Radioclare's 2021 log (Russian, Croatian)

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

Postby Radioclare » Sat Aug 21, 2021 8:36 pm

jeffers wrote:If one gets marked difficult and you don't want it to be marked, you can unmark it the next time you see it.

Do you find Memrise then stops showing you that word? I used to do this and then I gave up because I felt like it was making me repeat the words anyway :lol: But that was quite a long time ago and I think I was using a beta version of the app, so possibly it wasn't working properly.

21 August
I set my alarm for the wrong time this morning, then overslept, then had a trustee meeting on Zoom, so it wasn't necessarily the best start to the weekend :lol:

Russian
I cleared my Memrise reviews after the trustee meeting and they weren't too bad today; only around 45 words. Over lunch I read another short story from the Agatha Christie collection. This one wasn't quite a mystery but wasn't supernatural at least, so I enjoyed it a bit more than yesterday's. The main word I looked up was "мститель" which meant "avenger", in the sense "avenging angel".

Later this afternoon I finally opened my B1.1 textbook, which I'd successfully carried all the way to the Isle of Mull with me without opening :D I was procrastinating getting stuck into it again, but actually it was fine. I did a listening comprehension exercise, which I always enjoy, followed by another couple of fairly straightforward exercises, and then I was done with the comprehension part of this chapter. That means I can start the grammar section tomorrow.

Total - Russian: 48 mins, Croatian: 97 mins, Esperanto: 69 mins
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Re: Radioclare's 2021 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby jeffers » Sun Aug 22, 2021 1:25 pm

Radioclare wrote:Do you find Memrise then stops showing you that word? I used to do this and then I gave up because I felt like it was making me repeat the words anyway :lol: But that was quite a long time ago and I think I was using a beta version of the app, so possibly it wasn't working properly.


I'm not sure what difference words being marked difficult makes for a free Memrize account. I don't notice that I get them any more often, to be honest. Obviously Memrise frequently tells me to do a Difficult Words lesson, but then it usually says, "Nuh uh uh! You need to pay to do this!"
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Radioclare
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Re: Radioclare's 2021 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby Radioclare » Sun Aug 22, 2021 5:33 pm

That's true! I use to have a Pro account and practise all the difficult words to get rid of them, but since I've stopped paying they just feel a bit irrelevant.

22 August
A more relaxing weekend day today, although I did still oversleep a bit.

Russian
The Memrise reviews weren't too bad today, so I went back to trying to learn new words. I'm working still working through the 10 000 words course (and I'm only about 500 words into it, so will be working through it for the foreseeable :lol:).

I read another Agatha Christie short story from the book 'Доколе длится свет'. I'm inclined to say she should have stuck to writing murder mysteries to be honest. I looked up the word "сиделка", for which I found the translation "caregiver". In the context of the story it seemed like it referred to a nurse in a mental hospital, but I wasn't really sure what the difference was between "сиделка" and "медсестра".

I started the grammar section of my latest chapter in the B1.1 textbook. I didn't know what the theme was going to be, but I guess given that the grammar section of the previous chapter was about active participles, it shouldn't have been a great surprise to me that the theme of this chapter was passive participles. If there's anything harder than Russian grammar, it's probably trying to learn about Russian grammar in Russian. I had to look up the phrase "переходные глаголы" (transitive verbs).

Total - Russian: 87 mins, Croatian: 94 mins, Esperanto: 54 mins
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Re: Radioclare's 2021 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby Just_a_visitor » Sun Aug 22, 2021 7:17 pm

Radioclare wrote:That's true! I use to have a Pro account and practise all the difficult words to get rid of them, but since I've stopped paying they just feel a bit irrelevant.

I looked up the word "сиделка", for which I found the translation "caregiver". In the context of the story it seemed like it referred to a nurse in a mental hospital, but I wasn't really sure what the difference was between "сиделка" and "медсестра".


In Russian, медсестра is a junior medical professional, "junior" not in terms of working experience, but qualification, professional training and duties. Медсестры (f) and медбратья (m) assist doctors and perform certain medical manipulations.

Unlike сиделка (there's no word for men), медсестра does not spend all her time watching patients, feeding them and changing their pampers - that is what сиделка is hired for. Cиделка can work shifts and called ночная/дневная сиделка.
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Radioclare
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Re: Radioclare's 2021 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby Radioclare » Mon Aug 23, 2021 9:59 pm

Thank you for the explanation, Just_a_visitor - that makes lots of sense :)

23 August
Another Monday where no one emailed me over the weekend.

Russian
I read quite a long Agatha Christie story this evening; it took me 45 minutes to get through. This one was much better than the others in this collection because it featured Poirot. It was set at Christmas though, which made it a bit of a strange thing to read on what was quite a sunny day.

I carried on with the B1.1 textbook, finishing an exercise on present passive participles and starting a section on past passive participles. Fun.

I also forced myself to watch an episode of Татьянин день. I am a bit sick of Татьяна 1 and Татьяна 2 at the moment; it feels like someone is always screeching about something in this series :lol: But I am soooo close to finishing my Super Challenge that I need to continue.

Croatian
I've started reading a new novel called 'Kraj'. It's a translation from English of 'The End' by Salvatore Scibona. I've only done one chapter so far but first impressions are that this feels like it would be a difficult book to read in English, never mind in Croatian.

Total - Russian: 123 mins, Croatian: 80 mins
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Re: Radioclare's 2021 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby rdearman » Tue Aug 24, 2021 10:34 am

Radioclare wrote:This one was much better than the others in this collection because it featured Poirot. It was set at Christmas though, which made it a bit of a strange thing to read on what was quite a sunny day.

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

Postby Radioclare » Tue Aug 24, 2021 9:17 pm

24 August
Nice quiet day working from home today :)

Russian
I didn't go out for at lunchtime today; I went on the treadmill instead and watched another episode of 'Татьянин день'. This was an emotional one. Татьяна 1 was forced by the evil Игорь (who she's trying to divorce) to tell Сергей that she doesn't love him; otherwise Игорь was going to make sure Сергей went to prison for a breach of building regulations which he didn't commit. Interestingly, almost the same storyline is playing out in the Croatian telenovela I'm watching at the moment too. I mean, not about building regulations, but there's an evil male character forcing the female character to tell the hero that she doesn't love him, else the evil guy is going to kill the hero. Obviously a popular telenovela plot!

I read another Agatha Christie short story. This one was called "Одинокий божок" and I found it excessively sentimental. Perhaps I've read too much Agatha Christie recently.

What else? I worked through some pretty challenging exercises on passive participles in the B1.1 textbook. I'm starting to look forward to getting to the end of this chapter and hoping that the next chapter is about something other than participles :D

Total - Russian: 102 mins, Croatian: 64 mins
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Radioclare
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Re: Radioclare's 2021 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby Radioclare » Wed Aug 25, 2021 10:17 pm

25 August
Worked in the office today.

Russian
That meant I didn't get out for a walk at lunchtime, so I needed to go on the treadmill for some extra steps when I got home. That meant I watched another episode of 'Татьянин день' and while that wasn't very exciting in itself, what was exciting was that it has taken me over the threshold of 100 'films'/9000 minutes for my Russian Super Challenge :) :) :) I always find the listening part of the challenge the hardest, so I am quite excited about this!

Do I think 9000 minutes has brought about much improvement in my Russian listening abilities? Honestly, I have no idea :lol: I had to do a double challenge in Croatian before I felt like I'd made significant improvement and I'm not going to achieve that with Russian this time around. When I started the Super Challenge I was watching Кухня, so perhaps I should go back and rewatch an episode of that some time to see whether I feel like my comprehension has improved.

Total - Russian: 61 mins, Croatian: 57 mins
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Radioclare
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Re: Radioclare's 2021 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby Radioclare » Thu Aug 26, 2021 9:10 pm

26 August
Back working from home again today. Bit of a busy afternoon because I'm taking tomorrow off for a long weekend.

Russian
Because I'm going away tomorrow I got caught up in various tedious tasks like hoovering this evening, so didn't do loads of language study.

Having completed my Russian Super Challenge yesterday, I decided to watch the first episode of 'Кухня' again and compare my impressions to first time around. I wasn't a huge fan of the series first time around, which is why I gave up after the first season, and looking back at my old log I can see that I was complaining I didn't find it funny. Honestly, after so many episodes of 'Татьянин день' I actually really enjoyed the humour this time :lol: It was just quite refreshing to watch something a bit lighter and more modern. I also found the dialogue easier to understand than 'Татьянин день' at times. Not all the time, because when you're watched 100+ episodes of something you benefit from being used to how the characters speak etc, but overall I think if I got into watching 'Кухня' again it would be easier to follow than 'Татьянин день'. The dialogue seemed a bit slower/clear or perhaps there was just less of it. The characters in 'Татьянин день' have tendencies to mutter, slur drunkenly and screech at each other, which makes life more difficult.

The episodes of 'Кухня' are also mercifully short, so once I'd got to the end I watched the same episode for a second time with the English subtitles to turned on to try and assess how much I'd understood. There were a couple of bits which had gone over my head, but overall I felt pretty happy with how much I'd understood. So much so that now I'm debating whether I should go back to watching 'Кухня' or whether I should persevere with the remaining 91 episodes of 'Татьянин день'.

Total - Russian: 61 mins, Croatian: 49 mins
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Radioclare
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Re: Radioclare's 2021 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby Radioclare » Fri Aug 27, 2021 10:06 pm

27 August
Monday is a public holiday in the UK, so I took today off work (am enjoying the unlimited holiday policy at my new job :lol:) and have travelled to the north of England for a long weekend.

Russian
That means language study is going to be minimal for the next few days! This evening I read one more short story from the Agatha Christie collection, 'Доколе длится свет' . This was a strange one which, if I've understood the intro correctly, Agatha Christie was commissioned to write by an organisation trying to promote tourism on the Isle of Man. The story is about a treasure hunt around the Isle of Man. The main word I looked up was "кустарник", which I think is a shrub or a bush.

Total - Russian: 49 mins, Croatian: 48 mins
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