TAC 2016 - Russian - Team Чебурашка Log

Ongoing language-learning challenges, and team challenge logs (but not individual logs)
geoffw
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Re: TAC 2016 - Russian Team Log

Postby geoffw » Sun Jan 03, 2016 1:43 am

Via Diva wrote:
geoffw wrote:Team Алехин

Sorry for intruding, but who's the Алехин in question? If it happens to be a chessmaster, the one and only chess champion to die undefeated, I'd go bonkers, even though I can't be on this team xD


Yes, the reference I had in mind there was chess world champion Alexander Alekhine, famous for his deep calculation and for whom my favorite defense to 1. e4 is named. He wasn't "undefeated," but he did die while preparing to defend the title. He lost the world title to Max Euwe for one year around 1936.
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Via Diva
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Re: TAC 2016 - Russian Team Log

Postby Via Diva » Sun Jan 03, 2016 1:48 am

geoffw wrote:Yes, the reference I had in mind there was chess world champion Alexander Alekhine, famous for his deep calculation and for whom my favorite defense to 1. e4 is named. He wasn't "undefeated," but he did die while preparing to defend the title. He lost the world title to Max Euwe for one year around 1936.

Oh, awesome!
And I know his life story very well, I remember reading his biography on my cellphone and running out from the bus crying in 11th grade. The point of my post was that he did die being a current champion still.
Aaaanyway, I personally think this is a great name, and even though I can't vote or anything, I'll be silently rooting for this from now on :)
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Expugnator
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Re: TAC 2016 - Russian Team Log

Postby Expugnator » Sun Jan 03, 2016 2:51 pm

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Corrections welcome for any language.

geoffw
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Re: TAC 2016 - Russian Team Log

Postby geoffw » Sun Jan 03, 2016 3:03 pm

I went ahead and reposted in the second post the list of resources that Josquin put together previously. I added a few of my own, but I haven't gone through to check for dead links. If you have any additions or deletions, let me know.

Also, if you haven't done so already, I again encourage you to complete this year's zero-th monthly challenge: post a brief introduction. Topics may include why you're interested in Russian, what you've done in the past, what you hope to do in the future, your language learner story in general, etc.

EDIT: Some of us may have written something along the lines of the "introduction challenge" in our personal logs; I'm not planning to tally up winners and losers for this challenge or anything like that, so I'll just gently encourage you to post something in this thread as well (which you may or may not decide to copy/paste). I would similarly encourage everyone to take a look at the logs of your teammates as they appear in the team roster.
Last edited by geoffw on Sun Jan 03, 2016 3:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Josquin
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Re: TAC 2016 - Russian Team Log

Postby Josquin » Sun Jan 03, 2016 3:08 pm

Just to be accurate: Those links were originally collected by mrwarper for Team Мир in 2013. I simply copied them and made them clickable when I started the team thread of Team Катюша in 2014, so there must be some dead links among them. Also, some of them are in a legally grey area, but they're very useful nevertheless... ;)
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Oró, sé do bheatha abhaile! Anois ar theacht an tsamhraidh.

geoffw
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Re: TAC 2016 - Russian Team Log

Postby geoffw » Sun Jan 03, 2016 3:55 pm

<cross-posted from my personal log>

Happy New Year, everyone! I'm excited to start another year of language learning and to be an active participant in laying the groundwork for TAC 2.0 in my function on the Russian team as your beerless leader <stops to go have a beer...burps>. Your fearless leader.

My experiences have taught me that blogging about my goals may have a negative effect on my propensity toward achieving them. Turns out, I'm not the only one who thinks so. So I won't say very much specific on that here except that 1) this year I want to keep building on the great improvement I just made with my Russian, 2) I want to more actively work on improving my Hebrew, and 3) I want to keep enjoying other languages, especially German, French, and Irish.

About 15 years ago I read Barry Farber's book "How To Learn any Language," and inspired by what he had written, I made a promise to myself that though the road be long, I would eventually "learn Russian." I didn't precisely define what I meant by that because I didn't really know how to back then, nor did I write it down, but I never forgot that promise. There have been numerous fits and starts since then, but I'm much further along toward that goal than when I started. I'm sure I haven't fulfilled the promise quite yet, but I could argue that I'm at least within striking distance finally. (On a personal note, I was lucky enough to meet Mr. Farber at the 2015 Polyglot Conference, where he chatted briefly with me in Yiddish and signed my copy of his book that had been so inspiring to me.)

So where am I now? I've completed the "passive" wave of Assimil Russian. I read all 826 pages of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in Russian, understanding the majority of it and improving all along the way. I've completed about half of the Duolingo Russian course that came out a few months ago. I've listened to countless hours of Russian-language radio. I've even had a few relatively successful chats in Russian using the phone app HelloTalk. I feel like I can identify and classify the overwhelming majority of grammatical forms I encounter in written Russian. My receptive vocabulary has grown, but I still encounter many, many unknown words in something so simple as Harry Potter. As the final team TAC challenge of 2015, I managed to compose a few paragraphs in Russian that probably are full of errors but I expect are at least coherent.

In sum: I've accomplished a lot in Russian and can do many wonderful things I couldn't do before, but I've barely scratched the surface of what is possible.
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neofight78
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Re: TAC 2016 - Russian Team Log

Postby neofight78 » Tue Jan 05, 2016 11:21 pm

Just a quick note to say my log is here: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=833

For those who are not familiar with my story here's a little intro:

I've been studying Russian for about 3 years, maybe 3.5, it's getting a little fuzzy. I passed the TRKI-2 in October, having passed TRKI-1 in the previous summer. I've no specific goals this year, I shall just continue progressing as best I can. It all started out a desire to learn a language, partly as a hobby, partly to see if such a thing was possible, and partly to find out what it feels like to speak and understand another language. Anyhow, over time I became addicted to Russian, and any questions about motivation have long since disappeared!

I wish everyone good luck with their goals, or their goal-less learning. I hope you all see great progress, and more importantly get more enjoyment from the language than ever before!
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aloysius
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Re: TAC 2016 - Russian Team Log

Postby aloysius » Wed Jan 06, 2016 5:12 pm

Looks like I´ve been added to the Russian team without even having made an application for it :D

Great to be back and meeting both new and old participants. Since I´m a bit busy right now I come back by the end of the week with an introduction. Until then, here´s my log:

http://www.forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=1881

I will check out yours as soon as I have time.

Good luck everyone!

//aloysius
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Solfrid Cristin
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Re: TAC 2016 - Russian Team Log

Postby Solfrid Cristin » Thu Jan 07, 2016 11:24 am

Here is Cristina - reporting for duty!

I am on the Russian team for as long as there has been a Russian team (4 years I think) and I have been studying Russian for longer than I care to admit. :)

My progress has been slow because I do not really have any time to study, so sometimes a full 18 months go by without me doing anything significant, but Russian, and the opportunity to do anything Russian, is always on my mind.

I passed the B1 exam this summer, in Moscow, but by the skin of my teeth as far as the written part goes. (I really cannot write Russian) so my goals for this year is to make my Russian a solid B1 - possibly a B1+, be able to speak freely, and to be able to write what I want.

I love writing in my travel log, and I focus more on my journeys and my experiences than on pages studies. For me a language only makes sense as a key to a culture, and I have dived into Russian culture with all my passion. In the year passed, I have been to Moscow three times, studied Russian in Ukraine, I have been to Tatarstan, sang Russian karaoke, gotten lost in Siberia with no luggage, no telephone numbers and no clue which hotel I was going to, I have met more wonderful Russians than I could ever imagine, who have shown me around, helped me to practice my wobbly Russian and invited me into their homes, celebrated the 8th of March with 30 wonderful Russian women, been caught up in demonstrations in Moscow, seen "The Cherry Orchard" on stage in Moscow, I have been offered to be converted to Russian orthodoxy by the head monk of a Russian monastery, I have bathed naked in the lake Baikal and learned how to flog myself with birch leaves in a Russian sauna, eaten lots of lovely blinis and other delicacies, drank honey beer and oxygen cocktail, woken up from an operation speaking Russian, and ended the year in a Russian home drinking champagne with gold in it. I have not made out with a Russian on The Red Square, but it is on my bucket list after October 2017. 8-)

It has been a truly memorable year. I said at the beginning of the year that one of my New Year Resolutions was to live more, and that I have most certainly done.

So let's start another year and another journey together - I look forward to being on the team, and I hope we will have amazing progress together!

As for name - I prefer the cuddly animal, or anything which would identify us as the Russian team also to outsiders, and not only to Russian students (Vodka, Tolstoy, Babushka, Putin (possibly preferably not :-) Moscow, Glasnost, Siberia, Tundra). Anything which anyone else would immediately recognize us by. And written in Latin letters :-)
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neofight78
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Re: TAC 2016 - Russian Team Log

Postby neofight78 » Thu Jan 07, 2016 9:57 pm

Solfrid Cristin wrote:I love writing in my travel log, and I focus more on my journeys and my experiences than on pages studies. For me a language only makes sense as a key to a culture, and I have dived into Russian culture with all my passion. In the year passed, I have been to Moscow three times, studied Russian in Ukraine, I have been to Tatarstan, sang Russian karaoke, gotten lost in Siberia with no luggage, no telephone numbers and no clue which hotel I was going to, I have met more wonderful Russians than I could ever imagine, who have shown me around, helped me to practice my wobbly Russian and invited me into their homes, celebrated the 8th of March with 30 wonderful Russian women, been caught up in demonstrations in Moscow, seen "The Cherry Orchard" on stage in Moscow, I have been offered to be converted to Russian orthodoxy by the head monk of a Russian monastery, I have bathed naked in the lake Baikal and learned how to flog myself with birch leaves in a Russian sauna, eaten lots of lovely blinis and other delicacies, drank honey beer and oxygen cocktail, woken up from an operation speaking Russian, and ended the year in a Russian home drinking champagne with gold in it. I have not made out with a Russian on The Red Square, but it is on my bucket list after October 2017. 8-)


That's what it's all about! I am intensely jealous of your experiences in Russia :D If I have a goal for this year, it's to try to clock up a few more Russian experiences of my own.
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