Radioclare's 2020 log (Russian, Croatian)

[overscore]

Russian
I read a couple of chapters of 'Горе невинным' this evening. The main word I looked up was "ощущать" (to feel, but I'm not sure what the difference in meaning is between this and чувствовать, which is the verb I've learned for to feel before) .

Was looking into it, and I think I may have found the answer for you.

HJP kaže:

oćućívati – v. oćutjeti, ćutjeti"

i dalje:

ćútjeti – arh. jez. knjiž., v. osjećati


so like other words in Russian (mleko?) it came over from OCS and remains in a doublet, as i.e. gorod - grad.

[cjareck]

Polish is also similar here with "czuć" and "odczuwać"

[Radioclare]

Thanks both, that's really interesting to know

23 October
Today was probably my most productive day of the week, which is a bit strange for a Friday. It hasn't been the best of weeks though so I'm going to have to do some work tomorrow.

Russian
I made an attempt to clear some Memrise reviews before dinner. I haven't been very religious about doing them recently so I think I still have about 250 to go. I guess there's probably another 6WC starting soon so that might motivate me to spend more time on vocab.

Before bed I watched another episode of 'Татьянин день'. The hero has split up with Татьяна 2 and is back together with Татьяна 1, to whom he's just proposed. Татьяна 1 seems like she's going to say "yes", but she doesn't know that he's been two-timing her with Татьяна 2 (whereas Татьяна 2 does know that he was dating her simultaneously with Татьяна 1). Татьяна 2 is still pretending to be Татьяна 1's best friend, which is very two-faced of her because she would clearly do anything to steal her man off her. Personally I think they could both do better. But there are another 206 episodes to go so it will be a long time before any of them live happily ever after

Croatian
I watched another episode of 'Drugo ime ljubavi' while cycling

Total - Russian: 60 mins, Croatian: 45 mins

[Radioclare]

24 October
I did 3 or 4 hours of work this morning. It's amazing how much you can get done when you don't have people calling you and sending you emails. But working on a Saturday is not a good habit to get into.

Russian
I finished the section in Schaum's grammar about plurals, which ended with some examples of nouns which are always singular and nouns which are always plural. Sometimes these are obvious and sometimes they are not obvious at all. I then moved on to the next part of the chapter, which is going to work through each of the cases in turn. There was a nice section on the nominative (always the best case!) and then an introduction to the accusative case endings. I'd been studying for about an hour by the time I reached this point, so I stopped short of doing the accusative case exercises and will pick those up tomorrow.

This afternoon I wanted to relax and I spent nearly two hours reading 'Горе невинным'. I think this is quite a strange Agatha Christie because there isn't a detective character and I'm not really clear who is going to find out who the murderer is or how. The main word I looked up was "кочерга" (poker - this was the murder weapon).

Total - Russian: 167 mins

[Radioclare]

25 October
No work today. Went for a nice walk in a nearby town and then had a meal out.

Russian
Made some more progress with Schaum's grammar this morning. I did the exercises on the accusative endings for nouns, which were actually pretty easy, and then moved on to the genitive. I was tempted to stop after the section on the genitive singular, because I'd been studying for approximately 30 minutes at that point, but I knew that if I did there was no way I was going to pick up the book mid week to study the genitive plural So I pressed on through the genitive plural too. It's definitely a difficult topic, but every time I study it I feel like I learn a little bit more, so that's positive at least

I also did some more reading today and the good news is that I finished 'Горе невинным' Definitely not my favourite Agatha Christie novel but there were some good twists towards the end and I was way off with my guess of who the murderer was. I've read 5 actual books in Russian now and 31 'books' for the Super Challenge.

Total - Russian: 186 mins

[Daniel N.]

Croatian
I couldn't resist another episode of 'Drugo ime ljubavi' this evening.

At this point, do you ever hear a word in a series like Drugo ime ljubavi which confuses you, or you aren't sure what it means?

[Radioclare]

26 October
Today wasn't too bad for a Monday. I didn't have too many interruptions at work; I'm hoping this is going to be a quiet week at work because quite a few people are on holiday.

Russian
I spent a few minutes doing Memrise reviews before dinner, but not long enough to make much of a dent in them. Then I continued with the section in Schaum's grammar about the genitive. This part was about uses of the genitive, which doesn't feel particularly difficult because it's more or less the same as in Croatian. The challenge in Russian is getting the correct endings, particularly for the genitive plural, rather than identifying that the genitive is required. There are quite a lot of uses of the genitive though so I didn't get to the end of the section before I got bored and stopped. My tolerance for studying grammar is much lower on weeknights compared to weekend

Croatian
I watched another episode. This was a very exciting one actually with a big plot revelation

Total - Russian: 32 mins, Croatian: 45 mins

At this point, do you ever hear a word in a series like Drugo ime ljubavi which confuses you, or you aren't sure what it means?

Very rarely. If there's something I don't understand these days it's more likely to be something cultural, like I was very confused about what a "DVD" was in the previous series. I think it's partly because I've spent hundreds (thousands?) of hours of my life watching these series now, and partly because the series actually have quite a limited vocabulary. It also helps that the actors mostly speak clearly and without strong accents.

I still find a lot of words I don't know when I read though. I guess the standard of language is higher in novels than TV series

[Radioclare]

27 October
Today was wet. Very wet. I got absolutely soaked when I went for a walk at lunchtime.

Russian
Still revising the genitive. The main section I looked at this evening was about the partitive genitive, which is a particularly annoying part of Russian grammar because some nouns have different endings for this use of the genitive compared to the endings they take for all other uses of the genitive. This is one of those topics that I've mentally filed away in my list of things to worry about once my Russian is better than it is now I also did a few Memrise reviews, but again not very many.

Croatian
Maybe I should stop reporting on Croatian every day and you can just assume that I watched an episode of 'Drugo ime ljubavi'!

Total - Russian: 38 mins, Croatian: 51 mins

[Radioclare]

28 October
I had a productive morning and then it all seemed to go downhill. I spent most of my evening on Esperanto-related correspondence so I didn't do any proper studying.

Russian
I did 12 minutes of Memrise before dinner and succeeded in getting my outstanding reviews down below 300, which doesn't really feel like a huge achievement

It was a bit late before I got round to going on my exercise bike, so I decided I'd better combine exercise and Russian to save time, watching an episode of 'Татьянин день'. Татьяна 1 has got engaged to the lead male character, Сергей. Татьяна 2 is not very happy about this. Татьяна 1's mother is also not very happy about the fact that Татьяна 1 has just spent the night with him. Most of the other characters spent the episode drinking vodka and eating enormous gherkins.

Total - Russian: 59 mins

[Radioclare]

29 October
I spent most of today doing trainee interviews so I didn't get a whole lot of work done. I also didn't get to go out for a walk at lunchtime, which I hate.

Russian
I didn't do any proper studying last night, so today I was determined to do better. I attacked Schaum's Grammar again and I finally got to the end of all the different uses of the genitive. Yay! The next few pages of the textbook are exercises on the genitive and I've saved those to start working on tomorrow, because who wouldn't want to do Russian grammar exercises on a Friday evening

I also watched a Russian Progress video called "13 литературных выражений" but it wasn't a very useful one for me; it was filmed in a place with a lot of background noise and so I found I had to have the subtitles turned on to stand much chance of understanding anything.

Croatian
Remember how the other day I said I rarely find words in Croatian series which I don't already know? Well today I found a word in my Croatian series which I didn't know In the below clip, the first character starts by saying "Ja znam da situacija nije bajna" and I had to look up the word "bajan"



Total - Russian: 42 mins, Croatian: 44 mins