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Tarvos - TAC 2015 Pushkin/Scan

 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log Post Reply
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tarvos
Super Polyglot
Winner TAC 2012
Senior Member
China
likeapolyglot.wordpr
Joined 4457 days ago

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 897 of 1511
07 October 2013 at 5:28pm | IP Logged 
Oh, I actually knew it was une and somehow did not type it! Christ that is awful.

That is the movie my teacher referred to. The title of one the article was a word-play,
though - "Le papillon fait de la résistance" perhaps I should have clarified. And it
wasn't me who considered it a word-play, haha... it was my teacher who said that!

My teacher had to look up "vis-écrou" beforehand.

I think the meaning here was "to undulate" because the onduler referred to the mosasaurs
using a propulsion mechanism in the water that propelled them forward by making waves,
like sharks. But you could be right.
1 person has voted this message useful



akkadboy
Triglot
Senior Member
France
Joined 5158 days ago

264 posts - 497 votes 
Speaks: French*, English, Yiddish
Studies: Latin, Ancient Egyptian, Welsh

 
 Message 898 of 1511
07 October 2013 at 5:48pm | IP Logged 
Ah ok, in this case yes, "le papillon fait de la résistance" clearly is a word-play based on the title of the movie. Sounds like a nice article to read :-)
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tarvos
Super Polyglot
Winner TAC 2012
Senior Member
China
likeapolyglot.wordpr
Joined 4457 days ago

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 899 of 1511
07 October 2013 at 7:09pm | IP Logged 
It was an audio thing actually. But my brain does not function today. Clearly.

Edited by tarvos on 07 October 2013 at 7:10pm

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tarvos
Super Polyglot
Winner TAC 2012
Senior Member
China
likeapolyglot.wordpr
Joined 4457 days ago

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 900 of 1511
10 October 2013 at 9:55pm | IP Logged 
Because there hasn't been much in the way of updates, I'll do one now... and do some
more of my Russian travelogue.

Day 16: The Endless Wait

I woke up after a good night's sleep, which was quite necessary. Still thinking about
my plans for today - maybe loiter around Красный проспект?

I've also found that I am developing more future travel ideas and needs to learn
foreign languages I don't yet know (although for many I have materials).

Unfortunately Novosibirsk is dull. I took a few walks, but the city is not doing
anything to interest me, so I decided to surf da Internets and catch up on online
things.

I met some Brazilians here in the hostel. My Portuguese is absolutely awful but I
managed to speak a hybrid mix between Portuguese, Spanish and English. It's amazing
what cognates and some will to improvise can do.

The hostel is quite empty apart from this.... One has to wonder. At some point some
unemployed Russian came in, but he was made to leave soon after. I don't know why but I
found him an unsavoury type - glad he left my dorm, that is for sure. Seemed to have
been fond of Sakhalin and be a seaman - go back to where you came from. He gave me some
army shirt (VOV day was last Friday) but I don't need his smelly Russian Army clothes.
What a weirdo that was.

Day 17: This Will Never End (Novosibirsk - Irkutsk)

I'm sitting here lying on the top bunk as I write this. The bottom bunks are indeed
more comfortable here than the top ones. I don't have space to move my head or sit up
straight. But I guess after breakfast there ain't much else to do but watch rolling
taiga pass by outside my window. 3 am departure times and unhelpful bunkmates who don't
say a word don't exactly help in this pickle.

But at least I am on my way to Baikal now, and this trip only lasts 30 hours (that is
still too long). And I'm already six hours ahead of home. Seven once I reach Irkutsk.
Incredible thought.

Less incredible (and more annoying) is that I am not hungry enough to force myself to
eat a lot. Even more unfortunately, the family that shares my compartment keeps hogging
the table without saying a word. And I'm in the top bunk so I'm starting to think my
only option is to curse at these guys in something else than Russian. Normally Russians
are super hospitable, not these folks.

My solution has been to sleep off the hunger and watch the Soviet towns roll by.
Siberia is endless taiga here. I also finished reading "The Fate of a Man" by
Sholokhov, which ended up being a little easier than I thought it would be. But still
hard for me as a non-Russian.

Day 18: Arrival in Irkutsk

I woke up hungry and not very refresehed. Fortunately the family hogging my bunk
decided to f**k off an hour and a half before the train reached its final destination.
After 30 hours on a train with little food, platskart starts to smell like it is a
refugee camp. I wonder what I signed up for...

I also already miss Anya and Dasha, particularly Anya. I cannot express in words the
amount of respect, awe and love I have for that girl. If only we were all half as kind,
determined and strong as she is, the world would be a better place.

I found the hostel and finally had good food and a shower. This was super necessary
because I hadn't had any of that for 24 hours. Fortunately this hostel is not empty
like the one in Novosibirsk. The only thing that annoys me here is the shower head, but
I am getting used to hostel stuff malfunctioning (or is it just Russia?

My dorm mates are an English cool frood, with whom I went out to buy dinner and advise
him on Russian textbooks (and translate his stuff to Russian for the clerks). We ate
good tuna pasta, had an excellent chat on politics and drunk good wine. Now this was
very awesome because I hadn't met someone awesome in a while. The other two are some
nice Finnish lasses. Does the Trans-Siberian ever seem to be popular....

I'm starting to miss home a bit. But I've been on the road for over two weeks now and
this trip is teaching me a lot!
1 person has voted this message useful



tarvos
Super Polyglot
Winner TAC 2012
Senior Member
China
likeapolyglot.wordpr
Joined 4457 days ago

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 901 of 1511
14 October 2013 at 11:57am | IP Logged 
Russian

After coming home late last night (paintball and pizza it is) I actually ran into some
Russians at the metro station. I of course addressed them in Russian. They were a
little bit stunned to find some random Dutch guy walking up to them and blurting out
Russian. They first thought I was a Pole, but nope.

Korean

I had one hour of conversation today and although I noticed some improvement, I still
cannot keep my end of the conversation entirely in Korean. I also mix up some questions
like when/where/how long and I have trouble distinguishing some sentences, although I
do catch familiar phrases now and then.

Totally unlike in Russian, where I do not have trouble understanding people if they
talk to me (amongst themselves is still another ballgame).
1 person has voted this message useful



tarvos
Super Polyglot
Winner TAC 2012
Senior Member
China
likeapolyglot.wordpr
Joined 4457 days ago

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 902 of 1511
15 October 2013 at 4:15pm | IP Logged 
Today I have done another TTMIK podcast in the morning, which was 2x18. It's been
mostly spent on university stuff otherwise, and tonight I'm teaching for about 2 hours
in a row, so I'm not expecting to get a whole lot done.

However what I have done is take a look at some DLI courses for some of my existing
languages, namely Romanian and Korean. It was interesting to note that I skipped to a
later part of the Romanian texts, which were on the whole very understandable, but I
lacked one or two vocabulary items here and there. I might do the last couple units of
DLI Romanian just to read through the texts, scour for some unknown vocabulary, and
maybe do some listening to Romanian as well (not that I have much trouble with
Romanian, but it could do with some improvement).

Aside from this, I need more written material for Korean, not just audio and grammar
explanations, so I am considering using the DLI course to supplement my Korean. There
is a whole SOLT.zip by DLI. I won't do the exercises, but I might do some textual
models to gain some fluency reading Hangul, not just speaking Korean. Not that either
is very good mind.
1 person has voted this message useful



tarvos
Super Polyglot
Winner TAC 2012
Senior Member
China
likeapolyglot.wordpr
Joined 4457 days ago

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 903 of 1511
16 October 2013 at 12:06am | IP Logged 
Tonight I spent two hours teaching. But since I've been teaching English to Russians,
I'm getting into a weird situation every once in a while - how do you explain English
to someone who doesn't know any other language but their native tongue? I taught a
Russian woman today who really could not understand much of my English at ALL if I
spoke. This meant that I was forced to explain - in Russian(!) what I was going to do.
Now most of you here will know that my Russian, can, um, leave something to be desired.
But this woman told me she'd booked a class with me precisely BECAUSE I have Russian
listed as a language on my iTalki profile (but not as one I speak insanely well).

And thus I spent half of the class explaining what we were going to do and explaining
how we were going to practice English together. In Russian. With the other students I
have had their English has not been excellent but more than sufficient to speak in
English. Here I was forced to use the Russian that I have learned, in a professional
situation, out of the blue.

She booked another lesson.

I did well.
1 person has voted this message useful



Solfrid Cristin
Heptaglot
Winner TAC 2011 & 2012
Senior Member
Norway
Joined 5084 days ago

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

 
 Message 904 of 1511
16 October 2013 at 12:14am | IP Logged 
tarvos wrote:
Tonight I spent two hours teaching. But since I've been teaching English to Russians,
I'm getting into a weird situation every once in a while - how do you explain English
to someone who doesn't know any other language but their native tongue? I taught a
Russian woman today who really could not understand much of my English at ALL if I
spoke. This meant that I was forced to explain - in Russian(!) what I was going to do.
Now most of you here will know that my Russian, can, um, leave something to be desired.
But this woman told me she'd booked a class with me precisely BECAUSE I have Russian
listed as a language on my iTalki profile (but not as one I speak insanely well).

And thus I spent half of the class explaining what we were going to do and explaining
how we were going to practice English together. In Russian. With the other students I
have had their English has not been excellent but more than sufficient to speak in
English. Here I was forced to use the Russian that I have learned, in a professional
situation, out of the blue.

She booked another lesson.

I did well.


You make me proud :-)

I think I would have had a massive heart attack if I had to explain grammar in Russian. Love your stories from
Russia by the way :-)


1 person has voted this message useful



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