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Re: So many languages, so little time. A(nother) language log (RU, EO, maybe some others)

Posted: Mon Sep 18, 2017 5:16 pm
by IronMike
Today I had a great day! In our embassy there is a table on which people can place things that they're giving away. Most of the time it's loaded with crap. But today on my way past, I saw Grubišić's Elementary Croatian and the 2003 version of the Teach Yourself Croatian!

That Grubišić book in particular has been on my Amazon "language stuff" wish list for years. Been waiting for it to be available for less than a couple hundred dollars! Now to find the audio versions of those two books.

Russian class starts this week. But I'm still in the midst of a 15-day Esperanto-Sumoo. I'm trying to decide how to balance the Esperanto and Russian. I've also got the Russian version of Hunger Games in audio and Kindle versions, so I think there'll be some L-R in my immediate future!

Re: So many languages, so little time. A(nother) language log (RU, EO, maybe some others)

Posted: Thu Sep 21, 2017 4:33 pm
by IronMike
Had the first class of the fall semester at work yesterday. Got to speak Russian for 50 minutes which was great. Been so long! Meeting with a new teacher, too, which is nice, because the last teacher spent too much time reverting to English (against our protestations) and giving us worksheets despite our asking her to just let us speak!

About 30 minutes into the lesson, I looked at the other empty chairs and asked the instructor, "In the future, there will be more students in here, yes?"

"No. Only you filled out the registration and said all you want to do is speak, speak, speak."

Oh boy. Just me. For 50 minutes. Nowhere to hide!

I got my lips beat on Wednesday. My brain and my tongue hurt after, and it was wonderful. I learned new uses of old words, and even a couple new (to me) words.

Воодушевлён
Раздражать
Разбираться

So wonderful. Of course, ask me in two months when I'm tired, and I might be singing a different tune!

Re: So many languages, so little time. A(nother) language log (RU, EO, maybe some others)

Posted: Mon Oct 02, 2017 6:26 pm
by IronMike
Had a great Russian language-filled weekend! Participated in a swim festival down in Sochi on the Black Sea. Everything, and I mean everything, was in Russian, to include the other swimmer who accused me of skipping a buoy.

The briefings of our events (3 of us from the embassy went down) were totally in Russian, which was great practice. The registration of course was also in Russian. Basically, as I said above, everything this weekend was in Russian.

Sochi is beautiful. Very beautiful. The weather was great the whole weekend. The water temp was 25-26C and the air temp 22C or so. Perfect.

Image

I didn't bring any Russian books but I didn't feel like I missed out. Getting to speak Russian all day, felt good to read English at night. But then there was also the TV...all in Russian. Lovely!

Re: So many languages, so little time. A(nother) language log (RU, EO, maybe some others)

Posted: Fri Oct 06, 2017 4:45 pm
by IronMike
Had a great week of Russian class. We're continuing to talk about sports, which is right up my alley. And not those boring sports, like soccer or basketball, but Olympic sports. Learning (relearning, remembering) some great vocabulary.

I also got another student in my class, which was nice. She's a much better speaker than I am, so that'll help push me. She came in on Wednesday, but wasn't available to come today. Today I did a quick 3-min spiel on doping in sports. I also reviewed my last swimming competition from last weekend in Sochi.

So, new words this week (or words remembered):

добиться чегo: to reach, attain (I used this when explaining my second place in a recent swimming competition)
зрелищный: entertaining
кривить: To twist, crook, bend
кривить душой: to be dishonest (love this one...to "twist (ones) soul")
наносить вред здоровью: To cause harm to (ones) health
наступать/наступить: to set in, advance, come (I like this one too. You can say наступила ночь.)
облегчить: to make easier
обманщик: cheater, deceiver
приобрести: to acquire, obtain
скапливаться: to flock, mass, throng
упорствовать: to persist
ушлый: quick, sly, savvy (the RUS-ENG dictionary says this word means savvy, so then of course the instructor wanted me to explain to her по-русски what savvy meant. That was tough, but when done, she said no. ушлый is negative, whereas savvy is certainly not negative.)

My homework for this weekend is to watch the movie Легенда 17, which looks like a movie about the 1972 Olympics and the Soviet vs. Canada hockey game. I know nothing about it and I'm not going to look it up. The DVD has no subtitles so it'll definitely be work, but according to the teacher it's a great movie so maybe it won't be work?

Re: So many languages, so little time. A(nother) language log (RU, EO, maybe some others)

Posted: Fri Oct 06, 2017 5:13 pm
by aaleks
IronMike wrote:ушлый: quick, sly, savvy (the RUS-ENG dictionary says this word means savvy, so then of course the instructor wanted me to explain to her по-русски what savvy meant. That was tough, but when done, she said no. ушлый is negative, whereas savvy is certainly not negative.)

My favorite explanation of the word ушлый :mrgreen: :
ушлый человек тот, который стащит с Вашей тарелки последний кусок мяса, а Вам будет стыдно, что на какой-то момент Вы этому факту воровства удивились и возмутились.. . Ну а гарнир к мясу, Вы ему потом уже предлагаете сами!
from here https://otvet.mail.ru/question/19336929

Re: So many languages, so little time. A(nother) language log (RU, EO, maybe some others)

Posted: Sat Oct 07, 2017 4:20 pm
by IronMike
aaleks wrote:
IronMike wrote:ушлый: quick, sly, savvy (the RUS-ENG dictionary says this word means savvy, so then of course the instructor wanted me to explain to her по-русски what savvy meant. That was tough, but when done, she said no. ушлый is negative, whereas savvy is certainly not negative.)

My favorite explanation of the word ушлый :mrgreen: :
ушлый человек тот, который стащит с Вашей тарелки последний кусок мяса, а Вам будет стыдно, что на какой-то момент Вы этому факту воровства удивились и возмутились.. . Ну а гарнир к мясу, Вы ему потом уже предлагаете сами!
from here https://otvet.mail.ru/question/19336929

Love it! Thanks for this, especially the new verb for to pinch, steal.

Can't believe the other great word I learned. Well, more like an alternate definition of a word I already knew. There is колесо, which means wheel. And in plural it is колёса. But that's also the word they use colloquially for pills. I love that!

Re: So many languages, so little time. A(nother) language log (RU, EO, maybe some others)

Posted: Mon Oct 09, 2017 1:53 pm
by IronMike
Finished Легенда №17. It was a fun movie, despite the comically stereotyped Canadians. The language level wasn't too bad and I heard a bunch of vocabulary from my last couple weeks of class. I definitely recommend it. It's a bit like Miracle (2004) but from a Russian (Soviet) point of view. The actors were great, except for those playing Canadians.

Re: So many languages, so little time. A(nother) language log (RU, EO, maybe some others)

Posted: Wed Oct 11, 2017 2:16 pm
by IronMike
Great words from class so far this week:

уродливый: ugly, deformed (I got this when I asked her the opposite of beautiful. ;)
щупальца: tentacles (I was trying to explain the jellyfish I saw in Montenegro and kept calling them arms!)
бугор, бугрустый: bump, bumpy (me trying to explain what the jellyfish looked like from above the water "like a sponge with bumps")
лишать/лишить: deprive, strip, divest кого, чего
самомнение: ego(tism), conceit (when I was trying to explain the protagonist of the film Легенда №17 having a high opinion of himself)
распространённый: (wide-) spread (when talking about languages)
вымирать/вымереть: extinct (again, about languages)
уязвимый: vulnerable, fragile (languages...seeing a trend?)

The first article on language she picked for me to do for homework tonight is on endangered languages! One of my favorite subjects. w00t!

Re: So many languages, so little time. A(nother) language log (RU, EO, maybe some others)

Posted: Thu Oct 12, 2017 8:44 am
by MamaPata
I'm going to have to start taking notes from your log!

Re: So many languages, so little time. A(nother) language log (RU, EO, maybe some others)

Posted: Sun Oct 15, 2017 8:40 am
by IronMike
Subscribed to the National Foreign Language Center's portal this morning. Discovered the site with the help of @mcthulhu back when I was searching for a course or research on passage rating. The NFLC's site has 100s of lessons in Russian, not to mention other languages of interest to me (BCS, Czech, French, Quechua, итд).

I ran through a couple lessons this morning, specifically AORUR11 (reading) and A15LRUS11 (listening), in case you're following along at home. The lessons were fun and reminded me a lot of the DLPT, which is good since I'm scheduled to take it in late December.

Feedback I sent to the NFLC was the same for both lessons: At the end during the feedback stage, the system informs the student that you'll see your answers, whether or not they're correct and why, as well as see what the correct answer is and why. For both lessons, the latter part was not offered. The correct answer was not highlighted, leaving me wondering in both lessons. For the listening lesson, there was a print button (might have had one for the reading, but don't remember). I clicked on PRINT and up came the print preview. In that preview, the correct answer (and why) was highlighted, along with my answer. I'm not going to waste paper to print that up. Only problem is, as long as that print window is up, you can't go back to the module and listen to the section of audio where the answer is.

Hopefully they'll see my feedback and do a correction. Despite that, I'm still going to be using the system in prep for my test. Whether or not I keep paying the $5 a month after that I'm not sure. We'll have to see about that.