Radioclare's 2021 log (Russian, Croatian)

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Radioclare
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2250
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Location: England
Languages: Speaks: English (N), Esperanto, German, Croatian
Learns: Russian
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Re: Radioclare's 2021 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby Radioclare » Sat Apr 10, 2021 9:23 pm

10 April
Today was a much needed relaxing weekend day. Went for a walk in the park this afternoon; it was a little bit chilly, but nice to get out of the house :)

Russian
I tackled Schaum's first thing this morning and to my surprise I got to the end of the verbs chapter :shock: I hadn't realised that there was only one topic left, on verbal adverbs. I got through that without too much difficulty today, which means that tomorrow I can start the final chapter of the textbook.

When I'd finished with Schaum's I forced myself to write 500 words in Russian. I gave myself a holiday from this last weekend in honour of it being Easter, but I knew that if I didn't do it for a second weekend in a row then I would never get back to it. Writing felt painful today, but I felt positive about the fact that I was attempting to keep up the habit.

Total - Russian: 54 mins
6 x

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Radioclare
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Location: England
Languages: Speaks: English (N), Esperanto, German, Croatian
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Re: Radioclare's 2021 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby Radioclare » Sun Apr 11, 2021 9:06 pm

11 April
Another quiet day at home. The weather has been crazy; warm and sunny one minute and trying to snow the next.

Russian
I opened Schaum's after breakfast and started chapter 8, which is all about conjunctions. I feel like there is a limit to how difficult conjunctions can be, even in Russian :lol: The start of this chapter was certainly quite straightforward and so 44 minutes of grammar study flew by :)

Otherwise I've mostly spent today reading a Boris Akunin novel in English. It feels like I'm getting a bit closer to my ambition of being able to read his books in Russian one day, although I'm not there yet.

Total - Russian: 44 mins
4 x

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Radioclare
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Languages: Speaks: English (N), Esperanto, German, Croatian
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Re: Radioclare's 2021 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby Radioclare » Mon Apr 12, 2021 9:21 pm

12 April
Monday again. I finished work 'early' at 18.45. I'm trying to start caring slightly less about things outside my control now I'm in my notice period.

Russian
I think conjunctions might be my favourite grammatical topic. They feel so straightforward compared to everything else, like the author of the textbook saved them as a special treat for the final chapter of the book :lol: I was slightly disconcerted today when the section I opened the book on was headed "Disjunctive coordinating conjunctions", but it turned out that that was just a posh way of say "or".

Total - Russian: 30 mins
6 x

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Radioclare
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Languages: Speaks: English (N), Esperanto, German, Croatian
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Re: Radioclare's 2021 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby Radioclare » Tue Apr 13, 2021 10:37 pm

13 April
The pubs reopened yesterday, so tonight I was able to go out for a drink for the first time in months. They are only allowed to serve outside at the moment so it was a little bit chilly, but with four layers of clothing on it was just about doable :lol:

Russian
Drinking wine meant that I didn't feel like doing any grammar, not even conjunctions, by the time I got home. Instead, I watched two episodes of Татьянин день back to back. I sometimes find these episodes drag when I'm watching them on the treadmill, but the storyline is quite exciting at the moment so they seemed to fly by this evening :)

Total - Russian: 90 mins
8 x

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Radioclare
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Location: England
Languages: Speaks: English (N), Esperanto, German, Croatian
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Re: Radioclare's 2021 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby Radioclare » Wed Apr 14, 2021 10:40 pm

14 April
Very stressful day at work. I didn't go to the pub again this evening but I did drink more wine.

Russian
Predictably, this meant I didn't do any grammar study. But in a boost for the films part of my Russian Super Challenge, I watched another two episodes of 'Татьянин день' back to back. The plot is too convoluted to explain properly, but it is genuinely getting very exciting now. The second episode I watched this evening ended with a car crash scene, as a result of the brakes on one of the character's cars being tampered with. It remains to be seen whether all characters involved will have survived this.

Total - Russian: 90 mins
7 x

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Radioclare
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Location: England
Languages: Speaks: English (N), Esperanto, German, Croatian
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Re: Radioclare's 2021 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby Radioclare » Thu Apr 15, 2021 10:39 pm

15 April
Another stressful day. The weekend can't come soon enough as far as I'm concerned.

Russian
This isn't going to sound very original but I had more wine with dinner this evening and so I still didn't get any grammar done. Instead I watched yet another two episodes of 'Татьянин день'. I'm up to 65 films watched for my Russian Super Challenge now, which is still behind the 78 films I have for my Croatian challenge, but definitely an improvement :) The two episodes I watched tonight were both pretty exciting. No one has died - yet - but the car crash was quite serious.

Total - Russian: 90 mins
6 x

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Ogrim
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Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?t=873
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Re: Radioclare's 2021 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby Ogrim » Fri Apr 16, 2021 1:23 pm

Radioclare wrote:This isn't going to sound very original but I had more wine with dinner this evening and so I still didn't get any grammar done.


Indeed, that is why I try to get my studies done before drinking wine (and why we follow Spanish eating hours having dinner very late in the evening). :)
1 x
Ich grolle nicht

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Radioclare
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Posts: 2250
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 12:59 pm
Location: England
Languages: Speaks: English (N), Esperanto, German, Croatian
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Re: Radioclare's 2021 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby Radioclare » Fri Apr 16, 2021 11:02 pm

That is very good advice... which unfortunately I didn't follow this evening, so I still haven't done any grammar :lol:

16 April
I normally like Fridays, but this was a Friday with a crisis that didn't kick off until about 4pm. So yes, once again I ended up drinking wine before I did any Russian :oops:

Russian
Today was actually worse than the other days this week because I only watched one episode of 'Татьянин день'. It was a good one, though; it turned out that one of the characters I thought was a goody is actually most definitely a baddy. I'm not sure whether this was actually a big revelation in this episode or just the first episode that me and my limited Russian picked up on this :lol:

Total - Russian: 47 mins
7 x

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Radioclare
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2250
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 12:59 pm
Location: England
Languages: Speaks: English (N), Esperanto, German, Croatian
Learns: Russian
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Re: Radioclare's 2021 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby Radioclare » Sat Apr 17, 2021 9:58 pm

17 April
It was beautiful weather today and I was able to meet up with my family for a walk in the countryside.

Russian
It's been a week of poor effort with grammar, so I made sure to get 30 minutes of Schaum's in this morning before I left home. I'm still studying conjunctions and the section I went through today was about when to use и vs а vs но, which was quite useful.

This evening I watched another two episodes of 'Татьянин день'. One benefit of watching a lot of TV this week is that I have got quite into the storyline now :)

Total - Russian: 120 mins
8 x

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Radioclare
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2250
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 12:59 pm
Location: England
Languages: Speaks: English (N), Esperanto, German, Croatian
Learns: Russian
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Re: Radioclare's 2021 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby Radioclare » Sun Apr 18, 2021 9:44 pm

18 April
The weather remained good today, so this afternoon I was able to visit my boyfriend's parents outside. This was nice as the only time I'd been able to see them in the past year was briefly standing on their driveway to say hello at Christmas.

Russian
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. I did get another half an hour of Schaum's in this morning, where I've moved on to the section on subordinating conjunctions. I forget the technical word for them but the conjunctions I was learning about today were all on the theme of "when".

German
I'm still aiming to read a book in German every month and so today I started a new novel, 'Das letzte Königreich'. It's a translation from English of a Bernard Cornwell novel. I've never read it in English but I've watched a TV series based on the book which I really enjoyed, so I'm hoping I'm going to enjoy this too.

Total - Russian: 34 mins, German: 15 mins
7 x


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