| Last month | Last 3 months | All time | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Completed lessons | 0 | 0 | 7 |
| Attendance rate | 100% | 100% | 100% |
In case anyone remembers or cares: Late recap/update - "late" because the holidays were busy and extended to my birthday yesterday.
I finished both The Hobbit and the first book of Lord of the Rings/The Fellowship of the Rings. I made it halfway through The Two Towers and decided that was enough - as much because I don't like the English version as because this book was much more difficult to read in Russian than either of the other two.
Takeaways and observances: it was NOT IMPOSSIBLE though it was difficult. Using Learning with Texts made things easier but still far from simple. There were soooo many low-frequency words that I didn't feel like I got many "for free"; that is, there seemed to be lots of descriptors and nouns which showed up once or twice and then never again. This made even LWT less valuable than I hoped. Similarly, trying to use Anki or other SRS systems to grow my vocab for this project had less than anticipated success (except for verbs).
Was it worth the time and effort? Definitely.
Would I do it "again" if I could start over knowing what I know now? 50-50 chance as I enjoyed the challenge itself though not the actual result.
Do I feel I accomplished my goal? Technically no. However, I did read The Hobbit in its entirety which was not part of the original goal. So I finished 2.5 of the 3 book goal (if you substitute The Hobbit for Return of the King).
Is my Russian better than it was at the start? Obviously that's a yes - at least as far as reading skills go.
Do I plan another similar challenge in the forseeable future? Nope. But I will continue to work through LotR and finish both The Two Tower and The Return of the King.As a method of learning some grammar - 4 of a scale of 1-10.
As a method to increase vocabulary - 7.5.
Avg hours actually "reading" per day - 3
Avg hours learning/reviewing vocab or grammar per day - 3There. Done. Fini. End of story.
0 votedJanuary 9, 20190- Translation - from Google to real English... "to bake" - huh?
Here's a partial transcript of a YouTube video.
02:03 если посмотреть в интернете что пишут
02:07 люди о владивостоке на форумах то сразу
02:12 можно увидеть город этот очень
02:15 противоречивый кто-то его обожает печь
02:19 или очень любит кто-то его ненавидит то
02:22 есть очень очень не любит кто-то пишет
02:26 что отсюда все уезжают а другой человек
02:29 ему отвечает что это неправдаIn working out what this means in English, I got through most of it then went to check it against Google translates English translation....which came out:
02:03 if you look on the Internet that they write
02:07 people about Vladivostok on the forums immediately
02:12 you can see this very city
02:15 controversial someone loves him to bake
02:19 or someone really loves him hates something
02:22 there is very very much someone does not like writing
02:26 that everybody leaves here and the other person
02:29 he replies that this is not true
Okay. I got lost at 02:!5 "...to bake"???
I'm guessing that this whole thing works out to something along the lines of:
If you look around the Internet, you can see this city is very controversial. Someone will say he loves it or (and) someone else will say that he hates the city. Someone (else) will say that everyone leaves here and another person will reply that that's not true.The first part of the 02:22 line doesn't make "translation sense" to me.
A little help?
October 10, 201891 - There's no additional context. This was part of a discussion between 2 people that went over my head. I only caught about 50% of what was being discussed - how to speak and sound like a native was the general theme.. This part stood out. What I understood of it was: The gist of one side was the first could be literally translated but would be conversationally incorrect while the second MUST be directly translated but also might still be situationally (conversationally) incorrect. And I had no clue why either side said what he said. Like I said, over my head at the time I "listened in".0 votedOctober 1, 20180
After re-reading the last few posts of mine, I've decided to take a step away from this thread.
I've got more suggestions and thoughts from other people (both positive and negative) than I can process right now. So many that it's interfering with my motivation and analytic ability. Rather than thinking about what is going well with this project and how to improve on what isn't, I've found myself thinking about how to respond to something written here. That's simply not productive.
So, thanks to those who've contributed to the thread in any way. Some of the comments have been more helpful and motivating than you'll ever know, including some that seem hypercritical at first (second and even third) read.
I don't plan on updating or responding here for the foreseeable future as there certainly won't be anything to report on progress-wise until at least Oct 15 when I take another (direct) shot at it - though one path may be switching to reading The Hobbit by Xmas, first and then adjusting the end goal date for LotR (summer 2019 maybe?). See what I mean about other people's suggestions (possibly) interfering with progress in this project?
Anyway, stepping away now.
I'll try not to let the door hit me on the *** on my way out.
0 votedSeptember 24, 20180@Phil - one comment concerning your statement: The LotR reading goal is not realistic, and the completion date is ... would make as much sense to set that date as a goal for becoming a billionaire.
Um, yeah. Might seem that way. But, I don't think it's totally unrealistic. If I did, I wouldn't try it.
Secondly, the goal of completing by Xmas has zero to do with it being "the next major holiday". It's simply a date far enough off that it's "seeable" while not being too close to be totally unrealistic. Hell, I could have set the goal for Xmas 2020 - much more "reasonable" but far less challenging.I've spent a fair bit of time on just how to go about this. Starting with vocabulary based on Frequency Word Lists comes up repeatedly, and while I'm not convinced they're THE BEST way to go, it can't hurt to pursue. So, I added that to what I initially tried. As you point out, it might be useful to get a FWL from the text itself (LOTR-FWL). If it was that easy, believe me, I'd already have and be using a purpose-made LOTR-FWL. But I can't find an online/PDF/searchable version of the text in Russian, much less a FWL based on it. So, I'll have to type the entire text in myself, then figure out how to create that FWL - very time-consuming as I'm STILL only typing Cyrillic at ~20wpm.
0 votedSeptember 23, 20180
