24 December - 26 December Christmas! Obviously a slightly strange one this year. I normally celebrate with my family on Christmas Eve but that wasn't permitted under the new government regulations, so I saw them on Christmas Day instead which was really lovely. With the exception of seeing them briefly at a funeral in November, I hadn't seen them properly since August because the city they live in has been under tight restrictions all autumn. It was nice to have one day that almost felt normal
Russian I've just about managed to fit in 30 minutes of Russian per day over Christmas. I've been progressing through Chapter 4 of Schaums' Grammar, which is much more extensive than I initially expected when I saw that it was the chapter on pronouns. On Christmas Eve I practised the declensions of тот and этот. Yesterday I studied a section about indeclinable это and today's topic was the declension of сам.
I got lots and lots of books for Christmas, including a big pile in Russian so I definitely have more than enough material to get me to the end of my Super Challenge now. I think I'm going to have to find a way to devote more time to reading in 2021!
27 December Today was lovely and sunny and I went for a long walk in the countryside which resulted in me getting absolutely covered in mud and having to put my trousers in the washing machine as soon as I got home
Russian Once I'd cleaned up and had a late lunch, I tackled Schaum's Grammar again. The sections I studied today covered the declension of самый, which isn't very hard and весь, which seems harder and on which I didn't get the exercises 100% correct.
Total - Russian: 40 mins
I've forgotten to log my time but I'm also reading in German at the moment, 'Die Herren von Winterfell', which is the first part of the Game of Thrones series. I'm about 140 pages, so I guess I've spent a couple of hours reading in German over the past few days.
28 December It was colder today so I stuck to walking on pavements and on my new treadmill which I got for Christmas (exciting!). Played video games, read more Game of Thrones in German (which I forgot to log) and generally tried not to think about the fact that this is the first time since 2007 that I haven't been abroad between Christmas and New Year.
Russian Still working my way through chapter 4 of Schaum's Grammar. The theme of today was relative pronouns. The book presented these case by case, with a short exercise to complete on each case. I was only going to tackle half the cases initially, but then found the first three pretty easy so decided to finish the lot. I don't find relative pronouns a particularly difficult point of grammar, so I scored quite highly on the exercises.
Croatian I watched an episode of 'Drugo ime ljubavi' while trying out my treadmill. Plenty of drama as usual; we've just had the second serious car crash of the series. This one is more of a hit and run...
...as opposed to the first car crash, which was a proper full-on collision.
Languages: English (N), French (C1-ish), German (B2/C1-ish), Russian (B1-ish), Portuguese (B1-ish), Welsh (complete beginner), Spanish (in hibernation) (All levels estimates and given as a guide only)
I really wish Schaum's grammar had better quality paper so I could scribble in the book itself - that's my excuse for not having started going through it systematically yet...
Impressive that someone managed to source you a treadmill!
Caromarlyse wrote:I really wish Schaum's grammar had better quality paper so I could scribble in the book itself - that's my excuse for not having started going through it systematically yet...
Impressive that someone managed to source you a treadmill!
Agreed, the paper in Schaum's is really not very good! I've made various attempts to dip in and out of it over the years, but found it a bit overwhelming because there's just so much detail. I'm doing better now I'm going through it systematically, though it feels like it's taking me forever.
And yes, very impressed by the treadmill - seems they're like gold dust this year
29 and 30 December Interestingly, being on holiday hasn't resulted in me studying more Russian than when I was at work. I think this is mainly because 30 minutes is actually close to my limit for focussing on studying grammar anyway. Theoretically I could have studied for longer today and yesterday, but if I had I'm not sure I would have taken much more information in.
Russian The end of chapter 4 of Schaum's grammar is in sight! I think I might finish it tomorrow and be able to start a new chapter in 2021. For the past couple of days I've worked through sections on кто and что as relative pronouns and on the difference between words like что-то and что-нибудь to mean something, anything etc. The latter point is one I've struggled with in the past but Schaum actually explained it quite well, so I didn't do too badly in the exercises. Whether I manage to retain this new-found knowledge in the long-term is another question; sometime I feel like Russian grammar is just going in one ear and out the other!
31 December I did a lot of reading in German yesterday, getting through the 545 pages of 'Die Herren von Winterfell' in five days. So today I've been mainly reading in English as a change.
Russian I got to the end of chapter 4 of Schaum's Grammar. The final sections were about negative pronouns like никто and ничто, as well as некого and нечего. I find the latter more difficult to get my head round, I guess because there isn't anything comparable in Croatian.
Croatian Watched another episode of Drugo ime ljubavi. One of the baddies seems close to getting her comeuppance, which is satisfying to see.
2020 summary post Wow, 2020 is finally over. It has been a strange year to say the least, and not at all what any of us expected on 1 January. In many ways it feels like a year of disappointments, a year defined by the things that didn't happen. The places we didn't go, the people we didn't see, the things we didn't do. There were times when I found myself wishing the year away, wanting to fast forward to 2021 when I hoped that everything would be fixed again. But 12 months are a long time and it's impossible for a year to be all bad. For the past few years I have kept a quarterly list of good things that have happened to remind me of this. The main highlight of 2020 has been paying off my mortgage, 24 years ahead of schedule. I also got promoted at work, which I'm trying to see as a positive even if it doesn't always feel like it.
On the languages front, I think I've done quite well against the goals I set at the beginning of the year.
Radioclare wrote:I really want to try to keep up the consistency of language study which I somehow managed during 2019. I've signed up to the 2020 365 challenge with "generic", because I want to continue to study for 30 minutes per day, but I don't want my focus to be exclusively on Russian.
The consistency has definitely been a success. I've studied at least 30 minutes of Russian every day in 2020 (as well as every day in 2019, so my streak is technically 30 minutes for 731 days now). In total I studied Russian for 333 hours this year. The day with the most study was 2 June, when I managed to rack up 209 minutes (we were still in lockdown and I had a week off work). There were 20 days on which I only did the bare minimum of 30 minutes of study.
It wasn't actually my intention to study 30 minutes of Russian every day for the entire year, which is why I initially signed up to the challenge with "generic". I planned to break my Russian streak at some point in the spring/summer and give more weight to Croatian, before a planned two weeks of travel in Croatia/Montenegro/Albania in September. But yeah, obviously that didn't happen, so I ended up sticking with Russian as my primary focus.
That said, I do want to try and maintain the momentum which I've had with Russian during 2019. Specifically, I want to feel by the end of 2020 that I have a better grip on Russian grammar. I still have a pile of courses which I want to work through. My initial plan is to finish Penguin Russian, which I'm currently partway through (chapter 19). I haven't made a firm decision about what to do next, but I have a German-language version of Russian Assimil which I'm considering going back to (I completed the passive wave a couple of years back, but was totally out of my depth with the active wave. I'm hoping that I've improved enough to be able to manage the active wave now). I also have Colloquial Russian 2 and some new B1 textbooks that I got for Christmas. Plus I would like to finish the RT online Russian lessons, because I think they're a really cool resource.
Russian grammar continues to be slippery and I don't feel like I have a better grip on it
I was pretty successful with the courses though. I finished Penguin Russian during the first few weeks of lockdown in March and psychologically it felt like a big achievement for me, because it was a textbook I had bought during a previous attempt at learning Russian back in 2011. I tried Assimil for a while, before ultimately coming to terms with the fact that it's just not for me. I tackled Colloquial Russian 2 instead and really enjoyed the earlier chapters, although I ended up feeling way out of my depth by the end. I never did get on to the B1 textbooks so those will have to be a 2021 goal. I decided to use Schaum's Grammar instead for more practice and I'm currently less than halfway through that. I did also finish all the RT online Russian lessons in May and felt like I got a lot out of them
Overall I do seem to have spent a significant amount of my time this year on textbooks and grammar. 6 hours on Assimil, 44 hours on Colloquial Russian 2, 27 hours on Penguin Russian, 23 hours on the RT lessons and 30 hours on Schaum's Grammar.
I don't want to be completely obsessed with completing Russian courses though, so I think this needs to be the year I start trying to read in Russian. I have a small pile of books which I hope to at least start tackling this year. If the Super Challenge starts running again in May, I might sign up with Russian to give me the motivation to get started with this.
Well, I have indeed starting reading in Russian. So far I have read the following books:
1. После похорон (After the funeral) by Agatha Christie (320 pages) 2. Свидание со смертью (Appointment with death) by Agatha Christie (288 pages) 3. Сумерки (Twilight) by Stephanie Meyer (447 pages) 4. Новолуние (New Moon) by Stephanie Meyer (543 pages) 5. Горе невинным (Ordeal by innocence) by Agatha Christie (349 pages)
In total that is 1,947 pages, being 38.94 'books' towards by Russian Super Challenge. I think that means I'm behind schedule. But I'm proud to have read my first five proper books in Russian anyway and I've received a big pile of Russian novels for Christmas, so I definitely won't be lacking in materials to see me through to the end of the challenge.
I didn't set a goal for Russian listening, but of course since May I have also been making efforts with that for the Super Challenge too. So far I have watched/listened to the following:
1. Кухня (494 minutes) 2. Мухтар. Новый след (757 minutes) 3. Татьянин день (1,076 minutes) 4. Assorted YouTube, including Russian Progress videos and podcasts (648 minutes)
In total that is 2,975 minutes, which equates to 33.06 'films' for the Super Challenge. Again, that's behind schedule and Russian TV is something which I think I need to focus more on in 2021. I have definitely listened to more Russian on YouTube than is included in those figures; for the purpose of the SC I'm only counting longer videos, like the Anton Ptushkin documentaries, which feel more like proper TV episodes.
At the end of 2020, I want to re-take the Online Diagnostic Assessment for Russian and score higher than I did at the end of 2019 (I scored 1+ in Dec 19).
I re-took the test a few days before Christmas and scored 2+ on listening compared to last year's 1+. It's nice to feel that I have made some tangible progress.
I don't think I can come up with a measurable goal for what I want to achieve with Croatian this year, but I'm planning to track my time spent on all languages this year (in 2019 I only religiously tracked Russian time) and so hopefully by the end of 2020 I can at least see that I have spent a reasonable amount of time on Croatian.
The benefit of not setting a measurable goal is that it's hard to fail it I did track my time and so I can confirm that I spent 200 hours on Croatian. There were 210 days on which I did something in Croatian, so around 57% of days. I guess that probably meets the definition of "a reasonable amount of time".
Obviously I want to continue reading in Croatian, and I have a pile of novels to get through, both translated and original.
Out of the total 200 hours I spent on Croatian this year, 43 have been spent reading and I have finished the following novels:
1. Poslije svega by Rosamund Lupton (454 pages) - translation from English, read pre-SC 2. Pohvala tijelu by Pavao Pavličić (233 pages) - original Croatian 3. Blato u dvorište by Ratko Cvetnić (270 pages) - original Croatian 4. Mali neobični ljudi by Miro Gavran (213 pages) - original Croatian 5. Narodno veselje by Pavao Pavličić (379 pages) - original Croatian 6. Tajne Tudorova dvora by D L Bogdan (392 pages) - translated from English 7. Na zapadu ništa novo by Erich Maria Remarque (218 pages) - translated from German 8. Bilješka o piscu by Julijana Matanović (283 pages) - original Croatian
That's a probably a bit less than I've read in Croatian in previous years, which I think is partly because reading in Russian has been slow and painful at times, so taken up a lot of my available reading time. And partly because I have read a bit less this year anyway, because I normally do a lot of reading when travelling and this has obviously not been a year of travel.
I'm happy though with the mix between original and translated fiction. 7 of those books count towards the reading part of my Croatian Super Challenge, giving me 1,988 pages read (39.76 books).
I want to finish watching the second series of 'Na granici', which I'm partway through, and then find another series to get hooked on.
I did indeed finish 'Na granici' and I then got very successfully hooked on the series 'Drugo ime ljubavi'. Watching TV has been my main activity in Croatian this year, accounting for 126 of my 200 hours. This has involved 41 episodes of 'Na granici' plus 119 episodes of 'Drugo ime ljubavi'. The films part of my Croatian Super Challenge is exclusively made up of the episodes of 'Drugo ime ljubavi' I've watched since 1 May, which gives me 56.37 films towards my target (probably the first time I've ever been ahead of schedule on films!). I think my Croatian TV-watching benefitted from the combination of lockdown and my goal of getting 70000 steps/week. During the period when I was only allowed out to exercise once a day, I got into the habit of cycling on an exercise bike in the evenings to make up my step count and I've predominantly watched Croatian TV while doing this. It's been a good way to combine two things I want to do
But I think I also want to do some proper "studying"; perhaps revise some textbooks, work through some of the Croatian-language grammar books I have, maybe even deal with the 2000+ outstanding vocab reviews that I've had pending in Memrise all year. Once I've done all that I should probably try to start writing in Croatian again (but I am definitely not signing up for an Output Challenge!)
Proper studying hasn't gone so well this year. My spreadsheet shows I spent 23 hours studying Croatian grammar, which was mainly re-reading the BCS Grammar textbook. When I had time off work in July I did also start working through a Croatian-only textbook called 'Hrvatski u upotrebi', but I dropped this once work got tough.
I did successfully clear all those Memrise reviews in the end, although the 8 hours I spent on Croatian Memrise this year pales in comparison to the 62 hours I spent on Russian Memrise. It wasn't the best year for Memrise, as this is an activity I normally do while commuting and this has been a year with surprisingly few commutes.
I didn't really do any Croatian writing in 2020. Writing is probably something I should focus on in 2021.
I want to continue reading in German, which is something I really enjoy. My active German is rusty at the moment, but the fact that I continue to be able to read in German with a level of ease that I could only dream of achieving in Croatian (or even in Esperanto!) reassures me that I haven't lost it.
My spreadsheet says I've spent 32 hours on German this year, but I think the reality is higher than that. All my German time relates to reading, and I keep forgetting to track it because reading in German doesn't require a huge amount of effort.
The books I have read in German this year are as follows:
1. Invisible by Ursula Poznanski and Arno Strobel (368 pages) 2. Der Augensammler by Sebastian Fitzek (448 pages) 3. Kluftinger by Volker Klüpfel and Michael Kobr (480 pages) 4. Fremd by Ursula Poznanski and Arno Strobel (393 pages) 5. Der Augenjäger by Sebastian Fitzek (313 pages) 6. Der Schakal by Frederick Forsyth (448 pages) - translation from English 7. Thalamus by Ursula Poznanski (448 pages) 8. Die Herren von Winterfell by George R R Martin (545 pages) - translation from English
I think that's possibly fewer German books that I've read in previous years. I certainly have quite a pile of unread books in German on my to-read shelf at the moment.
I also received three novels in Esperanto for Christmas and they are all things which I genuinely want to read, so I guess I have a goal of reading at least three books in Esperanto this year
I only read one, 'Averto pri murdo', which to be honest wasn't very good. The other two books I referred to are still in my to-read pile and hopefully I'll get to them in 2021. I did use some of my time off in June to (finally!!) read my boyfriend's textbook, 'Complete Esperanto'.
I would like to have time to start learning Bulgarian, but I'm not sure how realistic this will turn out to be in 2020. I'm not planning to do anything in the first quarter of 2020 anyway; it will be later in the year, if I do start.
This goal was on the basis that I was hoping to travel to Bulgaria in 2021 and given that my desire to learn some Bulgarian is wholly motivated by travel, I have done absolutely nothing at all with the language in 2020. At the moment, it's unclear whether international travel will be possible again in 2021. If it is, I want to prioritise taking all the trips I was unable to take in 2020, which means that it is very unlikely I would go to Bulgaria before 2022. So I'm not seeing a lot of Bulgarian in my future at the moment!
Overall I feel like this has been a good year from a language-learning point of view. From the point of view of my log, after updating almost every day in 2019 I decided to switch to updating whenever I felt like it in 2020. That didn’t really work out for me; if I only do things when I feel like them I tend to never do them at all, so partway through the year I switchedback to updating more-or-less daily again. That's what I provisionally plan to do during 2021.
2020 has also been a good year for music. I started the year enjoying a new album from the Croatian band Brkovi, of which my favourite song is 100% this one: "Draga, zapio sam djecu":
The pandemic itself resulted in some new music and I loved this effort from Hladno Pivo, with a good motto for 2020: "Ovo će proći" (This will pass).
Otherwise, the sound which in some ways defined my year was this song by Grupa Vigor, which provides the theme tune for the series 'Drugo ime ljubavi':
Towards the end of the year I discovered that the Serbian singer Bajaga had a new album out. The song which I have listened to the most is this one, 'Darja', which I have to confess I had heard multiple times before my brain twigged that it was half in Russian, half in Serbian
But let's finish with the new release from Mejaši "Nova godina" (New year). The fact that a band released a song about the new year in October probably sums up how the whole world feels about 2020. The chorus of the song is "Nova godina bit će bolja za sve nas" (The new year will be better for all of us). Here's hoping!
