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

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

Postby MamaPata » Sun Jun 03, 2018 7:03 pm

Tomorrow is the start of my full week of freedom! 8-) I have fully been enjoying these last few days. No Russian! (I will go back, I swear. But I need at least a week off.) I haven't really done any French, beyond a tiny bit of memrise. But I am back doing Spanish!

Because I haven't been doing any, obviously I didn't really know to what point my Spanish had deteriorated. I had a couple of conversations in Spanish and generally, I understood pretty solidly but struggled replying. I'd be searching for words and I could only remember the Russian. Or, more concerningly, a lot of words were coming out automatically in Russian and I wasn't actually noticing until a sentence or two later. This tended to be stuff like pronouns. Even now after doing a lot more Spanish over the last few days, I still read y (and, Sp) as у (of/possessive, sounds like oo, Ru). (That would have been more obviously different handwritten!) I also keep starting to write я (I, Ru) instead of Yo.

I'm quite intrigued by interference in languages. I always had a little overlap between French and Spanish. It was probably not helped by the fact that one of my main Spanish teachers started off teaching me French, and so obviously understood and could help! But it wasn't particularly problematic.

When I started Russian (god, 6.5 years ago, how depressing), my Spanish was probably marginally stronger than my French, but I had a better base in French and had done it for longer. Despite the fact that Russian uses a lot of French words, I never really mixed up French and Russian. More recently, occasionally, I'd know the Russian word and want to say that, but usually when I really couldn't remember the French or didn't know it. (One of my French italki teachers from last year studied in Russian, so I did use Russian words, knowing that he would recognise them) I've never not noticed using Russian - I always knew it was wrong. In contrast, when I started Russian, everytime I was looking for words in Russian, the Spanish would pop into my head. (Mostly then, I did know it was wrong).

Unsurprisingly, given that Russian has been my focus, these days, Russian is the one that comes most automatically. It feels like my brain knows I shouldn't be talking in English and then pushes forward any translation. But I don't quite know why I've never had French words coming! Those are probably the most well grounded in my head.

I did the Kwiziq introductory test for Spanish on Thursday and it put me at A1 - I really struggled to remember grammar. Since then, I've been watching Brooklyn-99 in Spanish and it's starting to feel more tangible. I'm definitely still missing a ton, but I tend to know what's happening. And it's easier to pull Spanish back into my head, though Russian does still creep in (especially those small words). I'd probably quite like to rewatch it when my Spanish has improved a bit more, so I can see more of the jokes - I'm only getting physical/situational humour. I've got a pretty long list of things I can watch in Spanish, so should be able to keep that going. French, I haven't watched or read anything. I think I panic about saving stuff until I can properly appreciate it, and then end up not watching anything. I just need to start something and get going with it.

(Irritatingly, when I started watching, my Netflix account was still set to French and there weren't any Spanish subs so I watched with English and French subs. I have now changed the account to Spanish. Lo and behold: Spanish subs! I really don't understand the point of this - it's clearly not about licensing.)

I've also got back into the Drops app (only in Spanish), thanks to Ani. I had used it sometime last year but ran out of space on my phone so it got deleted. I'm a little sad, because based on my memory of last year, you used to get 7 mins not 5. And you used to be able to get extra time by watching ads and stuff, but these days you get an ad at the end of your 5 mins every time and have to pay to get extra time. (Or invite people). But generally I'm really enjoying it now - it's nice to have something so short and fun.

I have also, definitely, very much not been dabbling in Mandarin. :roll: Why would I dabble in Mandarin? All my Chinese friends live in Russia. I have terrible hearing and no musical ear, so it would be a terrible idea to learn a tonal language. (I was deaf a lot as a kid through various infections, so now my hearing is a little dodgy, but also there's a lot of things I just never learnt to do - I can't locate sounds, etc). I hate working on pronunciation! There's all those characters! It would be totally ridiculous if I had a bunch of tabs open, created a playlist of educational videos on youtube, started a little course to learn pinyin and downloaded several apps... Ridiculous... :oops:
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Re: There are worse things I could do... (FR, RU, ES)

Postby MamaPata » Sat Jun 09, 2018 11:58 am

Had a really nice week - ticked off some things that I needed to do, did job hunting tasks, had some family stuff, met friends, went to an exhibition, etc. Hopefully the coming week will be just as good! I haven't done much actual language 'study' but I am getting in contact time. I have continued not-studying Mandarin. ;) I'm mostly just using apps, because I'm really not taking this seriously. It's for amusement - I have no expectation of ever making any success!

I did go to a French class on Tuesday, which was good. I didn't pick up much vocabulary and we didn't really do any grammar beyond corrections- the class was very focused on conversation. So it was definitely useful for just getting some practice and getting back into the swing of it. I've got another 3 or 4 of those, so it will mean I am getting in some concentrated French time for the rest of June. Though I really like language classes, I don't think I'd do more French/Spanish classes unless they had a culture theme - book groups, etc. I find that once I'm past about B1/B2, weekly group classes don't help me too much. I learn a few words and do a little grammar, but only enough to stop me backsliding rather than making any substantial progress. If they were cheaper, I would be happy with that, but it's too much money. (A family friend goes to a Spanish class where each lesson they read a particular book and discuss it, which sounds pretty cool. It's quite hard to find those sorts of classes, especially if you don't want them to be ridiculously expensive, but I will keep an eye open and might try hers in the next term).

I also started reading Cheri (by Colette), which I am quite enjoying. It's very short, which I like. :lol: There's a lot of vocabulary that I lack (I think mostly clothing related) but not enough to impede my understanding of the plot. (I did get a bit confused by the first few pages, but that was about my preconceptions not the actual language). I've also been reading a translated romance novel in Spanish on LWT - my comprehension there is pretty decent but it's obviously very repetitive (this is hardly high literature!). I've got a huge pile of English TBR that I'm really excited about, so while I will be trying to get in some French and Spanish books, I'm not pushing it.

Other than Instagram stories, I haven't been listening to any French, which I want to remedy. I've been watching Brooklyn 99 in Spanish, which I've gotten really into and I was happy to just let that take over. I am going to watch an episode of Ainsi soient-ils tonight though and I have quite a few French series lined up.

I suspect that I may get back into Russian this coming week - I have a project that I need to start that involves Russian, so that will be a good prompt. We'll see though.
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Re: There are worse things I could do... (FR, RU, ES)

Postby Mohave » Sat Jun 09, 2018 4:38 pm

MamaPata wrote:
I also started reading Cheri (by Colette), which I am quite enjoying. It's very short, which I like. :lol: There's a lot of vocabulary that I lack (I think mostly clothing related) but not enough to impede my understanding of the plot. (I did get a bit confused by the first few pages, but that was about my preconceptions not the actual language).


I'm looking for an enjoyable, short 20th century read after I finish "Le Rouge et Le Noire" by Stendhal. Thanks for mentioning "Cheri". I wasn't familiar with it, and it does look like it would fit the bill. I did read "Gigi", by the same author a few years ago, and remember it being a fairly easy read. I'll read your log to see if when you finish it, you feel the same. I've put it on my "To-Read" list on GoodReads. Happy Language Learning!
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MamaPata
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Re: There are worse things I could do... (FR, RU, ES)

Postby MamaPata » Wed Jun 20, 2018 2:58 pm

How is it all going? Ehhh... I'm feeling very uninspired by language learning at the moment. I have my goals and they are still important to me, but I'm not feeling a real drive. I don't have a particular desire to read anything, there is nothing I really want to watch... So I am just a little stuck. I am hoping this is temporary and that hopefully, as other things change in my life, I will get myself back into gear. I don't do well with in-between stages, and this is very much one of those, so I suspect that languages are suffering as a result.

Consequently, I don't have much to report! I was going to watch another episode of Ainsi Soient-Ils but it is gone from Netflix! Why isn't there a warning system, particularly if you are in the middle of something? It just seems ridiculous! I haven't managed to get into any other series, so no news in that regard.

Reading... also unimpressive. I have been reading quite a bit, but all in English. I had developed a huge TBR during exams and there are some great books that I am really looking forward to. I'm perfectly happy with this - I have general reading goals, which include a lot of Anglophone stuff, and personal development goals which match some of my English reading - but it has had an impact. I have been reading a few articles on LWT in French and Spanish, but not much.
I did go to my local library and unusually they had some foreign language books! :o (They have two small shelves, they are quite often not accessible. I am unimpressed by my local library for many reasons, but this does not help). There wasn't much there and over half of that was languages I don't speak. In terms of French, I could read Pride and Prejudice or Anna Karenina... :roll: But I got two Spanish books out. We'll see if they're any good/I can understand them.

I also had a Russian skype lesson! I had booked it during my exams, but my teacher couldn't make it, so it has just been rescheduled. I have not forgotten how to speak Russian! Woo! So probably will start working that back in fairly soon, but we will see. Also a weekly French lesson - not particularly interesting and I didn't really learn anything, but practice is practice.

Not a particularly astounding report, but life is like that sometimes. Hopefully the next will be more impressive!
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Re: There are worse things I could do... (FR, RU, ES)

Postby Lawyer&Mom » Wed Jun 20, 2018 6:15 pm

You mention that you can’t locate sounds. This might be a sign of unilateral hearing loss. Your brain needs input from both ears to triangulate the location of a sound. It doesn’t work well if you have hearing loss in one ear, like me. You might consider seeing an audiologist, if that is a possibility.
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Re: There are worse things I could do... (FR, RU, ES)

Postby MamaPata » Wed Jun 20, 2018 8:44 pm

Lawyer&Mom wrote:You mention that you can’t locate sounds. This might be a sign of unilateral hearing loss. Your brain needs input from both ears to triangulate the location of a sound. It doesn’t work well if you have hearing loss in one ear, like me. You might consider seeing an audiologist, if that is a possibility.


It's something I have looked into but hasn't really panned out - my hearing is good enough for day to day life. But I'll have another think about it and see if there are any options, thanks for the advice!
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Re: There are worse things I could do... (FR, RU, ES)

Postby MamaPata » Wed Jun 20, 2018 8:46 pm

Decided I would try and get back into Russian. Went on memrise and for my main course (the one I created from lessons, etc) I have 904 reviews. :shock: Generally for Russian I have 1246.

Oh boy.
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Re: There are worse things I could do... (FR, RU, ES)

Postby brilliantyears » Thu Jun 21, 2018 9:08 am

MamaPata wrote:Decided I would try and get back into Russian. Went on memrise and for my main course (the one I created from lessons, etc) I have 904 reviews. :shock: Generally for Russian I have 1246.

Oh boy.

I hear you! I am in complete denial about all my Japanese courses on Memrise :roll: (I'm so tempted to look at them and add them up... someone stop me...) But I'm no longer formally learning Japanese, I keep telling myself :lol:

Depending on how nervous that number makes you: I find large numbers of reviews easier to stomach using the app and setting the review # to 50 words per session...
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Re: There are worse things I could do... (FR, RU, ES)

Postby MamaPata » Tue Jul 03, 2018 8:05 am

I don't really have much to report - most of the language that I am getting in is memrise reviews. (Potentially now under 1000 for Russian, but otherwise not much progress there!). I'm not really worrying about it though.

In a fortnight, I will know what is happening with jobs, I should have my results and I will have finished the first draft of my big project. I'm not good with in-between periods and I am terrible at being unemployed, so I knew this time was going to be a weird one. As it happens, I'm actually in a pretty good place, which literally nobody who knows me expected. :lol: So I'm not feeling bad that languages have gone a bit off the radar. When I know what comes next, I will sit down and rethink my language priorities and plans.
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Re: There are worse things I could do... (FR, RU, ES)

Postby MamaPata » Sat Jul 07, 2018 10:06 am

I have my results! :o I have finished with a strong first class degree (our top possibility), with some excellent results within that. I am thrilled.

I think quite a few people on here studied or study a language or language-related course in higher education. But in general, I think these degrees get a bit of a bad rep on this site (though less so lately). So I wanted to talk a little bit about my experience, as a bit of a counter to that. I have been planning to write a post about my experience of studying a language at university for a while, but wanted to have a bit more information about my grades and job prospects. Obviously I can only speak for the UK system and every university varies as do the people studying(!), but this might be useful or interesting for someone. Because of those changes, I won't really talk about fees, etc, as it wouldn't be useful to many people. But if anyone is thinking about studying languages or knows someone who is, I am always happy to answer questions.

I did a four year single honours degree in Russian, as I have mentioned before. I did two years here, then studied for one year in Moscow, then did my final year here. Overall, I have had a fantastic time and I am so glad I made the decisions that I did.

Language study:

This was split into two groups: beginners and those who had studied Russian at A Level (or equivalent). I entered into the beginner class, though I had done a bit of Russian while living there. The beginner group was definitely the right choice though. The way my degree worked was that every year, I took two Russian modules: Comprehension and Active Skills. The exams for this varied year by year, for obvious reasons, and in final year it was possible to take an extra Russian Essay subject. I did not, because I have discovered that I really don't like studying languages :lol: and my grades for languages are generally much lower than my other classes. (Though, bizarrely, given that I thought I had ****ed up my Russian exams this year, I got over 80 for Comprehension, which is a brilliant score. My other score was also solid, though not amazing.)

Throughout my degree, there was always the option to take one module outside the department so I also took a module in Arabic and French. I enjoyed these and I am glad for the experience, but did not take an extra language module in my final year, given the aforementioned realisation that I don't actually like studying languages. This was a bit of a surprise to me, given that I had loved it all through school, but I am increasingly realising that I like to use languages, I like talking to people, I like reading and watching stuff, I like the access to culture it gives, etc, I don't really like the process. Oops? For that reason, I am really glad I didn't take a dual honours degree as I had been considering, because that would have meant that half my degree would have been language study, and I would have had limited opportunity to do the culture and politics modules I loved (and no chance to do a dissertation).

That said, the lack of language study is a criticism of language degrees and I get that. I would say that my Russian now is around B1/B2 depending on how you understand the criteria/how tired I am/what the topic is. However, this is much more about me than it is about the degree. I know people who could quite easily pass a C1/C2 exam now or work entirely in Russian. They were much more diligent than I was about doing all the homework, working on their weakest areas, etc. There were loads of resources: Russian language societies, Russian language events, a massive library with so many resources, a language centre, the teachers always gave recommendations. If you want to get to C2 through a language degree, you can. It just wasn't my priority.

What I did enjoy

So many fantastic culture and politics modules. (Also history, I happened not to take any). Incredible lecturers (a few meh ones, as in any institution, but mostly I loved my lecturers and thought they were brilliant). There were so many evening talks, conferences, so much going on. I loved writing my year abroad project, I loved my dissertation. I am currently co-writing a chapter for publication based on it. There were so many opportunities.

Year abroad


I went to Moscow for the full academic year. I had planned to go to two different places, but the first never actually sorted my visa. Such is life. I had a brilliant year. I volunteered with LGBT charities, I travelled (all across the Trans-Siberian, I went to Yakutsk), I made loads of great friends, my Russian improved so much. Obviously, you don't have to study abroad to get these kind of experiences (and you can do very different things while studying abroad). However, it was such a fulfilling and useful year for me. Employers have been specifically interested in stuff I did while there.

Job prospects

I think one of the main criticisms of language degrees is that you can't get a job after. Some of this, I think actually comes from people who did science based degrees or degrees with a natural job after (like engineering, medical degrees, law, etc). I was never going to do any of those. I like science and maths, I studied them through school, but I am a humanities girl. If I hadn't studied a language, I would have done politics or history, etc. I do know people with degrees in other humanities subjects who have been long term unemployed since leaving uni.

That said, a lot of that is often about them or the sector they want to work in. I started applying for jobs in about April and I have been offered one now. It is absolutely possible to get a job with a language degree. However, what makes the difference is knowing how to write applications, using career services, having work experience. I worked for a year before I started uni, I did internships and summer jobs every summer, I volunteered, I've supported academic events. What matters mostly to employers is that I have a degree, not particularly the subject. That's just a base line, then they're interested in what skills and experience I have.

But what if you want to use your languages at work?


I applied for one job which required Russian, out of about 30 applications. I haven't heard back from them yet, but think it is unlikely that I will get it. But, I doubt that is because of my Russian - I could complete the Russian related sections of the interview process.

I have applied for more that asked for French/Spanish. (also quite a few with Portuguese as a desirable criteria, so maybe I should be looking into that in the future). That is again about me, not the situation. If you want to work in intelligence, translating, finance, etc, there is a demand for Russian-speakers. I just don't. Obviously, you can also work somewhere without a degree in the language! That's partly why I did the DELF.

Hopefully this has been at least vaguely interesting. I am not disagreeing with people who dislike or disapprove of language degrees, I just wanted to share my experience and level the playing field, in a way. There are downsides and genuine criticisms. But sometimes those are about the students, not the systems.
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