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JUNE 2007 |
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Wednesday, June 27, 2007 |
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Wednesday,
June 20, 2007 |
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This is
too funny! It's easy to look like a Russian, but not so easy
speaking like one.
A friend of mine from Southern
Methodist University and his wife are Russian.
They just had twins a few weeks ago. With my new command of
Russian, I sent an email saying
.jpg) . What I
meant to ask was "How is your family?".
Russian has two letters
that have no sound themselves, but rather modify the letter before
them. They are the hard sign and the soft sign, and do just
that to the sound of the preceding letter.
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I can never tell
the difference in the pronunciation, but evidently they are very
important to the meaning of the word. What I should have written was
.jpg) . Notice that little
'b'-looking letter after the 'm' in the third word (meaning: family)? It is the soft sign, and I
missed it!
So what I actually wrote was "How is your
seed (semen)?". A fitting mistake, under this circumstance, but
NOT one you want to normally make ;) |
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Monday,
June 18, 2007 |
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The weirdness of being able to
better recall and pronounce a foreign language after sleeping, ...the same sort of thing
happens to me with crosswords.
I do crosswords two or three times
a day, during my constitutionals. I often have a few words that
I know I should know, but that evade me during that sitting.
Yet, when I return to the crossword the next time, the words (most of
them) are immediately there. |
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It's not like they were on my
conscious mind between sessions, the words nor even the clues, but
somewhere inside they were being processed. It's weird, and one
of the times I realize there's more than just me in here.
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Thursday,
June 14, 2007 |
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You know how you feel when she
says you can come inside? ...that's how I feel all the time now!
Not only am I in there making games, but these casual games are,
...well. No wrestling with technology, just pure game like
nature intended ;)
I'm so engaged
these days, I've dropped 30+ pounds. No kidding, ...226 lbs in January,
...193 lbs this week. I'm losing about a pound or two per week. No dieting, I'm just so
into what I'm doing that I don't even think about food.
As of last week, actually, I'm actively
trying to lose weight. I'm getting help from the Russians, too.
Listening to Russian women sing can be very, very motivating! |
Fabrika |
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Blestyaschie |
The ultimate right now is loading
up a game prototype in Blitzmax (really cool Basic-based programming
language) and cranking some Russian female pop music and Russian
rock-n-roll. I'm gone for at least 3-6 hours without a thought
of anything other than making games and fantasizing about, ...you
know, coming inside. I'm so
attracted to Russia. I don't know why, but the novelty isn't
wearing off. I'm heading back in September. I have to,
especially if I lose another 30 lbs ;)
I'm also taking private,
one-on-one tutoring at night to learn Russian. I'm learning
quite a bit in a short time. |
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I've tried night school at
university. I've tried multitudes of self-learning books and
CDs. Nothing sticks because there's nobody to talk to enough for
it to sink in completely.
Learning a language is strange.
It's paradoxically easy and difficult. I'm convinced we humans have innate
firmware dedicated to language,
probably due to it being so important to our social survival.
Yet, at the same time, there's nothing more difficult than learning a
new language. |
Via Gra |
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Total |
I have over 40 Russian DVDs and
watch them often. I'm amazed how the language sort of seeps in,
even if I'm not trying to understand. Not the grammatical rules and such, but hearing separate words and recognizing them
quickly. |
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On the other
hand, learning a new language (grammar, pronunciation, etc.) is so frustrating and
draining. It's more severe than an advanced physics class.
Getting your mouth just to say new words, even though you have them
completely memorized, can be especially exasperating. Last night I was practicing new expressions for a few hours. My
brain hurt and I even pounded the table a few times yelling "Just say
the fucking words!". I went to bed feeling defeated.
Then, this morning, when I practiced some more, it was as though the
words flowed out of my mouth. It makes me wonder what's going on
while I sleep ;) |
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Richard Bailey Gray Richard Gray
Frog |
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Last
Updated:
Wednesday, August 01, 2007 00:02 |
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