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Russish, Spanian, Joanthemaid | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Quabazaa Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5407 days ago 414 posts - 543 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, German, French Studies: Japanese, Korean, Maori, Scottish Gaelic, Arabic (Levantine), Arabic (Egyptian), Arabic (Written) | Message 193 of 200 11 December 2010 at 9:07pm | IP Logged |
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Wow that's awesome Joan merci beaucoup for the recs :) I have to say my level of French listening comprehension is quite low - thus why I want to improve it! I'm sure I will be able to track down some of them :) Haha, funy what you say about Plus belle la vie! It's a bit sad that soap operas are often the easiest thing to understand when you are still in the early stages of a language. Can be very funny too though, they are so over the top! :) Oh and I love films, I didn't think to ask you about them, but those are great too.
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| joanthemaid Triglot Senior Member France Joined 5268 days ago 483 posts - 559 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Russian, German | Message 194 of 200 14 December 2010 at 3:20pm | IP Logged |
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No problem, Quabazaa! I'd like me to tell you what you think about all of these. There are plenty of very watchable French things other than what I gave you, but alll those I told you about are more or less "cult", so that I think culturally they will bring you more (in the sense of the popular culture of a country, not high, erudite culture).
As for me, I'm still reading a bit, I've finished Part 1 of "Le Guerra del fin del mundo", but I really need to do some listening/watching too, so I'll see if I've got some "Redes" I haven't watched yet and if I can find another series to watch regularly as Aguila Roja was very short this last season. Plus it would probably be a good idea to see something else for a change if only for some different themes and therefore vocab. If worse comes to worst I can always watch the news, which are bound to be somewhat interesting theses days, what with the imminent dissolution of European economy and all the gloom and doom in Southern Europe. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| joanthemaid Triglot Senior Member France Joined 5268 days ago 483 posts - 559 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Russian, German | Message 195 of 200 29 December 2010 at 7:18pm | IP Logged |
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Spanish - watched some utube videos on a philosophy course "teocracia vs democracia", with among others Fernando Savater. It was interesting and I was pleased to see that while I don't understand every single word, I didn't miss any of the meaning and I surprised myself with my understanding of some really inarticulated passages which I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have even dreamed of decrypting a year ago. I still have trouble understanding him when he's laughing though, I had to rewind almost every time that happened (except at the end where I'd just try to imagine what the joke might be, which is probably good practice and did let me understand some stuff retrospectively, following the: "What -- oh, right" scheme that most of you probably know).
So let's say: Spanish 3 hours 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| joanthemaid Triglot Senior Member France Joined 5268 days ago 483 posts - 559 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Russian, German | Message 196 of 200 29 December 2010 at 7:23pm | IP Logged |
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OK.
So I suppose now is as good a time as any for an end-of-year report. I doubt I'll be studying much on New Year's Eve and I've been procrastinating to do my homework for the entire winter break so that now I have no choice but to do it tomorrow. I am simply going to paste here my goals and treat them one by one, analyzing to what extent I fulfilled them: My starting levels (at the end of 2009, for comparison): - A1+ in Russian (But no listening skill whatsoever, as at the time I had only worked on a basic textbook, Ya govoryoo po-russki) - B2 in Spanish (with a higher reading and lower speaking skills, which hasn't changed.) My goals were: B2 in Russian: Definitely not there, not because it was impossible but because I stopped studying Russian in the middle. I would say at my peak I was at a low B1, but I've forgotten most of even that. C1 in Spanish: Not quite there, mostly due to a lack of correction. I have used my Spanish skills a bit, watched and read a fair amount, and Spanish is no longer a fully foreign language to me, although speaking it is not effortless. I would say a good B2 level, which is the average end-of-highschool level for French people who took it as a first foreign language. The problem is, as I declared myself B2 a year ago, it doesn't seem like I've made much progress. I can't honestly say I am C1 when I look at the active skills required for that level, but I can't consider myself to have been only B1 last year either. B2 is the big jump I suppose. Let's say that according to criteria and my own judgement, I'm B2+, but if I were to pass a test I'd probably get C1 (judging from my relative level to my husband's French). My big problem is conjugations, which I still haven't gottenaround to reviewing since high school, because there were so many more fun things to do. I won't get past "understandable" level if I don't though... The discrepancy between my goals and results is of course due to a failure to fulfill my study objectives, which were: Spanish: I said: "I'm going to Spain in the summer" -- I did not "This is what I'm planning on doing at least once a week each: - Watching Spanish news online on: http://www.rtve.es/" -- I did, more than once a week in the first half of the year, but almost not at all in the last four months. "- Once I get a bit better, watching a TV show such as: http://www.rtve.es/mediateca/videos/20081101/amar-tiempos-re vueltos1t-capitulo /348713.shtml" -- I never really got into it, but I watched Aguila Roja, so: fulfilled. "- Reading an article intensively and inputting vocabulary, phrases or entire sentences in Anki and learning them (My listening skill isn't yet good enough for me to learn vocabulary orally)." -- did not do after the first couple of months, but I switched to books, which is what I planned, so: fulfilled. I am glad to say that my listening skills are way beyond the level where I can just know how to write words and look them up in the dictionary. :) "- Maybe writing a little paragraph in Lang-8, as it's difficult for me to practice speaking and writing is the next best thing" -- Almost didn't do any writing. "As for everyday study, I'll AT THE VERY LEAST keep up with my reviews on Anki: http://ichi2.net/anki/index.html" -- Did so for the first half of the year, but the Anki vocab just gets too bulky and annoying to manage after a while. At my curretn Spanish level, I'm not sure it's necessary: I can probably rely on my understanding and looking up words when I encounter them, which almost always happens several times in a short period. "During my holidays, weekly goals will become daily. I hope I'll be able to do more that that, bu I can't plan any more as I have a job and that has to be my priority" -- Aha, now I'm a student again, but the priority thing still stands. I think that apart from these winter holidays and last November, I stuck to that goal pretty well. Russian: "In the early months, I will: - Complete and review "Je parle Russe, Niveau 1" (я говорю по-русски!) (a cheap little essential grammar book)"-- did so "- Master "я говорю по-русски!", Level 2, which should get me close to level B1, by June would be good" -- I was nearly on schedule but then stopped at around three quarters. I can only consider half "mastered". "- Listen to Russian audioguides on Lib.ru and be happy when I catch a word, or listen to other spoken material" -- Not useful at my low level "- Listen to and learn Russian songs (thanks Sprachjunge"-- twohalf songs learned, one forgotten. "- Speak to myself in my bathroom or other empty places" -- did so. "- Sometimes write in Lang8"-- I did a little, at the beginning. "- Learn and store in Anki all new vocabulary that's not from "я говорю по-русски!"" -- we're talking about the first half of the year, so yes, I did. "- Review every day with Anki"-- In the first six months, yes. UNPLANNED: More than a semester's worth of the Princeton course. So bonus points for that In the second part of the year, I will: "- Read articles and stories from Lib.ru"-- If I'd kept to it, I might have been able to with a good dictionary, but I think reading authentic material, even easy things like Wikipedia, is still beyond my level. "- Learn and store in Anki new vocabulary" "- Learn and review in Anki every day" (I did none of those things, I will probably need a good stretch of free time to get back into Russian and then it would be nice if I kept at it.) EDIT: Well, reviewing my original goals, I'd say I didn't do that badly. I was really good about studying Russian in the first six months, and then gave up, mostly because I got better at Spanish and it felt really good to use that. I was planning on getting back to it and still haven't, and unfortunately I have forgotten a non-negligible amount of what I learned. Reviewing that shouldn't be too hard though. I do think however that I underestimated the difficulty of Russian: unlike Germanic or Latin languages, I have no lexical basis for it in another language, so every little step, every word almost, every grammar rule it as work-intensive as the previous one. Even if I had continued studying at the first half of the year-rate, I doubt I would have fulfilled my goals. Perhaps a very low B2 level, but still I doubt it, even in reading (I consider B2 reading to be about Harry Potter-level). I do regret my lack of motivation lately, but what I learned, even what I forgot, isn't completely lost so ti was still beneficial. Spanish, on the other hand, I consider to be an almost complete success. I would really have loved to go to Spain, see how I did, but I think even my spoken Spanish is getting better, as I spoke with an Italian who is fluent at it, and although I had trouble conjugating correctly, I was quite fluent, meaning I spoke at a good rate, not stopping although I did use circumlocutions. Spanish is now a language I can speak, I understand well, and it feels familiar. I still read slowly, mostly because I try to look up words as much as I can, but I have gone on from children's literature to high-end stuff and it isn't really an effort to read it if I don't make myself stop at every unknown word. To conclude, I had a lot of fun taking part in the TAC, I would like to thank everyone who read this and gave me advice or encouragement, and I'm planning on doing another log in 2011. I might put German back in my languages, but I would really like to start studying Russian again, so we'll see how it goes. After a little conjugation review, Spanish will be in a maintaining stage though (reading, watching...) so I technically should be able to add a language. We'll see... My total (approximative) study times last year: Spanish: 170 hours Russian: 177 hours Edited by joanthemaid on 09 January 2011 at 11:20am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Quabazaa Tetraglot Senior Member United States Joined 5407 days ago 414 posts - 543 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, German, French Studies: Japanese, Korean, Maori, Scottish Gaelic, Arabic (Levantine), Arabic (Egyptian), Arabic (Written) | Message 197 of 200 29 December 2010 at 11:33pm | IP Logged |
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Hi Joan - I for one think you really managed a lot this year! Congrats and I wish you all the best in your further studies :) I love your idea of mastering the UN languages! I'm not sure Russian will ever make my list, but I would love to be fluent in the rest. Take care and I hope to see you around next year as well.
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| Préposition Diglot Senior Member France aspectualpairs.wordp Joined 4912 days ago 186 posts - 283 votes Speaks: French*, EnglishC1 Studies: Russian, Arabic (Written), Swedish, Arabic (Levantine) | Message 198 of 200 29 December 2010 at 11:51pm | IP Logged |
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Have a look into Как I and Как II, they go nicely with "Я говорю по-русский!" (God I love these books, haha).
"Skazat'" is also pretty good for improving your vocab, although sometimes it sounds a bit outdated, and finally, I like "100 Глаголов" for verbs. You can find all those in libraries such as Virgin or Fnac, or on http://www.chapitre.com/ Good luck with Russian! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| joanthemaid Triglot Senior Member France Joined 5268 days ago 483 posts - 559 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Russian, German | Message 199 of 200 30 December 2010 at 4:11pm | IP Logged |
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Quabazaa, thanks for your support and same and more to you! I may have done a lot, but I think you definitely take the crown. I'm going to write in a different log for 2011, just to have a symbolic new departure, but I'd love to keep in touch. With Russian and maybe getting back into German, I seriously doubt I'll have time to start studying Arabic but we can still help each other, you with Spanish and German and me with French. Have a great new year's Eve.
Préposition, d'abord bienvenue sur le forum (ça fait bizarre d'être une "ancienne", mais bon.) Apparemment tu n'es pas nouvelle dans l'apprentissage des langues par contre. Merci pour tes conseils, je regarderai les livres KAK et Skazat. J'ai déjà "100 Глаголов", mais pour l'instant j'en suis encore au voc de base alors je ne l'ai pas utilisé. Good luck to you and let me know if you're starting a log! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| bramsterdam Bilingual Hexaglot Senior Member NetherlandsRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5225 days ago 106 posts - 113 votes Speaks: Dutch, French*, English*, German, Spanish, Russian | Message 200 of 200 04 January 2011 at 7:38am | IP Logged |
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Congrats again!
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