Member: amaranthic

well, it depends what I'm teaching. After 20 years, it can get a bit dull and depressing to be faced continuously with the same kind of mistakes. Teaching grammar, though, still gets me all excited! (How sad and nerdy is that! lol)

I would recommend it as a career: good way to see the world, meet interesting people. You could also combine it with teaching Chinese!

posted by tomcatMurr at 11:14 pm (EST) on Aug 21, 2009

English, business English, TOELF test preparation. Stuff like that.

posted by tomcatMurr at 12:54 am (EST) on Aug 20, 2009

oh yes, the old brit/yank problem. my students have terrible problems there as well.

Oblomov is a masterpiece, very wise and funny. I humbly recommend my review of it on my blog.

I must try to get the Dalkey Archive anthology and get familiar with contemporary Russian poetry.
I'm thoroughly enjoying your translations from the Chinese. I'd forgotten how much beauty there is in Tang dynasty poetry.

posted by tomcatMurr at 10:50 pm (EST) on Aug 19, 2009

oh jolly good!

I just realised a made a terrible mistake . The Pushkin biography I recommended to you is not by A.S. Byatt, but T.J Binyon. (Byatt, Binyon, easy mistake really....)

posted by tomcatMurr at 10:20 pm (EST) on Aug 19, 2009

Yes, I don't recommend trying to learn two languages at the same time - I did that in high school - I actually had Russian immediately followed by German, which was quite confusing sometimes.

Unfortunately, I am useless as far as recommendations for Russian language resources go. I actually learned it through summer immersion camp as a teenager and then took it in high school and college, but I haven't done a thing with it in nearly 15 years!

posted by fannyprice at 1:05 am (EST) on Aug 18, 2009

I just found your Arabic learning blog - how fun. Reading your translations of the al-Kitaab passages brings back bad memories of Khalid and Maha! Best of luck with your language studies.

posted by fannyprice at 9:51 pm (EST) on Aug 17, 2009

Yes, I'm delighted to! (sorry for my late reply: I haven't had time to sit down and think about this until now)

Early 19c
Fiction
Lerrmontov: A Hero of our Time
Pushkin: Tales of Belkin
Gogol: Petersburg Tales

Poetry
Pushkin: Collected Poems

Mid 19c
Fiction
Dostoevsky: Poor Folk
Dostoevsky: Notes from the House of the Dead
Tolstoy: The Cossacks
Gogol: Dead Souls
Turgenev: Fathers and Sons
Goncharov: Oblomov

Poetry
(there was a dearth of poetry in the mid and late 19c, so nothing here)

Late 19c
Fiction
Tolstoy: Anna Karenina
Tolstoy: War and Peace
Dostoevsky: Brothers Karamazov
Chekhov: Tales and Stories

Silver Age
Fiction
Bely: Petersburg

Poetry:
(great age of Russian poetry)
Pasternak: Collected Poems
Akhmatova:Collected Poems
Alexander Blok:Collected Poems
Tsvetayeva: Collected Poems

Soviet Period
Fiction
Solzhenitsyn: One Day in the life of Ivan Denisovitch
Solzhenitsyn: The First Circle
Bulgakov: Master and Margarita (please do join our group read at the salon in September!)
Pasternak: Doctor Zhivago

Poetry:
Brodsky: Collected Poems

Post Soviet Period
Fiction:
Victor Pellevin: Homo Zapiens
Tatyana Tolstoya: On the Golden Porch

Poetry
(i'm not so familiar with contemporary Russian poetry)

A useful general history of Russia and her culture is Billington's The Icon and the Axe, one of the best books on anything ever.

A.S. Byatt's biography is a very good introduction to Pushkin and his age, ditto Mochulsky's Bio of Dostoevsky. Nadeshda Mandelstam's bio of her husband Hope against Hope is a brilliant and moving account of life under Stalin. I also recommend Volkov's book Testimony, a highly controversial account of the life of Schostakovich.

Enjoy!
Murr

posted by tomcatMurr at 9:57 am (EST) on Aug 17, 2009

I think the typhoon will be over by next week. It's already starting to move away, and the weather is lifting in Taipei. I think your trip should be ok.

I love Taiwan! of course it's a bit of a love/hate relationship, and not always easy, but basically, I thoroughly enjoy living here, and feel at home. I currently live in the south of Taipei near NTU. There are a handful of foreigners, but really not many, not compared to Bangkok or Singapore. When I first got here, I could go for weeks without seeing a foreigner, now there are more and more, also more tourists.

So which Dostoevsky did you read? Im looking forward to seeing the rest of your library when you get it entered!
Murr

posted by tomcatMurr at 11:05 pm (EST) on Aug 9, 2009

I am goaded by curiosity to enquire: Are you Chinese? ABC? BBC? CBC? OR a Chinese major/teacher..?

I have lived in Taiwan for the last 11 years. I speak Chinese at intermediate level. I did learn reading and writing, but the memory load was just simply too much for me, and I have now forgotten the characters I learnt.

Welcome to the Salon!
Best wishes,
Murr

posted by tomcatMurr at 9:31 pm (EST) on Aug 9, 2009