Russian (and a tiny morsel of German): Week 7, 2012

Total language learning this week: 24 hours, 13 mins
Total language learning this year: 50 hours, 20 mins

Russian (23 hours, 53 mins)

Studying films: 21 hours, 14 mins
Checking film vocabulary: 1 hour, 34 mins
Conversation: 1 hour, 15 mins

German (20 mins)

Watching TV: 20 mins (German channel in hotel – bonus!)

Notes

I’ve managed to put in more study hours this week and risen from 47th to 10th place in the 6 Week Challenge…rockets away! I’m still trying to settle into a good routine but this is at least a move in the right direction. With exposure to a variety of interesting films and series, I’m becoming ever more absorbed in Russian culture, and already take great delight in recognising several well-known themes, sayings and characters across different films and genres. And according to my girlfriend (who I ashamedly try to cajole into assessing my Russian each week), I seem to have much faster and easier access to words during conversation now and my overall speed has noticeably increased (although that’s not saying much if you knew how embarrassing I sounded before lol!).

In terms of listening skills, I’m still a bit of a distance away from understanding the gist (and by this I mean at least 80% of the meaning) of fast colloquial dialogue throughout an entire film. And even when I do understand most of the words in a sentence, misunderstanding or failing to catch just one word can make all the difference in comprehension. Even so, as I learn to adapt more to a variety of contexts and different people’s voices and way of saying things in Russian, I find I spend less time translating words in my head and more time thinking about the overall meaning. As a result, I definitely recognise far more words and phrases than I ever did before and my progress in this area over the last week has been particularly encouraging.

Russian, German and Irish: Weeks 1-6, 2012

Total language learning for this period: 26 hours, 7 mins
Total language learning this year: 26 hours, 7 mins

Russian (20 hours, 37 mins)

Studying films: 15 hours, 11 mins
Checking film vocabulary: 4 hours, 4 mins
Conversation: 25 mins
Crosstalk: 25 mins
Grammar test: 22 mins
Active listening: 10 mins

German (3 hours, 25 mins)

Studying films: 2 hours, 25 mins
Checking film vocabulary: 1 hour

Irish (25 mins)

Study and click: 25 mins
- Buntús Cainte 1.1-3

Wanderlust (1 hour, 40 mins)

Assimil: 1 hour, 40 minutes
- Egyptian Hieroglyphics 1-6

Notes

With so many other things on my plate, it’s been a less-than-galactic start to 2012. Yet I’ve still managed to score a few hours this February and am rapidly climbing up the charts like a retro re-release in the first 6 week challenge (6WC) of the year. This is made all the easier by my team mates over on the HTLAL forum, a phenomenal bunch of language learners who light up the TAC scene with bags of enthusiasm and abundant support. So I really want to do them and my Russian girlfriend proud and reach a half-decent level in Russian this year.

I’ve thought a lot about how I’ll approach studying my target languages over the last week, and have reconsidered my intial notion of studying all 3 at once. Therefore Irish and German will have to take a back seat over the next month or so, and I’ll instead focus on getting to grips with Russian first. This may even help increase my odds of a high score in the 6WC (lol…yeah right), for which I did very little in the 1st week and fell far behind, but the main reason is that I’d like to make swifter progress, as there’s a good chance I might be travelling to Russia again soon.

So far, I’m really enjoying studying Russian films as my central methodology (it’s even more fun than my mariachi escapades with Spanish back in 2010!). I can’t honestly say that I’ve noticed any quantum leaps in overall comprehension yet but I guess it’s only early days and things may move much more quickly once I establish a consistent schedule and get into the zone.

Ready for my first test flight…

I’m finally free of exams and other key preparations, and poised to embark on a whole new parade of crazy language projects to get the creative juices flowing in 2012!

I’ll be balancing this with other projects and part-time work, so I know the road ahead will be far from easy. However, if I can settle into a steady routine and avoid distractions, the next 3 months should prove very interesting…

First of all, I’d like to apologise to my team cosmo-comrades. I’ve been virtually so run off my feet this month that I’m probably far behind on all the recent forum news and any specific developments within our team (e.g. follow-up Skype meetings). And it looks like our team numbers have almost doubled in my absence too – I’ve already lost count (lol). So a big welcome to all new members of Team Sputnik – добро пожаловать на борт!!

It’s also great to see so much initial enthusiasm bubbling forth for Russian, German and Irish in the HTLAL TAC this year, with several plots of blossoming blogs out there pushing their way up like snowdrops through the late winter frost with renewed and encouraging vitality. With all that’s going on, I can’t help but feel that this year is really going to reveal some amazing progress by its conclusion.

So now swiftly on to my language goals and what I hope to busy myself with in any spare time over the next 3 months…

Project 1: Russian

I aim to actively watch films with the aid of some software I wrote last year called Subento, and make a note of any progress in my Russian abilities along the way, particularly in terms of overal listening comprehension and vocabulary.

My ideal would be to watch a new film with Subento at the end of every working day (i.e. Monday to Friday), but this will largely depend on being able to get hold of enough suitable and interesting titles. I already have a reasonable-sized library of Russian dvds, so this is an excellent head start.

Estimated levels in Russian at the start of this experiment (taking into consideration that I’ve been largely inactive for several months): Listening: B1; Reading: B1+; Speaking: A2+; Writing: A2

Project 2: German

The aim here is much the same as in experiment 1, except I’ll be starting with a higher level of vocabulary recognition and overall listening comprehension (approx. B2). By comparing any progress in German with my progress in Russian, I hope to develop a clearer picture of how initial comprehension levels and familiarity with a language can impact on my overall performance and progress with Subento across 3 months.

Estimated levels in German at the start of this experiment (again taking into consideration that I’ve been largely inactive for 1-2 years): Listening: B2; Reading: B2; Speaking: B1+; Writing: B1

Project 3: Irish

I joined the Líofa Campaign last year, along with another 1300 potential learners, as a public commitment to try and reach fluency in Irish by 2015 (“líofa” incidentally means “fluent” in Irish). So now there’s no more excuse for resting on my laurels, and I’m committed to turning this dream into a reality within the next 3 years.

As Irish language films are few and far between for the purposes of testing Subento, I’ve decided instead to try and review my complete set of Buntús Cainte books and accompanying CDs over the next few months. The full course comprises 195 fun and quirky lessons and 3 CDs of audio, and I’ll be using study-and-click as my only method to study these texts. The idea here is to acquire a solid foundation of passive Irish vocabulary on which to build subsequently 3 months later using other Irish multimedia resources and techniques. Another goal is to see how study-and-click performs over a longer sustained period of time, given shorter bursts of study with a beginner-intermediate course, and then compare my findings with the data gathered from briefer experiments in 2010 with Spanish and Swedish.

Despite having amassed an impressive cache of Irish resources, and even being half-Irish myself, I sadly know very little of my heritage language, and estimate all of my skills as lying a hair’s breadth away from that of a total beginner.

Preparing for Lift Off in 2012!

Artistic impression of Sputnik 1 (image by Gregory R Todd, source: Wikipedia)

Interesting resources – check.
Immersion support systems – check.
Killer methods and an amazing team of fellow linguanauts – check.
All systems are confirmed “go” for Teango in Team Sputnik (HTLAL forum), repeat, all systems are “go”.
T-minus 10 seconds and counting…10..9..8..7..6..5..4..3..2..hang on a minute…abort, abort! I haven’t said anything about my language goals for 2012 yet…

LANGUAGE GOALS FOR 2012
(proficiency levels based on the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages, CEFR)

Primary goals: Russian (from low intermediate to basic fluency)

I’ve ducked and dived in Russian over the last few years, but always seem to fall flat on my face. With the Olympics coming to London in 2012, what better time to come out of the corner fighting like a crazed Cossack, and prove the pundits wrong by coming home with the triglot title belt held high!

Listening: B1 –> C1
Reading: B1+ –> C1
Speaking: A2+ –> B2
Writing: A2 –> B2

Secondary goals: Irish (from beginner to intermediate)

I’ve amassed several shelffuls of books and CDs over the last year, and can’t wait to get stuck into TG4 (Ireland’s Irish language tv channel). I’ll be starting this language almost from scratch, and being half Irish, I just hope I don’t let the folks down.

Listening: A0 –> B2
Reading: A0 –> B2
Speaking: A0 –> B1
Writing: A0 –> B1

Maintenance goals: German (regain basic fluency)

Time to make amends for neglecting my German for well over a year, and letting it rust away shamefully outside in the rain like an old garden trowel. I have several audiobooks and films waiting in the ranks to help me get back on track, and a bottle of Riesling to launch my studies.

Listening: B2 –> C1
Reading: B2 –> C1
Speaking: B1+ –> B2
Writing: B1 –> B2

ADDITIONAL NOTES

This is my third year of language blogging, and I have a really lucky feeling about 2012. It’s finally time for me to stop floundering in my language studies and raise my game to a whole new level. I can’t wait to try out several new ideas that I’ve been developing over the past few months, and need to organise my time in and around work even more than ever. With exams in January, I anticipate a particularly busy start to the year. However, once my spare time frees up again, I hope to take off like a firework finale.

With my inevitable susceptibility to wanderlust, and depending on how my plans pan out over 2012, who knows…I might even try my hand at some other languages too (French, Japanese, Hawaiian and Finnish are all quite alluring contenders for a short-term challenge).

And last but not least…a proud and hearty “Привет!” to my fellow TAC linguanauts (Aloysius, Drsarvo, Ellsworth, Fabriciocarraro, Isabliss_27, Lynxrunner, M. Medialis, Ruskivyetr, Senor smile, Solfrid Cristin, Tecktight and Woodsei). I’m looking forward to tracking Team Sputnik’s upward trajectory on the language radar this year, and watching our foreign language skills soar into the stratosphere. Good luck and welcome to the space race, comrades!

Edit – I’ve amended my initial estimated levels to more accurately reflect my current skills, following a period of 4 months’ inactivity in Russian (just a few passive films in December, as far as I recall), and 1-2 years of inactivity in German (I must be getting very rusty by now). I will also be starting Irish much closer to a complete beginner than anywhere near A1, and have indicated this with A0.

SUMMARY FOR 2011

Ah…the end of an era; the beginning of another! It’s that time of year again to look back on my leaning tower of language logs for this year, and sum up my progress (or lack of it) in a few succinct nostalgic lines.

This has been my second year of language blogging, yet I’m still surprised how quickly each year flies by. It’s been a very tough year for me personally, during which I’ve had to push on through many setbacks. However, through persistent brainstorming and plenty of trial and error, I’ve discovered a lot more about my own particular study habits, and have put together what I hope will turn out to be some really interesting methods and software for next year. I’ve also read a few books and watched a bevy of films in Russian, along with an inordinate number of episodes from my favourite children’s tv series “Лунтик”.

In summer, I started my Trans-Siberian Express mini-challenge, with the aim to log every minute I spend listening to and simultaneously reading Russian as a kilometre on my virtual journey, and have slowly but surely crossed a fifth of my map across Russia since (1924/9289km over 32 hours). I’ve still got a long way to go but it’s a start.

Unfortunately, I didn’t even get close to B2+ in Russian, as initially hoped, and with so many other things going on in my life, I just had little or no time to fit in any of my extended languages either. However, every little step brings me that much closer to the next leg of my journey, and after 255 hours’ language study, I did at least finally manage to break the 90% barrier in my reading comprehension tests and bring my Russian reading level up to B2 for the first time ever (from 58% on 1st January 2011 to 91% on 9th September). Now it’s so much easier to tackle favourite texts like Bulgakov’s “Master and Margarita” in the original.

I also seem to have leveled up in my listening skills, and am currently around the B1 mark in conversation or so I’m told (up from A1+ last year). Many Russian words now just light up as concepts in my head rather than silent translations into English. Only today, for example, someone inadvertently knocked their trolley into mine during the Christmas Eve shopping madness, and I instinctively called out “Осторожно!” by mistake (lol).

Next year I hope to make even bigger strides forward in Russian and also plan to take on Irish at a later date. I also feel bad about neglecting my German over the last year (which must have become embarrassingly rusty by now), so I’d like to try and brush up on my German too if I can.

Here’s a little summary of some of the resources I used and completed in 2011:

BOOKS:

- Евгений Замятин, “Мы” (We)
- J K Rowling, “Гарри Поттер и тайная комната” (Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets)
- J K Rowling, “Гарри Поттер и философский камень” (Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone)
- A. de Saint-Exupéry, “Маленький принц” (The Little Prince)

FILMS:

- Джентльмены удачи
- О чем говорят мужчины
- Ширли-мырли
- Я остаюсь
- Москва слезам не верит
- Особенности национальной охоты
- Особенности национальной рыбалки
- Неадекватные люди
- Место встречи изменить нельзя
- Шерлок Холмс и доктор Ватсон: Знакомство
- Шерлок Холмс и доктор Ватсон: Кровавая надпись
- Шерлок Холмс и доктор Ватсон: Охота на тигра
- Шерлок Холмс и доктор Ватсон: Король Шантажа
- Шерлок Холмс и доктор Ватсон: Смертельная схватка
- Гарри Поттер и философский камень (Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone)

TV SERIES

- Дело было на Кубани (episodes 1-8)
- Гостья из будущего (episodes 1-2)
- Холостяк (episode 1)

ANIMATIONS:

- Лунтик (seasons 1 and 2, 160 episodes)
- Добрыня Никитич и Змей Горыныч
- Аленький цветочек
- Домовенок Кузька
- Мотылек
- Приключения поросенка Фунтика
- Сказка о царе Салтане
- Теремок
- Тигренок Клад
- Зима в простоквашино
- Бизнис по русски (episodes 1-2)

AUDIO ONLY:

- T Pratchett, “The Colour of Magic” (audiobook)
- Эхо Москвы (radio broadcasts + transcripts)
- The Big Podcast (several episodes)
- Princeton Russian Course (general review)

And here are some of the more or less unusual Russian words and phrases I picked up along the way:

“хихикнуть” (to giggle, tee-hee, titter), “хохотать” (to laugh out loud: “ho-ho”), “кукуруза” (corn, maize), “душа в пятки ушла” (his heart sank, lit. “his soul went (or perhaps more poetically, departed) into his soles”), “Мальчик с пальчик” (Tom Thumb), “Cпоки ноки!” (Nighty night!, short for “Cпокойной ночи!” – Good night!), “хобот” (elephant’s trunk), “боб” (bean), “жужжать” (to hum, buzz: “zhhh”), “вампир” (vampire, and ironically “вам пир” means “a feast for you” too), “задрот” (nerd), “разбойники” (robbers – sounds great, doesn’t it?!), “грабли” (garden rake to “grab leaves”), “баранка” (а ring-shaped bread or dry biscuit), “магарыч” (bribe – often alcoholic).

Wishing everybody a wonderful Christmas and every success with their language projects in the New Year!

Teango

PROGRESS UPDATE, WEEKS 40-49 (2011)

Russian (254.5 hours)

Estimated reading level: 91% (B2)

Conversation rank: B1 (Майор)

Study update (10.8 hours)

TV / FILM (9.8 hours)
Джентльмены удачи – film
О чем говорят мужчины – film
Ширли-мырли – film
Я остаюсь – film
Аленький цветочек – animation
Домовенок Кузька – animation
Мотылек – animation
Приключения поросенка Фунтика – animation
Сказка о царе Салтане – animation
Теремок – animation
Тигренок Клад – animation

CONVERSATION (1 hour in total)

Wanderlust confessional

Just an episode of “Ros na Rún” (an Irish language soap opera), along with some French gangster flicks to report. Otherwise, my wanderings are pretty much curtailed for the time being.

Words of the week

Whilst reading a post over on HTLAL a little while back, I learnt that to offer someone a “магарыч” is to offer them a bribe, although I believe it originally refers to a treat (usually an alcoholic one) to mark a profitable business deal.

Another thing that made me smile was the German phrase “Klatsch und Tratsch”, which roughly translates as “gossip and scandal”; although for some bizarre reason I can only picture fuzzy little muppet detectives and Austrian jewellery stores right now (oh what a strange mind I must have)!

Notes

As I need to work and prepare for exams, I probably won’t be able to hop back on the Trans-Siberian Express until the icicles start melting again in February and probably all that’s left of the village snowman (if he makes his appearance this year at all) is a wonky carrot and a couple of grubby garden stones expropriated from the neighbour’s frosty flower bed. However, I’m still full steam ahead with the idea of journeying through intermediate linguistic tundra in the hope of reaching new pinewood heights by the middle of next year, and have an uncanny feeling deep down in my bones that 2012 will be the year I finally break through to advanced Russian. Well…a guy’s got to dream! In the meantime, over the coming months, I’m thinking of watching a Russian film every evening to keep the engine ticking over. It will be interesting to see what impact this has on my overall listening skills when I compare them later on, and I’m looking forward to picking up some bonus colloquial vocabulary along the way.

PROGRESS UPDATE, WEEKS 37-39 (2011)

Russian (243.7 hours)

Estimated reading level: 91% (B2)

Conversation rank: B1 (Майор)

Study update (16 hours)

LISTENING AND READING (10.7 hours)
- J K Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets – completed!
- М Булгаков, Собачье сердце

TV / FILM (2.7 hours)
- Дело было на Кубани, eps. 6-8 – series completed!

OTHER (2.6 hours)

Wanderlust confessional

I’ve recently added the online Georgian TV channel Rustavi2 to my brimming basket of wanderlust goodies (thanks to TixhiiDon from HTLAL), and yes…I may have even sneaked a naughty peak at an episode at the same time too.

Words of the week

Today I bring you a couple of modern German verbs I encountered whilst watching a documentary on ZDFmediathek: “twittern” and “facebooken” (which as you can probably guess, means to contact someone via Twitter and Facebook). The simplicity of constructing new words is an aspect I particularly love about German!

Notes

Following the recent 6 week challenge, which helped me level up my reading skills in Russian a little, my brain seems to have absconded from studies almost altogether and taken an extended sedentary break. Perhaps it’s the realisation that reaching the next plateau is a little overwhelming, who knows?! My body, on the other hand, has taken this time to ease itself ever so gradually into a new fitness and healthy eating programme and make some reasonable gains. So over the next fortnight I’m hoping that both will finally agree to work together and rocket my Russian farther into the deep linguistic unknown…

Trans-Siberian Express: Perm (1436 km) and Yekaterinburg (1816 km)

I seem to have fallen into a long stupor after several virtual vodka parties with Hagrid and Harry, and neglected you, my dear Trans-Siberian readers. So today I present not one, but two, fascinating cities on my route: Perm (Пермь) and Yekaterinburg (Екатеринбу́рг).

Perm, which was renamed Molotov (Мо́лотов) after Vyacheslav Molotov between 1940 and 1957, sits on the bank of the Kama river (claimed to be one of the most picturesque rivers in Russia) and is home to almost a million people. In the shadow of the Ural mountains, the area boasts a large network of smaller rivers and tributaries and is a major access route for shipping, whilst the city itself has a long history of being a centre of excellence for science, engineering and manufacturing. And whilst this may not be the birthplace of post-Soviet coiffures, which would have made a dreadful pun anyway, it is a fast-growing cultural centre that is sometimes considered an avant-garde counterpart to St Petersburg!

P is for post-modern Perm (П): This local landmark is affectionately known as 'Big Red' apparently!

Yekaterinburg was initially named after Empress Catherine I (Yekaterina), the wife of Tsar Peter the Great, but was later renamed to Sverdlovsk (Свердло́вск) between 1924 and 1991 after the Bolshevik party leader Yakov Sverdlov. Home to Boris Yeltsin, and with a solid reputation as the leading educational and scientific centre in the Urals, it is the 4th largest city in Russia (with approximately 1.4 million inhabitants). Most notably, this is also the city where most of the Russian royal family (the Romanovs) breathed their very last at the hands of the Bolsheviks in the grounds of Ipatiev House (which was sadly later demolished by Yeltsin in 1977). Yekaterinburg is also well-known for producing lots of famous Russian bands and features as a major centre for Russian rock music along with St. Petersburg.

Already proud of Russia's first ever monument to The Beatles, Yekaterinburg has since added Michael Jackson to their pantheon of pop. Cha'mone!

It’s been a few months and 100 hours of study since my last update here, but they haven’t flown by completely without progress. During this period, I’ve managed to move my reading skills up another notch (rising from 84% to 91% in reading tests), polish off a second novel, and can now comfortably take part in basic conversations.

Uli enjoys sticking his head out the train window to catch the wind in his feelers and peruse the odd black-market DVD...

Most recent reading test results: 91% (+7%)
[first 100 words taken from “Дневной Дозор”, Part 3, Chapter 5, p. 609)

Distance from the next station, Tyumen: 220 km.

Nu, pogodi! – Update for September

Total hours spent studying Russian this year: 242
Words I’ve clicked: The truth is, I’ve lost count (lol).
Estimated reading level: 91% (B2) +1% – Level up!

PROGRESS UPDATE, WEEK 36 (2011)

Russian (227.7 hours)

Estimated reading level: 91% (B2) - Level up!

Conversation rank: B1 (Майор)

Study update (21.3 hours)

TV / FILM (5.9 hours)
- Дело было на Кубани, ep. 1
- Дело было на Кубани, ep. 2
- Дело было на Кубани, ep. 3
- Дело было на Кубани, ep. 4
- Дело было на Кубани, ep. 5
- Лунтик 151-156 (some overlap with last week)
- Место встречи изменить нельзя (ep. 1) – completed
- Шерлок Холмс и доктор Ватсон: Смертельная схватка

LISTENING (4.4 hours)
- The Big Podcast, no. 570
- T Pratchett, The Colour of Magic

LR JOURNAL (2.5 hours)
- J K Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

MUSICAL LR / SC (2.2 hours)

TRANSLATE AND TICK (1.8 hours)
- Princeton Russian course A

LISTENING AND READING (1.4 hours)
- J K Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

CONVERSATION (1.3 hours)

READING (0.6 hours)
- Трудно быть богом (easy reader)
- Пётр и Пётр (easy reader)

STUDY AND CLICK (0.5 hours)
- Princeton Russian course A

VOCABULARY (0.4 hours, picture dictionary)
CORRESPONDENCE (0.3 hours, email)
KARAOKE CHORUS (0.2 hours)

Wanderlust confessional

Other than a brief interest in Marshallese (the Malayo-Polynesian language of the Marshall Islands), nothing much to confess.

Word of the week

“баранка” (а ring-shaped bread or dry biscuit) – simply because I’m hungry right at this very moment!

Notes

I’m much happier with my performance this week, although there’s still plenty of room for improvement. Everything seems to be coming together, and I think I’ve finally devised a good study programme to fast-track my Russian over the coming weeks. Amongst the changes, I’ll be including more music and creative writing in future, which are aspects I really enjoy! It also seems that both my reading and listening have stepped up another notch recently, as I’m able to understand a lot more now when I watch Russian tv or listen to fast podcasts.