neofight78 returns from his Siberian exile? [RU, ES]

[neofight78]

...and... boom! That's 7000 words in the bag according to Anki. I can now see the faint outline of C1 in the distance... or maybe it's a mirage!

Continuing my musing over what I should be doing, I've been thinking about the balance between covering new grammar and going back to basics and plugging a few holes. Perhaps I'll try doing a mock C1 test (the grammar part) and see how I fare. If I'm ballpark passing the test, then perhaps better to start gap filling, if not then maybe it would be better to cover some of the gaps that'll be revealed.

I'm trying to up the reading rate by tackling one chapter a day rather than every other. We'll see how that goes, so far I'm 15% into Человек-Амфибия. So far I'm liking it

[tarvos]

When I was at your level more or less I took a tutor in hand to work on the ТРКИ - Тест по Русскому Как Иностранному. Prepare for the level one above your own to push yourself and find a tutor. Don't just do the grammar - do the whole thing, you'll need it.

There aren't that many tutors on iTalki that offer this - Христина is the one I used, but there may be others.

[neofight78]

When I was at your level more or less I took a tutor in hand to work on the ТРКИ - Тест по Русскому Как Иностранному. Prepare for the level one above your own to push yourself and find a tutor. Don't just do the grammar - do the whole thing, you'll need it.

There aren't that many tutors on iTalki that offer this - Христина is the one I used, but there may be others.

Thanks for the tip! There's still a lot to do to get to C1. Sure I'll want to do the whole thing at some point, I'm just thinking that I'll need to target one area at a time to keep thing manageable. But may be that's not the right way to go about it. I'm aiming to get to C1 roughly, doing stuff I like and that I think works and then I'll switch to preparing specfically for the exam, if I decide I want to torture myself with that

[neofight78]

Another random musing... I've been continuing with the technical language in the background, albeit at reduced rate. Now I'm thinking I probably need to take a look at business as it's the other half of my profession i.e. I write systems that automate and / or monitor business processes. It doesn't need to be anything too hardcore but I realised I don't even know terms like "stock control" and "purchase order". I guess the ideal would to be find some kind of business studies textbook (if such a subject exists in Russia) at a pre-universisty level i.e. something that gives a broad overview of all aspects of business. Of course shifting through all the self help and over specific nonsense to find something suitable is not easy.

[Expugnator]

Living language advanced is all about business dialogues, though it might be too little and too easy for your level.

[Ogrim]

I buy Russian e-books through the website ЛитРес. Check out the section called Бизнес-Книги. They have loads of books covering the topics finance, business and economics, so you may have to search a little to find what you are looking for, but perhaps worth a try.

[neofight78]

Living language advanced is all about business dialogues, though it might be too little and too easy for your level.

Thanks, I'll see if I can check that one out.

I buy Russian e-books through the website ЛитРес. Check out the section called Бизнес-Книги. They have loads of books covering the topics finance, business and economics, so you may have to search a little to find what you are looking for, but perhaps worth a try.

Yes, I use that site too. It's hard to find something that fits what I want. Most books are either promising success or cover one narrow area rather than giving an overview. I've found a few possible candidates, but not anything that really sticks out just yet.

Revisiting some of my recent musings I have some updates...

Read a lot more to get the benefits of extensive reading

The reading is going quite well, and once I'm past the first few chapters it's fairly easy going (with a kindle dictionary on hand to help of course). Some of the chapters of Человек-амфибия are pretty tiny, and I'm getting impatient so I may start doubling up and read two chapters a day. We'll see....

Work with a TV series in order to boost my listening comprehension (not just watching but working with a transcript)

Not really got on to this one yet. I need to think of a good way of approaching this other than just watching stuff when I have time.

Start writing regularly, getting corrections and working with the feedback.

Just getting started on this, and it's pretty obvious my writing is weak, but then I knew that. Not surprising considering I do so little of it. The main thing is to get in to the habit right now. My spelling is pretty bad, but I'll wait until my general writing ability is a bit better before I switch from keyboard to pen.

Work on corrections to my speech (e.g. on Verbling)

Taken a few half hour sessions. The last one I retold most of Голова профессора Доуэля without any problems, which I was quite pleased with. Got about 10 corrections, so 1 every three minutes. I guess that's not too bad. I need to make sure I'm pushing myself more, both in terms of covering new subjects and trying to use new constructions. Need to think a little bit more about how to make that happen.

Anyhow, onwards and upwards!...

[Ольга]

Hi there! How's your Russian? What is your level now? Are you going to take any official tests (sorry, if you have already been asked it and I have not found the answer).

[neofight78]

Hi there! How's your Russian? What is your level now? Are you going to take any official tests (sorry, if you have already been asked it and I have not found the answer).

Hi Ольга! My Russian is improving I hope! I've sat the 1st and 2nd certificate TRKI exams (B1 & B2) in the past. I also sat an immigration exam recently (although the level required is not high at all). No plans at the moment to sit another exam, but perhaps I'll take the 3rd certificate level (C1) at some point. At the moment I'm somewhere between B2 and C1.

[Ольга]

Hi there! How's your Russian? What is your level now? Are you going to take any official tests (sorry, if you have already been asked it and I have not found the answer).

Hi Ольга! My Russian is improving I hope! I've sat the 1st and 2nd certificate TRKI exams (B1 & B2) in the past. I also sat an immigration exam recently (although the level required is not high at all). No plans at the moment to sit another exam, but perhaps I'll take the 3rd certificate level (C1) at some point. At the moment I'm somewhere B2 and C1.

Wonderful news! It's superb that you're progressing. You know, I have heard that all Russian natives have about Upper-Intermediate level in Russian. So, soon you will probably know more than natives do. Especially in writing.