Radioclare's 2022 log (Russian, Croatian)

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

Postby Radioclare » Mon May 09, 2022 7:16 pm

Thank you, Ogrim - that's really interesting about Greek :)

9 May
A fairly busy day working from home today. It was nice and sunny though, so enjoyed my lunchtime walk.

Russian
Today was one of those days when I'd offended the Memrise gods :lol:
rsz_12022-05-09_122830.jpg


Needless to say, I haven't cleared all of those yet :D For some variety this evening, I continued with the section on comparatives in TY Russian Grammar, which was explaining about short comparatives. I did an exercise to help identify the situations in which you use a short comparative vs a long comparative and that was a useful refresher.

Total - Russian: 53 mins, Croatian: 53 mins
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9 x

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

Postby Radioclare » Tue May 10, 2022 7:49 pm

10 May
Slightly hectic day at work today with lots of calls in the afternoon. Got to get up at 5am tomorrow to visit a client on the Isle of Man, so not really looking forward to my alarm going off.

Russian
I decided to blitz the Memrise reviews this evening and - after nearly 23 minutes of speed reviews - I finally got them down to zero.

Otherwise I just continued with TY Russian Grammar, revising a list of the more common short comparatives and then doing a few exercises. The exercises in this book are at a nice level where they're not too taxing and it's harder to get them wrong :lol:

Total - Russian: 38 mins, Croatian: 49 mins
9 x

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

Postby Radioclare » Wed May 11, 2022 8:20 pm

11 May
What a day! Alarm went off at 5, on a train at 6, at the airport by 8, sat in the airport until midday... and then I found out that my flight was cancelled :cry: I didn't make it home until 4pm. Total waste of a day.

Russian
I was trying to make the most of having WiFi on my trains and in the airport to get some work done, so I didn't do any Russian while I was travelling. My intention had been to read Russian on the plane, but obviously that didn't happen.

This evening I cleared my Memrise reviews, which weren't too bad in the end. I drowned my sorrows with some wine so didn't feel like doing any Russian grammar and instead wanted to watch some Russian TV. I was struggling for ideas a bit because I'm not in the middle of a series and I'm not watching Russian Progress any more. In the end I watched an episode of the travel show 'Орёл и Решка' about Liechtenstein. I don't love the format of the 'Орёл и Решка' show; it involves one presenter experiencing a location on an unlimited budget, while a second presenter visits the same destination on a budget of $100 and I don't find the luxury travel segments very interesting. But I'm going to Liechtenstein for a couple of days in June, so it was nice to see a few shots of it.

Total - Russian: 60 mins
11 x

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

Postby IronMike » Thu May 12, 2022 12:06 am

Radioclare wrote:'Орёл и Решка' about Liechtenstein. I don't love the format of the 'Орёл и Решка' show; it involves one presenter experiencing a location on an unlimited budget, while a second presenter visits the same destination on a budget of $100

I freaking love that show, exactly because of this. I've watched so many episodes.

There's also one out there, I'll try to remember the name, but it involves Elena Letuchaya going to restaurants and checking on their safety and health. So much fun. Scary when we saw restaurants we went to, or considering going to, while we lived in Moscow. :lol:
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Re: Radioclare's 2022 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby Cavesa » Thu May 12, 2022 10:50 am

Just a random note: I've been thinking of your learning a lot lately. Croatian would be such a useful language for me! I got to meet BCSM natives during my first week of working in the Switzerland, and before that all the time in Belgium. Really, such an underrated language (group)! Not sure I'll have the time to learn it now, but just wanted to say I wish I had. And should I find it, your log will be one of my primary inspiration and info sources.

And while I know that you don't have any confidence issue about your choice, I still wanted to add: if you happen to meet anyone doubting your choice and asking the usual dumb stuff like "why don't you learn something more useful instead?", I hope you can use my humble opinion and experience as a new piece of ammunition. Croatian is damn useful, and people in various fields would do well to learn it much more often!

Ok, or just break their thought process with description of the soap operas your log mentions. That is more efficient :-D (And they sound really fun!). But if you wanted to try "logical reasons to learn" on them, you can.
3 x

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

Postby Radioclare » Thu May 12, 2022 10:02 pm

12 May
A less dramatic day today :D Though I spent most of it on the phone and actually ended up working some overtime this evening :shock: Mainly just the after effects of wasting the whole of yesterday.

Russian
Least exciting update ever - I spent 70 minutes this evening doing Memrise reviews. After a while it stopped feeling boring and started to feel like some kind of strange meditation :lol: It was only because I logged into Memrise today and found that I had several thousand reviews. I cleared all the Russian ones in the 70 minutes. I've got a couple of thousand in Croatian too but I didn't do those. The Russian ones were all pretty easy words so I think these must be the words I never get wrong which Memrise only shows me once per year and this was my lucky day :D

Total - Russian: 70 mins, Croatian: 47 mins

Cavesa wrote:Just a random note: I've been thinking of your learning a lot lately. Croatian would be such a useful language for me! I got to meet BCSM natives during my first week of working in the Switzerland, and before that all the time in Belgium. Really, such an underrated language (group)! Not sure I'll have the time to learn it now, but just wanted to say I wish I had. And should I find it, your log will be one of my primary inspiration and info sources.

And while I know that you don't have any confidence issue about your choice, I still wanted to add: if you happen to meet anyone doubting your choice and asking the usual dumb stuff like "why don't you learn something more useful instead?", I hope you can use my humble opinion and experience as a new piece of ammunition. Croatian is damn useful, and people in various fields would do well to learn it much more often!

Ok, or just break their thought process with description of the soap operas your log mentions. That is more efficient :-D (And they sound really fun!). But if you wanted to try "logical reasons to learn" on them, you can.

That's really cool to hear about your experiences :) I hope one day you have time to learn and if you do, I will definitely make telenovela recommendations :lol: Many years ago I did get really offended by someone I was working with describing something that he regarded as pointless as being "about as useful as learning as learning Serbo-Croatian". So it is definitely useful to have some ammunition for these situations!

IronMike wrote:I freaking love that show, exactly because of this. I've watched so many episodes.

There's also one out there, I'll try to remember the name, but it involves Elena Letuchaya going to restaurants and checking on their safety and health. So much fun. Scary when we saw restaurants we went to, or considering going to, while we lived in Moscow. :lol:


I want to love it but I just can't - I get bored of the expensive cars/hotels/restaurants :D And also sometimes I just feel like the presenter who gets the unlimited budget rubs it in too much. I can't decide whether the restaurant programme sounds fascinating or terrifying :lol:
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 2022 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby Radioclare » Fri May 13, 2022 7:14 pm

13 May
Only worked a half a day today; my company closed for the afternoon as part of an experiment to potentially move to a 4-day working week.

Russian
I couldn't face any more Memrise today after yesterday's marathon effort, so I decided to spend my time reading in Russian instead. Still plodding on with the Ken Follett book; it seemed like I found it a bit harder today than I normally do, perhaps because I haven't done any reading for a few days. I feel like my Russian reading goes more smoothly when I do a little bit every day.

Total - Russian: 49 mins, Croatian: 57 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 2022 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby Radioclare » Sat May 14, 2022 9:15 pm

14 May
Day with my family today which involved visiting a cheese restaurant. Also involved a lot of time travelling as trains on my normal route were replaced with buses due to engineering works.

Russian
I cleared my Memrise reviews while standing on my first train; I got the final train to Birmingham before the rail replacement buses kicked in, so it was absolutely rammed. Standing on a train is a great opportunity to clear Memrise reviews though because there's really nothing more interesting to do.

The next part of my journey involved a walk and a bus so I listened to a couple of episodes of the podcast Что это было?. The first one was about Finland joining NATO and I felt like I understood it pretty well. The second one was about Patriarch Kirill and I felt like I understood it pretty badly :lol: But I think the topic was harder/less familiar for me. And there was a fair bit of background noise while I was walking by a busy road, so not the best listening circumstances.

Total - Russian: 71 mins, Croatian: 83 mins
5 x

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Radioclare
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Languages: Speaks: English (N), Esperanto, German, Croatian
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Re: Radioclare's 2022 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby Radioclare » Sun May 15, 2022 8:58 pm

15 May
A quieter day at home today. Good to have some time to catch up on housework and future travel planning.

Russian
I got through so many Memrise reviews while travelling yesterday that I didn't many left today. I cleared them before lunch, then read a short chapter of 'Третий близнец'. I looked up a couple of words, including "корица" (cinnamon). I also opened TY Russian Grammar for the first time in quite a few days and managed to finish the chapter on comparatives :)

Total - Russian: 36 mins, Croatian: 91 mins
6 x

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

Postby Radioclare » Mon May 16, 2022 7:53 pm

16 May
Worked from home today and it will be my only day this week working from home. Feel a bit sad; it turns out I don't really like having to go places and actually do my job :D

Russian
A bit of Memrise this evening and then I continued reading Ken Follett. New words which I looked up today included:

любитель - amateur (in this particular context in the book)
наклейка - sticker/label (one of those words which I felt I should have guessed once I looked it up)
холщовый - canvas (describing a canvas bag)
трахаться - perhaps better not to define on the forum :lol:

Total - Russian: 36 mins, Croatian: 53 mins
8 x


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