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Language Studies in the Past? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : General discussion |  | |
| cordelia0507 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5840 days ago 1473 posts - 2176 votes  Speaks: Swedish* Studies: German, Russian | Message 17 of 50 18 May 2009 at 4:57pm | IP Logged | ||
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I checked the site that you linked to - very interesting! I had not been aware of his Russian connection.
Oswald strikes me as an idealist and a bit of an oddball, but probably a nice guy! With that in mind, plus the fact that he had a young family - it really seems unlikely that he would have carried out the killng of JFK, even if he really hated JFK. Anyone would have realised that the odds of getting caught were very high, plus the tremendous repercussions for himself and his family. Asking Americans, is it a fact that he did or are there reasonable people who think he might have been a really handy scapegoat, particularly bearing in mind the fact that he was a communist? I'd say perhaps there was some in-fighting in American security organisations, JFK annoyed the wrong people among the US elite or an enemy nation of the US sent a special command to do it. Oswald just doesn't seem bad enough, or committed enough! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6274 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 18 of 50 18 May 2009 at 5:17pm | IP Logged | ||
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Not really the forum to discuss whether Oswald pulled the trigger, but I doubt that we have been told the full story. Probably we never will be.
Concentrating on the subject of his Russian-language competence, Oswald took and failed a language test while in the Marines. A few months later a fellow Marine who knew of Oswald's interest in Russian, and whose aunt was studying Russian for a State Department examination, arranged for Oswald to have dinner with his aunt. They spoke in Russian. She seems to have found his grasp of the language rather impressive. This has led to speculation that he had some Russian-language training at that point over and above self-teaching in his barracks. There is a theory that he was some sort of US intelligence operative at a low level when he defected to the USSR, and it is possible he got Russian-language tuition from them. Studying for eight hours a day in his circumstances is not so remarkable. He may not have been allowed to leave the hotel anyway, there may have been few other distractions in the hotel, and if he was preparing for life in the USSR he would have needed to work on his Russian anyway. Edited by William Camden on 18 May 2009 at 6:51pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Strannik Diglot Newbie Russian Federation Joined 5671 days ago 16 posts - 16 votes Speaks: Russian*, English | Message 19 of 50 18 May 2009 at 6:47pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think it is persistence + discipline + constancy.
Probably, it is even better to have only 1 book and study it thoroughly. Because we have a choice and we always look for something else thinking there is something better out there and can't concentrate on covering information at least from one resource. It is the same with reading books. My parents are so educated because they did not have TV in their childhood (so no distraction) and they were reading lots of and lots of books. Nowadays, we use internet, watch TV and read books too seldom. So in some way it probably better when you resources are limited. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6274 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 20 of 50 19 May 2009 at 1:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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People learned foreign languages before tapes, CDs and all the technical learning paraphernalia were invented.
I posted elsewhere about an example of L2 learning under extreme circumstances. The museum on the site of the Nazi Mauthausen concentration camp has an inmate's Polish-French vocabulary notebook. Keeping a notebook like that was dangerous, as intellectual distractions were not encouraged by the guards and were punished. Even paper was a precious commodity, as what there was was likely to be turned into cigarette wrappers or used as toilet paper, so the notebook's survival is remarkable in itself. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6705 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 21 of 50 28 May 2009 at 1:38pm | IP Logged | ||
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I happened to stumble upon this classic Monty Python sketch and immediately thought that it would suit this thread
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| cordelia0507 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5840 days ago 1473 posts - 2176 votes Speaks: Swedish* Studies: German, Russian | Message 22 of 50 28 May 2009 at 2:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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Iversen - ROFL!
But joking aside, trying to study languages using the internet it is soooooooooooo easy to get distracted. I remember well sitting at a table in a room full of other kids, learning vocabulary and grammar using nothing but a text book, notepad and a pen. It was effective because it was near impossible to get distracted, or even leave the room until you were finished. I wonder if that kind of studying still happens, or is it all 'interactive' and sophisticated now? Judging on the super English of some of the non-English young forum members, whatever they do is working well. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| josht Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6448 days ago 635 posts - 857 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Spanish, Russian, Dutch | Message 23 of 50 28 May 2009 at 5:13pm | IP Logged | ||
I've more or less fallen in love with that kind of studying, and it's taking up more and more of my language learning time. I used to be obsessed with doing lots of my "studying" on the computer, but it just wasn't as effective as sitting down with a dictionary, grammar, paper and pens. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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