whats next?

I'm still in high school, and I've been teaching myself russian for 4 or 5 months now.I'm pretty far along, I had both the cyrillic print and script down within the first week I started learning. I take art classes at the university here in town and i met a girl who was majoring in russian, she gave me a few lessons but has transfered to another school out of state. I was wondering if maybe I should try some immersion camps or something like that. Concordia Univ. in Minn. has these "language villiages" http://www.cord.edu/dept/clv/russian/index.html There are no russian speakers, schools or anything I could go to around here. What would be the best thing for me to do?[/i]

I was looking into the exact same immersion camps when I lived in Minnesota..until I saw the price it was to go to them. I don't really think it's a fair cost if you don't have formal lessons even to begin with. But, if you have the money, go for it. I really get what you're going through, I'm in high school too (it's worse for me because there aren't any Russians in my school) and learning Russian on my own is a lot harder than I thought. What you could look into are a.) possibly private lessons or b.) community lessons.

BTW: Is it really possible to major in Russian? I see on most college websites that you can only minor in it, but you can major in Russian Literature or something like that.

Try finding a Russian penpal who will be willing to correct your letters. It helped me immensely. If you'll notice, on this board I was writing stories(I lost interest) and having people correct them, which also helps. Basically the best way to improve a skill is to use it often. So use your Russian as often as you can. Go beyond your limits - try writing a paragraph or a letter even if it becomes very difficult.

Yeah, she was majoring in russian studies or something like that, I cant remember exactly.I think she even did exchange in high school. The prices definitely are killers, I threw that out there to see if anyone knew of something similar...only cheaper :D
There arent any russian speakers around here either, I know of a russian orthodox church in dallas, but I doubt they would take too kindly to me bursting in on liturgy and asking for lessons hehehehe.
Pravit, I try to use my russian as much as possible, my friends are constantly telling me to "quit making stuff up". :wink: I guess I'll begin hunting down some pen pals then. Can anyone offer any suggestions for a good study course? Or anything like that camp in minnesota? :D thankya

Ok...I do know of something like the immersion camps but before I go on I'm warning everyone that it is affiliated with Christianity (last time I broght up something about God everyone got in a hissy).
It's called the Russian Language Ministries. It is a year long course (split into two semesters) The first semester is intensive language learning. The second semester is living in a house (it's a nice house) with others in the program...no english allowed.

http://www.russianlanguage.org/rlm1st.htm

:o $4,500?? It gives more than an immersion camp at least. Tambakis, what grade are you in? I'm in eleventh and it's way too late for me to ever do things like that..All I can do now is wait until college to take classes. They have Russian Houses (I think vbouldr mentioned something like that) in many large colleges, so you can look into that if you're getting close to going to college.

When you've got most of the grammar down and a good amount of vocabulary, try http://www.bbc.co.uk/russian/ or other Russian news sites. At the site I mentioned above you can listen to their news broadcasts online as well. If you want to find a penpal, you can try http://www.penpal.net
I don't know of any immersion camps, sorry, though that sounds like fun. Good luck. By the way, how old are you?

yeah I tried penpal.net a while back...no one ever answers :( *tear* for all that asked, I'm a sophomore, so i'm 15. I've been looking into all this for a while now, I have some time left before college I guess not much, but some. I'm already planning a trip to Russia and the balkans with my three cousins once I'm finally in college. I'd like to be pretty fluent by then.We'll just hafta see how that goes.

has anyone heard the taty "north" (whatever that means) interview ? i downloaded it like 7 months ago, and understood like 2 words. I listend to it again yesterday, and was sorely disapointed. I understood, about 3 words. it's like one big achashlakishtufgunaksas. I want to know if there are any other people (pravit) who have tought themselves russian (pravit) who i can send it to, and i'm wondering if they can understand more than me. it's only like 1 min and 50 seconds. ok, i don't only understnad like 3 words. but, not much =(. all i hear is like "we recorded some stuff in germany" and the guy says "was it in german language?" and i don't know what they say, but one of them jokes that "probably people in germany are deaf" and then they say they recorded some stuff in english in america, but the rest of the interview is just like they are speaking ukrainian. which is quite a crushing blow, because i thought my i really thought i was making progress.

I too am planning a trip to russia, in 1 year, (hopefulyl will be spending new years in moscow !) But, im afraid, my russkiy skillz are just too crappy.

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Originally Posted by Dogboy182

it's like one big achashlakishtufgunaksas.

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Could you send it to kislov2000@mail.ru ?)

Hey, hey, what about me? Where did you find the interview?

да да конечно, я пошлю всем, если вы попросите. просто, покажи ваши email. Я не помню точно где его взял, думаю от мужика из Austrailia.
Make sure that your email isn't full, because the file is some 1:52 long And it wont let me convert it to MP3, so it's WMA :? .

Like, i said, i'll send it to whoeer wants it, but i would prefer input from people who are learning russian as a second (3rd whatevetr) language. i want to see where i stand with the big boys.

I think that i shall type out the entire interview, and fill in the things i understand. It would be nice if i could eventually get a russian to type the whole thing =), theres probly alot of vocab for me to learn...

[quote="Dogboy182"]да да конечно, я пошлю всем, если вы попросите. просто, покажи ваши email. Я не помню точно где его взял, думаю от мужика из Austrailia.
[quote]

Да, да, конечно, я пошлю всем, кто попросит. Просто дайте ваши email'ы ( usually people call e-mail мыло - email sounds like мыло :-)) )

Я не помню точно где его взял, по-моему у мужика из Австралии.

Another thing; isn't it 'не помню точно откуда я его взял'?

Key~

I will make one line = 5 words. for example if the sentence was "wow, we are taty, we are so cool" i would write

wow we are taty we
are so cool.

For every word i don't understand, it will be represented by "____" so, if i didn't know the word taty, the above would be.

wow we are ____ we
are so cool.

if there is a word i think i know, but i'm not sure, i will surround them with ( ).

*Note sometimes for me it is hard to tell where words even begin and end :o so the lines might not exaclty line up*


ok, im going to start now. And, when im done i'll email it.

(мама) ____ (послухачка) на телефоне,
хело? Аллё это (алай) а дела.
(нас дала лево) так (триса)
я ____ _____ ____ же
____ _____ (туда) ____ англи(something)
____ _____ правда? да да
мы, _____ _____ ____ _____
в америку ____ _____ вернулась
там записываем, перепиваем наш албом
двести по встречной на английском
За ____ ____ там. как живут
____ _____ подруг _____ алекси
____ _____ _____ _____ _____ (- Я тут даже не стараюсь, он слишком быстрая)
____ _____ тот (пeриница) ____
__________________________ Skip all the way till he says
(нас не дегонят) немецку это
правда ? А в германе тоже.
да да в германи мы записали
припев "нас не дегонят" на немецком. <---(No, really you think?)
ок ок, (сексу) наше не ____ _____
положит(ена?), глухой может быть.
И ещё ____ народ плохо.
Женщини ____ ____ ____ ____
____ _____ _____ _____ _____.
Токой ____ была ___ я (сам)
____ бугал, или это неправда ?
бугал но спать (мне) надо. (i can't tell if it's мне or не)
___ (пора) _____ ____ ____
(руким) ____ ____ вообшем ____
(вставай) ___ ____ ___ (хочу).
Ой, сложный вопрос____
*they are both taking at the same time here, no idea*
*then the guy talks, and again no idea*
ну что, вам (пожилаем) ____ (даче)
(громный) ____ ____ ____
да нам не очень понравились.
вам ____ ____ (клоуны).

After this, one of the chicks starts talking and i can only pick out a few words, nothing worth typing. Then it's done!

This is like part 2, of 5 parts. so it's not the whole thing.
This is as good as i can do, so be kind! Please, if i send it to you, i don't really want an english translation... just, if u can find the time, sometime, the text in russian would be great! thanks alot.

Quote:

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помню точно откуда я его взял'?

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I think you can say both. But i know i have heard Где взял. Anyways, in english you wouldn't say "From where did you get that?" (unless you're british). It would sound much better to say just "where did you get that".[/quote]

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Jasper May

Another thing; isn't it 'не помню точно откуда я его взял'?

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Yeah, quite right :-)
не помню точно откуда я это взял ;
не помню точо где я это откопал ; копать - to dig ;
Put stress in the last word on the letter a .

It's better to say 'Where did you get that from?', though. Even Americans use that construction, surely. But because Russian can't have prepositions at the end of a sentence (clause, whatever), you can't say 'где я это взял от', so you say откуда blabla.

I'd like to have a crack at it, Dogboy, you know my email addy and I've cleared up some old crap, so there should be room. I haven't really had that much exposure to spoken Russian so my listening comprehension is kind of bad, but it is getting better. Do you speak Russian often with your friends at school?

yea, im exposed to russian just about everyday. Usually i don't speak it, because i'm too shy, but have to listen to them everyday in school, and sometimes, if i go to a friends house after school.

Pravit, after you listen to it, look at the stuff i typed, tell me if you pick up just as much as i did. I remember last year, you said u were listening to BBC Russia, and you understood almost everyword he said ! Sounds like good times :?

Cool, thanks for the answers dimon =P. I do think i might have one correction though! in the part where she says

he asks how they though about "sex" in germany, and she says "Положительное..." you wote "какое оно может быть". Now, i am by far no expert in russian, so theres every chance i could be wrong, but i swear she says "Глухой". Because, he says like "How do they think abotu sex in germany?" and she prelies "positive, maybe they are deaf people?" (That's why they don't care, they are deaf =) ) I just thought it might be worth a second listen ? ok, everything else is great though, thanks !