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Solfrid Cristin’s way TAC 2011 Team Ohana | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5129 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes  Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 113 of 221 07 May 2011 at 8:46am | IP Logged | ||
Yes, sometimes it is a good thing to start from nothing, on the other hand it sounds quite nice to have a background from Ancient Greek! You must know so much that is useful when studying Modern Greek. Are you able to communicate with Greeks based on your Ancient Greek, or are they too far a part? GREEK I have listened again to the first couple of chapters in all 4 courses, but the words do not seem to stick, and I am really struggling with spill over from Russian. Every time the English voice asks me to translate a sentence to Greek it comes out in Russian. I must do something about that. Not quite sure what to do though. I also continue with my CD- ROM which I still enjoy a lot. I guess I should continue to write down the new words. I am a fairly visual person, so I cannot rely on listening alone. RUSSIAN After working with my Greek CD- ROM I decided to go back to my “Russian in 10 minutes a day” CD ROM. It was quite a relief to see that now, the things I struggled so hard with last year, were so easy. I had to think carefully once, the rest was just going through at high speed without having to do much reflection. ------------- Day 3 in Ukraine – Wednesday On Wednesday we were invited to watch a “шоу” or a show :-) at the school. Sitting for two hours listening to something in Ukrainian and Russian only, was quite demanding, but I was happy that I understood the occasional word, and that I could talk a little with the teenagers in Russian. I was shocked at how little English they understood though. Our little hostess told us that they were only three in her class who could really speak English, and the 15 years olds who had learned English for many years spoke less English than I speak Russian. I managed to rattle them a little, when one said in Russian/Ukrainian. “I do not know the word for railways in English”, and I could turn around and tell him. He had not realized that I did actually understand asn speak some Russian. Otherwise the two main criteria for attending school seemed to be to be super skinny and to have died hair. The teachers had drawn attention to the fact that both my daughters had their natural hair color, as this was extremely uncommon. Ukrainian food – worth a chapter in itself. I am watching my weight quite carefully, but going to Ukraine is then a really bad move. I love the food there, but it is not exactly designed for weight loss. In my guide book it said that Ukrainian food was designed for you to go into the cold winter night and wrestle a bear. I am quite ready to believe that. Our hostess is a professional cook, and makes absolutely everything from scratch, so I had to be really careful of what I ate, and did a lot of exercise. My husband was a bit less careful, and gained 6 pounds in a week. He claims it was worth it though! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5129 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 114 of 221 07 May 2011 at 8:47pm | IP Logged | ||
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GREEK
I have written down a total of 58 words in Greek now, and did some more sentences on my CD Rom this morning. I also practised reading the words from the two first lessons. I actually find Greek easier to pronounce and read than Russian. After more than a year of study I am still struggling to know how to read Russian, whereas Greek seems like a natural language to me. RUSSIAN Ahem. A bit more Pimsleur repetition is all I have done today... I have not quite decided whether I should take a pause with my Russian until I have been to Greece, in order to give myself a chance to learn at least a little bit of Greek before I go there, or whether I should continue to focus on Russian, which I want to learn well, and just continue to play with Greek without really taking it seriously, The thing is that I am starting to really like Greek... WANDERLUST CONFESSIONS I had a really weird experience today. My daughter wants us to first learn Russian together, and then Ukrainian. Ukrainian is on my hit list, so that is not a problem, the thing is that I had planned to learn Russian first, then go back to my first Slavic love, Polish, and then end up with Ukrainian, since I figured that Russian and Polish together would give me Ukrainian practically for free. Since I like the idea of doing it together with my daughter, I will however reverse the order. I am unsure of how I will get the neccesary materials, but Pimsleur has a course, so today I listened to a half an hour free Ukrainian lesson. What came as a bit of a shock was that Ukrainian ws so close to Polish, as I thought there was a lot more Russian in it. I have so far assumed that we were talking 60 % Russian, 20 % Polish and 20 % pure Ukrainian, but based on just the few sentences I heard on this course, I would think that we are more talking a 30 - 50 - 20 ratio. I know it is really too early to tell, but I was surprized that it was as different from Russian as it is. UKRAINIAN TRIP -DAY 4 Thursday We went to the closest big town so the children could go ice skating, and I was again happy to see that I had no problem making myself understood in the shops. My oldest daughter was reading out loud all the signs we could see from the bus (we had to take a total of 6 buses), to the amusement of the local boys behind her. I found a shop where they had books and films, and spent all my shopping money on those. (Who needs clothes anyway). I got hold of the following: - Two Agatha Christie books - A book with Russian folk tales - 10 films in Russian/Ukranian(Dear John, Sweet Juliet, Garfield, Rapunzel, Dirty Dancing 2, Beverly Hills Chihuahua 2, View from the top, the Pentagon Papers and a couple of Russian ones where one is a cartoon, and the other one was a comedy with Mila Jojowich). It will be like ordering a meal in a Korean restaurant with an all Korean menue. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ReneeMona Diglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 5130 days ago 864 posts - 1274 votes Speaks: Dutch*, EnglishC2 Studies: French | Message 115 of 221 07 May 2011 at 11:17pm | IP Logged | ||
Actually, I was disastrously bad at Greek in high school and it's been a good six years since I did anything at all with the language so I don't think I'm experiencing much benefit apart from knowing the alphabet. I recognize some words every now and then but that's about it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| joanthemaid Triglot Senior Member France Joined 5265 days ago 483 posts - 559 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish Studies: Russian, German | Message 116 of 221 08 May 2011 at 8:09am | IP Logged | ||
That must mean Russian is starting to come naturally to you... (Always look on the bright side of life) Otherwise the two main criteria for attending school seemed to be to be super skinny and to have died hair. The teachers had drawn attention to the fact that both my daughters had their natural hair color, as this was extremely uncommon. Ukrainian food – worth a chapter in itself. I am watching my weight quite carefully, but going to Ukraine is then a really bad move. I love the food there, but it is not exactly designed for weight loss. In my guide book it said that Ukrainian food was designed for you to go into the cold winter night and wrestle a bear. I am quite ready to believe that. Our hostess is a professional cook, and makes absolutely everything from scratch, so I had to be really careful of what I ate, and did a lot of exercise. My husband was a bit less careful, and gained 6 pounds in a week. He claims it was worth it though! [/QUOTE] Don't tell me you're trying to get into Ukrainian Hig school! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5129 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 117 of 221 08 May 2011 at 7:45pm | IP Logged | ||
Ha! I would have to shed not a few pounds but a whole person to do that. I am not trying to get into Ukrainian High School, I am just trying to get into last year's favourite summer dress. :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5351 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona | Message 118 of 221 09 May 2011 at 10:28am | IP Logged | ||
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Ukrainian cuisine - now you're talking! Full English breakfasts just pale into insignficance next to a hearty plate of salo and olivye in the morning...now where's that darned grizzly, grrr?! :P
I really enjoy reading about your experiences in Kyiv, and hope your suitcase turns up intact soon. Щасти! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5129 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 119 of 221 13 May 2011 at 3:18pm | IP Logged | ||
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I am on my way to Brussels for a few days, so I will have to finish my Ukranian story when I Get back.
Look forward to speaking some French again!! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| polyglossia Senior Member FranceRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5199 days ago 205 posts - 255 votes Speaks: French* | Message 120 of 221 14 May 2011 at 1:33pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm jealous you're starting greek from scratch... though my practising greek looks like I'm back to square one everytime...
Actually, I found this French method "le grec tout de suite"... It deals with a common pattern : one sentence is spoken in French and then the equivalent sentence in Greek is uttered... So, I began to deal with it listening to it .... Actually, I never did more... that means I never looked at the "writing"... and I've stuck to it to this day... As ReneeMona said, the pronounciation between Anc Grk and Mod Grk is quite different... I learnt Anc Grk by myself when I was a teen-ager but never could go through it.. and the reason is obvious: the way you utter the sentences in Anc Grk doesnt make sense at all.. If you read the book of "Henri Schliemann", he explains he mastered first Mod Grk because according to him, the Anc Grk was uttered the same way, and that makes sense... So, right now, I've been able to etch a lot of greek sentences "on my head" just listening to these sentences a hundred times... So, I can recite them whenever I want... It's a slow apprenticeship, but it works... Wonder how you're dealing with the "sound pattern" ? Shadowing, listening ? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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