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TAC 2010 - Team F - DaraghM

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DaraghM
Diglot
Senior Member
Ireland
Joined 5961 days ago

1947 posts - 2923 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian

 
 Message 1 of 74
22 December 2009 at 11:26am | IP Logged 
Even though my TAC 2009 log is still going, I thought I should set down my goals for 2010. In TAC 2009 I aimed to complete various materials, and this worked well as long as the materials were suitable. However, a lot of resources weren't working, and I chopped and changed a lot during 2009. As a contrast, I'll make TAC 2010 a time based challenge, which means I can use techniques like L-R, wordlists, etc, without feeling I'm falling behind in my goals.

I've set the bar quite high in terms of these specific time goals. Looking over my previous years time based achievements, I'll need to work harder than ever, to make it successfully this year.

Note: This page will be edited a number of times over the year. Shout outs to my fellow teams members.

General Goals
Spanish: - I aim to have Basic Fluency in Spanish by the end of 2010. This was the far goal for 2009, but it's the definite goal for 2010.
Russian: - I want to get Russian to a comfortable intermediate level. This was one of the big failings from 2009. I'll concentrate on Russian as my main secondary language.
French\Hungarian\Others: No specific goals in this area, but a desire to maintain or improve them during the year.

I've dedided to change my specific TAC goals into medal goals from my latest post.

Medal Goals

Bronze
50 hours of Russian.
100 hours of Spanish.
25 hours of other languages.
25 hours of Danish. (New goal)
25 hours of Hungarian and French. (New goal)

Silver
100 hours of Russian.
200 hours of Spanish.
50 hours of other languages.
50 hours of Danish. (New goal)
50 hours of Hungarian and French. (New goal)

Gold - The original TAC goals.
200 hours of Russian.
400 hours of Spanish.
100 hours of other languages.
100 hours of Danish. (New goal)
100 hours of Hungarian and French. (New goal)

Platinum - Way beyond the original TAC goals.
300 hours of Russian.
500 hours of Spanish.
150 hours of other languages.
150 hours of Danish.
150 hours of Hungarian and French. (New goal)

Resources

Last years TAC was material specific, but this TAC will concentrate on time and intensity. I'll use this section to cover resources I use and complete during the year.

Team Members
MGSE
NOGOODNIK

Edits
- 27/01/10 - I've changed my TAC goals into specific medals goals. I haven't changed my overall goals which are a gold medal in the new system.
- 09/07/10 - Added Danish as a separate goal.
- 08/09/10 - Combined Hungarian and French as one goal.
- 08/09/10 - Other is now a a separate goal.


Edited by DaraghM on 08 September 2010 at 10:22am

2 persons have voted this message useful



nogoodnik
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5379 days ago

372 posts - 461 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Modern Hebrew, Biblical Hebrew, Russian, French

 
 Message 2 of 74
29 December 2009 at 1:35am | IP Logged 
Hi, I just wanted to check in with a fellow teammate. I read through your TAC 09 log and found it very inspiring.
We actually have three common languages (French, Russian and Spanish) so I'm especially interested in your
updates. Happy New Year!

1 person has voted this message useful



DaraghM
Diglot
Senior Member
Ireland
Joined 5961 days ago

1947 posts - 2923 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian

 
 Message 3 of 74
04 January 2010 at 12:20pm | IP Logged 
It took me a little while to locate my new log, and I've just found it now. I was used to using the profile page to access my log. I've also noticed that some javascript had inserted itself on my front page, and I think I've cleared the problem. I noticed the warning about a javascript attack, but I haven't looked into the exact details.

Thanks nogoognik for the words of encouragement. I've started this years TAC with Russian, using the Modern Russian 1 course by Clayton. L. Dawson. I was using this resource in TAC 2009 and will continue to do so this year. I'm just starting into lesson 6, and haven't picked up my normal pace for the year yet. While I got an hour done on News Year day, the following days were a bit lack lustre.

Russian in minutes: 140
Russian in hours: 2.33
Time to Russian target: 197.66 hours



Edited by DaraghM on 04 January 2010 at 12:21pm

1 person has voted this message useful



DaraghM
Diglot
Senior Member
Ireland
Joined 5961 days ago

1947 posts - 2923 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian

 
 Message 4 of 74
05 January 2010 at 10:37am | IP Logged 
I'm not sure how often I'll get to post to my log, but hopefully I'll manage a post every couple of weeks. In terms of tracking my time, I've made a few modifications to my spreadsheet, so I'll just update the countdown on each post. I don't want to repeat the mistakes I made in TAC 2008, or the multiple ways I tracked my time at the start of TAC 2009.

Regarding my Russian study, I've re-introduced the New Penguin Russian Course (NPRC), in addition to Modern Russian 1. Modern Russian 1 is a very good course for developing a speaking ability, but it's not strong on written Russian, as it doesn't have an answer key to exercises. The Penguin course lacks an audio component, but it's very good at covering the written language. I also have the Living Language course, but I might leave that for the moment with all the other resources I own.

Time to Russian target: 194.91 hours
1 person has voted this message useful



DaraghM
Diglot
Senior Member
Ireland
Joined 5961 days ago

1947 posts - 2923 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian

 
 Message 5 of 74
08 January 2010 at 11:05am | IP Logged 
Wow. There's a lot happening in the world of TAC between individual and group challenges. I had to go to page 3 to find my TAC log. I've a strong feeling this TAC will see more people than ever reach the finish line.

The weather in Ireland, and it seems most of Europe, is severe snow and ice. This has had a direct impact on my studies, and I can't do my normal evening walk listening to a particular course. I've managed a couple of short walks, but my brain has favoured not slipping on ice over listening to audio. I'm still studying Russian which feels more natural in this environment than Spanish.

As my walks have been curtailed, I've found myself studying a lot more of the written language. In some ways, studying the written language is a lot easier than completing audio exercises. Writing is at your own pace, but the audio drills in Modern Russian 1 are set at a particular speed. I cheated slightly and started skipping through the entire book, to see how far it takes you. It covers all the cases in some detail, and it seems to give a lot of coverage to the verbs. However, I couldn't find much on adjective and case agreement, which is probably in the second book, Modern Russian 2.

The sheer volume of audio is what impresses me most with this course. Lesson 6 has nearly 1.5 hours of audio alone. I re-read some of the course instructions, and it really is designed to convey the spoken language first. They suggest the course is used as much as possible with the book closed. I also studied a good bit of the DLI Russian course, but realised it's not as useful for self study. It doesn't have the same drills, and has some huge gaps in the audio in which you write the answer. This course feels like it was designed specifically for classroom instruction.

Time to Russian target: 187.03 hours



Edited by DaraghM on 08 January 2010 at 11:06am

1 person has voted this message useful



DaraghM
Diglot
Senior Member
Ireland
Joined 5961 days ago

1947 posts - 2923 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian

 
 Message 6 of 74
12 January 2010 at 10:49am | IP Logged 
RU: Я постараюсь, чтобы прочитать больше русский, но это трудно догадаться, произношение. в минувшие выходные, я не изучил многие, но я достаточное изучил вчера.

I'm going to try and read more Russian, but it is hard to guess the pronunciation. Last weekend, I didn't study much, but I studied a bit yesterday.

While my Russian sentences are quite short, they still take an age to type up using LexiLogos. I haven't attempted to change my keyboard mapping to a Cyrillic setting yet. I found the NPRC has helped a bit with reading Russian, as it contains a number of translation exercises from Russian to English. Occasionally, it also has English to Russian translation tests. While it also gives a transcription for a lot of words, I still need to heard a word to confidently use it. E.g. освободить (to relieve)

Time to Russian target: 182.16 hours




Edited by DaraghM on 12 January 2010 at 10:52am

1 person has voted this message useful



SII
Senior Member
Russian FederationRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5602 days ago

184 posts - 194 votes 
Speaks: Russian*
Studies: English

 
 Message 7 of 74
12 January 2010 at 12:19pm | IP Logged 
DaraghM wrote:
RU: Я постараюсь, чтобы прочитать больше русский, но это трудно догадаться, произношение. в минувшие выходные, я не изучил многие, но я достаточное изучил вчера.

I'm going to try and read more Russian, but it is hard to guess the pronunciation. Last weekend, I didn't study much, but I studied a bit yesterday


There are some mistakes; I wrote one of possible translations for your English original.

Я постараюсь больше читать по-русски, но мне трудно угадать произношение. В минувшие выходные я не занимался много, однако достаточно позанимался вчера.
1 person has voted this message useful



DaraghM
Diglot
Senior Member
Ireland
Joined 5961 days ago

1947 posts - 2923 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian

 
 Message 8 of 74
12 January 2010 at 12:56pm | IP Logged 
Thanks SSI for the correction.

читать по-русски - My original didn't sound right to my ear, and this maked a lot more sense. I probably should've known this.

мне трудно - Another mistake brought about by faulty translation. I realise that мне (for me) is implied in 'it is difficult'.

занимался - I haven't come across this verb form yet, so I defaulted to the past imperfective.

однако - I can see how this is a better translation. Funnily if I wanted to translate my sentence into Spanish, I would've used, "Sin embargo".

достаточно - I still have a lot to learn about the cases.

позанимался - I must check out this form of the verb.

SII wrote:

I wrote one of possible translations for your English original


I wrote one of the possible translations of your English original.

or

I wrote a possible translation for your English original.

As you know, Russian doesn't use the definite or indefinite article, but English requires it.

Edited by DaraghM on 12 January 2010 at 12:57pm



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