|
 |
TAC 2012 - Satisfaction Guaranteed! | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| lynxrunner Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United States crittercryptics.com Joined 5731 days ago 361 posts - 461 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish*, French Studies: Russian, Swedish, Haitian Creole | Message 1 of 195 08 May 2010 at 5:39am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
|
So, this is a completely new log which is intended to serve as a log for all the
languages I want to learn. So, French, Russian, and any new languages I want to learn will now all be studied here. Now that the AP French exam is done, I am free! Free to study a language that isn't French! Free from the grasp of Romance languages! Yes, I am free, and it feels good. I'm going to write my plan for improving my language skillz here, yo: FRENCH: Lurk on French Yahoo answers to pick up stuff about French. I've got quite a few words picked up, and I've learned that apparently the French hate the Alsatian and Marseillaise accents. Interesting. I want to learn about different accents within French. For my birthday, I've ordered a few French books. To buck the trend that French is only for reading stuff by 17th century philosophers, I've decided to order books from *gasp* modern authors. One of the books is by an Algerian immigrant in France. Because the ~immigrant experience~ interests me, I'm a little impatient to read the books. :3 Until then, I'll make do with my New Penguin French Parallel texts (the second edition, with authors from Quebec as well as France, is SO much better than the first. The first is pretty boring stuff). RUSSIAN: I am going through my New Penguin Russian Course again so that I can pick up on things I've forgotten (like the prepositional case for adjectives :x). To make the practice of learning things more interesting, I have decided to write short stories to use what I've learned. For example, here's one about a dude called "Mikhail" who is chatting with a woman called "Elena". They are discussing one of Elena's friends, "Ivan", who lives in some far-off Russian town. I got a little carried away with the story and, well, you'll see. МИХАИЛ Здравствуй, Лена. Как дела? ЕЛЕНА Хорошо, Миша. Я писаю письмо за Ивана. МИХАИЛ Правда? Как он проживает? ЕЛЕНА Неплохо. Он адвокат в россии. МИХАИЛ Нахал! Живёт в москве? ЕЛЕНА Нет, он живёт в другом русском городе, на восток. Это зимний город. Он всегла в зимнем пальто. МИХАИЛ Ах! ЕЛЕНО Он живёт в третьем дом на красной площади. МИХАИЛ Нет. Это неправда. Красная площадь в москве! ЕЛЕНО Ну, может-быть, что есть другой "Красная площадь" в этом городе. Не знаю. МИХАИЛ Что это? ЕЛЕНА Аа, любишь эту фотографию? В этой, Иван в земней шапке. МИХАИЛ У него есть лицо мальчика. ЕЛЕНА Гмм. Думаю, что он довольно красный мужчина. МИЖАИЛ Ты шутишь?! ЕЛЕНА Нет. МИХАИЛ Лена, у тебя есть парень*! ЕЛЕНА Я знаю... *supposed to boyfriend. Apparently means "guy". Can anyone suggest a better word? Anyway, how did you all feel about my little dialog there? I went back in time and showed it to Dostoevsky. Once he finished reading it, he broke down in tears. It inspired him to write all those novels, you know! He said, "This is so horrible that I must write something of value to counteract this filth!" ;) So yeah, here I made good use of the prepositional and accusative cases. Especially with adjectives. These are the easy cases; when the genitive gets involved, the shizz hits the fan. The point of this story is basically to find a use for my Russian. I have no Russian pen pals, so my only way to practice writing Russian is to make short stories like that. I did the same thing with French; I wrote a lot of essays and short stories, just for fun. It's amazing the stuff you can come up with when your vocabulary is limited... Well, that's all for today. Tomorrow I'll continue my Russian drills and... read stuff in French. :P Edited by lynxrunner on 21 December 2011 at 5:07pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| TixhiiDon Tetraglot Senior Member Japan Joined 5273 days ago 772 posts - 1474 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese, German, Russian Studies: Georgian | Message 2 of 195 08 May 2010 at 8:52am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
|
Hey lynxrunner, I liked your dialogue. I always wish they would put stuff more like this
in the textbooks, you know, boy meets girl, they fall in love, get married, have kids, cheat on each other, get divorced... I think it would make them a lot more entertaining. I am in a similar situation to you in that I'm studying Georgian but have no native speakers to practice with. In my case, I wrote a short self-introduction in Georgian on my language-learning log, just for practice, and along came a nice Georgian girl who read it and replied. We've been writing messages to each other on here now for a couple of months and it's been really helpful for me, so maybe if you do the same a native-speaking Russian will come along and help you out. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| dragonfly Triglot Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 6288 days ago 204 posts - 233 votes Speaks: Russian*, EnglishC2, Spanish Studies: German, Italian, Mandarin | Message 3 of 195 08 May 2010 at 4:24pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
|
МИХАИЛ Здравствуй, Лена. Как дела?
ЕЛЕНА Хорошо, Миша. Я пишу письмо Ивану. (за Ивана means instead of) МИХАИЛ Правда? Как он поживает? ЕЛЕНА Неплохо. Он адвокат в России. МИХАИЛ Нахал! Живёт в Москве? (Why is he нахал?) ЕЛЕНА Нет, он живёт в другом русском городе, на востоке. Это зимний город. Он всегда в зимнем пальто. (What do you mean by saying "winter town"?) МИХАИЛ Ах! ЕЛЕНО Он живёт в третьем дом на красной площади. МИХАИЛ Нет. Это неправда. Красная площадь в Москве! ЕЛЕНО Ну, может-быть, что есть другая "Красная площадь" в этом городе. Не знаю. МИХАИЛ Что это? ЕЛЕНА Аа, тебе нравится эта фотография? На этой Иван в земней шапке. (любить implies a stronger emotion) МИХАИЛ У него лицо мальчика. ЕЛЕНА Гмм. Думаю, что он довольно красный мужчина. МИЖАИЛ Ты шутишь?! ЕЛЕНА Нет. МИХАИЛ Лена, у тебя есть парень*! (it means boyfriend, you are right) ЕЛЕНА Я знаю... Good luck with your studies! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| lynxrunner Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United States crittercryptics.com Joined 5731 days ago 361 posts - 461 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish*, French Studies: Russian, Swedish, Haitian Creole | Message 4 of 195 08 May 2010 at 7:02pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
Thank you. I always get confused about when to use "за".
Mikhail thinks that Ivan "sold out" by leaving them instead of staying with his friends.
My book said you could use "зимний город" to mean "a wintry town", like a town where it feels like it's always winter. Is there another way to say this?
Thank you very much for correcting my dialog. :)
Hah, I totally agree! So much better than "What is this? This is tea. What is this? This is vodka." You think the native speaker would get a little tired of that after a while...
In my old Russian log, I did have a very nice native speaker who helped correct my sentences and stuff. I hope that I have such a person come by again. I wish you luck with your Georgian! I'm not sure I could handle such a language. :P Edited by lynxrunner on 08 May 2010 at 7:16pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| lynxrunner Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United States crittercryptics.com Joined 5731 days ago 361 posts - 461 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish*, French Studies: Russian, Swedish, Haitian Creole | Message 5 of 195 09 May 2010 at 12:55am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
|
So, to further interest in my new Ukrainian characters, I'm going to write short
biographies for them. ELENA Она из Крыма. Она говорит по-русский. Говорит по-укранский плохо, но она изучает прилежно. Её парень, его зовут Владимир. MIKHAIL Он из Киева. Он говорить по-укранский и по-русския. Он инженер. Любит математику. IVAN Он друг Елены. Живёт в русском городе на восток. Он адвокат. Он подумал, что жизнь в России бы был лучше. ROBERT Он американец. каждое утро, он видет Михаил в кафе. I also have a plan to learn pretty much every song from every Disney movie... in Russian. You may wonder, why? Why Disney instead of Soviet animation/Russian animation/something not American? Why learn songs? Well, first of all, why Disney. Well, I know the Disney movies pretty well. When I watch them, I have a good idea of what dialog goes where, or what sentiment the movie is trying to convey. This is an aid for me since my goal right now is to get a good level of passive understanding. I have tried looking at Soviet cartoons, but understanding them is an interesting task. See, if I am hearing a song from Disney and I don't understand a word, there is a good chance that someone will have written down the lyrics and I will be able to look up the word from that. Not possible with old Soviet cartoons. I once tried to find the lyrics to this one song from a Soviet cartoon and I had an extremely hard time finding the words. I still don't have the lyrics completely. There is usually a translation, but finding the words in Russian is quite a task. Now, why music? Well, I love music. Secondly, I notice that it's much easier for me to remember a Russian word if I can associate with a song. So, for example, if forget how to say "Cry!", I just have to think about a song with that word in it and it comes to mind. Very useful for me. Plus, it's a great way to learn vocabulary... Finally, I'm very interested in translation. Since Russian Disney films are all obviously translated from English, they have to change things. Russian culture != US American culture. I want to know what was changed, to what it was changed, and why. Basically, I want to get the little details native speakers pick up on and find amusing. Today I was listening to "Zero to Hero" in Russian and I noticed a reference to the Bolshoi Theater. Call it stupid, but I was happy to spot it. :3 It's kind of like when I understood my first French pun (Piquer les Pikachus). I have to make a post someday about the greatness of v=LNuJYe5zsIc">this cartoon. This has to be the best piece of Soviet animation I've seen so far, and it introduced me to a really cool piece of literature: Gorodok v tabakerke. I really like it. I love the Yellow Submarine-esque style it has. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| lynxrunner Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United States crittercryptics.com Joined 5731 days ago 361 posts - 461 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish*, French Studies: Russian, Swedish, Haitian Creole | Message 6 of 195 10 May 2010 at 1:54am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
|
So, recently I've been getting interested in Swedish. I blame it on Kristina fran
Duvemala, a wonderful music from the songwriters of ABBA (Bjorn and Benny). If you think they'd only be capable of writing catchy pop songs, you are wrong! They wrote some great songs, among them "Hemma", "Guldet blev till sand", and "Du masta finnas". Really great. The inspiration behind the musical, a series of novels called "The Emigrants", is interesting me now. I'd love to be able to read it... So, to those who say ABBA is nothing, I give you a raspberry! *prrrft* I say there's nothing wrong with ABBA. I am also interested in the ABBA member's pre-ABBA recordings (ABBA historian in the making? Perhaps ;]). Plus, learn Swedish and you can read Norwegian and (to an extent) Danish. A good passive understanding of Swedish could get me started on the path to Icelandic. I don't aim for SUPER MEGA FLUENCY like I do with Russian or French. I want good passive skills (as in, I can read novels and listen to stuff in Swedish). Being able to speak it would be cool, but I would settle for subpar speaking/writing skills. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| lynxrunner Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United States crittercryptics.com Joined 5731 days ago 361 posts - 461 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish*, French Studies: Russian, Swedish, Haitian Creole | Message 7 of 195 14 May 2010 at 12:58am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
|
RUSSIAN: I've started doing Livemocha again (since intensive real study is not possible
right now thanks to school D<). Today and yesterday, I've learned to describe clothes and hair color. Now I'm doing some weirdo version of the future tense. See, Livemocha works on a template. All courses start the same way: Man, woman, little girl, little boy, fat lady, poor dude, etc. This works well in the beginning because hey, it's very simply stuff. Not too much opportunity for deviation. However, when it gets to the stage where you have to involve declension, the system becomes odd. In Russian, you know there's all sorts of wonderful declensions to deal with. These are best learned, imo, the cold hard way: read about them. Prepositional, accusative, genitive, dative, instrumental, nominative, all best dealt with with a trusty grammar book. Getting the hang of them requires exposure, of course, but I can't imagine learning them by immersion or whatever. Because there are no grammar lessons in Livemocha, declensions are basically thrown in there. They appear all of a sudden: no lesson called "Declension" or "Accusative case", you just find that all of a sudden книга becomes книгу when someone's ready it and that диван is диване if someone is on it. I can only imagine the learner's confusion when they were suddenly shown the genitive case in that lesson about hair colors. Since one of their templates is "conjugation", I was interested in knowing how they'd teach perfective and imperfective. See, someone must explain that there are two forms for every verb, a perfective and an imperfective, and that they are used for different purposes to understand it. Russian learners usually learn about the perfective when they have to learn the future tense (since there's a big difference between using the perfective and the imperfective form there). Livemocha has a different approach. The wily Russian translators knew they couldn't just introduce the perfective forms on their own because the students would go "Wtf". They knew they couldn't take the easy way out with будеть and its forms because that's imperfective. How did they handle the issue? Simple: introduce the word собираться, "to intend". As such, if you want to say "I will do this", you would not be taught Я напишу (I will write) but Я собираюсь писать (I intend to write). Wow! They eventually had to buckle to the force of the perfective though, as I saw them slip in "Я покупаю." All in all, a very weird lesson and one that I imagine will be confusing for people who've never read a Russian grammar before. I personally use Livemocha for vocabulary (for which it is quite useful) and for having native speakers correct me. I leave the grammar to the grammar books. Working out swell so far. 8) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||||||||
| lynxrunner Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United States crittercryptics.com Joined 5731 days ago 361 posts - 461 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish*, French Studies: Russian, Swedish, Haitian Creole | Message 8 of 195 15 May 2010 at 5:54am | IP Logged | |||||||||||||||||
|
So, I have just found an amazing new resource for learning french:
viedemerde.fr FML... in French. It's the original version, but obviously FML is more popular in the English-speaking world because, well, it's in English. In any case, I learned how to say "My cat got squished to death. His name was Compote." (Mon chat est mort écrasé. Il s'appelle Compote. VDM.") Beautiful! Also, I wrote another one of my Russian dialogues to reflect my progress with Livemocha. In this adventure, Mikhail tries to convince Elena to do a technique to help her get along with her co-workers by having her describe herself. She tries to do it with Mikhail, but is ultimately embarrassed and leaves. Mikhail, who learned this technique from this American immigrant who always meets him at the local coffee shop, is disappointed about the failure. МИХАИЛ Пожалуйста, Елена! Думаю, что это поработает. ЕЛЕНА Я не собершенна с тобой согласен. МИХАИЛ Это упражнение тебя поможешь. Пойдём! ЕЛЕНА Ны, меня зобут Елена Владимировна. Я живу в Киеве. У меня каштанобые прямые волосы. Я секретарь. У меня 15 лет... Я не могу продолжать! Это упражнение глыпое и мне пора уже до дома. МИХАИЛ Неправда. Тебе нужно этот упражнение. Кстати, ты не кончила. ЕЛЕНА ...Гмм... Я женщина. Конец этого глупого упражнения. Еду домой. МИХАИЛ Ну ладно. Пока. ЕЛЕНА Пока. ЗАВТРА, Б КОФЕ ПОБЕРТ Доброе утро, Михаил! Как дела? МИХАИЛ Так себе. ПОБЕРТ Мое упражнение нравится Елене? МИХАИЛ Нет. Она думает, что оно глупое. ПОБЕРТ Глупое?! Все знает ето упражнение в Америке! МИХАИЛ Американцы странные люди... Edited by lynxrunner on 09 July 2010 at 5:15pm 2 persons have voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
