There are worse things I could do... (FR, RU, ES)

[MamaPata]

(This is all Russian stuff. I am still trying to focus on finding things I enjoy, but between trying to get a first full draft of my dissertation and general Russian panic, French has dropped waay down my priorities).

Watching: Youtube videos. I also watched Прорва, which is a 1992 film by Ivan Dykhovichnyy (I watched one of his films last year which I had mixed feelings about but think is very cool). Cinematically, socially, this is really interesting. But (partly due to not always being able to get everything said, but partly just due to the fact that it's a very weird film) I just didn't get what was happening here, so I have no idea what I thought of it!

Writing: I wrote some words! I also got a text I'd written back from my teacher, and oh boy was that a miserable moment. I definitely need to do something, but I still don't know what. One of the biggest problems I seem to be having is that how I write in English is simply not acceptable in Russian. (I do a comprehension/translation module that I'm doing well in, so understanding Russian isn't the problem, it's producing it). It feels to me (and I think this is also true of French) that there is a very clear structure expected in Russian: lots of connectors, all sentences linked, a huge difference between spoken and written. And that's just not how I write in English - as you can tell, it's super casual, lots of standalone sentences, little additions. I am beginning to think that maybe I need to over-simplify my Russian writing, but that then means I won't be putting in the linkages that my teacher is expecting. I'm going to be increasing my Russian writing, using one of the textbooks I bought (shown in the Russian Study Group), and probably doing italki lessons on writing specifically, because this is a big issue. Sadly, I hate writing (in all languages) so this is going to be very painful. Funfun.

Reading: I finished my Tamora Pierce book! I definitely feel that I really need to push my reading in Russian. I'm going to try and balance easy/casual things like Tamora Pierce, and more technical articles. I think that will allow me to get a lot more content in and a lot more stuff that will take an effect. I watch a lot of films and youtube videos so I get a lot of audio imput, but it's very colloquial. I'm not getting the same exposure to higher registers and more complex syntax, which is definitely part of the problem.

I also did a little bit more with LWT, which I am really impressed by (now that I've managed to install the damn thing). Currently the percentage of unknown words ranges from about 50-70%. That's high because I haven't done too much with it just yet. However, it's also low because I tend to make sure the texts are very short and split up longer texts. I like to be able to get to the end of things easily; if I know I have ages to go, I lose interest, so it's best to aim low. But obviously, that means a smaller number of words has a bigger effect on the percentage. In the future, I'd really like to do more with this in French. My Russian vocabulary is smaller than my French, but I know the meanings of all the words with a lot more certainty. In French, I get it, but I can't translate it back to English. I've relied a lot on extensive reading in French, whereas I've done a lot more intensive and vocabulary work with Russian.

[Ogrim]

Writing: I wrote some words! I also got a text I'd written back from my teacher, and oh boy was that a miserable moment. I definitely need to do something, but I still don't know what. One of the biggest problems I seem to be having is that how I write in English is simply not acceptable in Russian. (I do a comprehension/translation module that I'm doing well in, so understanding Russian isn't the problem, it's producing it). It feels to me (and I think this is also true of French) that there is a very clear structure expected in Russian: lots of connectors, all sentences linked, a huge difference between spoken and written.

I feel for you! I have the same difficulty with writing in Russian. My speaking abilities have improved greatly over the last year, but I cannot say the same about my writing. Even if I am careful to check declinasions, conjugations and what have you, I still make a lot of mistakes, so it actually becomes demotivating. I guess the answer is just to write more and get it corrected, but the insecurity means that I spend an awful lot of time just in order to produce half a page of Russian text. If you find the key to improving your writing skills, please share!

[MamaPata]

I feel for you! I have the same difficulty with writing in Russian. My speaking abilities have improved greatly over the last year, but I cannot say the same about my writing. Even if I am careful to check declinasions, conjugations and what have you, I still make a lot of mistakes, so it actually becomes demotivating. I guess the answer is just to write more and get it corrected, but the insecurity means that I spend an awful lot of time just in order to produce half a page of Russian text. If you find the key to improving your writing skills, please share!

At least we're not alone and miserable I guess? I definitely know what you mean. I don't mind getting the corrections, but because I'm now feeling so negative about writing it's hard to make myself do anything. And then, I never quite know what to do with the corrections, especially when it's about saying something differently rather than a mistake in X or Y.

[tarvos]

I did a lot of blog writing for Russian and it was all corrected by a native speaker. I still don't write perfectly, but I'm pretty sure most people are very comfortable writing to me in Russian (especially in text messaging) and most people barely even remember I am foreign. So basically I did two things: SHITTONNES of texting, some article writing, and even a few letters. I exclusively communicated with Russian friends I met in 2013 on my trip in Russian.

[neofight78]

I would second texting as a good way to practice. You don’t need to find time and sit down to do it, just write short messages as and when. It was a horribly slow process when I first started, but now I can text pretty fluidly in Russian.

[MamaPata]

Thanks for the advice both of you. I did actually text a lot in Russian last year and still do a bit. But it wouldn't actually be that helpful - I make mistakes obviously, but colloquially, I do fine. The problem is writing more academic/formal stuff. I'm not saying I don't have general things to work on, but a lot of the problem is tone.

[MamaPata]

This week hasn't been as good as I would necessarily have liked. I ended up having to do a really large application, which took up some time. Now that that's out of the way, hopefully things will take a positive turn. I also now have almost all my exam dates (should get the final one at the end of next week), which helps see what I need to emphasise when. Over the next fortnight, I need to get an essay out of the way and hopefully finish the first draft of my dissertation. That way I can start the other two big essays and really get going with everything. I think that once I've managed to tick off some of that or at least make some decent headway, it'll be easier to focus on Russian. But also, I think it will just clear my head a bit, as currently there's too much going on and I'm going a bit bonkers.

Time is ticking away.

Anyway, all Russian again:

I've mostly been reading articles on LWT rather than longer stuff, though I did get a few more pages in Gay Propaganda. I've read some interesting articles about Tolkein, childbirth facilities in the UK, whether religion will disappear, Putin's speech and the history of food. So a range at least. They've largely been BBC Russian Service and Медуза, I think. Mostly I've been picking up words, but there's also been some really useful phrases. I definitely hope that I don't need to use a lot of the pregnancy vocabulary though! All very painful sounding.

In terms, of films, I've finally watched Левиафан! (Leviathan). I know, I'm so late to the party. I've only been studying Russian cinema for four years now. I do think Zviagintsev deserves the accolades he gets - he just makes stunning films. He definitely has shots and tricks that he likes and so you can definitely see his handprint across the films. But yeah, I'd recommend.

(God, they're long though).

[MamaPata]

Is anyone else having problems with LWT? When I opened it this morning, I just got this message:

Fatal Error in SQL Query: UPDATE words SET WoTodayScore = CASE WHEN WoStatus > 5 THEN 100 ELSE (((POWER(2.4,WoStatus) + WoStatus - DATEDIFF(NOW(),WoStatusChanged) - 1) / WoStatus - 2.4) / 0.14325248) END, WoTomorrowScore = CASE WHEN WoStatus > 5 THEN 100 ELSE (((POWER(2.4,WoStatus) + WoStatus - DATEDIFF(NOW(),WoStatusChanged) - 2) / WoStatus - 2.4) / 0.14325248) END, WoRandom = RAND()

Error Code & Message: [126] Incorrect key file for table '.\learning@002dwith@002dtexts\words.MYI'; try to repair it

Backtrace:

#0 do_mysqli_query(UPDATE words SET WoTodayScore = CASE WHEN WoStatus > 5 THEN 100 ELSE (((POWER(2.4,WoStatus) + WoStatus - DATEDIFF(NOW(),WoStatusChanged) - 1) / WoStatus - 2.4) / 0.14325248) END, WoTomorrowScore = CASE WHEN WoStatus > 5 THEN 100 ELSE (((POWER(2.4,WoStatus) + WoStatus - DATEDIFF(NOW(),WoStatusChanged) - 2) / WoStatus - 2.4) / 0.14325248) END, WoRandom = RAND() ) called at [C:\Program Files (x86)\EasyPHP-DevServer-14.1VC9\data\localweb\lwt\dbutils.inc.php:63]
#1 runsql(UPDATE words SET WoTodayScore = CASE WHEN WoStatus > 5 THEN 100 ELSE (((POWER(2.4,WoStatus) + WoStatus - DATEDIFF(NOW(),WoStatusChanged) - 1) / WoStatus - 2.4) / 0.14325248) END, WoTomorrowScore = CASE WHEN WoStatus > 5 THEN 100 ELSE (((POWER(2.4,WoStatus) + WoStatus - DATEDIFF(NOW(),WoStatusChanged) - 2) / WoStatus - 2.4) / 0.14325248) END, WoRandom = RAND() , ) called at [C:\Program Files (x86)\EasyPHP-DevServer-14.1VC9\data\localweb\lwt\utilities.inc.php:3249]
#2 check_update_db() called at [C:\Program Files (x86)\EasyPHP-DevServer-14.1VC9\data\localweb\lwt\utilities.inc.php:3325]
#3 require_once(C:\Program Files (x86)\EasyPHP-DevServer-14.1VC9\data\localweb\lwt\utilities.inc.php) called at [C:\Program Files (x86)\EasyPHP-DevServer-14.1VC9\data\localweb\lwt\index.php:46]

Someone else has posted about a similar looking problem on SourceForge

Being fairly incompetent with computers, I have no idea what any of this means.

[garyb]

I make and maintain websites for a living and I've seen that "Incorrect key file for table" error a few times. While it can mean various things, in my experience it's always been caused by the server's hard disk being full, which stops the database from working properly. I don't know much about LWT as I could never get it to work properly, but if it's the version that runs on your computer you might just have to free some space for it. If it's a version hosted on a server, not much you can do until the admin fixes it.

[MamaPata]

I don't really have masses to report this week. I haven't started reading anything new, just working my way through the same things. I haven't managed to get LWT to work and can't work out what the problem is - it doesn't seem to be happening to other people, but my computer has loads of space...

What have I been doing? To be honest, watching a lot of youtube. (also, working on coursework, etc, but that's not interesting from a language perspective). So I figured I'd share some of the Russian language youtube channels I like, in case that's of interest to anyone else.

I did also watch some of the Presidential debates, which was an experience. Obviously, not touching the politics, but from a language perspective it's very interesting. You get loads of the same vocab, but it's more challenging because candidates yell and interrupt each other (and throw water...). I don't know if I could cope with sitting and watching them, but I quite liked watching them while ironing and cleaning, etc.

I've mentioned Zag Baltic before so I'll leave them out for a bit. They do quite a range of videos, they're all very low key and not too long, which is nice. From them, I found Ksenia Niglas, who is a Russian-speaking Estonian woman, currently doing her PhD at Cambridge. She does quite a bit on that, but also stuff on identity, studying, motivation, etc. I haven't watched many of her videos, but I find her very clear and understandable.

Other general motivation/study/language youtubers are: Anastacia Kay, Anna Fediaieva, Dasha Tsenter, Marina Mogilko, Polina Brz. A lot of them are based outside Russia and do a lot of stuff on that. Касё Гасанов studies quite a few languages, including Chinese, so his stuff on that can be really interesting. I don't love any of them - they all do a lot of 'lifestyle' stuff or vlogs, which I'm not massively into. But they have quite a few videos I like, the vocabulary isn't complicated, and they're not long! (My constant complaint). I like a 5min video.

Elena Kundera is a Russian speaker and French teacher. She has some good general language videos, and also lists of French resources. If we're being honest though, a big selling point is that her cat is in basically all the videos. She has background music, which I find quite annoying. I can understand her, but my hearing isn't great and it just makes it a pain (and it's not the nicest music!)

The youtuber I've been following for longest is Алия Кадырова. She also has a booktube channel called Читать модно. She is Kazakh, but has clearly been speaking Russian for most of her life. She does a lot on feminism and LGBT issues, all of which I find really interesting. (Speaking of which, quick plug for the Russian LGBT film festival Бок о бок, which also has a youtube channel).

In terms of more academic stuff, I discovered that Arzamashave a youtube channel! I really like their website but I've not been interested in a lot of the articles, but the youtube channel is fantastic. They do history stuff, language, culture. I have one in my to-watch list about 20th century Russian art and one about Russian swearing. I really enjoyed their history of the Russian language, which might be of interest to linguistics people. They have cute animations to go along with it. Academia is similar in that it has culture lecturers, but they are done by academics and so are less aimed at a mass audience, and have no cute little drawings. They're very interesting though.

I really like Вселенная история and История всего. I haven't watched as many of the videos on История всего but ВИ is really great. He speaks to camera, but they both have loads of jokes and animations to distract you. ВИ is definitely not apolitical though, so if you're not interested in that (though then, I have questions about how you're into history), maybe best not. He's also good for highlighting other people to follow. This is how I came across Артур Лебедев. He does solely politics videos, currently mostly about the elections. These two are probably the ones I'm watching most of at the moment.

I also follow a bunch of news sites like Радио свободы and Медуза. (and some others I haven't seen enough of to talk about confidently)

Anyway, that was long and boring, I'll stop now! Let me know if you have any suggestions, based on this stuff! (Or if you have questions about them).