Бесконечная дорога [Russian(TAC), Portuguese, Spanish]

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azul
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Re: Бесконечная дорога [Russian(TAC), Portuguese, Spanish]

Postby azul » Fri Feb 12, 2016 1:43 pm

Русский язык

На этой неделе я читала рассказ Бунина, который называется <<Холодная Осень>>. Был замечательный, и я была удивлена, что я хорошо понимала грустную историю. Кроме этого, я читала одну статью про тему богатства и другую про иностранцев живущих в России. Обе статьи появлялись в учебнике для учеников русского языка, зато мне интересно читать их и мой словарный запас всегда растёт благодаря им.

К сожалению, я начала скучать по португальскому и испанскому языкам. Так, я буду стремиться писать больше по им.
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azul
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Posts: 28
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Re: Бесконечная дорога [Russian(TAC), Portuguese, Spanish]

Postby azul » Wed Feb 17, 2016 4:18 pm

Russian

Since my last post, I've been continuing with my Russian classes which are turning out to be amazing. I know that a lot of language learners are dubious about formal classes, but I'm a fan, especially of the ones that I've been taking lately. Until the middle of May, I'll be taking 18 hours of Russian classes in Russian a week. I have 5 classes, which consist of grammar, translation, conversation, 20th century literature, and history and culture of St. Petersburg. After each day of classes, my mind feels completely drained but it's a good kind of drained, similar to the way your body feels after exercising or playing a sport intensively.

Furthermore, I had some spare time this week, so started reading my copy of the first Harry Potter book in Russian that I got for Christmas. Initially, I had only read a couple of chapters in the book because it was a fairly arduous task. Now, I'm able to really engage with the text and get through a couple of chapters at a time! Of course, I'm not familiar with every single word on the page, but I am able to typically figure out the unknown words from the context, which is equally rewarding. I've gotten through about 100 pages in the last week, and I've noticed that I'm starting to get a quicker. This is really encouraging for me because I felt kind of stuck with Russian a few months ago. I'm also noticing that the words that I learn from Harry Potter are appearing in my classes and vice versa, so everything seems to be getting reenforced very well.

After Harry Potter, I think I will try to find some sort of detective novel or possibly go with The Little Prince, since I've never read it, in order to continue reading in Russian. If anyone has some suggestions of Russian novels that don't have exceptionally complicated language, I'd be happy to hear :)
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azul
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Posts: 28
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Re: Бесконечная дорога [Russian(TAC), Portuguese, Spanish]

Postby azul » Fri Feb 19, 2016 7:24 am

Russian

Yesterday, I had three hours of conversation classes where we discussed Russian stereotypes and expats' lives in general. We had a debate in Russian, and overall, I fell like I did a good job constructing an argument in Russian which is progress! I also had three more hours of classes in Russian about culture and literature, so I was pretty exhausted by the end of the day.

After class, I participated in a conversation club with Russian students, which went really well. It took me a few minutes to warm up, but after some initial stammering I was able to converse pretty well with the Russians whom I met.

Unfortunately, I haven't been writing or reading as much in Russian over the last couple of days, but I plan to rectify that this weekend.
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tarvos
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Re: Бесконечная дорога [Russian(TAC), Portuguese, Spanish]

Postby tarvos » Fri Feb 19, 2016 7:40 am

Dovlatov is nice to read if you want something more modern and not too complicated.
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azul
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Posts: 28
Joined: Mon Jan 18, 2016 10:03 pm
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Languages: Native: English; Intermediate: Portuguese, Spanish, Russian
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Re: Бесконечная дорога [Russian(TAC), Portuguese, Spanish]

Postby azul » Fri Feb 19, 2016 11:35 am

tarvos wrote:Dovlatov is nice to read if you want something more modern and not too complicated.


Thanks! I read a short story by Dovlatov a few months ago, and I learned a lot from it and enjoyed the reading so I don't know why I didn't think of him earlier. I'll look into his other works a bit more indepthly after I finish my current book.
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azul
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Posts: 28
Joined: Mon Jan 18, 2016 10:03 pm
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Languages: Native: English; Intermediate: Portuguese, Spanish, Russian
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Re: Бесконечная дорога [Russian(TAC), Portuguese, Spanish]

Postby azul » Sun Feb 21, 2016 9:03 pm

Russian

In the last couple of days, aside from classes, I've read another chapter in Russian Harry Potter, and I went on an excursion to the Russian Museum in a group with a Russian tour guide. I was able to understand him pretty well, which is always an encouraging feeling. I've also had a lot of great opportunities recently to speak Russian with people my age, so I can feel the language becoming more automatic in my brain.

Even though my Russian classes have taught me a lot, I've noticed that I've started slacking in my self-studying of the language so I'm hoping to come up with some sort of routine to keep myself from becoming complacent. One thing that I did frequently before I came to Russia was to watch the news every morning in Russian and then find some sort of article online, pick out the unknown words, and learn them with quizlet. This method worked pretty well, but I think I'll add something else to it to practice the new vocab more.

Finally, I've been passively listening/reading things in Spanish and Portuguese, but I think I've decided to hold off on them until the summer. More specifically, I think I'll focus on Spanish more than Portuguese this summer.
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azul
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Posts: 28
Joined: Mon Jan 18, 2016 10:03 pm
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Re: Бесконечная дорога [Russian(TAC), Portuguese, Spanish]

Postby azul » Tue Feb 23, 2016 3:12 pm

Russian

Well, I haven't had the best couple of days, but at least Russian is always there to give me an added challenge. :lol: I've had a break from my classes the last couple of days, which has allowed me to invest more time in self-studying Russian which has made me really happy. I've always been a proponent of language classes in the past, especially for the explanations, speaking opportunities, schedule, and personal connections that they provide you with, but I'm starting to value self-study more once you get to the upper intermediate level. After transitioning to native material exclusively a few months ago and putting in the work to tailor my studies to the areas that I specifically need to work on, I don't feel as engaged in a long-term classroom setting. That said, I do think that my classes are quite good, so I think I'll adopt the mindset of stressing less about them and continuing to enhance them with outside study.

I was in the mood to watch a lot of Russian videos on YouTube recently, and I happened to stumble upon the first 30 episodes of Inuyasha dubbed in Russian. This has been a blast to watch, because I really liked the show when I was younger so the nostalgia is really keeping me engaged now. The vocabulary on the show is pretty easy, but the things that I often don't know are the verbs. So, when I hear a new verb and understand it from the context I've been writing it down and reviewing it later. I also conjugate the verb and its aspectual pair and write a few sentences with them. I think that this is a good choice, because verbs are always the hardest parts of speech for me to learn and lately I've really been feeling like my vocabulary of verbs has been laking in Russian.

Furthermore, I'm sure that many people here have heard of the Easy Languages channel on YouTube, but if you haven't I just want to say that it's great for learning a lot of the major world languages. In these videos, some person will walk around outside interviewing people in your chosen language, and the videos are subtitled in the target language and in English. I watched the Russian ones before I came to Russia, but I saw that they had a new one up recently about music, so I decided to check it out.

The videos were always fairly understandable, but they've become even more so recently, which is encouraging!
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