AroAro's log (languages, books, certificates)

Continue or start your personal language log here, including logs for challenge participants
User avatar
AroAro
Green Belt
Posts: 355
Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2020 12:57 pm
Languages: • Native - Polish
• Certified - C1: French, Italian, Romanian; B2: English, German
• Estimate - B2: Russian; B1: Bulgarian
• Learning - Czech, Hebrew
• Dabbled in - eo, la, uk, sw, lt, oc
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... d80b60a5e9
x 1791

Re: AroAro's log Pусский and עברית

Postby AroAro » Fri Sep 24, 2021 7:12 am

WEEKLY UPDATE

Russian - I'm almost done with my graded reader, I have only four texts to read. The texts became longer at the end of the book and full of specialized vocabulary so it takes me more time and effort to read them thouroughly. Some of the texts in the book were printed in italics or русский курсив and my eyes hurt when I read them! And next, I'll be doing some grammar exercises again. I also listened to 10 episodes of russianpodcast.eu and I've read so far half of my Russian magazine "ОСТАНОВКА: РΟССИЯ!". It's stuffed with unknown words so I decided to take it easy and mark only 3 up to 5 words that I find most interesting or confusing on each page - I'm not able to learn them all anyway.

Hebrew - and I'm also almost done with my course book "Samouczek języka hebrajskiego". Next step - Lewis Glinert's "Modern Hebrew. An Essential Grammar (Routledge)". It's divided into two part so at this point I'll probably go through the first part only and then will work on something else because so many grammar concepts at once can be overwhelming. Memrise - 860 words learned.

Other - I'm reading "La Porta Proibita" (read 42% so far) and it's a good book, quite easy in terms of language/vocabulary used.
7 x
corrections are welcome

User avatar
AroAro
Green Belt
Posts: 355
Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2020 12:57 pm
Languages: • Native - Polish
• Certified - C1: French, Italian, Romanian; B2: English, German
• Estimate - B2: Russian; B1: Bulgarian
• Learning - Czech, Hebrew
• Dabbled in - eo, la, uk, sw, lt, oc
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... d80b60a5e9
x 1791

Re: AroAro's log Pусский and עברית

Postby AroAro » Fri Oct 01, 2021 7:02 am

WEEKLY UPDATE

Russian - I'm doing the exercises from my grammar book and I'm already at the page 58 out of 192, which corresponds to the first 2 chapters on substantives and adjectives. I think the declension of adjectives is less scary now and it starts making sense to me. After each chapter, there is a summary test - I score around 90% correct answers and that's perfectly fine. Listened to 11 episodes from russianpodcast.eu

Hebrew - I started working slowly with "An Essential Grammar". Actually, I have never used a Routledge grammar before so I don't know if all their books are like that but the example sentences in the Hebrew one are cool/striking so easy to remember - "The falafel is cold", "Doctors' handwriting is shocking", "You're nuts". Not something I would expect to come across in a grammar book! The only feature I don't like is that the exercises and the answer keys are scattered throughout the book rather than being grouped after each chapter/section. Memrise - 925 words learned.

Other - I will finish soon "La porta proibita" - the more I read it, the more I like it (but one should keep in mind that he wrote it in 80' so a lot things must have changed in China ever since) so that's definitely not the last book by Tiziano Terzani that I'm reading. Then, I'll get back to "Das Achte Leben" - in fact, I realized I read too many books in Polish, my rotation system looked like that so far:

EN-PL-PL-FR-PL-PL-IT-PL-PL-DE-PL-PL-RO-PL-PL => that means 66.66% of the books I read are in Polish, so my new system will look as follows:

EN-FR-PL-PL-IT-DE-PL-PL-RO-RU-PL-PL => the number of books in Polish will be reduced to 50% and that seems to be a fair compromise.
6 x
corrections are welcome

User avatar
AroAro
Green Belt
Posts: 355
Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2020 12:57 pm
Languages: • Native - Polish
• Certified - C1: French, Italian, Romanian; B2: English, German
• Estimate - B2: Russian; B1: Bulgarian
• Learning - Czech, Hebrew
• Dabbled in - eo, la, uk, sw, lt, oc
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... d80b60a5e9
x 1791

Re: AroAro's log Pусский and עברית

Postby AroAro » Fri Oct 08, 2021 7:41 am

WEEKLY UPDATE

Russian - still going through the grammar book "Вот граматика!", I'm at the page 130. I still don't really understand how to put the Russian verbs in imperative mood (it's very different from Polish imperative), whether there should be "и" at the end of the verb or only "ь" so I just learned by heart the most common verbs that are used in imperative. A few weeks ago, I mentioned that I listened to "Вести ФМ" but I got bored with it and this week I decided to watch some YT videos instead. I really liked Russian Progress intermediate podcasts where he talks about learning languages, travels and so on and I can understand them pretty well. I tried to watch his other videos in which he goes around different cities but these were considerably more difficult, probably because of the background noises and they were more spontaneous so more difficult to follow. I also explored some YT channels with content for real native Russians (and not learners) but I'm still not ready for them so I'll go back to them in future. I also listened to 7 episodes of russianpodcast.eu

Hebrew - working with "An Essential Grammar", I'm at the page 25 (out of 80 for the level 1). I stopped listening to Hebrew radio because I just don't understand what is being said so I can use this time more efficiently doing Memrise - 991 words learned.

Other - reading "Das Achte Leben" (at the end of May I read 42% of the book and now I'm at 54%). I'm not really enthusiastic about the book at this point, one of the characters was forced to leave USRR and settled in London and there, she started a career as a popular singer and she even sang in Prague during the mass protests in 1968 (seriously?). I understand that the author wanted to let in some light and hope into the story but this subplot seems a bit stretched and naive to me.
5 x
corrections are welcome

User avatar
Radioclare
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2250
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 12:59 pm
Location: England
Languages: Speaks: English (N), Esperanto, German, Croatian
Learns: Russian
x 10434
Contact:

Re: AroAro's log Pусский and עברית

Postby Radioclare » Fri Oct 08, 2021 8:03 am

AroAro wrote: I really liked Russian Progress intermediate podcasts where he talks about learning languages, travels and so on and I can understand them pretty well. I tried to watch his other videos in which he goes around different cities but these were considerably more difficult, probably because of the background noises and they were more spontaneous so more difficult to follow.

Yes, I find exactly the same thing! When it's just him sitting in a room talking, the way he speaks is really clear and I find I can understand without too many problems. As soon as it's a tour of a city with traffic noises etc, I understand significantly less. And the absolutely worst ones for me are when he's interviewing another person; for those I have to watch the videos with subtitles if I'm going to stand any chance of understanding!
3 x

User avatar
AroAro
Green Belt
Posts: 355
Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2020 12:57 pm
Languages: • Native - Polish
• Certified - C1: French, Italian, Romanian; B2: English, German
• Estimate - B2: Russian; B1: Bulgarian
• Learning - Czech, Hebrew
• Dabbled in - eo, la, uk, sw, lt, oc
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... d80b60a5e9
x 1791

Re: AroAro's log Pусский and עברית

Postby AroAro » Sun Oct 10, 2021 7:32 pm

Radioclare wrote:Yes, I find exactly the same thing! When it's just him sitting in a room talking, the way he speaks is really clear and I find I can understand without too many problems. As soon as it's a tour of a city with traffic noises etc, I understand significantly less. And the absolutely worst ones for me are when he's interviewing another person; for those I have to watch the videos with subtitles if I'm going to stand any chance of understanding!


Good to know other people also struggle with these videos! I think exposure to such content is needed to get used to it and understand it but right now, I'm at a stage of my learning where I just want to watch something I can more or less follow and enjoy without getting frustrated at my lack of understanding :)
3 x
corrections are welcome

User avatar
AroAro
Green Belt
Posts: 355
Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2020 12:57 pm
Languages: • Native - Polish
• Certified - C1: French, Italian, Romanian; B2: English, German
• Estimate - B2: Russian; B1: Bulgarian
• Learning - Czech, Hebrew
• Dabbled in - eo, la, uk, sw, lt, oc
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... d80b60a5e9
x 1791

Re: AroAro's log Pусский and עברית

Postby AroAro » Fri Oct 15, 2021 2:30 pm

WEEKLY UPDATE

Russian – I almost finished "Вот грамматика!", only one chapter left about the syntax. I really liked this book, the explanations it provided were clear (in most cases) and the quality of paper and print is gorgeous so using the book was a pure joy. There is an accompanying book called "Вот лексика!" that I’ll use later, probably next year, because now I’ll work with the book “Uczymy się języka rosyjskiego” (“We learn Russian”) published in 1968. It’s full of short dialogues and texts, I guess I won’t discover there many unknown words and expressions but I need something simple and relaxing before moving on to more demanding texts.

Hebrew – I finished my Memrise course! I’m not going to start a new course right now because I will be reviewing the words every day till the end of November and only then will I decide what to do next. I’m at the page 51 of “An Essential Grammar”, it’s mostly about “binyanim” (conjugation patterns) – there are seven of them and I realized I have never learned properly to which pattern belong the verbs I’ve been learning! Well, ok, the patterns called “pa’al”, “hif’il” and “hitpa’el” are quite easy to recognize but the others are kind of blurred in my mind, I hope to learn more about them with this book.

Other – so I read 67% (or 859 pages) of “Das Achte Leben” and I will read the rest of the book when it’s time for another German book in my rotation system. It’s not a bad book but the first part was definitely more compelling and at this point I don't really care about the characters or what's happening to them. I’ve started reading a non-fiction book “Border. A Journey to the Edge of Europe” by Kapka Kassabova (in Polish translation).
7 x
corrections are welcome

User avatar
AroAro
Green Belt
Posts: 355
Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2020 12:57 pm
Languages: • Native - Polish
• Certified - C1: French, Italian, Romanian; B2: English, German
• Estimate - B2: Russian; B1: Bulgarian
• Learning - Czech, Hebrew
• Dabbled in - eo, la, uk, sw, lt, oc
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... d80b60a5e9
x 1791

Re: AroAro's log Pусский and עברית

Postby AroAro » Fri Oct 22, 2021 7:23 am

WEEKLY UPDATE

Russian - the book that I mentioned last week ("Uczymy się języka rosyjskiego") was indeed a quick read as expected, now it's time for Assimil's "Cahier d'exercices faux-debutants" which shouldn't take too much time to complete either. Regarding listening skills, I decided to listen to some 20 episodes of russianpodcast.eu that seem the most interesting to me (mainly about Russian books and places in Russia that I'd like to visit) and then, I'll listen to other podcasts like Russian Progress and Learn Russian with Max. Russianpodcast.eu is an outstanding resource especially for beginners and lower-intermediate students but I feel I need to listen to more natural/colloquial speech if I want to take my listening skills to a higher level. I also finished reading "ОСТАНОВКА: РΟССИЯ!", I learned around 200 words thanks to it. Now, I'm going to plough through another issue of this magazine.

Hebrew - it turned out that I was actually acquainted with most "binyanims" and could more or less conjugate the verbs, I just didn't know how these patterns were called in Hebrew grammar. There are still two passive binyanims "pu'al" and "huf'al" that I'm pretty sure I've never met before and besides the author of "An Essential Grammar" clearly states that Hebrew speakers tend to avoid passive patterns to express the passive voice, so I decided not to learn them at this point and try to live without them. I review 75 words from Memrise each day and I'm at the page 67 of "An Essential Grammar".

Other - so I'm reading “Border. A Journey to the Edge of Europe” and yes, it's very good. Even though it's a non-fiction book, it's gripping thanks to the structure - the author comes to the mysterious mountains "Strandzha" that lie between Bulgarian, Turkey and Greece and meets there all sorts of strange people. Strandzha is one of the most scarcely populated areas in Europe even though it's been inhabited for thousands of years and the author makes numerous references to ancient Thracians but also recent communist times that had a heavy toll on the entire trans-border region. And just like in every book on Bulgaria that I've read so far, the author also writes about two women (Baba Vanga and Ludmila Zhivkova) who, even though dead for many years now, still permeate the Bulgarian soul (or so it seems).
8 x
corrections are welcome

User avatar
AroAro
Green Belt
Posts: 355
Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2020 12:57 pm
Languages: • Native - Polish
• Certified - C1: French, Italian, Romanian; B2: English, German
• Estimate - B2: Russian; B1: Bulgarian
• Learning - Czech, Hebrew
• Dabbled in - eo, la, uk, sw, lt, oc
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... d80b60a5e9
x 1791

Re: AroAro's log Pусский and עברית

Postby AroAro » Fri Oct 29, 2021 7:19 am

WEEKLY UPDATE

Russian - unfortunately, I was not able to finish Assimil's "Cahier d'exercices faux-debutants" and put it down after a few pages. I admire their language courses but the exercises books are not worth the money, in my humble opinion. Maybe I have a wrong impression but it seems that they are targeted at young learners or something. Instead, I read a collection of short stories "Шкатулочка" and now am reading "Слушайте. Спрашивайте. Отвечайте" (with audio). I listen to 1-2 podcasts by "Learn Russian with Max" every day.

Hebrew - I finished the first part of "An Essential Grammar" and now I'll read "Parlons hébreu" that I've found on my laptop. It's not really a language course but rather an overview of the history of the language with some linguistic details every now and then. Regarding the Memrise, it really drove me crazy this past week - each and every single day, I had to review the word "boutique", which happens to sound exactly the same in Hebrew and that I'd never got wrong before so I have no idea where all these reviews came from. So I simply started ignoring words that I know by heart - reviewing them ad infinitum doesn't make sense I guess.

Other - started reading a biography of Wisława Szymborska. Her favourite book was Thomas Mann's "The Magic Mountain" that she revisited multiple times. I also read it - I have no idea what it was about, all the significance of the book eluded me. I'm probably not smart enough to appreciate this kind of highbrow literature.
7 x
corrections are welcome

User avatar
AroAro
Green Belt
Posts: 355
Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2020 12:57 pm
Languages: • Native - Polish
• Certified - C1: French, Italian, Romanian; B2: English, German
• Estimate - B2: Russian; B1: Bulgarian
• Learning - Czech, Hebrew
• Dabbled in - eo, la, uk, sw, lt, oc
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... d80b60a5e9
x 1791

Re: AroAro's log Pусский and עברית

Postby AroAro » Fri Nov 05, 2021 8:27 am

WEEKLY UPDATE

Russian - after completing "Слушайте. Спрашивайте. Отвечайте", I realized that I finished the first batch of resources that were supposed to take me from A0 to... well, I won't insert anything here because I concentrate on reading and listening and intentionally neglect speaking and writing. I should now do Assimil's "Perfectionnement Russe" but before I do it, I'm reviewing "Russe Sans Peine" once again to make sure I can move on to more advanced books. I listen to the audio and read the dialogues and write down some words that didn't stick with me the first time I worked on "Russe Sans Peine".

Hebrew - still reading "Parlons hébreu" - the title is very misleading because you can learn a lot from this book but definitely not how to speak Hebrew!

Other - and still reading Szymorska's biography, some 80 pages left out of 370. One chapter is about the translations of her poems into other languages - her poems are deceptively easy at the first glance and some were never translated into Swedish or English because they turned out to be too difficult for translators. Szymborska was a translator herself (mainly of French baroque poets, but she also translated Goethe) and she even translated Itzik Manger into Polish. However in this case, the translation of his poems from Yiddish into Polish was done by a Yiddish speaker and she worked on this literal Polish translation to give it a more poetical aspect.
5 x
corrections are welcome

User avatar
AroAro
Green Belt
Posts: 355
Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2020 12:57 pm
Languages: • Native - Polish
• Certified - C1: French, Italian, Romanian; B2: English, German
• Estimate - B2: Russian; B1: Bulgarian
• Learning - Czech, Hebrew
• Dabbled in - eo, la, uk, sw, lt, oc
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... d80b60a5e9
x 1791

Re: AroAro's log Pусский and עברית

Postby AroAro » Fri Nov 12, 2021 7:50 am

WEEKLY UPDATE

Russian - I finished reviewing "Russe Sans Peine" and will start working on "Perfectionnement Russe". It has 70 lessons so I should finish it sometime in February next year. For the record - I'm still reading the magazine "Ostanovka" and listened to 21 episodes of "Learn Russian with Max" so far.

Hebrew - I finished reading "Parlons Hébreu" and I wanted to continue with the second part of "An Essential Grammar". I read two pages on special root verbs but I didn't understand anything, I even started questioning my comprehension of Hebrew conjugations that I boasted about a few weeks ago! In fact, the second part of this grammar treats subjects I haven't come across yet such as gerunds or adjective patterns. So no, I put it aside and will come back to it much later. Instead, I started reading a pocket book "40 leçons pour parler hébreu" - it covers the basics of the language through dialogues (no audio) so it shouldn't be an excrutiating experience. My main focus is expanding vocabulary anyway - I started a new Memrise course based on the second part of the book "Hebrew From Scratch". It doesn't have audio but each word has at least a transliteration in Latin letters so that's cool.

Other - here comes the last tidbit about Szymborska - most of her poems were published by a small publishing house "Wydawnictwo A5" that specializes in poetry. In 1993, they published "The End and the Beginning" in 10000 copies that were sold within two weeks and Szymborska approved the reprint of only 3000 additional copies saying that the reader should make an effort to find her poems and she does not want them to be sold in supermarkets (she didn't really care about popularity and she referred to the Nobel Prize as "Stockholm tragedy"). I'm not really a poetry guy but I checked the website of this publisher and in 2006, they published the only ever Polish translation of Nelly Sachs' poems. It's a real rarity today but I was able to chase down the only copy for sell on Internet for 10 euros. I think it's worth it because it's a bilingulal German-Polish edition so let's say it's going to be useful for my language learning!

A few days ago, I started reading my first fiction book in Romanian - I opted for Lavinia Braniște's "Interior Zero". Last year, I researched modern Romanian literature a little bit and her name came up then but what sealed the deal was this interview that I listened to recently. I really liked her down to earth attitude and subtle, ironic undertones with which she expresses herself.
9 x
corrections are welcome


Return to “Language logs”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 3 guests