Arnaud's lazy log (Russian & co)

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Arnaud
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Arnaud's lazy log (Russian & co)

Postby Arnaud » Wed Nov 04, 2015 9:54 pm

How I've been learning russian (I started on June 2011, about 1 or 2 hours a day).

I started with Michel Thomas Russian (the 3 levels), then I studied Assimil Russian (the lastest edition of 2005 by Victoria Melnikova, then the 1st edition of 1973, both with the audio), Russian in exercises by Khavronina (to practice the grammar, no audio) and Ruslan 1 and 2 (it's a british method, the audio is free on the author's website).
I read and listened to another dozen of textbooks and methods that were more or less useful, like Teach Yourself, Méthode 90, Le russe vite et bien, Le russe by Potapova, Russian for all, Russian Language by Ovsienko, etc..., but I recommand in priority Michel Thomas, Assimil and Ruslan 2 that were the most useful to me: of course, each person has to find what suits her the most.

When you start to learn Russian, always use a method with the audio and get acquainted with the reading rules, (no need to learn them, just notice what's going on and trust your ear). Whatever you read here and there on the Internet, the russian writing is not phonetic and you need to rely a lot on your ear (that's my personal opinion, I consider that having a decent accent early in the learning process is important and prevents the acquisition of fossilized mistakes that are extremely difficult to correct later.).

Then I tried to expand my vocabulary by reading graded readers and started to watch cartoons on YouTube: the readers that were useful to me are :
- Шкатулка пособие по чтению для иностранцев, начинающих изучать русский язык (accented)
- Удивительные истории. 116 текстов для чтения, изучения и развлечения (not accented)
The cartoon was Luntik, all the seasons and a few classical cartoons from the soviet era with english subtitles.

Then, I started to read my first real book : Крокодил Гена и его друзья (I had already watched the cartoon, so I knew more or less the story). It was very difficult but I finally read it entirely and was very happy. My first real book !! (dancing banana emoticon :mrgreen:)
After that, it's long and slow process of watching russian series and reading transcripts or subtitles, of trying to read russian books and listening to the corresponding audiobooks...
A work still in progress, even if I can say it's not very efficient and that I'm rather disappointed by my progression now.
I still continue by inertia (a good language learner knows how to transform his initial motivation into a rooted habit) and because I like the russian language, but I'm more or less stuck : my passive level (reading, listening) is probably around C1 and my active level (speaking, writing) around B1 (obvious lack of practice).
If you decide to learn Russian, I wish you good luck, that's an interesting adventure. ;)
Last edited by Arnaud on Thu May 07, 2020 6:05 pm, edited 81 times in total.
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Arnaud
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Re: Arnaud's lazy log (Russian & co)

Postby Arnaud » Wed Nov 04, 2015 9:55 pm

French : Here are the transcripts and .srt files of the 11 fist episodes of Hélène et les garçons. Episode 3 is lost.
Russian : Here are the transcripts I use(d) to improve my listening abilities in russian. Some were made by ripping hard-coded subtitles and there can be little problems of missing words or bad OCR (especially with the punctuation). Other were taken from the forum Polydog.org and from the channel Starmedia.
Beginners can start by Нюхач and Кухня.
Intermediate students can use Ищейка, Мажор, Физрук. It's everyday and colloquial russian, but they speak faster and less clearly than in Нюхач and Кухня.
Russian media with subtitles
Books I've read
Series I've watched (a selection)
Last edited by Arnaud on Mon Nov 29, 2021 5:36 am, edited 35 times in total.
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Re: Arnaud's lazy log (Russian & co)

Postby Expugnator » Wed Nov 04, 2015 11:08 pm

Welcome to our world!

Have you tried Ilya Frank's method or other sorts of listening-reading ? Like news, for example.

It is usually effective to alternate subtitled and non-subtitled videos, one reinforces the other.
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neofight78
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Re: Arnaud's lazy log (Russian & co)

Postby neofight78 » Thu Nov 05, 2015 12:32 am

Awesome, the more Russian logs the better! :)
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Arnaud
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Re: Arnaud's lazy log (Russian & co)

Postby Arnaud » Thu Nov 05, 2015 2:02 am

Books I have read, so far:

- Крокодил Гена и его друзья - Эдуард Успенский. 64p (children's book with drawings)
- Голубое и зеленое - Казаков (short story) 34p
- Дама с собачкой - Антон Чехов (short story)
- Дневник Коли Синицина - Носов (children's book)
- Один день в 2100 году - Сергей Лукьяненко (easy short story) 2p
- Жажда - Андрей Геласимов (short novel: easy but with a lot of colloquial russian) 94p ,(05.2017), ~600 unkown words, 2.55%
- Человек-амфибия - Александр Беляев : (08.2017), 169p, 2100 uw, 4.70%
- Голова профессора Доуэля - Александр Беляев : (09.2017) 140p, 1600uw, 4.30%
- Приключения Незнайки и его друзей - Николай Носов (04.2018), 163p ebook (children's book)
- Обсуждаем глобальные проблемы (textbook, 15 texts): 30p (08.2018)
- Дядя Фёдор, пёс и кот - Эдуард Успенский (children's book): 50p ebook (08.2018)
- Девочка, с которой ничего не случится - Кир Булычев (09.2018), 19p ebook (sci-fi children's book: 6 short stories)
- Первая любовь - Иван Тургенев (09.2018) 50p (short story)
- Доктор Айболит - Чуковский, Корней (10.2018) 50p ebook (children's book)

Pages read: 864 / 10000

A part of that log was deleted for personal reasons, it continues on page 12.
Last edited by Arnaud on Sun Oct 28, 2018 9:14 pm, edited 32 times in total.
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Re: Arnaud's lazy log (Russian & co)

Postby neofight78 » Thu Nov 05, 2015 9:20 am

Arnaud wrote:For the news, I've started (one month ago) to read one transcript a day of Putin TV, to gain "media" vocabulary (in fact, a lot of vocab about war, weapons, and diplomatie, as it's currently the war in Syria and they are obsessed by that). I put the transcript in the little tool that creates an automatic interlinear translation, I print and read that while I commute. When I return home I listen to what I've read but it's generally too fast for me.
I don't know if it's the case in other languages but the russian used in the news seems disembodied and completly different from the one I've learned: all is at the passive voice, with a lot of past and present participles: russian people absolutely don't speak like that in the everyday life. So for the moment, I find the exercice difficult.


I've been thinking about what to do in terms of training audio comprehension and listening to the news was one of my candidates. I could also do with more practice with passive voice and participles so this could be doubly good practice. In the B2 grammar exam there were lots of questions where I had to transform between equivalent grammatical constructions to demonstrate I understood the function of participles and gerunds. Whilst I had no problem answering them correctly, I always had to expend some effort thinking about it, whereas I need to get to the point where it's automatic.

Also one of thing things they seem to be big on in the exam is using and understanding different styles of speech/writing. In the listening exam in which I did so badly there a couple of audio clips of different types: a film clip, news headlines, an interview... and probably some more that I've already forgotten. So whilst my listening comprehension during conversation is excellent, these other areas are more problematic and need practice.

Arnaud wrote:As a side note, I try to write that log in english but I wonder if my english will be good enough to be up the task. My english is so rusty that I wonder if people can understand what I write... :roll:


Is this a joke? :? You probably make less mistakes than me and I've had 37 years of practice!

Anyway, this is your log and I've ended up talking about me too much *ahem* :oops:
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Re: Arnaud's lazy log (Russian & co)

Postby Ogrim » Thu Nov 05, 2015 10:21 am

Putin TV :) I like that. Actually, I've been using it a lot lately, as my Russian teacher often gives us printouts of news from первый канал and links to the videos as homework.

If you have an iphone or ipad you may be interested in the app called ТВ Россия, which gives you access to a number of Russian TV channels, including a sport channel if you are interested in that. I also use the app of НТВ.
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Re: Arnaud's lazy log (Russian & co)

Postby Ed1991 » Thu Nov 05, 2015 1:25 pm

Arnaud wrote:I don't know if it's the case in other languages but the russian used in the news seems disembodied and completly different from the one I've learned: all is at the passive voice, with a lot of past and present participles: russian people absolutely don't speak like that in the everyday life. So for the moment, I find the exercice difficult.


The news is definitely not easy content. I think the gap between everyday language and more formal Russian is pretty wide. You might want to try some other content (plenty of Russian chat shows etc. some of which are broadcast or can be found with subtitles to make a transcript from) which is more natural. Though this content is probably not as interesting.

neofight78 wrote:Also one of thing things they seem to be big on in the exam is using and understanding different styles of speech/writing. In the listening exam in which I did so badly there a couple of audio clips of different types: a film clip, news headlines, an interview... and probably some more that I've already forgotten. So whilst my listening comprehension during conversation is excellent, these other areas are more problematic and need practice.


You don't happen to have recordings of the kind of audio material presented in the B2 exam? If you do I would be interested in where you got them from, as I would love to take a listen. I have some for the B1 exam and was pleasantly surprised by the level they were pitched at.
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Arnaud
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Re: Arnaud's lazy log (Russian & co)

Postby Arnaud » Thu Nov 05, 2015 5:09 pm

Russian series I watched, just a list to give you ideas, nothing more...
You can also see neofight78's selection.

- Лунтик (480+ episodes, 5 min). Cartoon
- Игрушки (2 seasons, 40 episodes, 20 min). Comedy. First series I watched in russian. Stupid but easy to understand.
- Последний из Магикян (5 seasons, 60 episodes, 20 min). Comedy. Easy to understand at the second pass.
- Нюхач (3 seasons, 24 episodes, 50 min). Detective. (subs in english and russian on YT, transcripts)
- Школа (1 season, 69 episode, 25 min). Drama for teenagers. Slang. Difficult to understand and rather gloomy.
- Майя (1 season, 12 episodes, 45 min). Melodrama for teenagers. Rather easy. (Google майя сериал to find it)
- Папины дочки (410 episodes, 20 min). Comedy. Easy to understand at the second pass.
- Обратная сторона Луны (1 season): not watched until the end. Sci-fi.
- Умник (16 episodes, 50 min). Detective (remake of Castle ?)
- Мажор 1 & 2 (12x2 episodes, 50 min). Detective. Transcripts
- Закон каменных джунглей 1 & 2 (16 épisodes, 45 min) : Criminal, teenage slang. Suburban culture.
- Кухня (6 seasons, 120 episodes, 25 min). Comedy. Transcripts for the 3 first seasons.
- Отель Элеон (3 seasons, 63 episodes, 25 min). Comedy (spinoff of Кухня)
- Физрук (4 seasons, 67 episodes, 25 min). Comedy with a lot of slang. Transcripts for season 1. The first season is ok, the rest...
- Мама-детектив (1 season, 12 episodes, 50 min). Detective. Transcripts
- Когда её совсем не ждёшь (1 season, 8 episodes, 40 min). Romance for the desperate housewife. Subtitles in russian. Easy to understand.
- Ищейка (3 season, 48 episodes, 50 min). Detective. Transcripts for season 1. One of my favorites for the progresses I've made with it.
- Любимая учительница (8 episodes, 50 min): Melodrama. Transcripts. Difficult at the first pass.
- Влюбленные женщины (12 episodes, 50 min). Melodrama for the desperate housewife. Transcripts. Easy to understand.
- Что и требовалось доказать (8 episodes) : Detective. First 2 episodes horrible, the remaining okay..(remake of Numb3rs ?)
- Генеральская внучка (16 épisodes, 44 min) : Мелодрама, детектив. Nothing special, I liked the actress.
- Детективы Натальи Александровой (playlist on YouTube): "detective for ladies" (low quality, just for the rapid-fire dialogues)
- Живой (12 épisodes, 45 min). Detective. Subtitles on YT НТВ
- Без свидетелей (2 seasons, 90 episodes of 25m). Psychology (a remake of "In treatment" ?). Lot of dialogues.
- Безопаcность (8 episodes, 52 min) : Detective (good music, but I understood absolutly nothing: too fast for me at the moment)
- Скорая помощь (20 episodes, 50 min): Medical series on НТВ with subtitles.

A part of that log was deleted for personal reasons, it continues on page 12.
Last edited by Arnaud on Tue Nov 06, 2018 7:58 pm, edited 10 times in total.
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Re: Arnaud's lazy log (Russian & co)

Postby Ed1991 » Fri Nov 06, 2015 3:41 pm

Arnaud wrote: I can only agree. I'd be interested if you could point to a few chat shows with subtitles that you like.


There are a few episodes of Пусть говорят with English subtitles. It is also broadcast on Channel 1 with subtitles, and is one of the shows you can watch without residing in the Russian Federation. Though I wouldn't say I like it, but it is a sort of guilty pleasure. A number of other shows on Channel 1 can be watched online with subtitles, you can find a list subtitled programming broadcast on Channel 1 here: http://www.gluxix.net/programma-tv/1tv

I thought there were more chat show episodes on YouTube with English or Russian subtitles but apparently not. Well there are no subtitles but I feel вечерний ургант is not entirely bad and is pitched at a reasonably decent level for learners. Also all the episodes can be found on YouTube so you can find episodes with guests your interested.
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