longer one, so it took me a about an hour to get through it. I am also on the 2cd page of LR, but I only spent maybe 45 minutes with it, so I did not complete the entire page. I will try to finish it at a later time, but I wanted to get back to Rosetta Stone that I have been neglecting for days now. I completed lesson 1.4.6 with a score of 100. Its been a while since I have done that, to get through the typing without a single mistake. Lets see how long I can keep it up... Edited by LN on 16 June 2008 at 2:19pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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