Posted in 2020, 3 Day Projects, Russian on 18 September, 2020| 2 Comments »
Conversation practice and vocabulary mining (travel; coronavirus; environment): 20 hours.
It’s been an absolute age since I last posted here, but I’m back baby! In just three days, I’ve learned close to 500 new Russian words and phrases, and my wife assures me that both my fluency and accuracy have simply skyrocketed.
Posted in 2019, 3 Day Projects, Russian on 26 October, 2019| 1 Comment »
Go through the next 300 words and phrases noted down during my trip to Russia: 8 hours.
I’m a proud dad again (my wife gave birth to a handsome baby boy)!! And given that my feet have barely touched the ground, nor my head enjoyed the gentle caress of a pillow since, fitting in this project marks a monumental achievement.
Posted in 2019, 3 Day Projects, Russian on 15 October, 2019| Leave a Comment »
Review 300 words and phrases taken down during my last trip to Russia (2016), including notes from iTalki lessons leading up to my visit: 5 hours.
Sifting through this eclectic bundle of scrap paper, words and phrases reignited happy memories. Vocabulary gleaned from my wife dealt primarily with shopping, while words from my father-in-law tended towards DIY, and my mother-in-law proved once again to be a boundless source of rare herbs, berries, and mushrooms (many of which I hadn’t the faintest clue how to translate into English without a helping hand from Wikipedia).
Posted in 2019, Flash Projects, Russian on 13 September, 2019| Leave a Comment »
source: pixabay.com (deedster)
Status: Partially achieved (first story completed, p. 131/326, 40%). Total time: 45h.
It’s Friday the 13th AND there’s a full moon gleaming back at me from the burnt crimson star-speckled sky. Could there be a more auspicious (or inauspicious) time to finish reading the first main macabre story in Ночной дозор?! …and is it me, or is that something hungry and unholy howling in the distance…a new language project, perhaps?…
According to a three-test moving average, I currently understand somewhere in the realm of 92-93% of all words I encounter in this novel, and have on occasion hit higher reading scores (note: dialogue is SOOO much easier than descriptive narrative). With a little help from my… ♫ Kindle Russian dictionary ♫ …this is enough to get the gist and enjoy the story while slurping tea and indulging in cupcakes to soothe my nerves.
I intend to finish the other two stories in the book, but for now, they can wait. There are much more pressing matters to attend to first, and besides, I was far too optimistic thinking I could complete all three stories in one go at my current level. This was meant to be a short-term project after all. So I’ll claim this as a partial win, but have no fear, the struggle between Day and Night isn’t over yet, and I’ll return to vanquish the remaining two stories another day. And as a little salve for my wishful ego, my wife informs me that the movie of the same name is only based on the first story anyway. *dab, dab; spin, spin* 🙂
Posted in 2019, Flash Projects, Russian on 2 August, 2019| 1 Comment »
Status: p. 65/326 (20%)
Flash update: After a total of 22 hours, I’ve scored my first 95% in a reading test using Ночной дозор!
Posted in 2019, Flash Projects, Russian on 1 August, 2019| Leave a Comment »
source: pixabay.com (klimkin)
Status: p. 60/326 (18%); 20h in July (11h study, 9h reading)
Starting this project afresh in July, I think I’ve already made significant progress…
My lexical coverage in Ночной дозор has rocketed from 82% to 92% within 20 hours, which is roughly half a working week. And my ability to second-guess new words in context has apparently transferred over to other materials and skills as well.
For instance, when I sat down to read random news articles in Russian, as well as several passages taken from a selection of novels and tv transcripts, I was able to correctly identify the meaning of many new words on my own and comfortably get the gist. Flicking through a couple of Red Kalinka graded readers I’d purchased years ago but never opened, formally described as written for B2 and C1 CEFR levels, I either hit or came close to understanding 100% of all the words in the passages I read (and I asked my wife to sit next to me and check, to be sure, as I read and translated aloud). Should I be able to do this already?
I also noticed on several occasions that my Russian listening comprehension has improved too, at least to the point where I can follow most of the dialogue in children’s cartoons. I know this doesn’t sound like much, but if you tasked me with watching these animations a month ago, a lot of the dialogue would have flown over my head or been swiftly relegated to background noise. Now words stand out more clearly and I can focus on piecing together what I know, rather than worrying about what I don’t understand.
And a final note on Ночной дозор… Much more lyrical and esoteric than first anticipated, this novel has been a real thorn in my side and has KO’d in the first round more creative language methods than I care to remember. My wife has told me to give up on it dozens of times and to pick something shorter or easier in its stead, which would of course have been the wisest course of action in this case. But my stubbornness has prevailed, and now I’m looking forward to where this infernal novel leads me, albeit slowly page by page, and am actually enjoying the overall reading process. I feel as though Goliath has finally met his David, or at least, Creed his tenacious Rocky!
Altogether, a productive 20 hours of Russian. 🙂
Posted in 2019, Flash Projects, German, Russian on 21 February, 2019| Leave a Comment »
source: pixabay.com (topi_pigula)
I flailed like a hapless beetle on its back through the first few unassisted chapters of “Ночной дозор” (ru), but glided blissfully through all the endearing chapters of “Das kleine Gespenst” (de). Oh what a joy it is to read German and encounter words like “der Wasserspiegel”! It has to be said that my wife has casually threatened to cast my copy of “Ночной дозор” into the twilight several times now, but I’m a somewhat stubborn creature when it comes to personal challenges. And given that she bought this book for me as part of a hardback trilogy many years ago, most likely with high hopes for my Russian, I feel sentimentally inclined to finish all three novels and stay this sacrilegious tome’s day of execution [edit].
93 hours [edit]
Russian: 37h (27h study, 10h reading)
German: 27h (22h study, 5h reading)
Miscellaneous: 29h
Posted in 2018, Flash Projects, German, Russian on 29 October, 2018| Leave a Comment »
source: pixabay.com (publicdomainpictures)
Weeks 13-14 (Oct 15-28)
– 2h study (ru)
Other issues (namely health) got in the way again. So this is me just touching base for now, harboring hopes for a more productive fortnight to follow.
Posted in 2018, Flash Projects, German, Russian on 14 October, 2018| 1 Comment »
source: pixabay.com (harutmovsisyan)
Week 11 (Oct 1-7)
– 26h study (24h ru, 1h de, 1h multilingual)
Having completed my first 50 hours of Russian since starting Green Flash Projects, I find that words and phrases are starting to fit into place and feel more natural than ever. It’s as though I’m beginning to develop a more intuitive feeling for Russian morphology, and as an encouraging consequence, fewer passages come across as impenetrably foreign at first sight. I first noticed this change on Tuesday, having put 6-7 hours into studying Russian the day before and then sleeping on it. I also woke up thinking in Russian following a similar amount of study on Thursday, which I don’t recall having ever happened before. I suspect there may be a magic number of hours per day, given the right combination of study and practice, that leads more noticeably to breakthroughs and quantum leaps in language development. For me, this number seems to be about 5-6 hours.
On a happy note of relief more than anything else, I finished reading and listening to the final book in the Рассказ trilogy (Рассказ-канонизация), and let me say that while I clearly made gains through the experience, the road to get there was far from royal. The story was tedious but forgivable given the challenging task of writing intermediate level material for second language learners. However the accompanying audio literally kept me wincing throughout the second half of the book, especially the narrator’s excruciating impersonations and scores of tone-deaf ditties throughout…sorry if that sounds harsh but I’m simply being honest.
Week 12 (Oct 8-14)
– 20h study (16h ru, 2h de, 2h multilingual)
This week started off much slower due to work and family commitments, but I’m enjoying the materials and process much more. I also usually wake with random Russian words moshing about in my head first thing in the morning or straight after a stolen siesta. Having just about made it through my contrived readers in one piece over the last month, I couldn’t wait to finally grab some native (or at least more natural) resources and let the healing process begin. For starters, I wolfed down all 33 Easy Russian videos to date, which turns out to be an excellent resource for everyday spoken vocabulary and expressions (super useful and something I’d like to revisit!) Then I turned my hand to tackling a fantasy novel that’s been taunting me from the bookshelf (and given me wedgies on multiple random reading tests) for years and whose time has finally come (yes, Ночной дозор – no more mocking my reading vocabulary levels – one of us is going down in this round and I don’t intend it to be me!)
Summary after 50 more hours of Russian (also added to ongoing Progress tracker):
Posted in 2018, Flash Projects, German, Russian on 26 September, 2018| Leave a Comment »
source: pixabay.com (steinchen) and ozon.ru with modification
Week 9 (Sep 17-23)
– 0h study
very ill (fever, meds, rest)
Week 10 (Sep 24-30)
– 4h study (ru)
Despite feeling like death warmed up, I watched an episode of Oрёл и решка, worked a bit on pronouncing hard л, and channeled my inner Elvis on the weekend and summoned up enough mojo to shodan flare-kick the second book in the Рассказ trilogy off stage. Just one more Guadeloupean misadventure left to go …
Travels with Teango 