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Showing posts with label other languages. Show all posts
Showing posts with label other languages. Show all posts

Saturday, September 17, 2011

Too much food for the brain


So we took a good start with our Russian class. We have a new teacher this year which corresponds to a new style. She is a native speaker and we will talk talk talk this year. That's good. I think we are all ready for it. We have seen most of the basic grammar and vocabulary the previous years; the foundations have been laid and we can now start putting the acquired knowledge into practice.

There is a little nostalgia sometimes. Our previous teacher is teaching the first year Russian on the same evening in the classroom next to ours. So we peep into the classroom during the перерыв and remember the days where we were now learning the cyrillic alphabet. We started the first lessons with about 25 students. Only 9 of us persevered. Well done, classmates :-)

In the meantime, I am wondering whether I should quickly start learning some Spanish as I will be going to Bilbao next weekend. I think I will drop the idea. First of all, Bilbao is located in the Basque part of Spain and many people speak Euskera there, not Spanish. Next to that, I am in the middle of a lot of training at work: project management, activity based management and that sort of topics; quite different I know but there is a limit to how much new information someone can absorb. Can food for the brain also be overdone? Is there something as a Brain Mass Index?

Anyway, I decided that this weekend at least I will give my brains a little rest and instead will shamelessly 'hang out' with my little daughters - read: dress up as a princess or a witch (the latter being mostly my role), paint your face in all colours, watch 'Oggy and the cockroaches', 'Looney tunes' and other sorts of other crappy tv entertainment (and laugh like crazy), jump on the trampoline, colour Top model and Disney drawings,...


Friday, August 19, 2011

Deutsch Deutsch Deutsch - piece of cake

www.toonpool.com
If this were Twitter, I wouldn't have the feeling I had to add anything to the title (and could go to bed now).
But this is a blog, so a few words...

I'm completely immersed in German. Hausaufgaben jeden Abend... I have been preparing my second oral presentation tonight. Next week we also have our final exam already.


There are definitely pro's about this concentrated way of learning a language (every morning for three weeks). My level is improving at lightning speed. I already watched a few good movies in German last week and I started reading a detective in German yesterday, all very doable.

Of course, it helps that German is so similar to my Dutch and it turns out that once you have learned a language before (I learnt German during secondary school), you don't forget it - you just have to find it back in your memory somewhere and then upgrade it.

When I think about how I struggle with Russian sometimes, this German course is like a piece of cake. It gives my selfconfidence a boost :-)

(Maybe I shouldn't say this before I have succeeded in the exam... the bear and the skin, you know... which makes me decide to go to bed now so that I can study tomorrow morning... so: Gute Nacht!)

Saturday, August 6, 2011

Competition is tough, dear Russian

I had the intention to do some self-study Russian during my vacation. I have interesting material: another coursebook than the one we use (to compare), a course on CD (to improve my speaking skills), Russian easy reader books (to finally start reading a complete book in Russian; I would be utterly proud). But none of these plans materialised. Competition is tough. There was the Santa Montefiori novel during my holiday. And I did some other reading and dvd watching as well. You find the books and dvd's I enjoyed on my page I can recommend.... I am currently reading The Master and Margarita of Mikhail Bulgakov, very intriguing. And July is only about 4 weeks after all...
I love scanning covers...


My plans won't materialise in August either. Do you remember my flirting with the other language in February, when I prepared for the placement test of a German course? Well, the real cheating will start as of next Monday. For three weeks, I will have German classes every morning and the course ends with a test so I will really have to focus on German the coming weeks. Wish me good luck... (although, now that I am learning a language with 6 cases, I surely can handle one with only 4, right?)



Wednesday, March 2, 2011

The other language

Dear Russian,

I admit. I wasn't there for you for a while. I even have been flirting with another language: German is her name. Let me explain.
I'm working in an international environment and German is the third working language (after English and French). Therefore, I will do a summer course German at work in August. Last week, I had a placement test and yes, I prepared myself quite thoroughly for it: went through the whole grammar and some vocabulary. With good result: they put me in level 6 (the highest level): yihaa. Call me result-oriented. Anyway, if all goes well this summer, German will be covered in my internal curriculum at work.
In the meantime, now that the placement test is behind me, I'm all yours again.

Your beloved