Radioclare's temporary(?!) log

[Radioclare]

Thank you for all the suggestions everyone

I don't think I have the mental energy to try anything as difficult as Mandarin/Khmer/Thai

Swedish is an interesting idea. I think it would make a good 6WC next year if I book another trip to Sweden.

I wish we could just have the 6WC bot to track our progress all year even when it's not a 6WC

I thought of a language to register with yesterday as I just had a phrase book and dictionary arrive in the post. It's for a trip I am taking over New Year. But I don't want to post the country or the language here because it's a surprise for my boyfriend, and in the end I decided against registering with it because he might see it on Twitter and figure out where we're going.

If you want to keep track of your languages where you're above B1, you can simply register with any random language you don't plan to do. Or you can register with Russian or Macedonian and just dabble lightly

Good point! I think it probably makes most sense to register with Russian then as I'm genuinely planning to start learning in January If I had more time I would try to make a start now, but work is crazy at the moment so not holding my breath.

[tarvos]

I think you could reliably learn to handle Mandarin, actually. The only thing that is going to kill you in the beginning is the tones, but you'll get used to it. Mandarin gets a bad rap, but I've found it easier than I expected it to be.

[Radioclare]

With remarkable timing, the Duolingo Russian course got released at the same time I registered for a 6WC. Great timing, because it means there's something "light" I can do and log some Russian so that I'm not a complete fraud for the challenge

I've not really used Duolingo before so still getting used to how it works but OMG, the Russian Cyrillic keyboard layout is insanely difficult I already have a Macedonian Cyrillic keyboard installed which I can type quite happily with because the majority of letters are in the "normal" places, and this lulled me into a false sense of security. I had no idea that the Russian keyboard bore no resemblance to anything on this earth

Someone at Duolingo posted a cool link to a website where you can practice Russian typing (go to settings, keyboard layout, and select Russian)). So I've learned about 5 letters with a typing speed of 13wpm

[tarvos]

On Windows, the keyboard packs also come with phonetic (more or less) equivalents of the Latin alphabet. I use one of those - I only use the regular one on my phone. I can't type with the original one.

[Ogrim]

It took me a long time to get used to the Russian keyboard layout yes, but with a lot of practice on my ipad I know feel relatively comfortable and can even manage to type in Russian using my qwerty keyboard, although I do have to look at the Russian keyboard layout from time to time (I've got a printout of the keyboard stuck on the wall beside my computer).

[Radioclare]

Thank you both for the advice

I didn't manage to find the phonetic keyboard last night but I will definitely investigate again when I get home this evening because that would be sooooo much easier!

Last night I ended up typing in Duolingo mainly with the Macedonian keyboard (which is more or less phonetic) and then swapped to the Russian one if I needed a Russian-only character. That was a bit slow but still quicker than using the actual Russian keyboard!

You can read and type the Duolingo Russian course in Latin characters but I think that would be a huge mistake for me. I have found it so difficult to read fluently in Serbian Cyrillic and someone here suggested that it was because I'd learned all the words as (Croatian) Latin words first and therefore couldn't automatically recognise the shapes of them in Cyrillic. I thought that was a really good point and I definitely don't want to have the same problem with Russian, because it has taken me months of practice to improve my Serbian reading speed from that of a four year old child to that of an eight year old child

Ogrim - a printout of the keyboard sounds like it would be really useful! Or I saw you can get Cyrillic stickers to put over the keys, so perhaps I should put some on my Christmas list

[Expugnator]

I still have to get used to the different Russian Keyboards in iOs and Android (not going to start Duolingo now), but at least in Android I can swipe the letters and trying to swipe can be faster than typing individually and also helps learn the position of the letters because you learn to link the words instead of looking at one word at a time.

[Ogrim]

Ogrim - a printout of the keyboard sounds like it would be really useful! Or I saw you can get Cyrillic stickers to put over the keys, so perhaps I should put some on my Christmas list

Yes stickers are even better, but a printout helps as well. I just printed an image from Wikipedia.

[tarvos]

Which OS do you use? I use Windows 10 and in the bottom right corner of your taskbar you can set the keyboard. Click on the letters indicating your keyboard, and at a bottom there's a button called Language Preferences (if you use English like I do). You go to "Add a language", select Russian, check some advanced settings, and in there you should find something called Russian - Mnemonic ЯШЕРТЫ

[Radioclare]

Which OS do you use? I use Windows 10 and in the bottom right corner of your taskbar you can set the keyboard. Click on the letters indicating your keyboard, and at a bottom there's a button called Language Preferences (if you use English like I do). You go to "Add a language", select Russian, check some advanced settings, and in there you should find something called Russian - Mnemonic ЯШЕРТЫ

I'm on Windows 10 too but I hadn't found the advanced settings! I've found it now so thank you for your help

To start with I got really confused because I couldn't find all the letters on it. Then I realised I had to type "ch" if I want "ч" etc