A language learners’ forum

26 March
I can explain my good news now - I've got a new job It may not sound like a big deal, but I've worked in the same company for 15 years, so moving on feels like a major decision. And handing in my notice today was definitely one of the more difficult phone calls I've had to make in my life.

Russian
Tonight involved more wine and no grammar. I watched the final Twilight film which, honestly, felt like it didn't have an awful lot of words in it But never mind, it counts towards the listening part of my Super Challenge, which is now standing at 60 films.

Total - Russian: 105 mins

27 March
Today was Saturday but I worked from about 11 - 2 to try and get a bit ahead for next week. This is what everyone does when they've handed their notice in, right? Well, my notice period is 3 months and I've still got an awful lot of stuff I'm responsible for delivering in that period, so it made sense to me.

Russian
I desperately needed to make up for doing no grammar all week, so once I'd finished work I tackled the section on the subjunctive in Schaum's. There were several pages of exercises which I felt a bit apprehensive about, but actually ended up not being too difficult.

In the evening I wrote my obligatory 500 words in Russian. I was trying to write about everything that's happening this week with my new job, so I had to keep stopping to look up words I didn't know.

Total - Russian: 82 mins, Croatian; 45 mins

Holy crap, three months? Is that because your next job doesn't start for three months, you're on contract to give three months notice at your current job, or something else? Tell me to STFU if it's none of my business. Just interested from a sociological standpoint.

Also, what's your new job? Can you say? When this COVID craziness is over, will you have a new office? Better commute?

Congratulations btw!

28 March
No work today I felt pretty tired though. It's been a long week. Two weeks ago I had no intention of looking for a new job, so everything that's happened has been a bit of a surprise. And I think I've learned that I don't like making big spontaneous decisions

Russian
I made an effort with Schaum's again this morning. Today's topic was transitive vs intransitive verbs and in particular verbs with -ся. There were several pages of content, followed by a pile of exercises. I did okay on the exercises, in terms of getting it right whether I should be using a transitive or intransitive verb and getting the correct aspect where that was a choice. Where I made errors was in actually conjugating the verbs correctly, so that still seems to be a weakness for me.

I watched an episode of Татьянин день while on the treadmill at lunchtime. Татьяна 1 has got a new love interest, but I'm struggling to get excited about the storyline. I think part of the problem with this telenovela is that none of the male character are terribly attractive. Croatian telenovelas are vastly superior in this respect

I said last week that I wasn't going to start a new book in Russian because I was reading too much in Russian. So I didn't start a new book last Sunday and the result was that I ultimately read zero pages of zero books in any language this week Admittedly it has been an odd week and there were several days where I felt like I was struggling to focus on anything at all, but still. Anyway, I started a new Agatha Christie novel called 'Нежданный гость' (The unexpected guest). This is one which I haven't read in English before and it seems to be a novel based on a play that Agatha Christie wrote. That makes it quite easy to read in Russian, because there's an awful lot of dialogue and not very much description. As a result, I got through 60 pages of it today.

Total - Russian: 172 mins, Croatian: 57 mins

Radioclare wrote:...I started a new Agatha Christie novel called 'Нежданный гость' (The unexpected guest). This is one which I haven't read in English before and it seems to be a novel based on a play that Agatha Christie wrote.

My kids performed in this play in either Moscow or Bishkek, I can't remember now. I do remember I enjoyed it.

IronMike wrote:Holy crap, three months? Is that because your next job doesn't start for three months, you're on contract to give three months notice at your current job, or something else? Tell me to STFU if it's none of my business. Just interested from a sociological standpoint.

Also, what's your new job? Can you say? When this COVID craziness is over, will you have a new office? Better commute?

Congratulations btw!

Thanks I'm on contract to give three months notice at my current job. Notice periods are generally longer in the UK than the US, I think, and three months is a pretty standard notice period in finance because it's a difficult industry to recruit in. Most firms make you sign a contract with a three-month notice period as soon as you finish the professional exams, before they'll pay you the qualified salary

The new job is essentially the same role (audit manager) but in a significantly smaller firm, which sounds like it's got a much healthier culture and overall better work-life balance. They've got an email curfew from 7pm to 7am, for example, which I think sounds amazing, and one of these trendy unlimited holiday policies. Overall it should be less stress, nice people and same salary. The only downside is the office location, which is slightly tricky for me to get to because I don't drive. But I don't think it's going to be a 5 days per week in the office kind of job even post-Covid, so hopefully the commute won't turn into a huge nightmare

Radioclare wrote:I'm on contract to give three months notice at my current job. Notice periods are generally longer in the UK than the US, I think, and three months is a pretty standard notice period in finance because it's a difficult industry to recruit in. Most firms make you sign a contract with a three-month notice period as soon as you finish the professional exams, before they'll pay you the qualified salary

This is so interesting to me, thanks for explaining. I've said it a million times, online and IRL: we are two countries separated by a common language. And now that is not only in the words we use or the way we spell them, but in things like this.

And it does sound much better. Work environment is so important. If we're going to spend a third of our work days somewhere, we should at least be able to tolerate, dare I say even like, some (all?) of the people we work with!

Radioclare wrote: Words I looked up today included бусы (beads) and суета (vanity).

I missed this Makes me wonder about the context for суета. Normally it has meanings like fuss/bustle/hustle, basically when you're busy doing stuff but in a messy way. Надеюсь, на новой работе будет меньше суеты

бусы are a string of beads, an individual bead is бусина (so a bunch of unconnected beads are бусины)

Radioclare wrote:They've got an email curfew from 7pm to 7am, for example, which I think sounds amazing, and one of these trendy unlimited holiday policies.

Just think of all that extra time you'll have for Russian grammar .

Caromarlyse wrote:Just think of all that extra time you'll have for Russian grammar .

I'm going to need a new excuse not to do it

Serpent wrote:

Radioclare wrote: Words I looked up today included бусы (beads) and суета (vanity).

I missed this Makes me wonder about the context for суета. Normally it has meanings like fuss/bustle/hustle, basically when you're busy doing stuff but in a messy way. Надеюсь, на новой работе будет меньше суеты

I can't remember exactly now, but the novel was set in ancient Egypt and I think the context was about the women of the house being vain and jealous of each other, squabbling over little things like who got the best piece of cloth etc. It was quite a strange book really so I had to look up quite a few odd words.