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TAC 2011 - TEAM Ж - snovymgodom (RU) | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| snovymgodom Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5544 days ago 136 posts - 149 votes  Speaks: English*, Russian | Message 1 of 34 30 December 2010 at 6:00am | IP Logged |
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Hello everyone! This will be the first time I participate in a TAC, and I am looking forward to a fun and productive year with Team Ж. I wish the best of luck to my teammates (Solfrid Cristin, nogoodnik, and geordie), and to anyone else on the board who is participating in this year's TAC. For this challenge I will be focusing only on Russian, since it will be the focus of my graduate study.
In this post, I will briefly describe my background and goals for learning Russian, some study methods I have used, challenges I am facing, and also start compiling a resource list that may be useful to my fellow teammates. As I find new resources I will edit this post. 1. BACKGROUND/LEVEL According to the testers at my university, my current level in Russian is somewhere between C1 and C2, but since I have been in the United States since May 2010 and have not been using Russian as regularly as I did when abroad in Russia, my level is likely closer to a C1 than a C2. I started studying Russian independently in 2005, and that allowed me to get the fundamentals down before I started taking Russian classes at college in 2007. Every semester I've taken a class that requires me to speak Russian, and this spring I'll be taking a class on 20th-century Russian poetry. I studied abroad in St. Petersburg during the 2009-2010 academic year, and I also spent the summer of 2008 in Almaty, Kazakhstan. I'm applying to Middlebury College for graduate school, and my tentative plan for the 2011-2012 academic year is to spend one semester in Moscow, and one in Irkutsk. 2. GOALS Ideally I would like to be at a strong C2 level by the end of 2011. I'd like to get back into reading (or trying to read) novels in Russian, and also memorizing poetry and/or songs (since it's something that most Russians do). And also, I should brush up on my Russian history and geography...I'd like to know where all of the oblasts, krais and autonomous regions are. Another thing I really want to work on is listening, since I still sometimes have problems when listening to people if they are speaking quickly or unclearly. 3. CHALLENGES My biggest problem is my living situation - I'm in a college dormitory where I don't have much privacy and I have to deal with noise and people knocking on the door to come in. I need to find a quiet place where I can sit and study and not be bothered - the library is one option, but I'd really like a more isolated place with less people around. My second problem is my computer. My laptop is about four years old, and it has a lot of problems. I spilled some tea on it recently, and since October I've had to copy and paste the letters Ж and Э whenever I need to type them, since the keys for them no longer work. I also have system-related problems that require me to use Linux if I want to use the Internet, which is all right most of the time, but some sites won't load, I can't use Skype, and if I try typing Cyrillic in SharedTalk a garbled mess comes out. Fortunately, these two issues will be all over in May. I'll have graduated by then, which means no unwanted noise. I'll also be getting a new laptop at that point, which will make my Russian-learning infinitely easier... But in the meantime, I will do what I can! 4. MATERIALS, TECHNIQUES AND RESOURCES My study techniques always change depending on what I'm interested in/what I want to work on. Right now I've been getting into Russian movies, Soviet-made ones in particular. I may try transcribing parts of them and comparing them with the official subtitles (if I can find them on subtitry.ru) to see how well I listened. I may try doing the same with audiobooks, since from book-free.ru I now have an audio version of Anna Karenina (which I have read in Russian, but rather sloppily). I should also start writing to my Russian friends more often, and also posting stuff on lang-8 for people to correct. As for materials...most of my materials are things I find online for free. Since Russians don't follow copyright laws as strictly as in some other countries, there are plenty of resources online that can be found for free. Of course, it helps to have a decent knowledge of Russian beforehand, otherwise it may be difficult to find them. But I will point you in the right direction: http://lib.ru/ - Lots of Russian literature. Also, if you can't find something here, it's probably somewhere else on the net. One thing you could do is if you have an excerpt from a Russian novel, and you're looking for the whole text, you could enter some sentences from the excerpt into Google or Yandex and you might find the entire text uploaded somewhere. http://vkontakte.ru/ - This is primarily a social networking site, but there are lots of movies, music and video on this site that can be downloaded using tools. http://intv.ru/ - Online collection of Russian movies and shows to watch. The only downside is that there are advertisements, and certain videos can only be watched by paid members. Also, the quality of the movie and dubbing/translation is variable. http://book-free.ru/ - This site has free Russian audiobooks that can be downloaded in parts, however the selection is limited. I'd like to find a better audiobook site. http://ayguo.com/audiolist.asp - Some audiobooks/stories, I recommend this site. http://lurkmore.ru/ - This is sometimes fun to read, it's a satirical encyclopedia - pretty much the Russian version of Encyclopedia Dramatica. http://anekdot.ru/ - Russian anecdotes/jokes http://absurdopedia.wikia.com/wiki/ - Russian version of Uncyclopedia - satirical wiki More to come! I recommend the following channels on YouTube for watching Russian movies: 5. OTHER LANGUAGES FOR 2011 Inevitably I will have bouts of wanderlust. I'd like to take some time to study some French and/or German, since they are languages I've wanted to seriously study for some time but always have been busy. I may do some light listening or reading some days, but I'll have to put Russian first as a priority. Any comments, questions and/or suggestions are welcome! Edited by snovymgodom on 31 December 2010 at 12:52am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| geordie Diglot Newbie Canada Joined 4906 days ago 24 posts - 26 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Russian | Message 2 of 34 31 December 2010 at 12:06am | IP Logged |
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It's nice to have on our team someone who actually speaks the language we're attempting to learn. Your knowledge will be a great asset to the team. I'm not sure if I can be of much assistance to you reaching your goals, but I'll help out where I can.
I`m looking forward to reading that lurkmore forum when I`m able. Thanks for the links. Go team Ж! Edit: you may want to change the title to TAC 2011. Just noticed that. Edited by geordie on 31 December 2010 at 12:10am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5153 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 3 of 34 31 December 2010 at 12:08am | IP Logged |
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Good luck! I think you'll be a very valuable member of the team, since the rest of us are less advanced than you are. I look forward to looking closer at some of the resources you are mentioning.
Oh, and I am trying desperately not to envy you for going to Russia for a year. :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| snovymgodom Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5544 days ago 136 posts - 149 votes Speaks: English*, Russian | Message 4 of 34 31 December 2010 at 12:51am | IP Logged |
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Thanks for the responses, guys! And thanks for pointing out the title, geordie. :)
Probably the best way to help me out would be to keep me motivated, because laziness is my biggest enemy when it comes to language study. Also, geordie, if you like satirical stuff, there's also Absurdopedia, the Russian version of Uncyclopedia. I'll add it to my opening post, though I personally like Lurkomore better. :) http://absurdopedia.wikia.com/wiki/ 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| snovymgodom Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5544 days ago 136 posts - 149 votes Speaks: English*, Russian | Message 5 of 34 31 December 2010 at 5:57am | IP Logged |
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30 декабря 2010
- Worked on transcribing the audio from Город Зеро, a film from 1988 about a man from Moscow who goes on a business trip to a village where a series of strange events occur, making it impossible for the man to ever return to Moscow. I've watched the entire film before and enjoyed it, and there is an online version with English subtitles that you can download if you want. However, I have yet to find subtitles for it on subtitry.ru, so I don't have anything with which I can compare my own notes to. Oh well, at least it's good practice - next time I start transcribing a film, I'll try to make sure I have a text with which I can compare it. - Read a little bit of a linguistics book that I bought in Kazakhstan two years ago, Введение в лингвистику (Introduction to Linguistics). - Watched a few Soviet cartoons online, such as Маша больше не лентяйка (Masha is no longer a lazy girl). There are other videos in the "Masha" series that are quite funny. I've found another YouTube channel that has movies and cartoons, though there are no English subtitles. - Sent a message to my Russian friend and browsed around on VKontakte...one funny thing is that my Russian friend's dad posted on her wall, calling her "Говнюшка". This looks like a term of endearment, but it is very funny because it comes from the word "говно" (look it up if you don't know what it means). - Started reading a bit about Russian dialects in Siberia... And last but not least, I found this gem on the Russian Wikipedia. It's about a boy that was named БОЧ рВФ 260602, an abbreviation that stands for "Human Biological Object of the family Voronin-Frolov, born on 26 June 2002. The father is also planning to change his name to adapt to this new template. The boy has been facing some issues due to problems with denial of documents. More information about this in Russian can be found if you Google БОЧ рВФ 260602 :) Interesting constructions to remember: пропуск НА кого-то (entrance ticket for someone) обнаруживать пробел в знаниях (to find a space/gap in one's knowledge) опора на факты (reliance on facts) испускать запах (to let out a smell) издавать звук (to make a sound) проникнуть в глубину веков (to find one's way into the depth of centuries/ages/time) наступает перелом (The turning point begins) восходить к (каким-нибудь временам) = to date back (to a certain time) -- Индийская лингвистическая традиция ВОСХОДИТ к тем отдаленным временам, когда культура Индии ещё не знала письменности. (Indian linguistic traditions date back to those distant times when the culture of India did not have (lit. know) a system of writing. напрягаться - to stretch, strain, strain oneself упругость - elasticity And that's it for tonight! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| sage74 Groupie United States Joined 5257 days ago 40 posts - 52 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 6 of 34 31 December 2010 at 8:03am | IP Logged |
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Very Ambitious Snovymgodom! Keep pressing forward in your studies! Always keep up the
consistency! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5153 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 7 of 34 31 December 2010 at 5:40pm | IP Logged |
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Still envious :)
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| snovymgodom Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5544 days ago 136 posts - 149 votes Speaks: English*, Russian | Message 8 of 34 01 January 2011 at 4:49am | IP Logged |
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Happy New Year Everyone! Or should I say, с новым годом! Which also happens to be my username on this forum. :D
Sage74, it's great to see that you're also participating in the TAC! Best of luck, and keep us updated! You can help me make sure I don't get lazy, too. Solfrid Cristin, it can't be too bad in Norway though! I've never been over there - the only Scandinavian country I've been to is Finland (Helsinki), which was for three days. I would like to visit the rest of Scandinavia too though. :) Actually, when I studied abroad in St. Petersburg, we had a student who was from Norway with us. Also, there are some cities in Russia (mostly in Leningrad Oblast) that have Germanic names, like Кронштадт, Шлисселбург, and Выборг. Anyway, as for today, 31 декабря 2010, I don't really have anything to report. I had lunch and saw a movie with my aunt and didn't get back until mid-afternoon. I ended up reading a little bit from my Russian linguistics book but then I took a nap, and we're spending the evening with family now. Tomorrow will be better, of course! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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