Thread: TORFL (Test of Russian as a Foreign Language)

I'm not a fan of Pimsleur myself, their method of repeating the words backwards is ridiculous and unhelpful. But I'd like to say that the Russian sentences Pimsleur uses are not " extremely unnatural". They are often awkward and sometimes very old-fashioned, but still understandable. It's not broken Russian, though they sound sometimes like something that a foreigner, who's very proficient, would say.

Originally Posted by gRomoZeka

But I'd like to say that the Russian sentences Pimsleur uses are not " extremely unnatural".

I meant that some sentences are. And in general, Russians don't speak the way they use in Pimsleur; and many Pimsleur situations are just strange, for example, "- My name is Elena. - Glad to meet you, Elena. Where would like to drink some vodka with me?"

Originally Posted by Оля

.. and many Pimsleur situations are just strange, ...

I agree, it sounds weird. Maybe this is an attempt at humour? Anyway it seems like a common flaw of all the textbooks and courses. I've yet to find a book where dialogs are absolutely natural. Alas.

Finally something that I agree with DDT on.

Pimsleur is simply too big to ignore - even if (as Olya says) there are some problems with it.

Actually it's more material than I said earlier - more like 50 hours in total.

I have already done part 1 and part 2 --- Silly or not, I will finish the course as a matter of principle.

I agree that some of the situations are a bit silly / unrealistic - but despite that -- it's really the largest course out there.. And like DDT, I haven't exactly bankrupted myself to buy this course either - so I can't complain about something I haven't paid for.

The Pimsleur repetition ad-infinitum actually works for me... I am definitely no more talented at language learning than the average Pimsleur user.

I am SO grateful to the people (olly and others somebody called "grogs" ) who worked on creating and correcting scripts for Pimsleur and put them on this site. I can't even explain how tremendously helpful that has been.

The big challengers to Pimsleur in the audio area are
1) The Michel Thomas course (the teacher is really good!) a British made course. Approx 6 hours, no book.

2) Assimil "La Russe sans peine" Supposedly VERY good - I haven't started it yet. However requires you to understand French to use the book. Approx 4 hours, plus a book.


I have tons of other material too... "EuroTalk", "Russisch bitte" and plenty more. Some is a bit dated, i.e. 1990s or earlier.... and some is rather dull...


Is anyone interested in doing a rundown of what material you have and what you liked / didn't like.. ?
(We could start a separate thread for that? )


Also: I don't mind sharing what I have assuming everybody tries to reciprocate...

Thanks so much for this post. I am currently studying in Russia right now and am preparing(well, have been preparing for the last 6 months really) for this exam. The plan was to try to take level 2 before I go home but it seems based on the info here that I need to take level one first. And here I thought I could save some money

Thanks again, especially for the PDFs. From the looks of it, aside from the speaking(it's slow going unfortunately) I could take level 2 and most likely pass. Darn my horrible stage fright!

Originally Posted by Kennedy

Thanks so much for this post. I am currently studying in Russia right now and am preparing(well, have been preparing for the last 6 months really) for this exam. The plan was to try to take level 2 before I go home but it seems based on the info here that I need to take level one first. And here I thought I could save some money

Thanks again, especially for the PDFs. From the looks of it, aside from the speaking(it's slow going unfortunately) I could take level 2 and most likely pass. Darn my horrible stage fright!

What materials are you using to study?

Originally Posted by fortheether

What materials are you using to study?

Specifically for the test? I already went though the full practice test for the first level - our teacher made us copies of it, and I just recently bought "тесты тесны тесты... II cертификационный уровень" which unfortunately is just for the grammar portion of the test which was why I was really relived to stumble upon this thread. There is also a book of verbs and words that one SHOULD know before taking the second level(they also have such books for each level)

But in addition to that:
Знаю и люблю русские глаголы
Shaum's outlines: Russian Grammar
Дорога в Россию 2
Русский язык - первые шаги(I did book 2, and am working on three at the moment)
Слово: пособие по лексике и разговорной практике
Let's Improve Our Russian!
and
изучаем русский язык, узнаем Россию(also working on that at the moment by myself)

Originally Posted by Kennedy

Знаю и люблю русские глаголы

Как мило.

Да. «Знаю» и «люблю» — русские глаголы.

First, let me introduce myself, my name is Tim and I live, well, I am between cities, despite my username. I have lived in Moscow and Kiev for three years or so...
Well- I came here looking for information on Russian films, and saw this post on the TORFL, which I happen to know a fair amount about.
You can download TORFL practice tests of every level here:
http://www.zlat.spb.ru/catalog5_12.html
I took level 2 around a year and a half ago, and am going for level three now; I used Living Language Russian Advanced (a bit of a misnomer, actually) to prepare for level 2, and it helped quite a bit.
At http://www.zlat.spb.ru in general you can find lots of useful materials.

Originally Posted by tim_in_kiev

First, let me introduce myself, my name is Tim and I live, well, I am between cities, despite my username. I have lived in Moscow and Kiev for three years or so...
Well- I came here looking for information on Russian films, and saw this post on the TORFL, which I happen to know a fair amount about.
You can download TORFL practice tests of every level here:
http://www.zlat.spb.ru/catalog5_12.html
I took level 2 around a year and a half ago, and am going for level three now; I used Living Language Russian Advanced (a bit of a misnomer, actually) to prepare for level 2, and it helped quite a bit.
At http://www.zlat.spb.ru in general you can find lots of useful materials.

Thank you Tim!

Scott

How do Russians pronounce TORFL and TRKI ?

I've never heard of such a test,anyway it's interesting. I don't wanna take it ,though,because although I speak fluent and without accent,I have some problems in writing Russian,therefore I'd better not.

On Uz Translations, (google it!) I found some practice exams.

Originally Posted by Hanna

On Uz Translations, (google it!) I found some practice exams.

Hanna,
That site is excellent! I don't see TORFL practice tests though - I only saw practice tests for English tests. Can you please post a link to what you are referring to?

Thank you,

Scott

Originally Posted by tim_in_kiev

First, let me introduce myself, my name is Tim and I live, well, I am between cities, despite my username. I have lived in Moscow and Kiev for three years or so...
Well- I came here looking for information on Russian films, and saw this post on the TORFL, which I happen to know a fair amount about.
You can download TORFL practice tests of every level here:
Учебные пособия по русскому языку как иностранному (
I took level 2 around a year and a half ago, and am going for level three now; I used Living Language Russian Advanced (a bit of a misnomer, actually) to prepare for level 2, and it helped quite a bit.
At Издательство Златоуст. in general you can find lots of useful materials.

К сожалению, я не могу найти тесты для скачивания с сайта Златоуста. Есть ли где-нибудь по интернете образцы таких тестов ТРКИ ?

Ну, вот я нашла некоторые ссылки с онлайн тестами, чтобы проверить уровень русского
Russian Test Online

@ Scott; yeah, you were right, I hadn't checked them properly when I made the post! Sorry, didn't see your comment until now.

@ lemoni; Great find!!! Thanks for sharing.

Does anyone know if there's a site listing testing centers worldwide? I did a few Google searches, but couldn't find much of anything. I live in Japan.

Originally Posted by tim_in_kiev

First, let me introduce myself, my name is Tim and I live, well, I am between cities, despite my username. I have lived in Moscow and Kiev for three years or so...
Well- I came here looking for information on Russian films, and saw this post on the TORFL, which I happen to know a fair amount about.
You can download TORFL practice tests of every level here:
Учебные пособия по русскому языку как иностранному (РКИ). Каталог. Издательство "Златоуст"
I took level 2 around a year and a half ago, and am going for level three now; I used Living Language Russian Advanced (a bit of a misnomer, actually) to prepare for level 2, and it helped quite a bit.
At Издательство Златоуст. Русский язык как иностранный (РКИ). Обучение русскому языку in general you can find lots of useful materials.

Has anyone seen any of the textbooks published by Zlatoust?
For instance
Учебные пособия по русскому языку как иностранному (РКИ). Каталог. Издательство "Златоуст"
Учебные пособия по русскому языку как иностранному (РКИ). Каталог. Издательство "Златоуст", or
Учебные пособия по русскому языку как иностранному (РКИ). Каталог. Издательство "Златоуст" ?

Are they any good?

Kurt