Radioclare's 2022 log (Russian, Croatian)

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IronMike
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Re: Radioclare's 2022 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby IronMike » Sat Apr 09, 2022 2:37 pm

Radioclare wrote:Croatian
Nothing to report but I was excited today to find that not just one but two of my favourite bands had released new singles.

The first is by Brkovi: Više ni pankeri ne slušaju punk

The second is by Hladno Pivo: Štetočine


Thanks for these. Listening to Stetocine now. Trying to find the Brkovi song in my Spotify, and as I'm looking, I come across their album entitled: Balkanski Esperanto. :o
Last edited by IronMike on Sat Apr 09, 2022 9:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Radioclare
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Re: Radioclare's 2022 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby Radioclare » Sat Apr 09, 2022 7:30 pm

IronMike wrote:Thanks for theses. Listening to Stetocine now. Trying to find the Brkovi song in my Spotify, and as I'm looking, I come across their album entitled: Balkanski Esperanto. :o

I couldn't find the Brkovi song on Spotify when I looked last night. But yes, they do have an album called Balkanski Esperanto! No idea why and it's definitely nothing to do with Esperanto, but it's kinda cool anyway :)

9 April
I was out hiking with my sister today and have racked up nearly 27 000 steps, so that hasn't left a lot of time for anything else.

Russian
I cleared my Memrise reviews while standing on the platform waiting for my first train this morning and it reminded me how much easier it was to do Memrise back in the days when I was commuting every day. There's really nothing else to do while you're waiting for a train, which makes Memrise almost feel like an exciting prospect, but when you're at home with 101 other things you could do it's less attractive.

Once I was on the train itself I spent some time reading in Russian. I'm in the final quarter of 'Убийца поневоле' now so there's lots of action.

Total - Russian: 34 mins, Croatian: 3 mins
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Re: Radioclare's 2022 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby Radioclare » Sun Apr 10, 2022 5:28 pm

10 April
Today has involved more sitting down than yesterday, for which my legs are grateful :)

Russian
The only place I walked today was the supermarket. Listened to another episode of 'Что это было?' on the way there, which was about 40 minutes. I'd be lying if I said my comprehension of this one was great. I think part of it was because I was walking alongside a reasonably busy road for most of the time, so I had the background noise of traffic. And part of it was that the interviewee was male and I didn't feel like he enunciated his words as clearly as the lady who was being interviewed the other day. Still, it helped me pass the time on what is otherwise quite a boring walk.

Later in the day I did a bit more reading and I think I only have one more chapter of 'Убийца поневоле' to go, so I should finish it this week. I also forced myself to open 'A Comprehensive Russian Grammar' and do some exercises on possessive pronouns. I don't know why I keep procrastinating doing this because pronouns isn't a terribly difficult chapter in the grand scheme of things.

Croatian
I finished the textbook 'Hrvatska na prvi pogled' this morning. I read a chapter about Croatian music, which I didn't find particularly interesting; it was mostly focussed on classical music. That was followed by a chapter on Croatian cinema, which I think you would have to be very interested in cinema to understand. Then a final chapter about everyday life in Croatia, which was one of the most interesting and useful in the book :) I decided to just blitz through all three chapters today when I realised how close I was to the end of the book, because I was only ever intending to quickly revise it at the start of this year. My main aim is to work through the sequel, 'Hrvatska na drugi pogled'. Hopefully I'll be able to make a start on that over Easter :)

Esperanto
I finished chapter 5 of 'Enjoy Esperanto'. So far, so good. I know the hard grammar is coming in the final chapters though :lol: I'm updating my log as a way of procrastinating working on the book review I've been meaning to start for several weeks now.

Total - Russian: 85 mins, Croatian: 44 mins, Esperanto: 22 mins
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Re: Radioclare's 2022 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby Radioclare » Mon Apr 11, 2022 8:17 pm

11 April
My plans for a really productive evening got derailed somewhat when I realised that my favourite travel vlogger, Anton Ptushkin, had made a video about life in Kyiv during the Russian siege. It's in (not perfect, but very good) English, so didn't count towards my Russian learning, but well worth a watch: https://youtu.be/DqIF2U4g7H8

Russian
Before I started watching that, I did finish reading the novel 'Убийца поневоле'. This is the fourth Russian book I've read this year and at 320 pages, it takes me to 1,528 total pages read so far in 2022. I really enjoyed this one :) It's also the third book I've read in total by Alexandra Marinina and I think these are more or less the right level for me at the moment. Hard enough to be challenging, but not so hard that they blow my mind.

Total - Russian: 79 mins, Croatian: 57 mins
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Re: Radioclare's 2022 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby Daniel N. » Tue Apr 12, 2022 2:26 pm

Radioclare wrote:I finished the textbook 'Hrvatska na prvi pogled' this morning. I read a chapter about Croatian music, which I didn't find particularly interesting; it was mostly focussed on classical music. That was followed by a chapter on Croatian cinema, which I think you would have to be very interested in cinema to understand. Then a final chapter about everyday life in Croatia, which was one of the most interesting and useful in the book :) I decided to just blitz through all three chapters today when I realised how close I was to the end of the book, because I was only ever intending to quickly revise it at the start of this year. My main aim is to work through the sequel, 'Hrvatska na drugi pogled'. Hopefully I'll be able to make a start on that over Easter

TBH Hrvatska na prvi pogled looks a lot like a tourist booklet assembled by a committee where most writers had no idea they write for people who just learned Croatian. The section on language is particularly poor.
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Radioclare
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Re: Radioclare's 2022 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby Radioclare » Tue Apr 12, 2022 8:06 pm

Daniel N. wrote:TBH Hrvatska na prvi pogled looks a lot like a tourist booklet assembled by a committee where most writers had no idea they write for people who just learned Croatian. The section on language is particularly poor.

The person who wrote the opening chapter on geography definitely did not limit their language to terms that learners might stand a chance of understanding :lol:

12 April
Another day, another flight change. I get so annoyed by these. I mean, I'm really glad that travel is becoming possible again, but it's so annoying to have made plans around a flight arriving at a destination at a particular time and then be told out of the blue that it will now be arriving at a completely different time.

Russian
Not much to report today. I cleared my Memrise reviews before dinner and I really am just focussing on clearing reviews at the moment, not learning new words.

I also decided that I'm getting nowhere fast with 'A Comprehensive Russian Grammar' and I needed to revert to an easier book. Don't get me wrong, I think 'A Comprehensive Russian Grammar' is a great book but it's very... comprehensive. I mean, maybe the clue was in the name :lol: It's great that it has loads of exercises, but the problem I'm having is that they're often focussed on practising the obscure exceptions to rules and I'm coming to the realisation that I really just need to practise the basics.

If anyone has any recommendations of books that just involve hundreds of exercises to practise the same points of Russian grammar over and over again, please let me know :lol: I feel like I could do with extensive exercises on conjugating verbs in particular, because I've spent so much time trying and failing to master noun and adjective declensions that I've neglected verbs quite a lot.

For the time being, I've decided to re-read TY Russian Grammar as a bit of revision.

Total - Russian: 48 mins, Croatian: 56 mins
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Re: Radioclare's 2022 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby Caromarlyse » Wed Apr 13, 2022 7:47 am

I feel your pain on Russian verbs. I find there is such a contrast with Portuguese, where a lot of focus is given to choosing the right tense, understanding the differences in tense usage between English and Portuguese, getting the conjugations right, etc. Whereas in Russian, there is so much else to learn that verbs get relegated. I keep finding that I know the verb I want, I know the infinitive forms, often I know which of the imperfective/perfective forms I need to use ... and then I have to guess the conjugation (which often turns out to be wrong). I'd be interested to see if you get more informed responses, but my completely amateur-ish thoughts are as follows.

* Here is a list put together by Ruslania for practising verbs. I've found them really good at sending to the UK: https://ruslania.com/en/recommendations/1544-russian-verbs-theory-and-exercises-for-russian-language-learners/

* One of the books listed there is the Big Silver Book of Russian Verbs. From the pages I can view, it seems to adopt a similar approach to the Russian Verb Drills online course I have, in that it divides the verbs into groups and then has model verbs for each. My understanding is that there are various different methodologies, with no agreed number of groups said to exist. So it seems you need to pick a resource and stick to it. I did see a throwaway comment from a RFL university student online somewhere to the effect that they learnt new verbs by seeing which group it fit into, so perhaps this is how Russian is taught academically to English-speaking learners? I think I have seen the silver book in a reading list for courses, but I can't remember which. My issue is the same I have for the rest of Russian - there is just so much to learn that it is hard to get anywhere! I kind of see the route I need to follow, but, realistically, it's a good few years of work! So I know I should work more with Russian Verb Drills, but there is so much else I need to do too that I am not getting round to it. I have just seen, however, that two verbs I struggled conjugating this week belong to the same group, so perhaps that is the answer: drilling verbs as they come up, hoping that with time you end up covering more and more.

* There seems to be a dearth of just basic conjugation practice. Most of the books in this list focus on aspect, or verbs of motion, or prefixes, rather than just plain vanilla conjugation. So your attention is always divided; there is more than one point of grammar you need to get right each time. Again, I think this might just be an unavoidable function of Russian being hard.

* I'd also put a good word in for the Let's Improve our Russian series. Book 1 contains drills on aspect, verbs of motion, reflexive verbs, participles, gerunds, and numerals. As above, the focus in not on practising conjugations per se, but by dint of what you are asked to do, you do get a lot of practice anyhow. Personally I really like them, but then I do like an "old-fashioned" textbook (having lived through English school modern language teaching where explaining why a "der Bahnhof" suddenly became "den Bahnhof" was guarded as though it were a state secret and we only ever were given photocopies out of random books, this is my form of rebellion). I am finding, however, that going through everything at least twice is going to be necessary - I feel it's stuck and then a few weeks pass and .... всё исчезло (to use one of the verbs I knew but couldn't conjugate properly this week - I wanted the е to be an ё).

* I've been working on prefixes with a teacher recently (with her own materials). It is good in developing a bit more of a sense of the internal logic of Russian, but, again, it feels as though it's a topic in its own right, quite distinct from conjugations. For verbs of motion, I've made my own crib sheets, in which I focus on how the verbs are conjugated (which groups they belong to), including where the stress falls. This then supplements the focus in books on which verb to choose. I've based this off the Let's Improve our Russian 1 book, but have had to make my own as that book doesn't mark stress, even though the moving stress on conjugated verbs is both completely illogical and important!
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Re: Radioclare's 2022 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby Radioclare » Wed Apr 13, 2022 10:05 pm

Thank you for such a comprehensive reply, Caromarlyse!

I totally agree that there isn't much focus on verbs in Russian courses. It's kinda like there's so many other things that are really hard in Russian that conjugating verbs feels like the least of your problems when you start out :lol: But then ultimately you get to the stage where you do need to be able to master it if you ever want to communicate coherently.

The Ruslania site looks really interesting and that wasn't on my radar at all, so definitely going to explore it. Also really interesting that you mentioned the Big Silver Book of Russian Verbs, because I realised that I actually already have this on my book shelf! I must have had it for a really long time and to be honest, I'd completely forgotten about it :oops: So maybe my first step to improve my Russian verb conjugation should be to actually take it off the shelf and start using it :lol:

13 April
Starting to look forward to the Easter weekend now. Haven't got anything wildly exciting planned but it's going to be fun to have four days off work :)

Russian
Still battling through the Memrise reviews. I make so many spelling mistakes in Russian still.

Before dinner I spent half an hour or so reading the TY Russian Grammar book. I think I'm going to try and read through this fairly swiftly and make a list of all the topics I'm having trouble with. Then perhaps I can make a plan to tackle them one by one. Today's chapter was just about nominative plurals and all the various oddities of masculine nouns, so pretty easy. But I can remember a time when I found even nominative plurals overwhelming, so I guess I've moved forward slightly.

Total - Russian: 39 mins, Croatian: 60 mins
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Re: Radioclare's 2022 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby Caromarlyse » Thu Apr 14, 2022 2:24 pm

Glad it reminded you to check your bookshelves! I've just had another thing added to my looong list of things I need to learn in Russian: handwriting... I thought mine would do, but apparently not!
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Re: Radioclare's 2022 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby Radioclare » Thu Apr 14, 2022 7:28 pm

Caromarlyse wrote:Glad it reminded you to check your bookshelves! I've just had another thing added to my looong list of things I need to learn in Russian: handwriting... I thought mine would do, but apparently not!

Until recently all my Slavic language textbooks were crammed into one shelf in a way which meant I couldn't really access them and would have had to remove about 10 books to get to the one I wanted. I got a brand new bookcase from IKEA a few weeks ago though and now I can actually see everything and take things on and off the shelves when I want them. I think it's going to be life-changing :lol:

Re Russian handwriting, I've got mine to a stage where I'm happy with it myself and occasionally I can even read back what I've written :D But I would be very nervous about anyone else trying to read it!

14 April
Yay, now it's a long weekend for Easter! I had a pretty full-on day at work though by the standards of my current job.

Russian
That meant I decided to have a drink after work tonight and only do the bare minimum of Russian. I cleared my Memrise reviews, which took about 10 minutes, and then spent another 20 minutes progressing with TY Russian Grammar. Today's topic was the accusative, so not a very difficult topic in theory, but the order in which this book presents things means that it was essentially teaching genitive plurals. So while I got through it, I think I need to read it again tomorrow. And I should probably add genitive plurals to the list of things in Russian grammar that I need to do more practice on.

Total - Russian: 30 mins, Croatian: 59 mins
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