Radioclare's 2021 log (Russian, Croatian)

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Caromarlyse
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Re: Radioclare's 2021 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby Caromarlyse » Mon Apr 19, 2021 5:51 am

Radioclare wrote:All this suddenly being able to leave the house and do things means that I have had less time for languages than normal this weekend.


This is definitely a problem; some adjustment will be needed! I found that my excited explanation of how language study has given lockdown some feeling of purpose fell pretty flat too...
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Radioclare
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Re: Radioclare's 2021 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby Radioclare » Mon Apr 19, 2021 10:07 pm

Caromarlyse wrote:This is definitely a problem; some adjustment will be needed! I found that my excited explanation of how language study has given lockdown some feeling of purpose fell pretty flat too...


Haha yes, I got asked in one of my recent job interviews what I'd been doing for fun during lockdown and when I said "learning Russian" I did get a pretty funny look (followed by the worst possible question, "Can you say something in Russian for us?"!).

19 April
Every day at work seems a nightmare at the moment. I'm normally pretty good at fantasising about all the possible things which might go wrong, but I've got a project at the moment which is surpassing even my most pessimistic expectations.

Russian
I'm aiming to be more diligent this week, so I studied half an hour of Schaum's after dinner. This was mostly doing exercises involving the conjunctions which I was learning about yesterday. The posh name for them, which I forgot yesterday, is "temporal conjunctions".

I also watched a new video by Anton Ptushkin about Hawaii. Initially I was finding it one of his less interesting videos; it's the second video he's made about Hawaii this year and Hawaii isn't a place I'm specially interested in. But then partway through the video he got to witness a volcanic eruption, so that was pretty cool :) Overall I was a bit disappointed with my level of comprehension of the video, which felt lower than it normally is on these. I don't know whether I wasn't focussing enough or whether he was talking faster than usual, but some sentences flew right over my head. There was one point (in a segment where the narrative involved talking about altitudes) where I had to rewind and listen again with the English subtitles turned on because I didn't stand any chance of catching the numbers.

Total - Russian: 77 mins, Croatian: 48 mins
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Re: Radioclare's 2021 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby rdearman » Mon Apr 19, 2021 10:25 pm

Radioclare wrote:(followed by the worst possible question, "Can you say something in Russian for us?"!).

I love that question! People do that to me in French or Italian all the time.

Q: Can you say something in Italian?
A: qualcosa

Q: Can you say something in French?
A: quelque chose

Q: Can you say something in Russian?
A: что-нибудь <<=== (According to Google Translate)
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Radioclare
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Re: Radioclare's 2021 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby Radioclare » Tue Apr 20, 2021 11:03 pm

20 April
Not even sure what to say about work any more. My troublesome project continues to lurch from disaster to disaster. One part of the team is in the US and another part of it is in India and combined with my part in the UK this means that whenever something goes wrong or an urgent call is needed, it ends up being at an inconvenient or anti-social time for someone. More wine was drunk tonight.

Russian
Today was not a grammar day. I watched an episode of 'Татьянин день' and it was actually quite a momentous one because the hero, Сергей, found out that he's the father of Татьяна 1's 5-year old daughter. Well, technically he found this out a couple of episodes back but another character was telling him over the phone at the exact point at which he was involved in a car crash and it wasn't clear (at least, it wasn't clear to me) whether he'd actually heard this news before he crashed or not. Since then he's been in a coma, which he only emerged from at the end of the previous episode. He made the typical telenovela style of instant recovery from his coma, but the actor was obviously trying to make it sound like he was at least slightly unwell, so in today's episode he was speaking in a slurred kind of way, not moving his mouth much. This meant I had to re-watch some of the key scenes 2 - 3 times to make sure I'd definitely understood. I guess replaying the same sentences multiple times until I understand them is good practice.

Total - Russian: 45 mins
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Radioclare
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Re: Radioclare's 2021 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby Radioclare » Wed Apr 21, 2021 10:57 pm

21 April
One of those days where you're not really even sure which day it is any more. I drank vodka as well as wine this evening.

Russian
By the time I'd managed to finish work and get 10 000 steps and deal with my Esperanto email correspondence, there wasn't a whole lot of time left to do any Russian study this evening. I've just managed to squeeze one episode of 'Татьянин день' in before the clock hits midnight. There was a murder in this episode, so it was actually pretty exciting.

Total - Russian: 45 mins
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Re: Radioclare's 2021 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby lingua » Thu Apr 22, 2021 3:26 am

You can count the vodka towards Russian study if it's the right kind.
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Radioclare
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Re: Radioclare's 2021 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby Radioclare » Thu Apr 22, 2021 10:26 pm

22 April
Nothing special went wrong today but I ended up with a headache, so it hasn't been the best of days regardless.

Russian
Still no grammar. I'm disappointed by my lack of grammar study this week because I was actually hoping to finish Schaum's before the weekend, but never mind.

I've watched two more episodes of 'Татьянин день' this evening instead, bringing the films part of my Russian Super Challenge up to 69.5.

Total - Russian: 90 mins
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Radioclare
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Re: Radioclare's 2021 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby Radioclare » Fri Apr 23, 2021 10:49 pm

23 April
Today wasn't a terribly good day either.

Russian
I'm starting to find this log a little bit boring :lol: But I'm still writing it, because if I don't I might start taking that as a licence not to actually do any Russian. As you've probably guessed, no grammar was done today. I did watch another episode of 'Татьянин день', the 75th episode in fact. Considering I've watched 75 episodes of this telenovela now, I don't really feel like I've made much progress with comprehension. There are, however, another 146 episodes to go, so still plenty of scope for improvement :lol:

Total - Russian: 45 mins
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Radioclare
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Re: Radioclare's 2021 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby Radioclare » Sat Apr 24, 2021 10:00 pm

24 April
I feel like I haven't done very much today, just a bit of Esperanto accounting work this morning. But after the week I've had, I think a day of not doing very much is probably just what I needed.

Russian
The main news is that I did (finally!) do some grammar today, continuing with the section on conjunctions in Schaum's. I can't remember the fancy name for the conjunctions which I was learning about today, but it was basically conjunctions which convey meanings along the lines of "because". I think the main thing I'm learning from this chapter is that Russian has a lot of conjunctions.

Total - Russian: 32 mins, Croatian: 45 mins, German: 75 mins
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Radioclare
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Re: Radioclare's 2021 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby Radioclare » Sun Apr 25, 2021 8:03 pm

25 April
If I didn't do much yesterday, I did even less today :lol:

Russian
I do, however, have some news: I finally got to the end of Schaum's Grammar! I started this textbook back in October 2020 so it definitely feels like I have been working on it a long time. Now I've got to the end of it, I'm honestly not sure how much I've learned. Part of me feels like Russian grammar goes straight in one ear and out of the other, so that now I've got to the end of the book I need to turn back to the beginning and start all over again :D

That would be pretty boring though, so I've started a new textbook - the "I love Russian" B1.1 textbook which I've had sitting on my shelf for long time. The first thing I've learned from this is that their A2 textbook might have been more my level, but never mind :lol: The first chapter is about family, which in theory shouldn't be too difficult a topic, and opens with a text about the family life of Pushkin. One really cool feature is that the chapter starts with a QR code, which you can scan to be taken to a page with the accompanying audio for the chapter. However, it doesn't look like there is much accompanying audio for each chapter and the stressed syllables don't seem to be marked in the texts either, which is a bit of a shame.

I haven't quite decided yet how I'm going to tackle learning new vocabulary from this textbook. I thought perhaps I should be diligent and look up the meanings of all the words in the opening text which I wasn't confident in, but then partway through I remembered how boring I find looking up words and making word lists :lol: Before the pandemic I used to use Memrise a lot to learn vocabulary, but I more or less gave that up when I stopped commuting. I logged in experimentally this afternoon and I think I may have hit a personal record for number of outstanding reviews :cry:

rsz_screenshot_2021-04-25_205946.png


Total - Russian: 142 mins
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