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zu verrückt für euch/Rätsel|Adv|En TAC’15

 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log Post Reply
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Serpent
Octoglot
Senior Member
Russian Federation
serpent-849.livejour
Joined 6378 days ago

9753 posts - 15779 votes 
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Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese
Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish

 
 Message 401 of 812
17 May 2014 at 9:46pm | IP Logged 
Via Diva wrote:
your humble servant got herself

AFAIU the English equivalent is just "yours truly got.." :) But this sounded cute, haha.
Have you considered/tried Ilya Frank's method?
Also, even at Moscow State Linguistic University (formerly иняз им. Мориса Тореза), we only got to read O'Henry in the 3rd year. Oscar Wilde was considered much easier, for example.

Edited by Serpent on 17 May 2014 at 9:50pm

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Via Diva
Diglot
Senior Member
Russian Federation
last.fm/user/viadivaRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 4015 days ago

1109 posts - 1427 votes 
Speaks: Russian*, English
Studies: German, Italian, French, Swedish, Esperanto, Czech, Greek

 
 Message 402 of 812
18 May 2014 at 12:28am | IP Logged 
Gemuse, well, of course I know, but my point here is that I bought a printed book. I suddenly wanted
to have something I can hold, hehe. And I'm well aware of free and not so free sources, however, I'm not
interested in printing internet editions when I can just buy a book.
Serpent, oh, so I got a big problem to deal with... well, I can at least try :) tnx for the correction.
As for Frank's method I considered and tried it with German to find it too challenging for me.
1 person has voted this message useful



Gemuse
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 3863 days ago

818 posts - 1189 votes 
Speaks: English
Studies: German

 
 Message 403 of 812
18 May 2014 at 7:41am | IP Logged 
How much was the Sherlock Holmes printed book? I would hope that since it's public
domain, it would be really inexpensive.
Does your 73$ monthly grant have to cover food too?
1 person has voted this message useful



Via Diva
Diglot
Senior Member
Russian Federation
last.fm/user/viadivaRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 4015 days ago

1109 posts - 1427 votes 
Speaks: Russian*, English
Studies: German, Italian, French, Swedish, Esperanto, Czech, Greek

 
 Message 404 of 812
18 May 2014 at 9:39am | IP Logged 
200 rubles, it's about 7$. However, a nice printed and decorated edition would cost me 30 bucks.
No, but I pay for the internet and phone bills using these money.
1 person has voted this message useful



Serpent
Octoglot
Senior Member
Russian Federation
serpent-849.livejour
Joined 6378 days ago

9753 posts - 15779 votes 
4 sounds
Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese
Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish

 
 Message 405 of 812
18 May 2014 at 1:31pm | IP Logged 
Via Diva wrote:
As for Frank's method I considered and tried it with German to find it too challenging for me.
It should be much easier for English. Also, you need to find the appropriate difficulty.
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Via Diva
Diglot
Senior Member
Russian Federation
last.fm/user/viadivaRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 4015 days ago

1109 posts - 1427 votes 
Speaks: Russian*, English
Studies: German, Italian, French, Swedish, Esperanto, Czech, Greek

 
 Message 406 of 812
20 May 2014 at 4:19am | IP Logged 
Okay, maybe I'll try it someday :)
_______
I am writing a big post about how did I "learn" English, which will
probably come out on YouTube as well. Stay tuned :)
1 person has voted this message useful



fabriciocarraro
Hexaglot
Winner TAC 2012
Senior Member
Brazil
russoparabrasileirosRegistered users can see my Skype Name
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 Message 407 of 812
20 May 2014 at 3:48pm | IP Logged 
Nice! I love it when people here make Youtube videos! =)

About Frank's method, I quite like it. Maybe isn't good for beginners, but it's great for when you're intermediate.
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Via Diva
Diglot
Senior Member
Russian Federation
last.fm/user/viadivaRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 4015 days ago

1109 posts - 1427 votes 
Speaks: Russian*, English
Studies: German, Italian, French, Swedish, Esperanto, Czech, Greek

 
 Message 408 of 812
21 May 2014 at 4:22am | IP Logged 
I'm still thinking if I should make an audio of it, but here's the text version :)

I'm literally sick of HTLAL constantly asking me how I did learn English. So I'm going to try to find that out
right now.
My memory is letting me down at this kind of things, but I think that I've first encountered English in a self
study textbook which belongs to my mother. I was scared by two things: English cursive presented there
and, guess what? Right, th. And its good friends too.
At that time I studied in an ordinary school which was setting up English classes from 5th grade only.
Then all of a sudden I got into a gymnasium at not the very beginning of 3rd grade and we began to study
English straightaway using a book for a 2nd grade though. I wasn't great in general, but I was good at
translating for sure.
Then at 5th grade I've got an excellent teacher by a pure coincidence. Her lessons weren't at all hard, we
had almost never had any written homework, just translations and grammar/vocabulary exercises. All our
listening exercises were read by her (instead of boring and not helping you along the way tape recorder),
she knew exactly what our problems were and tried to help with them not pushing too hard though. I'm not
saying that that was heaven, she was pretty strict, but I was remembering vocabulary fast and good
enough, my grammar problems were no secret to her and my pronunciation, apparently, was still more
understandable than that of some other pupils.
Unfortunately our class was reorganized and we've had to spent two years with a useless young teacher.
Of course she might have taught me something (two years is quite a period of time, eh?), but any interest
to English was lost to nearly all of us, our class was loud and totally uncontrollable during her lessons.
When we've got our great teacher back, some motivation returned as well, but we became stubborn and
frankly we were far behind our curriculum.
I walked out of school having 5/5 for every subject but Russian. Strangely I have managed to be good
enough not realising that English conjugates third person singular verbs. Oh, yes, I'm totally honest here,
that was a stunning thing to read once I got to it.
Nothing much has changed throughout school years, I still was great at translating whereas everything
else was not that good. In my last school years I was into English music and that was a start of me
actually using the language in everyday life. Since then I have become a lyrics freak: often I just can't listen
to a song without knowing what is it about, without following the lyrics.
Fortunately my music taste back then was nothing special, I could easily follow lyrics of Breaking
Benjamin or Three Days Grace, plus I could find translations without any problems. Gradually my
understanding of English was growing, and so was my music taste - pauses between school lessons are
too small to fit some Dream Theater songs in it - and that had been freaking me out in 11th grade.
I also started watching movies and at some point I became unable to deal with any sound but the original
one. I just needed to have Russian subtitles to be able to understand what is going on and the original
sound to be able to hear actors. I wasn't limited by English there, I've seen French, German, Italian films...
even a Turkish one. But sometimes there were no Russian subs available, and if I was afraid to deal with
English subtitles, at some point I just have checked if I can do good with them. Turned out that speed
reading was no problem and gradually I have thrown away Russian subtitles as well, leaving English ones
though.
I walked into my university not thinking about English at all, so I was somewhat surprised to find it in our
curriculum. We had a test and its result sent me to group A. Later we were specifically told that it wasn't
about our level of knowing English, that our group was no stronger the other one, but the fact is that we did
a whole lot more work than our fellow students. Our approach was more complex, plus we managed to
learn more of scientific English due to an early start.
I don't know how exactly my English got boosted back then. I walked out of school entirely sure that I am
unable to write a letter, let alone speaking. At that time I wasn't thinking in English at all, it was strictly
passive. Nevertheless, I came here last April, apparently, much more confident than in a year before that.
I still have problems with grammar, I just can't fix it in my brain without practice - oh, I suffered because of
that in university, our teacher was a lot like the good one from school, but more strict and determined to
teach us decently. There was simply no room for my grammar/ speaking problems. Who knows, maybe
that was the fix?
Anyway, I had a great deal of practice here and on last.fm, getting involved into discussions here and
there. When I started to chat in English I found out that my speed isn't bad, so is my understanding and
understanding of me. Unfortunately, I like to play with words and grammar, and if it works out perfectly in
Russian, that does no good to my English. Well, that is a thing to eliminate.
I have recorded some English audios a while back. A bird whispered to me recently that my accent hasn't
changed, that it is still horribly and obviously Russian. That's another thing to deal with.
Of course I haven't learned English, I doubt I'll ever will, but, well, all that story above lead me to the
conclusion that I at least can speak it. I'm yet to get used to watching movies with subtitles (yeah, I'm
generally unable to it), still to broaden my vocabulary (considering my struggles with Vanity Fair or O.
Henry's works) and to improve my conversational skills.
But I'm confident enough to claim that I speak English. That's it. That's how I have reached this point.


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