Okay, my progress in Russian. And further down, a couple of cool anecdotes. It's been going really well. Incredibly well, I think; I'm quite proud of my recent progress. I'm soon entering my third...
Okay, my progress in Russian. And further down, a couple of cool anecdotes.
It's been going really well. Incredibly well, I think; I'm quite proud of my recent progress. I'm soon entering my third month.
I took a short 2 week break from Duolingo (just keeping the streak up), went back to it and everything seemed a lot easier than last time. I finished Unit 3 in Legendary, I just have Unit 4 to complete the full course.
I also restarted a tiny bit of Drops and, same here, everything is just easier. I think these apps are a cool way to gauge progress, when taking breaks from them -- of course it's a problem that they all encourage streaks, then...
I picked up Pokemon Go, and I'm playing it in Russian. I'm a little addicted to the game. This is what I needed: Something fun, that gets me walking (exercising - I've been gaining weight lately!), and improving my Russian at the same time.
I've started watching Let's Play series in Russian - One I'm particularly fond of playing Inscryption is called ViteC. It's difficult to say what I like about him just yet as I haven't watched much of him but he has a strong variety of content, seems to like some interesting games, and he has recent videos. The recency part matters because I have noticed a SIGNIFICANT difference in the quality of youtube autocaptioning in Russian over the years.
I can definitely say that very casual video game streamer Russian is too far beyond my level to truly follow. It's not even level+1, it's well ahead. So I still have work to do. BUT, this is content I can actually be interested in. Really, I still haven't even opened the interlinear books I bought. I don't know what's up with my interest in books ...
Aside from that, a friend of mine has put me in touch with a newly-arrived Ukrainian refugee, who's been feeling lost in Brussels. We've been in contact in a Russian-only Telegram chat and we were going to meet up last weekend - we had to reschedule. I'm kind of nervous, because this is the first time I'll be using my newly-acquired skill in a completely "unsafe" context. Training wheels are off, eh...
Okay, I've been meaning to share this story (and @0d_billie kind of made me promise).
One of the several people who have been core to my motivation to learn the language is my ex's sister. We meet regularly for IT lessons, and in return she helps me learn a bit of Russian. Due to life getting in the way, we met for the first time in 2-3 weeks a few days ago. And she started speaking to me a little in Russian, slowly and pedagogically as she usually did... for a few minutes, but she saw I was able to follow much better than before, and at some point she just switched to her normal native speed.
Folks, I get all emotional telling this story: The LIGHT in her eyes and the smile on her face when she realized I could keep up, and that we kind of "unlocked" each other beyond her limitations in English. It's such an exceptional feeling, to find "once more" someone you already know. To suddenly be able to communicate more of yourself to them. I know, because I've been on the other side of that coin with my Greek cousin when he himself learned English (yeah, my Greek is limited) and we suddenly rediscovered each-other.
That's so sweet! It truly is a magical feeling to be able to communicate with someone on their terf, after a long time of it having been on your own. I had a similar experience with a French...
That's so sweet! It truly is a magical feeling to be able to communicate with someone on their terf, after a long time of it having been on your own. I had a similar experience with a French friend in Japan. We'd spoken lots of English and Japanese together, but when I switched to French he was visibly thrilled.
I'm sure your friend will have been super happy to see your progress, and real-world proof for yourself like that is the best feedback available imo :D
I'm trying to learn Tagalog, which isn't an available course on Duolingo, and I recently got fed up with Drops and started looking for alternatives. The biggest annoyance for me is that Drops...
I'm trying to learn Tagalog, which isn't an available course on Duolingo, and I recently got fed up with Drops and started looking for alternatives. The biggest annoyance for me is that Drops doesn't give itself time to finish long phrases: The text disappears before the app is done reading it aloud, and sometimes it even starts reading a second phrase before finishing the first. But also I miss the way Duolingo teaches you words by using the same word in several different phrases, instead of just the single phrase that Drops endlessly repeats.
After doing some research online, and looking at screenshots and user reviews, I ended up installing Mondly. It has more in common with Duolingo than with Drops, and so far I quite like it. Interestingly, it allows me to use my native Norwegian for any language course it offers, which actually has me slightly worried. Most apps that are available in Norwegian have the feel of being machine translated, which would probably be disastrous for a language-learning app. I haven't really noticed anything strange about its translations yet, but I haven't got to the advanced lessons yet.
Okay, my progress in Russian. And further down, a couple of cool anecdotes.
It's been going really well. Incredibly well, I think; I'm quite proud of my recent progress. I'm soon entering my third month.
I took a short 2 week break from Duolingo (just keeping the streak up), went back to it and everything seemed a lot easier than last time. I finished Unit 3 in Legendary, I just have Unit 4 to complete the full course.
I also restarted a tiny bit of Drops and, same here, everything is just easier. I think these apps are a cool way to gauge progress, when taking breaks from them -- of course it's a problem that they all encourage streaks, then...
I picked up Pokemon Go, and I'm playing it in Russian. I'm a little addicted to the game. This is what I needed: Something fun, that gets me walking (exercising - I've been gaining weight lately!), and improving my Russian at the same time.
I've started watching Let's Play series in Russian - One I'm particularly fond of playing Inscryption is called ViteC. It's difficult to say what I like about him just yet as I haven't watched much of him but he has a strong variety of content, seems to like some interesting games, and he has recent videos. The recency part matters because I have noticed a SIGNIFICANT difference in the quality of youtube autocaptioning in Russian over the years.
I can definitely say that very casual video game streamer Russian is too far beyond my level to truly follow. It's not even level+1, it's well ahead. So I still have work to do. BUT, this is content I can actually be interested in. Really, I still haven't even opened the interlinear books I bought. I don't know what's up with my interest in books ...
Aside from that, a friend of mine has put me in touch with a newly-arrived Ukrainian refugee, who's been feeling lost in Brussels. We've been in contact in a Russian-only Telegram chat and we were going to meet up last weekend - we had to reschedule. I'm kind of nervous, because this is the first time I'll be using my newly-acquired skill in a completely "unsafe" context. Training wheels are off, eh...
Okay, I've been meaning to share this story (and @0d_billie kind of made me promise).
One of the several people who have been core to my motivation to learn the language is my ex's sister. We meet regularly for IT lessons, and in return she helps me learn a bit of Russian. Due to life getting in the way, we met for the first time in 2-3 weeks a few days ago. And she started speaking to me a little in Russian, slowly and pedagogically as she usually did... for a few minutes, but she saw I was able to follow much better than before, and at some point she just switched to her normal native speed.
Folks, I get all emotional telling this story: The LIGHT in her eyes and the smile on her face when she realized I could keep up, and that we kind of "unlocked" each other beyond her limitations in English. It's such an exceptional feeling, to find "once more" someone you already know. To suddenly be able to communicate more of yourself to them. I know, because I've been on the other side of that coin with my Greek cousin when he himself learned English (yeah, my Greek is limited) and we suddenly rediscovered each-other.
This is the shit I live for.
Languages are fucking awesome.
That's so sweet! It truly is a magical feeling to be able to communicate with someone on their terf, after a long time of it having been on your own. I had a similar experience with a French friend in Japan. We'd spoken lots of English and Japanese together, but when I switched to French he was visibly thrilled.
I'm sure your friend will have been super happy to see your progress, and real-world proof for yourself like that is the best feedback available imo :D
I'm trying to learn Tagalog, which isn't an available course on Duolingo, and I recently got fed up with Drops and started looking for alternatives. The biggest annoyance for me is that Drops doesn't give itself time to finish long phrases: The text disappears before the app is done reading it aloud, and sometimes it even starts reading a second phrase before finishing the first. But also I miss the way Duolingo teaches you words by using the same word in several different phrases, instead of just the single phrase that Drops endlessly repeats.
After doing some research online, and looking at screenshots and user reviews, I ended up installing Mondly. It has more in common with Duolingo than with Drops, and so far I quite like it. Interestingly, it allows me to use my native Norwegian for any language course it offers, which actually has me slightly worried. Most apps that are available in Norwegian have the feel of being machine translated, which would probably be disastrous for a language-learning app. I haven't really noticed anything strange about its translations yet, but I haven't got to the advanced lessons yet.