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Geoffw in TAC2015: RU, HE and Friends

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geoffw
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4448 days ago

1134 posts - 1865 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish
Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian

 
 Message 153 of 251
31 December 2013 at 5:27pm | IP Logged 
SUPER CHALLENGE UPDATE - Added French Book entries 27-30, Italian Book entries 4-10

Here is my final super challenge update for this round of challenges. I have not completed any new challenges, but
I am adding in the approximate number of pages read that I haven't logged because I haven't finished the books in
question.

BOOKS (Italian):

4-6. Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring
7-9. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
10. Miscellaneous (newspapers, history books, wikipedia articles, etc., etc.)

BOOKS (French):

27. Dune
28. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
29-30. Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
2 persons have voted this message useful



geoffw
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4448 days ago

1134 posts - 1865 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish
Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian

 
 Message 154 of 251
01 January 2014 at 5:43pm | IP Logged 
Goals for 2014
-------------

Russian
------
Complete the January tadoku with at least 100 pages read
Read at least 1000 pages of Russian, including at least one complete book
Sign up for a Super Challenge in Russian
Add and learn at least 1000 entries in Anki
Complete Assimil Russian

Dutch
-----
Read at least three new books in Dutch
Write something in Dutch every week (including at least one log entry a month)

French
------
Read at least 2000 pages in French (to meet my previous goal of 5000 total pages)
Write something in French every week (including at least one log entry a month)

German
-------
Finish reading Das Cusanus Spiel
Reread Der Steppenwolf
Read at least one additional recent novel in German
Read at least one additional classic in German
Practice speaking German for at least an hour every month


I think these goals are all pretty easy in isolation, and it should require a sustained, but reasonable effort to
complete all of them. If I do all of these, I should make tangible progress across the board. The Dutch goal is a bit
light, perhaps, but I'm anticipating an easier time remaining engaged with Dutch due to being on the Dutch TAC
team. So I may need stronger goals for French and German to keep them up and keep them moving. Plus, I have
unfinished business from the Super Challenge.

By my count, these reading goals could add up to at least 5000 pages of reading this year, which is significant, but
definitely possible. That's about 100 pages a week, or 15 or so pages a day. Sounds like a stretch goal to me. I'm
shooting for all 14 of these stated goals, but if I reach, say, 10 of them, and only partially complete the others, that
may be enough to declare victory.
1 person has voted this message useful





Fasulye
Heptaglot
Winner TAC 2012
Moderator
Germany
fasulyespolyglotblog
Joined 5607 days ago

5460 posts - 6006 votes 
1 sounds
Speaks: German*, DutchC1, EnglishB2, French, Italian, Spanish, Esperanto
Studies: Latin, Danish, Norwegian, Turkish
Personal Language Map

 
 Message 155 of 251
01 January 2014 at 6:47pm | IP Logged 
geoffw wrote:
Goals for 2014
-------------
Practice speaking German for at least an hour every month


Wenn du öfters mal sonntags Zeit hast für deine Skypies, dann wirst du viel mehr als nur eine Stunde Deutsch pro Monat sprechen können! :)

Viel Erfolg mit deinen Sprachen für das neue Jahr 2014!

Fasulye



Edited by Fasulye on 01 January 2014 at 6:47pm

2 persons have voted this message useful



geoffw
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4448 days ago

1134 posts - 1865 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish
Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian

 
 Message 156 of 251
01 January 2014 at 7:38pm | IP Logged 
Ganz bestimmt! Und hoffentlich wird es auch so sein. Hier habe ich Zielen erstellt die ich für gleichzeitig nützlich
und individuell einfach erreichbar halte, aber das soll nicht bedeuten dass ich auf keinen Fall mehr machen werde.
2 persons have voted this message useful



Kerrie
Senior Member
United States
justpaste.it/Kerrie2
Joined 5155 days ago

1232 posts - 1740 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish

 
 Message 157 of 251
01 January 2014 at 10:53pm | IP Logged 
geoffw wrote:
This is not my goals post. I'm moving the goals post again. ;-)

Having previously used extensive reading of Harry Potter to great success in learning French, Dutch and Italian, I'm
now trying to adapt that strategy to my efforts at learning Russian. The obvious problem is the reduced rate of
cognates.


This seems remarkably similar to what I did with HP and Spanish for the Super Challenge. It's a lot of work at the beginning, but it's really worth it. :)

Good luck with your studies this year. :)
2 persons have voted this message useful



geoffw
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4448 days ago

1134 posts - 1865 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish
Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian

 
 Message 158 of 251
03 January 2014 at 5:54am | IP Logged 
I have a new project! For those who don't
read Russian,
this page
in English is fairly
similar. In the meantime, my attempt at making
smetana at home is
underway. When I visited Russia many years ago, the one Russian word that I really learned from my hosts was
"smetana." It was just that
important to them, I guess.

EDIT: I can't get the link right for "smetana." The link should be .../wiki/Smetana_(dairy_product), but the
parentheses keep getting dropped. Would a slash-escape sequence work here?

Edited by geoffw on 03 January 2014 at 5:57am

1 person has voted this message useful



geoffw
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4448 days ago

1134 posts - 1865 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish
Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian

 
 Message 159 of 251
03 January 2014 at 12:54pm | IP Logged 
I was just reading some stories on lemonde.fr, and when I clicked on one, the website told me that "in recognition
of my loyalty," I was being offered 14 days of subscriber access for the low price of my name and email address.
And sure enough, I am now reading today's Journal Electronique. Are they doing this for anyone who pokes around
the website right now?

EDIT: Probably. At the bottom of the front page of today's Le Monde, there's a stub article along these same lines,
noting, inter alia, "C'est aussi en ayant confiance en votre attachment au journal que nous allons augmenter son
prix ... Merci de votre fidelité."

Edited by geoffw on 03 January 2014 at 1:05pm

2 persons have voted this message useful



geoffw
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4448 days ago

1134 posts - 1865 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish
Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian

 
 Message 160 of 251
05 January 2014 at 8:20pm | IP Logged 
I can now report that Operation Smetana was a smashing success. The Kvass Chronicles are off to a slow start, but
sometime in the next week probably I'll get going on that one.

Funny coincidence--I dropped one of my kids off at a birthday party today and noticed that the party was on the
same block as the local russian bookstore and grocery. You can imagine what happened next, I'm sure. No Russian
classics for me yet, but I picked up a couple of books in translation that I'd seen elsewhere before. First off, ужин
(герман кох), which I suppose now I'll also need to read in the original Dutch, and первое правило волшебника
(терри гудкайнд). Either I managed to fool the guys at the bookstore into thinking I speak good Russian (less
likely), or they really don't like speaking English (more likely). There was not one word of English spoken by anyone
while I was in the bookstore. In fact, when I went to check out, one of the two employees went back to the shelves
and pulled a couple of other fantasy books and tried to convince me to get them too, that I would like them, only
eight dollars. At least I think that's what he said. I hope it wasn't rude of me to respond сейчас нет, спасибо, which
was the first thing that came to mind. I was indeed somewhat interested in his recommendations, but wasn't
looking to spend any more today.

English is, however, spoken at the grocery, at least by the checkout woman to the tune of knowing the numbers
and "thank you." Having picked up a bottle of kvass there, I've put my homebrewing project on hold until I finish
this bottle. The рижская сметана that I picked up there is, to my "uncultured" palette, indistinguishable from what I
made at home, so I doubt I'll buy the commercial version again with its locust bean gum, carrageenan, etc.

As far as my Russian reading, I've passed 100 pages now, and I've learned maybe 250 words in anki. I'm
recognizing way more words in my reading than when I started, both words that I've learned in anki and words that
I've figured out from context. The strategy seems to be working so far.


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