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Solfrid Cristin TAC 2012 Team Sputnik

 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log Post Reply
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Teango
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2210 posts - 3734 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Russian
Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona

 
 Message 145 of 270
13 June 2012 at 12:06pm | IP Logged 
It sounds like a grand adventure, Cristina. I only recently visited Red Square and was simply blown away by the whole Moscow experience. I hope you enjoy your stopover there too. And don't forget to pack some Russian reading material along with your toothbrush and Mandarin Michel Thomas for the long journey...with any luck, you'll be making hop, skip and jumps in your Russian language skills this September and further brave steps towards completing your Super Challenge! ;)
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Woodsei
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 Message 146 of 270
13 June 2012 at 12:42pm | IP Logged 
Impressive, Christina! And the Transsiberian sounds so COOL. How's your Mandarin?
Hopefully you'll do as well as you did with your Russian speech. Best of luck on your
future trip!
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tarvos
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 Message 147 of 270
13 June 2012 at 12:52pm | IP Logged 
Sounds very good, yes! Have fun on the train of trains.
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Solfrid Cristin
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Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian
Studies: Russian

 
 Message 148 of 270
13 June 2012 at 1:36pm | IP Logged 
[QUOTE=Woodsei] How's your Mandarin?
QUOTE]

Great! I can say "Ni hao". That is my entire vocabulary in Mandarin. But I have got a near native pronunciation, of course :-)

Edited by Solfrid Cristin on 13 June 2012 at 1:57pm

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Takato
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 Message 149 of 270
17 June 2012 at 12:30pm | IP Logged 
Solfrid Cristin wrote:
add Mandarin

As for learning Mandarin, if you don't write any hanzi then it'll fasten the process, so make sure you don't handwrite any of them! I suggest learning them using this and an SRS software, obviously.
Solfrid Cristin wrote:
[QUOTE=Woodsei] How's your Mandarin?
QUOTE]

Great! I can say "Ni hao". That is my entire vocabulary in Mandarin. But I have got a near native pronunciation, of course :-)

Maybe you would like to have perfect Mandarin but for that your Mandarin capabilities be perfect you probably need more time learning than otherwise, however, there is no need to form a perfect accent as you will naturally be understood by other speakers due to the variety of accents formed from different backgrounds. In reality, it's not unusual for one to meet native Chinese people in China with imperfect tones. Get down pat the difference between jiong, zhong and the like, though. Nevertheless you don't need to learn the difference thoroughly in the beginning. Just make sure you pronounce different sounds when learning words with j or zh. Capability of distinguishing them while hearing can come later. You'd be better off using sounds in your SRS software so you can make better use of your time.

Now I have nothing left to tell you other than that using Remembering the Hanzi would be a bad idea and that I hope you have great success with your learning one of the most fascinating languages on planet Earth. :D

Edited by Takato on 17 June 2012 at 12:51pm

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Solfrid Cristin
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Winner TAC 2011 & 2012
Senior Member
Norway
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4143 posts - 8864 votes 
Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian
Studies: Russian

 
 Message 150 of 270
07 July 2012 at 9:00am | IP Logged 
@Takato: Thank you for your advice!

JUNE 5TH TO JULY 6TH

I cannot believe I have not updated my log for a month! Particularly when I am without kids, and the 6wc is over, so I should have more time. In my defense this is the most hectic period for my other passion in life – my garden. On July 1st I had an open garden, and I work like a woman possessed the two weeks before to get the garden ready for showing. Of course this year, it rained so much two hours before I was having the open garden, that I quite literally had a river through my garden. And then of course I have to take in the rose petals so that I can make rose jelly – that takes several hours too, so all in all, my languages have been a little bit neglected.

My main activity has been to go to Russian classes at Berlitz, and it is finally starting to come together. My main goal with Russian is to be able to speak it, and 12 hours (16 lessons) this week speaking only Russian definitely does help. I do however see that I have done about the same amount of study in a month, as I did in a week during the 6wc. I need a new 6wc! Fast!

Part of it is due to the simple fact that I forget to write down what I study, of course. In the 6wc I try to write down everything I do, but outside of that, although I try to write on Twitter what I study, I forget to note down a lot.

I have had the visit from ReneeMona , and since I consider her my little sister here on the forum, that was great! She was in Oslo with her parents for a week, and I was fortunate enough to see her three times while she was here.

I have also had the visit from Torbyrne this week, and we have been going back and forth between languages until my poor husband was going bananas listening to us. I even had a conversation in Russian with him when I got home from work yesterday! I had just come out of Russian class, and my head was full of Russian, so when I got home I just blurted into Russian, and we had a 5 minute conversation. Usually I only speak with my teacher in Russian, so it felt great speaking with someone else!

And then the big exciting thing is of course is that I am going to Russia day after tomorrow! Getting a visa has been such pure torture (even though that actually was not the fault of the Russian embassy, it was just a chain of unfortunate events) , that I can hardly believe I am going. I must be one of the few tourists who go to St. Petersburg with the firm hope that it will be warm enough to go to the beach. We have had a really shitty summer in Norway this year, so the bikini and bath towel will find their way to my suitcase.

And I will meet our own Tecktight! She and her mom will come to St. Petersburg to meet us, and I am of course scared absolutely legless at the idea that her mom might try to strike up a conversation with me in Russian, but I am looking so much forward to meeting Tecktigth live, that I will survive.

I have started doing a little Mandarin and a couple of hours of Mongolian, but it is just a little here and there, and not enough for me to actually learn anything. What I would have given for a solid day of studying! When I get back from Russia it will be even worse, because then I will have guests until when I go to Russia again in September, which means that we are talking almost the month of October before it will just be me and my kids and my husband here. I do not mind at all, on the contrary I welcome it, but it does make it a bit harder to find time to study!

Anyhow, when I come back from Russia I will have to do all the Icelandic that I can, because I am going to Iceland the week after. Iiiiik! Way too much traveling, way too little time!


STUDIES THIS MONTH

Russian : 20.45
French: 16.45
English: 14.55
Spanish : 2.30
German : 8 hours
Mandarin: 9.20
Mongolian: 1.15

TOTAL

FOCUS LANGUAGES

Russian: 420 h 55 min
German: 59 h 45 minutes       
French: 81 h 40 minutes

NON FOCUS LANGUAGES

English: 234 hours 40 minutes
Spanish: 98 hours 25 minutes
Swedish/Danish 10 hours
Italian: 9 h 30 minutes
Mandarin: 16 h 30 minutes
Greek: 2h 10 min
Mongolian: 1 h 15 minutes.
Ukrainian: 1 hour
Arabic: 1 hour and 5 minutes
Icelandic:20 minutes

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tarvos
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China
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5310 posts - 9399 votes 
Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans
Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish

 
 Message 151 of 270
07 July 2012 at 11:24pm | IP Logged 
You'll be fine! Enjoy your travels!
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Solfrid Cristin
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Winner TAC 2011 & 2012
Senior Member
Norway
Joined 5145 days ago

4143 posts - 8864 votes 
Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian
Studies: Russian

 
 Message 152 of 270
08 July 2012 at 1:04pm | IP Logged 
I just wanted to let you know that in case you are interested, there is a video of Torbyrne and me out now, and we made a multilingual video which will come out later.


You will find it in the Polyglot room, but I also included it here on my log.

I have only one regret, which are the 20 punds that I have put on since last summer. Plus that when the multilingual one comes out, the Swedes will crucify me. I confidently state that their language is so easy for us that there is no need to study it to speak it, and then proceed to butcher the language completely.

VIDEO OF CRISTINA AND TORBYRNE


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