Arnaud's lazy log (Russian & co)

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neofight78
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Re: Arnaud's lazy log

Postby neofight78 » Sat May 13, 2017 12:44 pm

If there was a strict word order, or if there was no word order at all it would simple. But of course Russian doesn't do simple :P So we have a word order that is fairly free but does have some rules.
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Re: Arnaud's lazy log

Postby blaurebell » Sat May 13, 2017 1:48 pm

neofight78 wrote:If there was a strict word order, or if there was no word order at all it would simple. But of course Russian doesn't do simple So we have a word order that is fairly free but does have some rules.


Precisely! It's free enough to get utterly confused while reading and there are still enough rules to make mistakes with it when producing it! :roll: At least I'm somewhat used to it from German - I can't even imagine what it must be like for people who have a native language with strict word order!
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Re: Arnaud's lazy log

Postby reineke » Sat May 13, 2017 2:27 pm

neofight78 wrote:If there was a strict word order, or if there was no word order at all it would simple. But of course Russian doesn't do simple :P So we have a word order that is fairly free but does have some rules.


Are you writing epic poetry? I see a missing word in your post. Please report to smallwhite for debriefing.
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Re: Arnaud's lazy log

Postby Arnaud » Fri May 19, 2017 4:19 pm

Russian
- I've almost finished Жажда (I'm at 85%) and I'm clearly out of my confort zone, the end of the book contains more descriptions than the beginning: it's more difficult. But with only 3% of unknown words, it can be considered as an easy read.
Anyway, I really liked it although the style of the author can sometimes be a little confusing: he mixes scenes from the past and the present without clear transitions and uses a colloquial language that I'm not specialist in. Fortunately, the french translation is excellent and I could follow the story pretty well.
- I've also been listening to the audiobook: well and slowly read but with a music a little too inspired by the The hammer without a master to my taste.
- In Жажда, there is a reference to Дядя Фёдор. As I didn't know what it was, I searched and found that it's a children book by Eduard Uspensky whose I had already read Крокодил Гена и его друзья. I started to read it for the cultural background. It's rather easy and I like his sense of humor. Дядя Фёдор, пёс и кот.
- After that, I'd like to finish to watch the series ишейка, I've already watched 10 episodes and I'd liked to reach the end (16 episodes). I've made a lot of progresses in my listening abilities with that series, and I'd like to watch it again (or listen to it again) with all the transcripts annotated. It would be more easier than the first pass but also time-consuming: when I do that, I don't read books. As I'm in a kind of personal "russian books super challenge", I wouldn't want to break the momentum...I have to continue to read russian literature. It's so easy to get discouraged when facing the moutain...
Edit: I forgot to say: when going to the library to renew my borrow of Жажда, a mother with her young daughter were speaking russian and french while waiting for the lift. I understood all, that was very fun for me to follow the conversation. I was also very impressed by how both of them were juggling perfectly with both languages: both spoken naturally and with a total absence of accent. All seemed so easy for them and the little girl had already something that I'll never have even if I'd spend the rest of my life studying russian... :roll:
Last edited by Arnaud on Fri May 19, 2017 5:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Arnaud's lazy log

Postby aaleks » Fri May 19, 2017 5:33 pm

Arnaud wrote: As I didn't know what it was, I searched and found that it's a children book by Eduard Uspensky whose I had already read Крокодил Гена и его друзья. I started to read it for the cultural background. It's rather easy and I like his sense of humor. Дядя Фёдор, пёс и кот.

There's also the cartoons :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXD3txG2bVQ
I haven't read the books, but I've watched the cartoons many times.
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Arnaud
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Re: Arnaud's lazy log

Postby Arnaud » Sun May 28, 2017 9:14 pm

Russian:
I've finished Жажда and Виды русского глагола and gave up Дядя Фёдор, пёс и кот (good book but I'm not in the right mood)
I've tried to start several books this week-end and gave up quickly: easy but too boring or interesting but too difficult or too thick or only in electronic version (I prefer to read on paper).
So after fumbling a little in my cardboard box, I decided that I'll start again my book of Беляев which contains 4 novels (Человек-амфибия. Ариэль. Остров погибших кораблей. Голова профессора Доуэля) and start also Источник счастья by Дашкова (it seems well written, it's a kind of fantasy book about immortality). Both are difficult to read, I can only read one page/hour (and even less for Человек-амфибия which contains navy terms that I don't even know in french :roll: : I have to search in both languages in Google image and Wikipedia to have an idea of what the author is talking about), but I know the beginning of books is always difficult when the author puts in place the characters, the set of the action, etc. I expect that it'll be easier after a dozen of pages.
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Re: Arnaud's lazy log

Postby neofight78 » Mon May 29, 2017 4:28 am

Arnaud wrote:I've finished Жажда and Виды русского глагола


Good work! That's no mean feat :)

Arnaud wrote:Both are difficult to read, I can only read one page/hour (and even less for Человек-амфибия which contains navy terms that I don't even know in french :roll: : I have to search in both languages in Google image and Wikipedia to have an idea of what the author is talking about), but I know the beginning of books is always difficult when the author puts in place the characters, the set of the action, etc. I expect that it'll be easier after a dozen of pages.


An hour a page is pretty brutal. Are you starting off straight away with hardcopy? Maybe it might be easier to start electronically and then once the quantity of new vocabulary drops switch to paper?
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Arnaud
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Re: Arnaud's lazy log

Postby Arnaud » Mon May 29, 2017 5:55 am

neofight78 wrote:Good work! That's no mean feat :)
Ah, thank you, if only it were true... ;)

neofight78 wrote:An hour a page is pretty brutal. Are you starting off straight away with hardcopy? Maybe it might be easier to start electronically and then once the quantity of new vocabulary drops switch to paper?
You're right, but I'm an old fart who don't like to read on screens. :mrgreen:
More seriously, I have a Kobo Ereader, but there is no russian dictionary on it (perhaps a Kindle would have been a better choice, but I don't think my english is good enough to use constantly the russian-english pop-up dictionary, I would still have to search for the french translation pretty often just to be sure..., or is it possible to install a russian-french pop-up dictionary on a Kindle ?).
And the Google translation is too approximative for my taste, it doesn't convey all the subtleties of the verbs that I usually look for. I know the basic meaning of the most frequent verbs, and usually I'm looking for the figurative or rare meanings. And secondly it's the same problem as with the Kindle: I'm french and most online translation machines are using english as a "bridge" to translate from russian to french: the result is really not good.
So even if it's more time-consuming, I still prefer to use a russian-french paper dictionary. As you see it's a great advantage to be a native english speaker, when your english is not on par, all becomes more complicated.
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Re: Arnaud's lazy log

Postby Ani » Mon May 29, 2017 8:36 am

There is a Russian to French (don't buy the French to Russian by mistake!) bilingual dictionary for kindle. I think you need to have an e-ink kindle version to use it. I haven't tried it yet since I have not even attempted reading in Russian outside of courses, but my plan is to use that dictionary next year.
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Re: Arnaud's lazy log

Postby neofight78 » Mon May 29, 2017 9:38 am

Oh, Arnaud, you've blown a hole in my Anglo-centric word! :P It's possible to install a French-Russian dictionary for the kindle, and I would have thought that it would be possible for a Kobo as well. As for the quality of such dictionaries I'm not qualified to say. Have you found any worthwhile French-Russian dictionaries online at all? Can it really be that an old school paper dictionary is the only way to go? :o
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