neofight78 returns from his Siberian exile? [RU, ES]

[neofight78]

Post weekend update:

Saturday morning's lesson was earlier than normal to allow me to get to Manchester in time for the start of my friend's stag do. I didn't manage to get up early enough to prepare my presentation beforehand, so we just ended up chatting for an hour instead of our usual exam practice. Afterwards I was straight off to Manchester and so didn't get any of my usual studying done.

I got back home at about 3pm on Sunday which gave me some time to get some Russian done. My main teacher will be on holiday for a month soon, so I took a lesson with a new teacher who I'm hoping will be able to help me with exam prep in September. She seemed very knowledgable about the exam, so it looks promising so far. As result I booked another session with her for next Sunday.

I watched some more of "Однажды в Одессе". However, I've noticed some of the language is a bit off, perhaps it's the influence of Ukrainian or perhaps something else. For example there is the line "-Кудой? -Тудой", which really should be "-Куда? - Туда". I also had another lesson later on with a teacher with whom I normally meet in real life but is currently in Latvia. She confirmed that the language isn't 100% standard Russian. As a result, whilst I may continue watching this series, I don't think I'll be using it for more detailed study. I'll look for something else...

I got through my flashcard quota for today, but there is some backlog to catch up on, thanks to not doing any on Saturday, and I think I was already a little behind on Friday. I also worked through some exercises on gerunds. I've never really studied these before, so far I've just kind of picked them up organically. So these exercises are more about consolidating my knowledge than anything new. I finished off the day by preparing the next instalments of Angelica and The Colour of Magic ready for my lunchtime reading this week.

[neofight78]

Mid-week update:

On Monday I did another sample B2 grammar test, I got 77% which is somewhat more reassuring than last week's result. Time is rather short before the real exam, so I need to really home in on the stuff that's going to give me the most bang for the buck rather than spreading myself too thin trying to plug every hole. There's always plenty of questions covering usage - i.e. collocations and the verb case government. I'm figuring that the range of possibilities is so wide, it would be hard to make a dent in this, at least during the time that I have. I've been working through gerunds this week. To be honest it's all pretty straightforward. So my main area for study grammar-wise is going to be imperfective/perfective. I think it will also make the biggest difference to my practical Russian, so it definitely feels like the right choice right now. But all in all, I'm feeling better about this than last week.

At lunchtime I've been continuing with my study of the Angelica transcript and the Colour of Magic. Also I've been continuing to watch "Once upon a time in Odessa" for 20-30 minutes on most days. I'm falling a little behind on the flashcards, but not too much. I've been trying to get some extra study done, but it's been a real struggle against tiredness this week. 24 hours seems so little time...

I almost forgot! The good news is that this week I got my Russia visa, and I've booked the flights so there's not much left to organise. The main thing will be to work out a timetable and a set of "missions" for me to complete, so that I really get out there and use my Russian "for real"!

[neofight78]

Post weekend update:

Another hastily arranged stint as an airport taxi driver in the early hours meant I missed my Saturday morning lesson again. However, I did manage to wake in time for my lunchtime lesson. In addition to the lie in, I was staying at a friends so there wasn't much opportunity for studying. The main work of the evening was beer, pizza and films He and his partner have young child so went to bed early, so thanks to the fact he has an Apple TV I managed to stay up a bit later and watch a couple of episodes of "Онажды в Одессе" with a beer in hand

When I got home on Sunday, I had a lesson with with new teacher I mentioned previously. We've started working on writing (my weakest area), and on those aspects of the B2 exam that differ from the B1 exam. We began looking at the 7 intonation patterns (a new concept to me), which are specifically tested in the exam. The first few are fairly natural and common so presented no problem. Next lesson we will cover the more unusual cases. At this stage I don't think this is going to be too hard to master.

Over the weekend I got behind on the flashcards, but I mostly caught up today. I also watched the first episode of this series:

[motylyok]

I've been watching this very same TV show! I quite enjoy it.

[Teango]

Congratulations on passing the TRKI 1 last summer and reaching B2 level since - that's already quite an achievement. As a fellow Brit struggling through the brier patch of Russian grammar, with all her many bizarre исключения (and those "yes, you could say it that way, and you'd be grammatically correct and understood, but we would never really say that in this situation"), I'll be keeping my fingers crossed for you in October. Oh, and thanks for introducing me to Alina Os - какой красивый голос! I look forward to following your ramble to fluency...

[neofight78]

Thanks for the kind comments Teango! We'll see if I am B2 level in October, if I"m not then I don't think I'll be far off. Russian can indeed be mind meltingly difficult at times, we learners need to stick together for moral support in the face of adversity

[neofight78]

Mid week update:

Well, the real world keeps trying to interfere. I was on airport taxi duties on Wednesday evening, and I'm going to be visiting my sister this weekend. So far I'm on top of everything, but I'll lose a couple of days this weekend.

I'm continuing to watch "Онажды в Одессе" most days, usually just half an episode a day, so as not to encroach on more serious study time. I've caught up on my flashcards and have started adding more based on the grammatical exercises I've been doing recently. I've also finished the gerund exercises and will be concentrating on aspect next as this will be key for the exam. To be honest it's one of my weak areas, so it will be good for my Russian overall.

I had another lesson with a local teacher today, we've been working together on my handwriting. It's much improved and I no longer forget how to write some letters! I just need to be a little careful when writing at speed, I especially need to make sure my о doesn't end up looking like an а, which often happens when I don't join it up to the next letter correctly. An (apparent) spelling mistake is bad enough, but near the end of the word it could end up looking like a grammatical mistake.

I'm continuing to work through the Colour of Magic and Анжелика, although to be honest my reading time has suffered somewhat this week. I'll finish the Анжелика transcript early next week, after which I think I will go back to working through various articles taken from the web. I've got a decent stash of them that my tutor has sent me, but as yet I've not had time to read them.

I finished my first set of subs2srs cards today (i.e. there are no new cards left). Some stats:

Film: Остров
Cards generated: 696
Cards discarded: 258
Cards studied: 438
Cards studied %: 63

I've picked this as the next film to work through:

[neofight78]

It's a longer than normal gap after my last update, mainly due to being hit with the flu. I'm over the worst of it, but this week is going to be a battle against tiredness and lack of energy. The only upside to being ill was that in between long snoozes in bed, I was watching lots of TV whilst tucked up on the sofa with a duvet and hot drink. I've finished watching Однажды в Одесса and I'm a good way through the Шулер series. I also watched the whole of Нючач again. I am back at work this week and for those who've not yet noticed a new series of Кухня has started:



Reading wise this week I am continuing with Цвет Волшебства. I've finished the Анжелика transcript, and now I'm starting on an article my tutor sent me some time ago. It's quite long, so I'm going to cut it into more lunch break friendly sized chunks. I started on the first part today, and was quite pleased to discover there were very few words I didn't know. You can find the article and audio here:

Постановщик театра «Romano Atmo» Петя Юрченко о цыганской философии и разговоре ногами



I've now started on the aspect exercises I mentioned previously. One lot has already been completed and corrected, and I've had the answers recorded as audio ready for making into flashcards. I've still got plenty more to go. It should keep me busy up right up to my trip to Russia which is getting ever so close now!

Being my least favourite activity, writing kind of dropped off the map whilst I've been ill. This week I need to work on some formal letters, hopefully I'll get back into the swing of writing shortly.

There's loads of stuff I've left out, but this post is already quite long. Onwards and upwards!

[neofight78]

Mid-week update:

As predicted this week is a battle against exhaustion. I'm managing to keep up with the flashcards and the grammar exercises. The reading is proceeding quite nicely and I've been watching the new series of Кухня. I was hoping to get some writing done this evening but I just run out of time. At the moment, I get to a certain point in the evening and I just hit a wall of tiredness. I'm looking forward to finally shaking off this flu completely!

[neofight78]

Saturday morning update:

The flu is still lingering, but fortunately the tiredness is mostly subsided, although I've got a bit of a persistent cough that's making itself a nuisance. Overall I think this week I should be back to normal levels of energy and hopefully study.

As I mentioned before, I too have been watching the new series of Кухня. For some reason the first episode was rather opaque to me, but after that like Arnaud I've been pleased with the amount that I now understand. I undoubtedly do understand more as I've actively studying and it's been a while since I've watched any Кухня, but at the same time I wonder if in my case the perception of understanding is a little bit deceptive. The thing I've always liked about Кухня is that's its very accessible and easy to understand what's going on just from context. So after having been immersed in an episode, I'm never quite sure how much was actually directly understood and how much was context and my brain filling the gaps. Although having said that, I'm pretty certain such a state of immersion must be good for one's learning. Perhaps at some point it would pay to go back and rewatch it all now that my comprehension level is higher.

In preparation for my trip to Russia and in view of the fact I will be taking some group lessons there, I've been filling in the gaps regarding Russian grammatical terms. I've already picked up quite a few already on an adhoc basis, but as I've always studied grammar from English Russian textbooks, there are a couple of gaps that need filling. For example, I knew some but not all of the case names in Russian.

Whilst on the subject I received some online tests from the language school yesterday to help assess where my Russian is at. So I filled those out and sent them back. The first was a little like the exam format, multiple choice questions testing various bits of grammatical knowledge, the were also some videos to test listening skills. The second test was more of a questionnaire, asking how I rated my understanding or abilities in a couple of different areas, primarily focusing on speaking ability.

As I mentioned previously I've started working with a new tutor on the subject of Orthodoxy. I had another lesson with him this morning, and I think after a few lessons we're beginning to hit our stride now. As I mentioned previously, once you get into more specialist subjects the vocabulary is so different it's almost another language. However, the tutor has managed to find a level of text that uses sufficiently everyday language to be pleasant to work with but at the same time is introducing some more specialist vocabulary.

Despite being hit with the flu, I'm pretty up to date on flashcards, grammar and reading. So I'm feeling fairly good about my studies, although I expect full on exam panic will begin to hit me before too long, it's only a month to go!