Radioclare's 2021 log (Russian, Croatian)

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

Postby Radioclare » Tue Jan 26, 2021 10:53 pm

26 January
I spent all day doing a thing I didn't expect to have to do, which meant I didn't get to do any of the things I actually wanted/needed to do. Did I mention I hate Tuesdays?! :lol:

Russian
A bit low on motivation tonight, but I did progress with the adverbs section in Schaum's. There's just exercise after exercise about choosing the right adverb to fit in a sentence. I shouldn't complain about this chapter though because I've only got 3 or 4 pages of it left and the next chapter is going to be about numbers.

I also read another chapter of 'Зло под солнцем'. The chapters in this book are longer than I expected, so I'm already over halfway through it.

Croatian
I watched another episode of 'Drugo ime ljubavi' while on the treadmill. Two of the characters are faking a kidnapping of a third character (long story!) so there was plenty of excitement about that.

Total - Russian: 57 mins, Croatian: 45 mins
3 x

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

Postby Radioclare » Wed Jan 27, 2021 10:42 pm

27 January
Today was a bit better than yesterday. All the snow has melted now though, so everywhere looks grey again.

Russian
Still ploughing through the adverbs section in Schaum's. I did an exercise on adverbs of measure today and then moved on to indefinite adverbs. I think there are only two pages left in the chapter now, so I should finish it tomorrow.

I read another chapter of Agatha Christie, so I've read 207 pages of this book now in 7 days. Definitely progressing with it faster than I expected.

Later I watched an episode of Татьянин ден on the treadmill. As predicted, Татьяна 2 has arranged for Татьяна 1 to stay in prison indefinitely.

Total - Russian: 90 mins
4 x

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

Postby Radioclare » Thu Jan 28, 2021 11:12 pm

28 January
I had a relatively quiet morning and then three different people wanted to call me after 6pm. Strange day.

Russian
I finished the adjectives chapter in Schaum's :) That feels like an achievement, but I'm slightly dreading starting the next chapter on numbers.

I also read two chapters of 'Зло под солнцем'. I only meant to read one, but the story is at that stage where Poirot obviously has a good idea of who the murderer is and keeps dropping little comments which make zero sense. As far as I'm concerned, anyone who could reasonably have committed the murder has already been ruled out by various alibis, so I have no idea how this is going to end :lol:

Croatian
There's quite a bit of Croatian time I've failed to record this week, when I've been reading 'Cvijeće na vjetru' in bed at night and forgotten to time myself. I'm not sure exactly how much time I've spent on it, but I've read slightly over 100 pages since the weekend and finished the book this evening :) It was a really good detective story. Some of the subject matter was a bit grim, but it was exciting and again I had no idea who the murderer was right up to the end :)

Total - Russian: 54 mins, Croatian: 63 mins
3 x

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

Postby Radioclare » Fri Jan 29, 2021 10:52 pm

29 January
Today, if we had been living in normal times, I would have had to go to Düsseldorf to review some work. Obviously we're not living in normal times, so I had to do it over Teams instead. It wasn't quite as easy as it would have been to do in person, but I guess it did save me setting a very early alarm to catch a flight.

Russian
This evening I gave in to temptation and finished 'Зло под солнцем'. I was 100% wrong in every guess about who the murderer might be. In total the book was 314 pages and takes me to 52 'books' for my Russian Super Challenge. So actually I've completed a half challenge in Russian and Croatian reading plus Croatian films, but not Russian films yet.

I did watch another episode of 'Татьянин день' on the treadmill this evening. Татьяна 1 decided to have an abortion and, somewhat bizarrely, these seem to be available on demand in Russian prisons, because a few minutes later she was taken off to have her appointment. We then had several scenes of other women in the prison chatting about how many abortions they'd had etc, before Татьяна 1 returned from her appointment rather dazed. Everyone congratulated her on having made the correct decision... and then it turned out she decided she couldn't go through with it and decided to keep the baby after all.

It's interesting how differently the subject matter was treated compared to the Croatian telenovela I'm watching. This also recently featured a storyline with a female character who got pregnant unexpectedly, decided to have an abortion, but changed her mind at the last minute before she went into the appointment. The difference is that the Croatian series managed to get through the entire storyline without actually saying that she was planning to have an abortion. It was perfectly clear, but it was all done with hints and knowing looks, as if they couldn't explicitly talk about it. There definitely doesn't seem to be any taboo which prevents it being discussed on Russian TV.

Total - Russian: 78 mins, Croatian: 15 mins
4 x

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

Postby DaveAgain » Sat Jan 30, 2021 6:38 am

Radioclare wrote:There definitely doesn't seem to be any taboo which prevents it being discussed on Russian TV.
I have vague memories of an article about Russia's birth rate that mentioned abortion being considered and used as a popular form of birth control and that the resulting cases of multiple abortions had caused x-many women fertility problems.
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Radioclare
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Re: Radioclare's 2021 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby Radioclare » Sat Jan 30, 2021 9:30 pm

DaveAgain wrote:I have vague memories of an article about Russia's birth rate that mentioned abortion being considered and used as a popular form of birth control and that the resulting cases of multiple abortions had caused x-many women fertility problems.

This would fit with the attitudes of the characters in the series; one of the women in the prison said that she'd had seven abortions but was now unable to have children.

30 January
Today was an unusual day for me because I didn't leave the house. I normally go out for a walk once per day, but it snowed all day today and it wasn't nice snow; it was wet, damp snow which was almost melted before it hit the ground.

Russian
I went on the treadmill in the morning instead and watched another episode of 'Татьянин день'. The hopeless hero Сергей started to get suspicious about whether Татьяна 1 was okay in Norilsk. He started to make noises about going to Norilsk to check up on her and the evil Татьяна 2 was obviously desperate to stop that happening, so she told Сергей that Татьяна 1 had found another man in Norilsk. Сергей was so upset that he asked Татьяна 2 to marry him. Perhaps you have to be a man to understand how this makes sense. I find his behaviour quite baffling and I think both Татьяна's could do better. The standard of men in Croatian telenovelas is much higher :lol:

Earlier in the morning I started chapter 6 of Schaum's grammar, which is about numbers. The beginning of the chapter lulls you into a false sense of security, covering the declension of один. I also learned the difference between when to use нуль vs ноль for zero. But I'm sure the chapter will shortly become significantly more difficult.

What else? Oh, today was my day for writing in Russian. I spent 43 minutes writing and managed 266 words about which other languages I have learned. Still very painful.

Croatian
Because I wasn't going outside I needed to do a second batch of indoor exercise, so I watched an episode of 'Drugo ime ljubavi' on the treadmill. A character who has had amnesia for a good 120 episodes got a blow to the head, which seems to have resulted in him regaining some of his memories. Some of the things he's remembering are very significant for the plot, so that's quite exciting.

Total - Russian: 122 mins, Croatian: 45 mins
5 x

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

Postby Radioclare » Sun Jan 31, 2021 7:43 pm

31 January
Finally, January is over! Although not sure that February is going to be significantly more exciting :lol: Not being able to go anywhere or do anything means that I've done quite well with my goals so far this year, though. I've managed to get at least 10,000 steps every day this month and I've read a total of 9 books (2 in Russian, 2 in Croatian, 1 in German, 4 in English).

Russian
I continued with Schaum's this morning and, as predicted, it escalated quickly. Today's section started with the declension of the numbers 2, 3, 4, which seems to be one of those tables that I can replicate pretty well immediately after looking at, and then completely forget 2 minutes later. The section continued with an explanation of the cases nouns following these numbers take in different circumstances and honestly, I think this is one of the worst parts of Russian grammar. Numbers in Croatian are a dream in comparison!

Later in the day I watched an episode of 'Татьянин день' on the treadmill. Another female character has unexpectedly become pregnant, but she isn't considering an abortion. This is the third day in a row that I've watched an episode of this series and I had the impression today that my comprehension may have slightly improved. I just counted and I've watched 15 episodes so far this year, which is as many as I watched from September to December last year, so I feel like I have been making a reasonable effort with it at least.

Croatian
I spent an hour or so writing in Croatian this afternoon and managed approximately 1000 words. I decided to do it without looking words up, which is possible for me to do in Croatian so long as I don't want to talk about something complicated :)

Total - Russian: 76 mins, Croatian: 71 mins
4 x

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

Postby Radioclare » Mon Feb 01, 2021 10:56 pm

1 February
I freaked out a bit when I opened my computer this morning and found I'd missed 58 emails since 7pm on Friday. But it turned out that 30 of them were invites to training courses up to summer 2022, so things weren't quite as dire as I thought :lol:

Russian
After dinner I jumped straight into Schaum's. Today was all about using adjectives after the numbers 2, 3 and 4. I continue to find it mind-blowing that any number can require an adjective to take one case while the noun it's attached to takes a different one, or that a number can require an adjective to take a plural form while its noun takes a singular form. This may well be the fifth time I've attempted to study this topic, but I still haven't really got my initial disbelief that these rules are even possible :lol:

In order to recover from that, I decided to allow myself to continue reading the Twilight Saga in Russian. Well, I read the first two books last year, fairly near the start of the Super Challenge, and then I felt like I should move on to reading Agatha Christie for a bit. But I read two Agatha Christie's last month and I don't want to rush through my remaining supply of them all at once, so I thought this was a good opportunity to return to Twilight. I'm reading 'Затмение' (Eclipse) which is the third book and the one whose plot I remember the least. I have an illicit pdf on my Kindle, but Goodreads tells me that the Russian version has 640 pages so I'm going with that for the purpose of recording pages towards the Super Challenge.

Croatian
I enjoyed an episode of 'Drugo ime ljubavi' on the treadmill. Some of the characters have been engaged in complex deceptions, pretending to be people they're not, for about 100 episodes now and several storylines are getting close to their climax now, with the lies about to be revealed. So all very exciting and the dramatic music has started to get even more dramatic. I actually learned a new word from today's episode; there was a powercut as a result of a storm and one of the characters explained that it was because a "bandera" had fallen down. I looked it up and I think it's like a telegraph pole, a wooden thing that holds up electric power lines.

Total - Russian: 89 mins, Croatian: 47 mins, German: 91 mins (yesterday before bed)
6 x

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

Postby Radioclare » Tue Feb 02, 2021 10:02 pm

2 February
Not too bad for a Tuesday. It was sunny at lunchtime at least, so my walk was more pleasant than it has been recently :)

Russian
Today's section in Schaum's was the declension of numbers 5 - 999. Some of these are easy and some of them not so much. There weren't any exercises on this specific subject, so I was mainly just copying out tables in the hope that I'd remember some of them.

After that I read a chapter of 'Eclipse'. I still can't really remember the plot of this one. To be honest, there hasn't been much plot in the two chapters I've read so far :lol: I'm 10% of the way through already, which I calculate as 64 pages.

Finally, I watched an episode of Татьянин день on the treadmill. Two of the characters walked past the cathedral of Christ the Saviour and that was the first time I've recognised a bit of Moscow I've been to in the series :)

Total - Russian: 106 mins
3 x

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

Postby rdearman » Tue Feb 02, 2021 10:04 pm

Radioclare wrote:Total - Russian: 106 mins

I'm lucky if I do 106 minutes a week. :(
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