Radioclare's 2022 log (Russian, Croatian)

Continue or start your personal language log here, including logs for challenge participants
User avatar
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
x 10434
Contact:

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

Postby Radioclare » Fri Apr 15, 2022 6:27 pm

15 April
Very nice to have a Friday off work. And it has been sunny too!

Russian
I cleared my Memrise reviews quite early this morning and then re-read yesterday's section on animate accusative plurals/genitive plurals in the TY Russian Grammar book. There was a bit about irregular accusative plurals which I hadn't studied yesterday, plus a couple of short exercises too.

Later in the day I started reading 'Третий близнец' (The Third Twin) by Ken Follett. This is the first Ken Follett I've attempted in Russian, so interesting to see how it goes. Having read some Follett books in Serbian many years ago, I know he has a more extensive vocabulary than Agatha Christie, so not always the easiest author to read in translation. I haven't read this particular novel in any other language, but at least that will hopefully make it exciting. It's absolutely massive (550+ pages) and I've read less than 20 so far.

Finally, I took the decision to put 'A Comprehensive Russian Grammar' back on my bookshelf for now and instead take off 'The Big Silver Book of Russian Verbs'. I started reading through the intro this evening and it seems like the book is going to split verbs into six different types plus irregular verbs. Six types doesn't sound unmanageable and I spent some time today trying to learn the present tense of one verb from each type.

Croatian
I started reading the first chapter in 'Hrvatska na drugi pogled', which is the sequel to 'Hrvatska na prvi pogled'. As with the first book, this is a series of essays on different aspects of Croatia in Croatian, allegedly accessible to people at B2 and above. I thoroughly recommend it as a way of making yourself feel like you'll never reach B2 :lol: I'm clearly not an expert on levels because I've never taken a test, but I do feel like both these textbooks are pitched quite high. The first chapter I was reading today is about Croatian society and its path to modernisation and I get the impression it's written by someone who's an expert in sociology. At least, the chapter opens by talking about sociology and introduces concepts like "factors of social cohesion" which were new to me. There was some genuinely interesting stuff in the pages I've read so far, like an explanation of how the rail network in Croatia was initially constructed to facilitate travel to/from Vienna and Budapest, given Croatia's position in the Austro-Hungarian empire at the time, rather than to facilitate travel between different Croatian-speaking regions. I remember trying to explain this to a colleague at work once, who had decided against visiting Dubrovnik when he found out it wasn't connected to the rest of Croatia by rail :roll: So I do think this book is worth reading, but sometimes the formality of the grammar and language is such that I have to read sentences a couple of times to make sure I understand them. It's a bit like that feeling when you're reading German and a sentence is so long, by the time you get to the end and find the verb you've forgotten how it started :lol:

Esperanto
Completed chapter six of 'Enjoy Esperanto'. This one was about word-building in Esperanto and was quite a fun one, without any difficult grammar. I know the grammar gets harder from here onwards and I think chapters 8 - 10 are the ones I'm going to struggle with. I was supposed to be working on my book review today but I did some housework, went for a hike in the countryside, did all the language things described above and then more or less ran out of time. I did start it last week, so I've got about 600 words written so far. I think I made a fatal error by reading a book in Esperanto on which I need to write a review in Esperanto and taking the notes on which I'm going to base the review... in English :oops: The problem I was having last weekend was that I had some great notes which perfectly expressed what I wanted to say in English and I was fumbling around trying to find a way to say something equivalent in Esperanto. If I'd kept my thoughts in Esperanto in the first place, I think it would have been easier, i.e. I'd just be writing my Esperanto thoughts rather than trying to translate my English thoughts into coherent Esperanto. Never mind, tomorrow's another day!

Total - Russian: 71 mins, Croatian: 37 mins, Esperanto: 28 mins
7 x

Daniel N.
Green Belt
Posts: 357
Joined: Mon Oct 12, 2015 12:44 pm
Languages: Croatian (N), English (C1), German (beginner)
x 733
Contact:

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

Postby Daniel N. » Fri Apr 15, 2022 8:03 pm

Radioclare wrote:the rail network in Croatia was initially constructed to facilitate travel to/from Vienna and Budapest, given Croatia's position in the Austro-Hungarian empire at the time, rather than to facilitate travel between different Croatian-speaking regions. I remember trying to explain this to a colleague at work once, who had decided against visiting Dubrovnik when he found out it wasn't connected to the rest of Croatia by rail


I have to add something here. Croatia* was really poor back then. In the last decades of the 19th century, they introduced horse-drawn tram in Zagreb. At the same time, Budapest was building its first underground line (the second city after London). Budapest had 12 times more people than Zagreb. So Hungary built a railway line across Croatia to Rijeka, which was under direct Hungarian control. Croatian politicians tried to persuade them to build a railway from Zagreb to e.g. Osijek, but Hungarians said it was politically impossible for them to give money to a line which will be completely outside of "proper Hungary".

As for Dubrovnik, it wasn't in Croatia at all at the time. It was in Dalmatia, which was in the Austrian part of the Empire...

* strictly speaking, it was the Kingdom of Croatia-Slavonia
4 x
Check Easy Croatian (very useful for Bosnian, Montenegrin and Serbian as well)

User avatar
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
x 10434
Contact:

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

Postby Radioclare » Sat Apr 16, 2022 9:44 pm

16 April
Spent this afternoon with family for Easter, but got some language stuff in this morning before I went out.

Russian
I read a bit more of TY Russian Grammar this morning, covering the genitive and the dative endings for nouns. The dative is fine and the genitive wasn't too bad given that the plurals had already been covered in the section on the accusative.

I spent around three quarters of an hour reading 'Третий близнец' and felt like I was getting in to it a bit more than yesterday. The opening chapter which I read yesterday was quite heavy on description. The second chapter was longer but had more characters and dialogue, which I made it easier to read. If the rest of the book is along those lines, I think it's going to be fine :)

I also spent about 15 mins with the Big Silver Book of Russian Verbs. I was practising the present tense conjugations of type 1 and type 2 verbs, which went pretty well. But those are the easy ones :lol:

Total - Russian: 79 mins, Croatian: 66 mins
8 x

User avatar
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
x 10434
Contact:

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

Postby Radioclare » Sun Apr 17, 2022 9:52 pm

17 April
Although it's Easter my other half was working today, so there wasn't anything to stop me getting on with some language tasks.

Russian
I've done my Memrise reviews on the computer for the past couple of days - and although I hate doing them on the computer, I feel like I do memorise the words much more easily when typing them properly on the keyboard. I guess the mobile app is too "gamified".

I continued with TY Russian Grammar and finished reading about the case endings for the final two cases: the instrumental and the prepositional. I've found this book quite a useful recap so far and it's reassured me that I do know some things at least :) Genitive plurals are the main point I've flagged as needing more practice at the moment. But I guess most people need more practice of genitive plurals :lol:

I also had another go at the Big Silver verbs and today I practised the present tense conjugations of the type 3 and type 4 verbs. The ones they're calling "type 4" are the verbs that end in -овать and I definitely needed practice on those because I've completely forgotten how to conjugate them several times over the past few months.

I read another chapter of 'Третий близнец' and didn't enjoy it so much today. It was only a short chapter, but because it's the opening stage of the book it seems each chapter is introducing new characters and it just feels a bit overwhelming.

Croatian
I finished the opening chapter in 'Hrvatska na drugi pogled' about the modernisation of Croatian society. There were some really interesting bits in there; a description of the role of trade unions in Croatia, for example, and the influence of organisations that represent the interests of those who fought in the Homeland War. Also about the relatively high proportion of Croatians who still live in rural rather than urban societies. I haven't got the book open now but the statistic was something like there are only eight towns in Croatia with a population of more than 50 000 people. I live in a town which has a population of around 80 000 and it feels tiny to me so it blows my mind that by Croatian standards this would be a big place :)

I forgot to say that there was quite a funny moment in the telenovela 'Kumovi' the other day, when one of the characters was lost in a forest and the other characters were trying to track him down, but failing. One character eventually said "We'll have to call that service that saves the Czechs and Slovaks!". They were referring to the Hrvatska gorska služba spašavanja (Croatian mountain rescue service). I don't know to what extent this is based in fact, but there seems to be a popular perception that Czechs in particular come on holiday to Croatia and attempt to go hiking in unsuitable footwear, requiring mountain rescue :lol: I've certainly seen several things in the media along these lines over the past few years - and I was happy that I had and that I therefore managed to get the joke :)

Esperanto
I finally wrote the book review! I started this morning by re-reading what I'd already written the other week, but I decided that the beginning wasn't very coherent so I rewrote that from scratch and then merged the middle part of what I'd already written into it. It ended up as about 1000 words by the time I got to the end, which I was happy with, though how many of them make the cut for the magazine remains to be seen :D

Total - Russian: 57 mins, Croatian: 71 mins, Esperanto: 134 mins
12 x

User avatar
IronMike
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2554
Joined: Thu May 12, 2016 6:13 am
Location: Northern Virginia
Languages: Studying: Esperanto
Maintaining: nada
Tested:
BCS, 1+L/1+R (DLPT5, 2022)
Russian, 3/3 (DLPT5, 2022) 2+ (OPI, 2022)
German, 2L/1+R (DLPT5, 2021)
Italian, 1L/2R (DLPT IV, 2019)
Esperanto, C1 (KER skriba ekzameno, 2017)
Slovene, 2+L/3R (DLPT II in, yes, 1999)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=5189
x 7265
Contact:

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

Postby IronMike » Mon Apr 18, 2022 1:31 am

Radioclare wrote:I finally wrote the book review! I started this morning by re-reading what I'd already written the other week, but I decided that the beginning wasn't very coherent so I rewrote that from scratch and then merged the middle part of what I'd already written into it. It ended up as about 1000 words by the time I got to the end, which I was happy with, though how many of them make the cut for the magazine remains to be seen :D

What magazine will it be in?
1 x
You're not a C1 (or B1 or whatever) if you haven't tested.
CEFR --> ILR/DLPT equivalencies
My swimming life.
My reading life.

Caromarlyse
Green Belt
Posts: 387
Joined: Fri Dec 06, 2019 2:31 pm
Languages: English (N), French (C1-ish), German (B2/C1-ish), Russian (B1-ish), Portuguese (B1-ish), Welsh (complete beginner), Spanish (in hibernation)
(All levels estimates and given as a guide only)
x 1611

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

Postby Caromarlyse » Mon Apr 18, 2022 4:55 pm

I was reading through one of your very old logs and, over the course of just a few posts, saw you'd looked up two words that I've had as new words within the past few days: топор and переворот. I've got no point to make; I just thought it was a fun little coincidence :D
2 x

User avatar
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
x 10434
Contact:

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

Postby Radioclare » Mon Apr 18, 2022 7:35 pm

IronMike wrote:What magazine will it be in?

Only 'La Brita Esperantisto' so not the largest readership :lol:

Caromarlyse wrote:I was reading through one of your very old logs and, over the course of just a few posts, saw you'd looked up two words that I've had as new words within the past few days: топор and переворот. I've got no point to make; I just thought it was a fun little coincidence :D

It is funny when the same words crop up :)

18 April
Had a nice walk in the countryside today. It's been surprisingly sunny this bank holiday :)

Russian
I started the chapter on adjectives in TY Russian Grammar today. So far, so good :) I do like how simple this book makes everything.

I read another chapter of 'Третий близнец' and enjoyed it more than yesterday. There weren't any really difficult words hindering my understanding of what was going on, which is always a bonus.

I continued with the verb conjugations in the Big Silver book. Today was the type 5 and type 6 verbs and these are harder so I don't feel like I mastered them at all. The "type 5" verbs include lots of verbs of motion and those are clearly ones that I'm going to have to go back and practise properly another time.

Total - Russian: 53 mins, Croatian: 14 mins
8 x

User avatar
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
x 10434
Contact:

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

Postby Radioclare » Tue Apr 19, 2022 8:46 pm

19 April
Back to work today. But didn't get any emails over the Easter holidays :)

Russian
I carried on reading the adjectives chapter of TY Russian Grammar this evening. Today's pages were mostly about accusative singular/plural endings for adjectives and there were a few useful exercises. I made some mistakes, which were because I was concentrating so much on getting the (difficult) animate endings right I forgot to think about whether the nouns were actually animate or not :lol:

I also looked at some of the examples of irregular verbs from the Big Silver book. I haven't really decided how I'm going to proceed with this book. I'm still going through the introductory section at the moment, but I feel like ultimately I maybe need to make a hitlist of the verbs I want to practise and go through them one by one. There are 500+ verbs in this book and clearly some of them are going to be more useful to master than others!

I read another chapter of Ken Follett this evening. And then I realised that I'm going to be away for the next couple of weekends, which will mean I don't end up watching any TV, so I decided to try and compensate by watching something this evening. I sat through an episode of the 'Белые волки' series I started a couple of weeks ago, but to be honest I was completely bored by it. I think perhaps I need to try another series.

Total - Russian: 99 mins, Croatian: 56 mins
10 x

User avatar
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
x 10434
Contact:

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

Postby Radioclare » Wed Apr 20, 2022 8:54 pm

20 April
Advance copies of two short children's books which I've translated into Esperanto arrived in the post this week, so I went out for a meal tonight to celebrate.

Russian
That meant I didn't do loads of Russian tonight. I cleared all my Memrise reviews, which was around 10 minutes of Russian. Later when I was home, I watched a small amount of a stream called "Твой патриотизм и твоё молчание" on the Russian Progress YouTube channel. I'm sad because I've always thought this channel was a great resource for accessible listening material and I've probably recommended it here before. But in the 30 minutes or so I listened to the channel today I learned, for example, that the reason RT has been banned in Europe is because it was just so effective at giving Europeans an alternative point of view and that Serbia is the only truly independent country in Europe, a shining example of democracy to us all. So yeah, without going into it any further, I've got to the stage where I can't stay subscribed to this channel any more.

Incidentally my Russian figures aren't going to be very good for the rest of this week; I'm going to Wales on Friday for the British Esperanto Conference, so I think it will be hard to do much serious studying.

Total - Russian: 46 mins, Croatian: 53 mins
7 x

User avatar
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
x 10434
Contact:

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

Postby Radioclare » Thu Apr 21, 2022 9:34 pm

21 April
I've spent most of this evening getting ready for going away tomorrow, so it hasn't been the most spectacular of evenings for language learning.

Russian
I was going to get my 30 minutes in by reading another chapter of 'Третий близнец', but when I finally got around to doing it I realised I'd already packed the book :lol: I was too lazy to unpack it, so I watched another episode of 'Белые волки' instead. Still not enjoying this series, I think I definitely will choose another series. I don't think these type of series where there's a new mystery to solve in each episode are ideal for holding my attention; I need series that end each episode on enough of a cliffhanger for me to be motivated to watch the next one.

Total - Russian: 49 mins, Croatian: 47 mins

As I mentioned yesterday, I'm going away tomorrow (without my computer) and not back until Monday evening. I'm hoping that I manage to keep up my streak by doing Memrise reviews in the coffee breaks at the conference. I packed 'Третий близнец' for the eventuality that I get bored of Esperanto and decide to skive some of the lectures :lol: Will be interesting to see how speaking Esperanto goes. When I was trying to write in Esperanto at the weekend, I kept having issues where the Croatian word for what I wanted to say was the one at the front of the foreign language part of my brain and I was having to dig around to find the Esperanto one. I think this is probably I sign that I spend too much time watching Croatian telenovelas :lol:
7 x


Return to “Language logs”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 3 guests