AroAro's log (languages, books, certificates)

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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
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Re: Russian/Bulgarian/Hebrew + EN,FR,IT,DE,RO

Postby AroAro » Wed Jul 13, 2022 6:52 am

Russian – finished “Приключения иностранцев в России” and now I’m starting going through the last coursebook in my Russian journey – “Побеседуйте с нами” published by Wiedza Powszechna in 1965 for advanced learners (I have the audio files as well). Again, I’m just curious about the book, I already spend a lot of time watching Russian videos on YT and reading articles in Russian online and I have a feeling I’m improving thanks to this input rather than because of the coursebooks I’m going through.

Bulgarian
– lesson 73 from Assimil, did the lesson 7 from “Intensive Bulgarian”. For online articles, I decided to switch from trud.bg to Deutsche Welle service in Bulgarian – DW uses the Bulgarian font only in the headlines and the rest of the articles are in Russian font I’m more familiar with so I can read them more quickly. Here is an article about the differences between the two Cyrillic fonts if anyone’s interested.

Romanian – new words:

Răstignit – ukrzyżowany
Înștiințare - zawiadomienie
Răfuială - zatarg


Reading – so I finished “Лестница Якова” and I want to read more of Ulitksaya’s books. There are already so many books on my “to read” list, dozens if not hundreds, I wonder if I will ever manage to read them all. I’ve read 14 books so far this year and that means I need about 2 weeks for one book, and that’s not a result that could guarantee a palpable success in this area. I guess either I read books or learn languages, and if I want to spend my time on both activities, I need to set up more realistic goals. Anyway, “Лестница Якова” is one of the rare instances of a book where people actually learn languages, so we know that the titular Yakov spoke Russian natively, Yiddish and Hebrew as a heritage speaker, and then he learned French, German, English and even Lithuanian, so that was cool to know (even though that was not the main focus of the book of course). Now, I’m reading Shusaku Endo’s “The Samurai” (in Polish translation) – to be honest, I’m already finishing the book, it’s so good and a real page turner. I read Endo’s “Silence” a few years ago and really liked it as well (I’ve never seen that Scorsese’s movie though).
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lichtrausch
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Re: Russian/Bulgarian/Hebrew + EN,FR,IT,DE,RO

Postby lichtrausch » Thu Jul 14, 2022 3:49 pm

AroAro wrote:There are already so many books on my “to read” list, dozens if not hundreds, I wonder if I will ever manage to read them all. I’ve read 14 books so far this year and that means I need about 2 weeks for one book, and that’s not a result that could guarantee a palpable success in this area. I guess either I read books or learn languages, and if I want to spend my time on both activities, I need to set up more realistic goals.

I've got the same problem. My only hope is that one day I will end this phase of intensive language learning (in which a lot of my reading is primarily to improve my languages), and enter a phase where I am mostly just reading for pleasure and information, hopefully around a book a week.
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AroAro
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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
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Re: Russian/Bulgarian/Hebrew + EN,FR,IT,DE,RO

Postby AroAro » Fri Jul 15, 2022 6:57 am

lichtrausch wrote:
AroAro wrote:There are already so many books on my “to read” list, dozens if not hundreds, I wonder if I will ever manage to read them all. I’ve read 14 books so far this year and that means I need about 2 weeks for one book, and that’s not a result that could guarantee a palpable success in this area. I guess either I read books or learn languages, and if I want to spend my time on both activities, I need to set up more realistic goals.

I've got the same problem. My only hope is that one day I will end this phase of intensive language learning (in which a lot of my reading is primarily to improve my languages), and enter a phase where I am mostly just reading for pleasure and information, hopefully around a book a week.


It would be awesome to read one book a week! My problem is that I used to be a book hoarder (or a "tsundoku" adherer, sounds fancier than hoarding) so I have a pile of unread 50 books or so in English and French that looked like exciting reads 10 years ago but not so much anymore. There are always new books, new authors that I'd like to check and read, so my wish-list keeps only growing. Fortunately I stopped buying books in advance but at my current pace of reading there's no way of cleaning the pile in the next few years.
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AroAro
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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
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Re: Russian/Bulgarian/Hebrew + EN,FR,IT,DE,RO

Postby AroAro » Fri Jul 22, 2022 6:43 am

Russian – reading “Побеседуйте с нами” – lesson 12 out of 27. This week, TV Rain resumed its activities and they broadcast now from Riga so there will be even more YT videos to watch.

Bulgarian – lesson 82 from Assimil, did the lessons 8, 9 and 10 from “Intensive Bulgarian”. I’m staying alone at home so I can devote more time to languages.

Vocabulary building – I changed my methodology here… So I’ve been reading magazines in foreign languages for the last couple of months but this activity has started to tire me. It takes me a few weeks to go through a whole magazine and the articles have become old news by the time I read them, so that’s quite a dull experience. At the same time, I read online articles (such BBC Russian Service, DW Romanian Service or Der Spiegel Globale Gesellschaft), and I decided to focus on these sources to expand my vocabulary. Of course, I always checked unknown words but from now on, I also copy them to my notebook and create a list of new words to be learnt. I also have more control over what I read and what topics I focus on.

Reading – I’ve recently bumped up my reading statistics :) I finished Endo’s “The Samurai”, read a non-fiction book in Polish (“Pusty las” by Monika Sznajderman, about a once populous Rusyn/Lemko village that became almost completely desolate in recent times) and also read “Lingo” by Gaston Dorren. That was really interesting, even though I liked “Babel” a little bit more. I read "Lingo" in Polish translation, it contains an additional chapter written by the author specifically for the Polish edition (about him learning Polish). And now I’m reading Damon Galgut’s “The Promise”. I’ve really wanted to read it ever since it won the Booker last year, so even though I have many books on my pile, I decided to give it a go and read it now on Kindle (because in 10 or 15 years it will no longer look like an exciting read). The writing style is rather easy and the language used quite straightforward (but some Afrikaans words pop up from time to time).
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DaveAgain
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Re: Russian/Bulgarian/Hebrew + EN,FR,IT,DE,RO

Postby DaveAgain » Fri Jul 22, 2022 7:53 am

AroAro wrote:And now I’m reading Damon Galgut’s “The Promise”. I’ve really wanted to read it ever since it won the Booker last year, so even though I have many books on my pile, I decided to give it a go and read it now on Kindle (because in 10 or 15 years it will no longer look like an exciting read). The writing style is rather easy and the language used quite straightforward (but some Afrikaans words pop up from time to time).
I was watching a Charlize Theron interview the other day, and she mentioned that Don't let's Go to the dogs tonight was one of her favourite books.
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AroAro
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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
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Re: Russian/Bulgarian/Hebrew + EN,FR,IT,DE,RO

Postby AroAro » Fri Jul 22, 2022 9:50 am

DaveAgain wrote:
AroAro wrote:And now I’m reading Damon Galgut’s “The Promise”. I’ve really wanted to read it ever since it won the Booker last year, so even though I have many books on my pile, I decided to give it a go and read it now on Kindle (because in 10 or 15 years it will no longer look like an exciting read). The writing style is rather easy and the language used quite straightforward (but some Afrikaans words pop up from time to time).
I was watching a Charlize Theron interview the other day, and she mentioned that Don't let's Go to the dogs tonight was one of her favourite books.


Thank you, I'm adding this to my to-be-read list!
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kennyaa
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Re: Russian/Bulgarian/Hebrew + EN,FR,IT,DE,RO

Postby kennyaa » Sat Jul 23, 2022 8:38 am

AroAro wrote:Bulgarian – I’m at the lesson 63 from Assimil, and I did the lesson 4 from “Intensive Bulgarian”. In each lesson, there is a cultural commentary that is supposed to familiarize the reader with Bulgarian customs, traditions and so on. One of the first things you read is that Bulgarians are afraid of “air currents”. Even the initial dialogues are built around this subject. I don’t know what to think of that :? I’ve never been to Bulgaria sadly so maybe “air currents” are a big thing there? But my sister dated once a half Polish-half Bulgarian guy and I never caught them speaking about air currents…


I was studying using Intensive Bulgarian before my first trip to Bulgaria and after getting the train out of Sofia on my first day the scene from chapter 1 played out in front of me almost word for word with a woman coming in to the compartment, complaining about the draft and asking for the window to be closed :lol:
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AroAro
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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
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Re: Russian/Bulgarian/Hebrew + EN,FR,IT,DE,RO

Postby AroAro » Sat Jul 23, 2022 1:15 pm

kennyaa wrote:
AroAro wrote:Bulgarian – I’m at the lesson 63 from Assimil, and I did the lesson 4 from “Intensive Bulgarian”. In each lesson, there is a cultural commentary that is supposed to familiarize the reader with Bulgarian customs, traditions and so on. One of the first things you read is that Bulgarians are afraid of “air currents”. Even the initial dialogues are built around this subject. I don’t know what to think of that :? I’ve never been to Bulgaria sadly so maybe “air currents” are a big thing there? But my sister dated once a half Polish-half Bulgarian guy and I never caught them speaking about air currents…


I was studying using Intensive Bulgarian before my first trip to Bulgaria and after getting the train out of Sofia on my first day the scene from chapter 1 played out in front of me almost word for word with a woman coming in to the compartment, complaining about the draft and asking for the window to be closed :lol:


That's cool! So the authors of "Intensive Bulgarian" knew better than me what they were up to and they created a close-to-life textbook, a rare feat these days :)
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AroAro
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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
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Re: Russian/Bulgarian/Hebrew + EN,FR,IT,DE,RO

Postby AroAro » Mon Aug 01, 2022 6:14 am

Russian – finished “Побеседуйте с нами”, I’m quite amazed at the quality of resources from so many decades ago – vivid dialogues with audio, grammar and vocabulary explanations, lots of exercises (mostly translations). They are definitely better than any coursebooks my English teachers used when I learned English at school (I’m thinking about these colourful big format books full of photos and little explanation). Now, I’m reading the third part of the graded reader for Polish learners (“Repetytorium tematyczno-leksykalne”), there are such topics as geography of Russian Federation, Russian traditions, terrorism, drug addition but also animals and computers and so on. The texts are considerably longer than in the parts 1 and 2.

Bulgarian – lesson 92 from Assimil, did the lessons 11 and 12 from “Intensive Bulgarian”. I think I finally understood how the renarrative mood is formed. In fact, it’s super easy if you speak already Polish or Russian because it’s formed in the same way as their past tense – but in Bulgarian, it took on a meaning of “not having witnessed what is being reported”:

Polish: On kupił nową książkę. => He bought a new book.
Russian: Он купил новую книгу. => He bought a new book.
Bulgarian: Той купил нова книга. => it is said/believed that he bought a new book but I haven’t seen it by myself, I only heard about it from other people.

If you just want to say that “He bought a new book” in Bulgarian, you’ll probably use the present perfect tense. The thing that complicates the matter is that for the 1st and 2nd persons (both singular and plural), the present perfect and the renarrative are formed in exactly the same way – by adding the auxiliary verb “to be” to the participle. So the phrase “Аз съм купил нова книга” can mean “I bought a new book” as well as “So they say that I would buy a new book” or something like that, though the context should dissipate any doubts over the meaning and besides, the renarrative mood is used mostly in the 3rd person anyway. So the two constructions differ only in 3rd person:

Той e купил нова книга. => He bought a new book. vs Той купил нова книга. => He presumably bought a new book.

Vocabulary building – learned 38 new words from online reading across all my languages. I’ve also been playing with Clozemaster (for Bulgarian and Russian) for the last couple of days.

Reading – it took me 3 days to read “The Promise”, so you can call it a page-turner. Very engaging, tense writing with an awesome narrator but… spoiler alert=> I hated one of the characters, she was so passive and listless, it didn’t make much sense to me why the hell she didn’t insist on delivering on the promise but just let it go basically. She had 20 or even 30 years to do something about it but decided to keep away pretending at the same time that she really wanted to do something, ugh… <=end of spoiler Anyway a very good book, one of the best I’ve read this year so far. My statistics skyrocketed because I also read one of the paper books from the pile – “The View From Castle Rock” by Alice Munro, for which she found inspiration in the history of her family. I got lost in the beginning by the number of different characters, some of them having the same names, but fortunately it became clearer with each chapter. And now I’m reading another book from the pile – “Król kłania się i zabija” by Herta Müller (Polish translation of “Der König verneigt sich und tötet”).
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AroAro
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Posts: 355
Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2020 12:57 pm
Languages: • Native - Polish
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• 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
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Re: Russian/Bulgarian/Hebrew + EN,FR,IT,DE,RO

Postby AroAro » Wed Aug 10, 2022 10:39 am

Russian – read 60% of the graded reader for advanced learners. The texts are not only longer but also quite complicated which is good but the bad thing is that they touch upon topics I wouldn’t read even in Polish. I don’t really get much from reading about history of computers or discovery of new chemical elements but ok, I guess a little exposure to such topics won’t do me any harm but can only be beneficial to my general knowledge.

Bulgarian
– lesson 98 from Assimil, did the lessons 13 and 14 from “Intensive Bulgarian”. I will finish soon both courses and after that, I’m going to consolidate my grammar notions with “Grammatica Bulgara” (published by Hoepli). I also started watching YT videos of “Learn Bulgarian Pod101”, I’m going through “Comprehension for Absolute Beginners” playlist in hope of improving my listening skills. I can more or less read in Bulgarian and get at least a general meaning if not more, but listening is still way beyond me.

Vocabulary building – learned 25 words from online reading. I splashed out some money (but fortunately had tracked down a discount code before) and signed up for Pro Lifetime version of Clozemaster. The thing is that I really like this site (unlike many other sites and applications that I’ve tried so far) and I really feel it best suits my needs. It also offers a lot of languages (and I intend to dabble in some of them) and multiple language pairs, but the free version allows only 30 phrases a day, so going for a pro account felt like a good move. I guess spending money on it will also hold me more accountable with using it regularly… Here’s my progress so far:

#Bulgarian from English (Fluency Fast Track) => playing 1344, mastered 148 out of 7479 sentences
#Russian from English (>50,000 Most Common Words) => playing 930, mastered 217 out of 9985 sentences
#Hebrew from English (Fluency Fast Track) => playing 229, mastered 0 out of 19999 sentences (yes, I decided to dabble a little bit again in Hebrew because I don’t want to forget everything I had learned last year. In fact, I can say that the little I learned is coming back to me and I’m really happy about it).

Reading
– I read that collection of essays by Herta Müller, then I read a book in Italian – “Non dirmi che hai paura” by Giuseppe Catozzella. It was super easy to read, maybe my Italian has finally become so good that I can enjoy native content without any hindrance… No, it hasn’t and the truth is that I suspect the book is targeted mainly at teenagers 12-19 years old so there were no sophisticated words or overly long phrases one can usually encounter in other books, nevertheless it was a nice feeling to be able to read a book in a foreign language rather seamlessly. Oh, and one last thing – only after finishing the book did I discover it was based on a true story of a Somali athlete Samia Yusuf Omar. I thought the book was a little bit “naïve” at some points but that discovery and knowing that it was, as I said, a true story, changed my perspective on it. Now, I’m finishing a book in Polish (“Stramer”, a family saga about a Jewish family set in Tarnow – a city new Cracow in 20’ and 30’. Really enjoying it) and then I’m going to read “La Déesse des petites victoires” by Yannick Grannec, in French. The title caught my attention 10 years ago, it's about time to read it finally!
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