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TAC ’13 MIR - Russian in Moscow | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Toffeeliz Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5678 days ago 116 posts - 130 votes  Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: Russian | Message 65 of 71 10 February 2013 at 2:08pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hey guys, hope everyone is well. It's been a busy week with
lots to do,but I've also managed to get more of my own personal work done too. Of course this means learning Russian, but this is by no means my only hobby. I like to draw and paint, and have a degree in the subject. Unfortunately, it's been a little side-tracked with all the teaching work I have and with studying languages. I decided I would use some time to create work while here in Russia, but I've found it dificult to find my subject. Thankfully, this week, I began using a small notebook to sketch while I sit on the metro to and from work. It's been a breakthrough! I was sketching on the metro this Wednesday when the girl next to me said "извините". I turned to her and she rattled something off which I didn't get chance to even try and understand. I said my usual "Извините, я не говорю по-руский" and she just pointed to herself and said "меня?". I thought, why not? And began sketching her. I thought it was a bit cheeky of her, but then it's a bit cheeky of me to draw people without them knowing, so I took advantage of the chance to practice. She was a Tajik or a Tartar, I couldn't tell, with long dark hair. It came as a surprise to see so many races I hadn't seen before when I came here. When the time came for her to leace the train, I'd finished the sketch. I gave it to her, and off she went, while I waited for my stop to go and teach. On Tuesday, one of my students gave me an idiom "время собирать камни". I'd declared that we didn't have any time to waste and that we'd get straight to the lesson; he then said the idiom. He gave the explanation that Genghis Khan had pummelled so much of the land he conquered to the ground, leaving nothing but stones. Once the fighting had ceased, he said "Time to gather stones" in order to rebuild the land into something useful. I had to look it up a little on the internet, and the website gave me a biblical reference, so I think I'll stick to the definition I got from the horses mouth personally. ;) As for studying! I've gotten through another unit of Русский язык and will start Unit 7 tonight hopefully. I've not touched my Anki deck in a while (простите) but I don't feel like I've missed it much. I'm a lesson or two behind in Assimil but it's gotten more dificult. I spend a lot of time re-reading past lessons. February Goals -An Assimil lesson every day, two if possible. I hate the feeling that I'm not on track! -Get a clear and solid understanding of the 'accusative' 'genetive' cases. I actually just want to understand what all these case things mean! They just get dropped in in my grammar explanations and I've yet to see a 'case overview' or usage note. It feels like the main hurdle in my progress right now. - Master the past tense. -Write sentences with my new vocabulary to aid review. пока! Edited by Toffeeliz on 10 February 2013 at 2:11pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| milesaway Triglot Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 4329 days ago 134 posts - 181 votes Speaks: French, English*, Russian Studies: Finnish, Sign Language | Message 66 of 71 10 February 2013 at 6:44pm | IP Logged | ||
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The cases can be used many different ways, but there are some basic rules.
-The nominative case is the form used to name things, for the subject of the sentence, and in sentences like: I am a doctor. (Both I and doctor would be in the nominative.) -The accusative case is used when it's the object of the sentence. The accusative for masculine depends on whether the object in question is animate or not. If it's inaminate, then the word doesn't change, if it's animate, then it will decline like the masculine genitive. -The genitive case is used to denote severals things, such as possession, negation, and with certain prepositions. -The dative case is used when referring to the indirect object in the sentence, with certain prepositions and verbs, and also in indirect sentences. -The prepositional case is always used with a preposition. It generally denotes location, but sometimes time as well. -The instrumental case is used to denote how something is done, with what. If you write with a pencil, then you'd put pencil in the instrumental case (no preposition). If you go to the theatre with your students, then your students would be in the instrumental case, and you'd use the preposition "с". This is not by any means, an exhaustive list of the uses, but I think it's a good start for you. The past tense in Russian makes me happy. I feel bad when teaching students the past simple in English, they just have to memorise all the irregular verbs, which don't have any patterns to follow. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5054 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 67 of 71 10 February 2013 at 8:02pm | IP Logged | ||
There is a lot to learn for the Russian past tense too. Идти - шёл Лечь - лёг Умереть - умер Замёрзнуть - замёрз Прыгнуть - прыгнул НачАть - нАчал ПонЯть - пОнял Жить - жилА Шить - шИла Вести - вёл Везти - вёз Грести - грёб (чь and ти verbs require the knowledge of the Present stem, which must be learnt). 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| milesaway Triglot Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 4329 days ago 134 posts - 181 votes Speaks: French, English*, Russian Studies: Finnish, Sign Language | Message 68 of 71 11 February 2013 at 5:13am | IP Logged | ||
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Of course, there are some irregular ones in Russian as well, however I find that there is some logic to them.
The stress shift is something that can be dealt with relatively easily, so on the whole, I still find the Russian past tense much easier than the past tense in English. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5054 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 69 of 71 11 February 2013 at 1:53pm | IP Logged | ||
I agree. In my mind, irregular verbs are the only morphological obstacle in English. Irregular plurals don't cause much problems. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Josquin Heptaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 4842 days ago 2266 posts - 3992 votes Speaks: German*, English, French, Latin, Italian, Russian, Swedish Studies: Japanese, Irish, Portuguese, Persian | Message 70 of 71 10 March 2013 at 1:44pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hey Toffeeliz,
How are you doing? Is your Russian making any progress? Would be great to read about it soon! Привет и успехов! Edited by Josquin on 10 March 2013 at 2:08pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Toffeeliz Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5678 days ago 116 posts - 130 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin Studies: Russian | Message 71 of 71 19 December 2013 at 9:25pm | IP Logged | ||
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Well, it's been a long time since I abandoned this log and my team. I hope everyone has
been doing well! I'm in the process of reading up on everyone's progress at the moment. To be honest, I feel quite bad that I joined a team and then left a quarter into the challenge. Here is my end of year report though, if it still counts ;) -currently on month 13 of what was going to be a 9 month say in Moscow. We stayed for another academic year, but won't be staying past June 2014. - I found an inexpensive way of having one-to-one lessons and have been taking one lesson a week for about two months. We're still working through the textbook that I listed earlier in my log. My teacher says it's very good. Meanwhile, many natives have seen my dog-eared copy of Assimil Russian and have said that a) the language they use it strange and b) the audio doesn't sound like native speakers. That book now sits on my shelf and comes out when I fancy a change of pace. - One lesson a week, still on the same textbook. You can tell that I'm not going at this full speed. I even took a break from Russian around the time this log stopped and more recently I took a two week break after a particularly strenuous lesson. I'm here for the journey and enjoy every minute of it, so when it starts to look too much like hard work, I sit back and let everything soak in for a bit. - The result of a year studying Russian is that I can use Russian in my daily life quite well. Today, one of my Russian speaking colleagues told a student's parent that I speak Russian and this week a Russian friend congratulated me on saying a correctly conjugated sentence (past simple + accusative object). I've a long way to go but Russian has now become part of my life and I know I will continue to study it through 2014 and in the years to come. -2014 goals. Carry on as normal. If I see a language that I find interesting, for example Latin, then I'll check it out, but for now, I have a nice easy routine for my languages that suits my needs. Chinese has really dropped off but I do a little every so often. Happy new year everyone! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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