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

Continue or start your personal language log here, including logs for challenge participants
User avatar
Olekander
Orange Belt
Posts: 205
Joined: Fri Jun 17, 2016 4:00 pm
Location: Moscow
Languages: Speaks: English (Native), French, Russian.
Studied: Latin, Catalan, Spanish, Mandarin, Czech, Ukrainian

Studying: Turkish
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=2995
x 194
Contact:

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

Postby Olekander » Thu Jul 21, 2016 6:16 pm

Hello there!

I did French and Russian at University (Leeds) and absolutely loved it! I do have a couple of regrets.
I didn't push myself hard enough. I remember a conversation with my one of my professors and the outcome was that I could have achieved more on a personal level. Nonetheless when I lived in Russia I really took the opportunity to branch out and lived with a бабушка which launched my Russian into the next level. Most of my class mates in my opinion achieved sub optimum results on their year abroad when they could have left orally fluently, which at the time I think I managed to achieve.

Anyway, if you have any stumbling blocks feel free to hit me up. I've just started studying Russian again to see if I can get it to some bookworthy level so welcome to follow my log too. I post pictures too aha.

French wise, I don't have any real problems I've been very comfortable in that language for ages, but I still branched out on my time in France. (My aunt and cousins lvie there anyway so went a lot before and outside of uni in any case).

Good luck!!!


p.s http://www.alphadictionary.com/rusgrammar/

work your way through all of this. It's a really helpful grammar online interactive website. It will help you get your head round some of the trickier aspects.
1 x
Да нет. :roll:

: 1000 / 1000 1,000 Russian words: started 15/06/2016 :)
: 15 / 365 365 scriptorium transcriptions: started 19/06/2016
: 2 / 1010 Russian books: 4/06/2016
: 3 / 2121 units of Parla.cat

User avatar
MamaPata
Brown Belt
Posts: 1019
Joined: Tue Jun 21, 2016 9:25 am
Location: London
Languages: English (N), French (C1*), Russian (B1), Spanish (B1).

Long lost: Arabic and Latin.
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=3004
x 1807

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

Postby MamaPata » Thu Jul 28, 2016 6:50 pm

Hi Olekander! Thanks for your comment - it's really nice to hear from someone on the other side of it all! :D If you don't mind me asking, where did you spend your year abroad? What are your recommendations for the year? (And thanks for the website! It looks great)

In other news, I have finally finished the Russian Folktales. (Thank God. :shock: ) While they've been driving me a bit nuts, it's definitely been a really useful exercise for me. It's also been very clear that I really need to continue reading during my commute - it's really increased the amount of language work I do. I am currently leaning towards doing some French reading, so I have started L'Étranger. I'm not completely sure that I will read it all, as I didn't really enjoy it in English. But I do want to start reading some French that's not in translation... I may swap between that and another Russian parallel text, to stop me getting in a rut with either one.

Other than that, I'm not sure I have too much to report! I've only got six weeks til I go to Russia (and I'm working for three of them) so life is fairly hectic. I was going to end that sentence by saying 'at the moment', but I don't think it's going to get any less so! So I'm racing around trying to get everything sorted, deal with normal life and see as many people as possible. Plus, I still don't have a visa, which is freaking me out a little... :cry:

I recently did a Disability Awareness course at work which was fascinating. We were taught the BSL alphabet, which I learnt as a kid but was getting pretty fuzzy. So now I do find myself itching to learn more BSL... Trying to get myself to focus on the current lot, but I think I might try and learn some in my final year at university as they do offer a course.
0 x
Corrections appreciated.

User avatar
MamaPata
Brown Belt
Posts: 1019
Joined: Tue Jun 21, 2016 9:25 am
Location: London
Languages: English (N), French (C1*), Russian (B1), Spanish (B1).

Long lost: Arabic and Latin.
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=3004
x 1807

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

Postby MamaPata » Wed Aug 31, 2016 8:06 am

Woops! :oops: I did not mean to leave it this long before I posted again!

As mentioned last time, there is now very little time before I move, so everything is quite hectic. I finished my internship and have been seeing a lot of people, which is lovely but takes up time. However, I have done little bits of language work here and there. My girlfriend is currently studying for exams, so while she does that, I try and work on my Russian. Plus, she also studies Russian so she is a very good example for me!

However, my current plans for the Year Abroad have fallen through (which also took a lot of time to sort!). I had hoped to go to Siberia for first term and Moscow for the second. I grew up in London, and as much as I love it, I don't feel like I really know the UK. It seems to me that the same is true for Moscow - it's not representative. (Plus, I really wanted to go somewhere cold!). Furthermore, the course in Moscow is for absolute beginners to Russian, which I am not. So while the second term has amazing study options, the first will be a lot of revision. But there are a ton of benefits so I am cautiously excited about the new plan, and will just try to travel and stay in another city during the holidays. However, I don't think it will be helpful to plan that until I have arrived in Moscow and know a bit more about the university.

I am currently falling quite behind on the Super Challenge which is disappointing. However, I am hopeful that I will be able to pull it back soon. I am doing a Year Abroad Project on Russian film, so there will be a double motivation to watch more Russian films.
1 x
Corrections appreciated.

User avatar
MamaPata
Brown Belt
Posts: 1019
Joined: Tue Jun 21, 2016 9:25 am
Location: London
Languages: English (N), French (C1*), Russian (B1), Spanish (B1).

Long lost: Arabic and Latin.
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=3004
x 1807

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

Postby MamaPata » Mon Sep 12, 2016 8:15 am

I love visas. :cry: The reason my year abroad plans have changed was because I could not get the university to give me any information about when I would get my visa invitation (it was meant to take 3 weeks, this was nearly 2 months later). The university in Moscow has been incredibly helpful and friendly but I am still having difficulties! They sent me an electronic copy of my invitation and I went to try and get a visa with that. I assumed it wouldn't work but figured it was worth a try, to try and get an extra day or two (I am meant to be leaving on Wednesday). I went to the visa centre and it was all very fast and easy and I was told it would work. :shock: A little in shock at how easy it had been, I went home to find an email saying they needed the original invitation! So back to square one...

So today I am waiting at home in the hopes that the physical copy will arrive! Then I get to run around London for the next two days and hope my visa is sorted by the time I leave. :roll: Keep your fingers crossed for me?

In other news, I am making slow progress as always. Since May, I have been keeping a spreadsheet to track my productivity in a few areas (university, work, languages, sport, etc). This has been really useful because I think I tend to overestimate my productivity and I wanted to have an accurate assessment. Since then I have done 100ish hours of language work (pretty much entirely and evenly split between Russian and French).

I have no desire to be as impressive as everyone on this forum. While I am in awe of you all and love reading about your successes, that would just make me very stressed. Language learning is very much a hobby for me (despite doing it at university!) and I don't want it to feel persecutory. But I also know that I would be much happier if I was making more progress, and I could easily increase the time I spend on languages. So I do want to try and increase that a little. My (easyish) goal is to reach 250 language hours by the end of the year so I want to challenge myself to see how soon I can reach that.
4 x
Corrections appreciated.

User avatar
MamaPata
Brown Belt
Posts: 1019
Joined: Tue Jun 21, 2016 9:25 am
Location: London
Languages: English (N), French (C1*), Russian (B1), Spanish (B1).

Long lost: Arabic and Latin.
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=3004
x 1807

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

Postby MamaPata » Sun Sep 18, 2016 2:49 pm

This week:
- Hours: Russian – 4.2, French – 0.5, Spanish – 0.5
- Continued Russian grammar exercises
- Continued daily memrise streak (on day 20 today, which is my highest ever!)
- Read 5% of Les Trois Mousquetaires
- Watched Serendipity in Russian (on the plane)
- So much Russian. Just so much.

I have made it to Moscow! It has been a fairly mad week but I now own plates and I have internet. For obvious reasons, I have been busy with bureaucracy, etc, so I haven’t made quite the progress I would like in increasing my language hours. It’s been a mad week – the first day I arrived in Moscow at 4.30am (with an hour of sleep) and then proceeded to try and organise bureaucracy at the university for seven hours. At the eighth, I tapped out! But things are hopefully starting to get sorted. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

But also, the hours really don’t represent the amount of Russian that I am doing. I have been speaking to the people in my halls and at the university in Russian, I have been organising all of my stuff in Russian, etc, etc. So I have had conversations about bank accounts, about university admin, introductions, organising a phone contract… * Mostly I am pretty pleased with my Russian, which has held up much better than I was expecting. Interestingly, my comprehension is much better than my speaking which is unusual for me. For the most part, I understand the gist of conversations but not the detail – I had to phone somebody to organise internet which has been the biggest challenge yet, as I still rely very heavily on context. It’s also incredibly tiring and I have been sleeping a lot, which I think is down to the sheer mental effort of it all. I am also getting a cold, which is annoying!

*I am aware that this makes my Russian sound very good. So to explain: this mostly consists of me explaining that I don’t speak any Russian, looking blank, and repeating the few words I know until one or other of us gives up!
3 x
Corrections appreciated.

User avatar
IronMike
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2554
Joined: Thu May 12, 2016 6:13 am
Location: Northern Virginia
Languages: Studying: Esperanto
Maintaining: nada
Tested:
BCS, 1+L/1+R (DLPT5, 2022)
Russian, 3/3 (DLPT5, 2022) 2+ (OPI, 2022)
German, 2L/1+R (DLPT5, 2021)
Italian, 1L/2R (DLPT IV, 2019)
Esperanto, C1 (KER skriba ekzameno, 2017)
Slovene, 2+L/3R (DLPT II in, yes, 1999)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=5189
x 7265
Contact:

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

Postby IronMike » Sun Sep 18, 2016 5:40 pm

When you miss grand ol' England, PM me and I'll let you know where the weekly curry meet-up is. ;)
2 x
You're not a C1 (or B1 or whatever) if you haven't tested.
CEFR --> ILR/DLPT equivalencies
My swimming life.
My reading life.

User avatar
MamaPata
Brown Belt
Posts: 1019
Joined: Tue Jun 21, 2016 9:25 am
Location: London
Languages: English (N), French (C1*), Russian (B1), Spanish (B1).

Long lost: Arabic and Latin.
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=3004
x 1807

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

Postby MamaPata » Sun Sep 25, 2016 1:31 pm

IronMike wrote:When you miss grand ol' England, PM me and I'll let you know where the weekly curry meet-up is. ;)


:lol: Excellent! I'll keep it in mind! :twisted:
1 x
Corrections appreciated.

User avatar
MamaPata
Brown Belt
Posts: 1019
Joined: Tue Jun 21, 2016 9:25 am
Location: London
Languages: English (N), French (C1*), Russian (B1), Spanish (B1).

Long lost: Arabic and Latin.
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=3004
x 1807

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

Postby MamaPata » Sun Sep 25, 2016 1:34 pm

This week:
- Hours: Russian - 5, French - 10,
- Read 11% of Pollyanna in Russian
- Wrote 383 words in Russian
- Started Chapter 1 of Colloquial Russian
- Read 2% of Les Trois Mousquetaires in French
- Watched 11 episodes of Gilmore Girls in French
- Chapter 1 Colloquial French 2

Currently it’s very heavily weighted towards French solely because of time I have spent watching Gilmore Girls in French. I really appreciate the extensive listening (despite it not being native content) and I can feel that it is helping. (I have been brave and let go of my subtitles! They were always in French but I was definitely relying on them, not listening as much.) But also, the reason I am doing that is just to increase the amount of French in my life so it feels more natural, which is working.

I am starting a French class tomorrow evening which will be three hours a week. It was really interesting doing the tests (oral and written) to find out my level. I have always been comfortable speaking because I am a chatterbox in all languages! :D But it showed just how much I have slipped in terms of accuracy – he was asking me questions designed to make me show grammatical structures. I can give complex and interesting answers, but I can’t remember any of the grammar so it’s very inaccurate. I have always liked grammar and I enjoy studying it. But I also fail to use it. :roll: So I am hoping that starting this class and doing actual coursework will help me focus on that.

Goals for next week:
- Get to chapter 4 in Colloquial French 2
- Get to chapter 3 in Colloquial Russian 2 and finish Accusative exercises
- Write 3 Russian texts for italki correction
- Write in French for italki
- Watch 2 Russian films for my project
0 x
Corrections appreciated.

User avatar
MamaPata
Brown Belt
Posts: 1019
Joined: Tue Jun 21, 2016 9:25 am
Location: London
Languages: English (N), French (C1*), Russian (B1), Spanish (B1).

Long lost: Arabic and Latin.
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=3004
x 1807

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

Postby MamaPata » Sun Oct 02, 2016 10:10 am

This week:
- Hours: Russian - 5, French - 11,
- Get to chapter 4 in Colloquial French 2
Nope. Still have a bit more of Chapter 2 and all of Chapter 3 to go.
- Get to chapter 3 in Colloquial Russian 2 and finish Accusative exercises
Semi successful? Finished accusative exercises in the Khavronina book. Finished Chapter 1 of CR and have started C2.
- Write 3 Russian texts for italki correction
Yes! But not uploaded to italki yet.
- Write in French for italki
Nope.
- Watch 2 Russian films for my project
Nope. I have watched the first half of one, but that’s it.

So yes, not my most successful week! But I did some concerted effort working on Russian grammar, I started a French course, and I am plugging away at my Super Challenge films (for French anyway). However, I am definitely falling behind on the reading so I really want to work on that this week. On the plus side, I have done 150 hours of language work since 1st May! So I am 3/5 of the way to my goal for the year :)

Goals for this week:
- Get to 80% of Pollyanna in Russian
- Do 7+ hours of Russian
- Finish chapter 2 of Colloquial Russian
- Read 10% of a French book
- Get to chapter 4 of Colloquial French
1 x
Corrections appreciated.

User avatar
MamaPata
Brown Belt
Posts: 1019
Joined: Tue Jun 21, 2016 9:25 am
Location: London
Languages: English (N), French (C1*), Russian (B1), Spanish (B1).

Long lost: Arabic and Latin.
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=3004
x 1807

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

Postby MamaPata » Mon Oct 10, 2016 9:34 am

I didn't do as well as I would have liked with my goals this week, because I ended up having a three day weekend so decided to go on my first train ride in Russia! :shock: It was brilliant and I had a lovely time (will post about it soon) but it meant that I didn't have the weekend to work on languages. However, I have done a lot of useful work for my French reading.

Last week's goals:
- Get to 80% of Pollyanna in Russian
Done!
- Do 7+ hours of Russian
No. I was on track for this, but because of the trip, didn't actually achieve it.
- Finish chapter 2 of Colloquial Russian
I made a good start, but still have 6 pages to go.
- Read 10% of a French book
Over and above! I have read a bit less than 10% of the 3 Musketeers, and about half of Les Gens du Balto.
- Get to chapter 4 of Colloquial French
Again, not quite. I started chapter 3 but didn't manage to finish it.

I have read a couple of Faiza Guene's books and I would definitely recommend them to any French learners. Les Gens du Balto is written from the point of view of various characters, so it is written in very conversational French (no historic past tense! Lots of verlan and slang, but that's very manageable). I think they're very well written and interesting. I am extensively reading this first, but plan to go back and do a sort of Scriptorium style reading so I can work on the grammar and vocabulary.

This week:
- 7 hours of Russian
- Finish Pollyanna (I am ready to be done with it!)
- Chapters 2 and 3 of Colloquial Russian
- Finish Chapter 3 of Colloquial French
- Do some Spanish work
0 x
Corrections appreciated.


Return to “Language logs”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Tumlare and 2 guests