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TAC 2011- dotdotdot- Team Я

 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log Post Reply
9 messages over 2 pages: 1 2  Next >>
dotdotdot
Diglot
Newbie
United States
Joined 5030 days ago

24 posts - 37 votes
Speaks: Korean, English*
Studies: Italian, Russian

 
 Message 1 of 9
27 December 2010 at 11:46pm | IP Logged 
Wow, this is it, isn't it? I feel nervous for some reason >_<

BACKGROUND
Korean is my native language, but I moved to America when I was barely of school age, and unfortunately it has caused me to forget most of my mother tongue and had it be replaced with English. I haven't taken any language classes yet, but I have tried to learn Italian with poor results.

Then I found this forum, lurked around for a long while, and found the courage to try at the Total Annihilation Challenge :)

LANGUAGES

РУССКИЙ
Ah, Russian; a language with great literature and a country with a rich history and culture. And it's a language I have zero knowledge on. But it's the language which I want to focus on the most. Also, I have recently found out that the magnet high school I'm applying to has a Russian program and also has a trip to Russia every other year for the teacher's favorite students. :D
My goal for this language would be to get at a B1/B2 level at a minimum.

Materials:
New Penguin Russian Course
Teach Yourself Russian
Modern Russian 1
Schaum's Outline of Russian Grammar
(L-R) The Little Prince
(L-R) Crime and Punishment

ITALIANO
This language is a low priority for me, but it's a beautiful language, and I feel like I must have it since I consider myself a very musical/artistic person.
My goal for this would probably be B2, since I know that it'll probably be much easier than Russian.

Materials:
Assimil Italian with Ease
Colloquial Italian
(L-R) The Little Prince
(L-R) Anna Karenina

한글
I must confess that I do feel a bit ashamed by including Korean here. I can still listen and speak at a basic/intermediate level, but my main problem is reading and writing along with more advanced vocabulary.
I guess my goal for Korean would be basic reading/writing, and improve listening/speaking.

Materials:
Living Language Korean
Basic Korean: Grammar & Workbook
Korean TV
and a bookshelf full of Korean picture books and comic books ;)

I'm probably not going to add another language into the mix, though there is a slight chance of Hungarian, Lithuanian, or Persian.

SCHEDULE
The schedule I'm going to use throughout the year is this:
JAN-APR: Russian Only
APR-AUG: Russian, Italian, Korean
AUG-DEC: Russian and Italian

Good luck to my teammates: handfulofkeys and petrklic, along with everyone else in TAC!

Edited by dotdotdot on 31 December 2010 at 10:48pm

1 person has voted this message useful



handfulofkeys
Diglot
Newbie
CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5126 days ago

20 posts - 20 votes
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: German, Italian, Russian

 
 Message 2 of 9
29 December 2010 at 9:56pm | IP Logged 
Hey!

Sounds pretty cool. I'm a little further along than you in Russian, but I'm still very much a beginner. In Italian, though, I'm actually pretty decent with the written part of the language, although I'm very out of practise. So if you ever want to practise writing in Italian, let me know!

It should be fun following your log! I'm gonna start mine later today.

Go team Я! (I like it 'cause it sounds like "yeah!" :P)
1 person has voted this message useful



dotdotdot
Diglot
Newbie
United States
Joined 5030 days ago

24 posts - 37 votes
Speaks: Korean, English*
Studies: Italian, Russian

 
 Message 3 of 9
30 December 2010 at 1:26am | IP Logged 
handfulofkeys wrote:

Go team Я! (I like it 'cause it sounds like "yeah!" :P)


Haha, I know right? xD

I'll be looking forward to your log too. Hopefully, none of us end up procrastinating too much. It's a really bad habit for me, but I guess that's the whole point of TAC, to just stop wasting time and actually do something xP

Long live Team Я!
1 person has voted this message useful



handfulofkeys
Diglot
Newbie
CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5126 days ago

20 posts - 20 votes
Speaks: English*, French
Studies: German, Italian, Russian

 
 Message 4 of 9
31 December 2010 at 12:38am | IP Logged 
I also kind of like the narcissism of being on team "me" :P

As for procrastinating, oh yes that is a very big problem for me too. I've gotten better, but I'm still really bad. Hopefully we'll improve that this year. It's super cool that you know Korean. I tried to learn it in grade 7, and managed to learn the alphabet and "안녕하세요", but never really got past that. Maybe one day...
1 person has voted this message useful



dotdotdot
Diglot
Newbie
United States
Joined 5030 days ago

24 posts - 37 votes
Speaks: Korean, English*
Studies: Italian, Russian

 
 Message 5 of 9
31 December 2010 at 3:33am | IP Logged 
Well, I am Korean, but I forgot a lot of it after moving to the U.S. ㅠ.ㅠ


You should try to learn it again! It's not as if there's a lack of native material (all a part of Korea taking over the world, loljk xD.) And there's a lot of TV programs that are looking for foreigners who can speak Korean well from all over the world.

Edited by dotdotdot on 31 December 2010 at 3:33am

1 person has voted this message useful



dotdotdot
Diglot
Newbie
United States
Joined 5030 days ago

24 posts - 37 votes
Speaks: Korean, English*
Studies: Italian, Russian

 
 Message 6 of 9
04 January 2011 at 12:34am | IP Logged 
Week 1

Russian: 4.5 hours

Yeah I know it's a pretty small amount. I had a lot of computer problems this week, and most of my resources are PDFs, which didn't really help.

I was able to buy a copy of Assimil Russian Without Toil for $4.50 at a used book sale, and I had been able to get the audio for free and it makes me very happy that I'm now able to use a series which many people in this forum seem to swear by. And I do like it so far (although I have only done 3 lessons.) It's more fun than the other resources I'm using right now, especially Modern Russian.

I've also done two lessons of Teach Yourself, but I find it annoying that the book doesn't really give you a translation but gives "key words" so that I have to look back and forth. I find it more convenient to just look the words up and then copy the dialogue and write a translation parallel to that, Assimil-style. Still in Unit one for Modern Russian. It takes more time to "overlearn" things than I've expected.

Can anyone tell me how I can type in Russian so that I can practice my writing more? I'm a bit of a technology illiterate -__-
1 person has voted this message useful



joanthemaid
Triglot
Senior Member
France
Joined 5281 days ago

483 posts - 559 votes 
Speaks: French*, English, Spanish
Studies: Russian, German

 
 Message 7 of 9
04 January 2011 at 11:47am | IP Logged 
привет, dotdotdot, fellow teammate! Yeah (Я!) for team Я!

Don't worry about time spent, it's only been four days after all, not a week. Although it's true that if you want to get to B2 you'll have to put in a lot of hours. It's possible though if you're motivated: last year I managed to get to a lowish B1 in six months, before giving up :S. Assimil sound good, but if you ever feel like it's not enough (it usually doesn't go beyond a certain level), I highly recommend the Princeton course (see my log for the link or Google Princeton Russian course and you'll find it. It's a dense, three-year university course (I've only done one semester, it takes me about 4 hours per lesson). Starting with assimil is a good idea though, as it will force you to respect an all-passive phase.

For your keyboard problem there are two solutions; either you buy stickers for your keyboard and then use the Russian option on your computer (control panel - language - modify keyboard - add - russian - keyboard - tick "Russian" and OK, then you should have that option in your bottom task bar, on the right side: EN or RU. That's for Windows.)
OR you can actually buy a Russian-English keyboard (Solfrid Cristin is the one who told me aboout it). In any case you can find all that at: http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Dap s&field-keywords=russian+keyboard&x=0&y=0, though their actual keyboards are quite expensive. Not trying to advertise amazon, it's just what I use. Personally I got the stickers, because I like laptop keyboards, I find them more comfortable, and a extra USB keyboard would take up room and be awkward.
In the mean time there are online 'keyboards', but they're not very practical. The one I use is: http://www.apronus.com/internet/ruskey.htm.

I hope this helps. As we say in France, "bon courage" (be brave, I wish you courage).
And of course happy new year!

Edited by joanthemaid on 04 January 2011 at 11:48am

1 person has voted this message useful



petrklic
Triglot
Pro Member
Czech Republic
Joined 4897 days ago

95 posts - 109 votes 
Speaks: Czech*, English, Russian
Studies: Vietnamese
Personal Language Map

 
 Message 8 of 9
04 January 2011 at 4:41pm | IP Logged 
Oh, about the keyboard, the solution for real men is to learn to touch type йцуке :) Then you don't need the stickers or specialized keyboard. It takes a bit of practice, but then at least you can type your ANKIs easily. Then again I'm a computer guy and being computer-literate in Russian is quite important to me, so I'm willing to do more stuff in this area.


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