Radioclare's 2022 log (Russian, Croatian)

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

Postby Radioclare » Sun Jul 31, 2022 8:27 pm

DaveAgain wrote:Channel 4 have a Croatian mini-series, Uspjeh (UK title: Four strangers).

Thanks for the tip, I didn't know about that! I'll hopefully check it out later this week :)

31 July
Another quiet day, mainly at home except for a walk in the park. Now that I've been back from holiday for a week my thoughts are starting to turn to upcoming trips, the next being a weekend in Luxembourg at the end of August. So I spent a bit of time this afternoon trying to make plans for that.

Russian
I didn't have many Memrise reviews this morning so I spent a bit more time reading 'Стечение обстоятельств', finishing another chapter. I then reopened the numbers section of TY Russian Grammar and tackled the section about cases after numbers. This is a topic I absolutely hate. I mean, I don't even like it in Croatian, where the grammar is easier than in Russian, and every time I read it I feel like I don't understand it. But I did the exercises which followed the explanations and nearly scored 100% (with the one mistake I made being unrelated to the topic being examined) so I guess I am making progress.

Croatian
I finally got to Memrise Zero today. When I said I've been clearing Memrise reviews on holiday, it really has only just been in Russian, so I had quite a backlog of Croatian words to work through.

This weekend I've also got back into the textbook 'Hrvatska na drugi pogled', finishing a chapter about immigration and national minorities and starting a new chapter about religion in Croatia.

Esperanto
I failed to finish the textbook 'Enjoy Esperanto' before I went to NASK, so it's on my list to get through as soon as possible now I'm back. Today I completed chapter 9, which is about participles. I thought I was doing ok until I got about halfway through the chapter and then I lost the plot. Honestly, this is an aspect of Esperanto that I've never fully got a grip on and I am quite skilled at expressing what I want to say in ways which mean I never need to use a participle at all. In some ways I think this is a bonus, because most ideas are capable of being expressed in Esperanto via a simple tense. But to write Esperanto more accurately, I do think I would benefit from writing out all the possible permutations of participles in compound tenses, working out their English translations and memorising them.

Total - Russian: 52 mins, Croatian: 42 mins, Esperanto: 46 mins
8 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 » Mon Aug 01, 2022 10:06 pm

1 August
Had to go to a client site today. Went out for a meal on the way home, which meant that motivation to do Russian this evening was quite low.

Russian
But I signed up for the 6WC and that's where I find challenges are useful; they give you a reason to do something even when you don't want to. I cleared my Memrise reviews at the pub while I was waiting for food, then when I got home I did a bit more reading of 'Стечение обстоятельств'. I didn't make any great progress with it; I started chapter 7 and my Kindle told me that it would take by 47 minutes to get to the end of it, which somewhat killed my motivation. When reading in Russian I prefer books with short chapters so I can feel like I'm making some progress!

Later on I tried to do a bit of grammar, but I was too tired to make much progress with the grammar of Russian numbers. Instead I watched the second episode of 'Обручальное кольцо', the series I started the other day. It all seemed very dramatic with a robbery on a train today. I understood more than I expected when I focussed on it really hard but the audio quality isn't very good, so I'm having to turn my volume up quite high to catch things. I don't think this would be a good one to watch on the treadmill when I've got background noise.

Total - Russian: 82 mins, Croatian: 66 mins
9 x

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

Postby Radioclare » Tue Aug 02, 2022 9:12 pm

2 August
Had a client meeting that required attendance in person this morning. It was fine, though in all honesty it could have been a Teams' call.

Russian
I did some Memrise on the train on the way home. This evening I did a bit more reading, but 'Стечение обстоятельств' is starting to feel like a bit of a chore because I'm struggling to keep track of all the different characters. Honestly, next time I start reading a book like this in Russian I think I'm going to have to take notes of what all the characters are called and who they are. I'm particularly struggling with the male characters because there are so many of them, none of them have any distinguishing characteristics and I can't remember who is a detective, who is a suspect, who is a detective and a suspect at the same time. It's very confusing :lol:

Otherwise I watched another episode of 'Обручальное кольцо' this evening. This was the third episode and it started with a narrator recap of everything that had happened in the first two episodes, which I found really helpful. In general I'm finding my comprehension is ok if I'm really concentrating, and then the second I get distracted by anything else for a split second I completely fall apart.

Total - Russian: 100 mins, Croatian: 126 mins
8 x

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

Postby DaveAgain » Tue Aug 02, 2022 9:23 pm

Radioclare wrote: I'm particularly struggling with the male characters because there are so many of them, none of them have any distinguishing characteristics and I can't remember who is a detective, who is a suspect, who is a detective and a suspect at the same time. It's very confusing :lol:
I had a similar experience with an Italian TV series, they had some muted colour scheme for clothes and decoration, lots of grey and blue, and all the actresses seemed to have long straight brown hair. :-)
3 x

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

Postby Radioclare » Wed Aug 03, 2022 9:16 pm

3 August
I had a whole day at home today which was really nice. Still didn't get quite as much work done as I'd hoped, but I appreciated not having to go out to any meetings.

Russian
Persevering with the novel and I'm over 50% of the way through now. I did a bit of grammar study this evening, tackling the section in TY Russian Grammar about telling the time. Telling the time in Russian requires a bit of mental gymnastics and it definitely doesn't come naturally to me yet, but I probably did a bit better in the exercises than I did last time I tried them.

This evening I watched a couple of 'Russian with Max' videos, which were blissfully easy to understand in comparison to the series I've been trying to get into. The first was about his wedding, the second was about differences he's noticed between Russia and Serbia. Some of the things he picked up on said a lot about Serbia; dreadful trains, smoking everywhere, lots of paper bureaucracy. Some of the things said more about Russia; people smile more in Serbia, there's less public drunkenness etc. I found it an interesting video anyway :)

Croatian
I watched the last available episode of 'Kumovi' yesterday morning; it's paused for the summer holidays, so no more new episodes until the autumn. So this morning I tried watching the first episode of 'Uspjeh' (Four Strangers) which DaveAgain made me aware was on Channel 4 in the UK. I quite enjoyed it, though I found it a bit weird to watch Croatian with subtitles because I never managed to find anything subtitled in Croatian when I was a beginner and really needed them. I mostly ignored them because I was watching from the treadmill, which made reading a bit harder anyway, but I did start noticing partway through that they toned down some of the Croatian swearing (of which there was quite a lot) in the subtitles :lol:

The other thing which really took me by surprise was how many adverts there were. I never watch normal UK TV so I found the first ad break a bit of a novelty because all the ads were new to me. Then after another 15 minutes or so of the programme I had to sit through over 4 minutes of more or less the same adverts :shock: I'd thought that the 45-minute episode would be perfect for my 45-minute treadmill session. But actually, after 45 minutes on the treadmill I'd only managed to get through about 35 minutes of the episode and I had to finish it off at lunch.

Never mind, apart from that I enjoyed it. It's nice to watch something a bit different - so far I've only recognised one actor from a telenovela :)

Otherwise I'm still working through the textbook 'Hrvatska na drugi pogled'. I'm partway through a chapter on religion at the moment, so read a few pages about Christianity in Croatia this evening. Honestly, I've found some of the commentary in this textbook quite bland so far. There's a lot of emphasis on explaining how great Croatian is at complying with all the EU requirements to protect minorities etc etc and very little discussion of anything that could be even slightly controversial. This chapter on religion, for example, listed at tedious length every protestant church which has even the tiniest membership in Croatia, despite the fact that less than half a percent of the population of Croatia is protestant. And then the section about Catholicism which I was reading this evening failed to adequately address any interesting points like the role of the church during the NDH. I mean it's fine, the textbook is still worth reading, it just feels like it spends a lot of time talking about things which are barely relevant so that there's no time left to talk about things that are actually interesting :lol:

Total - Russian: 98 mins, Croatian: 132 mins
12 x

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

Postby DaveAgain » Wed Aug 03, 2022 9:55 pm

Radioclare wrote:Otherwise I'm still working through the textbook 'Hrvatska na drugi pogled'. I'm partway through a chapter on religion at the moment, so read a few pages about Christianity in Croatia this evening. Honestly, I've found some of the commentary in this textbook quite bland so far. There's a lot of emphasis on explaining how great Croatian is at complying with all the EU requirements to protect minorities etc etc and very little discussion of anything that could be even slightly controversial. This chapter on religion, for example, listed at tedious length every protestant church which has even the tiniest membership in Croatia, despite the fact that less than half a percent of the population of Croatia is protestant. And then the section about Catholicism which I was reading this evening failed to adequately address any interesting points like the role of the church during the NDH. I mean it's fine, the textbook is still worth reading, it just feels like it spends a lot of time talking about things which are barely relevant so that there's no time left to talk about things that are actually interesting
I read two or three books about the French Cathars last year. There was a suggested link with Bogomil [?] believers in Bosnia, as a group the Bogomil-Bosnians were apparantly cold-shoulderd by their Orthodox and Catholic Christian neighbours, and so were open to Ismalic conversion later.
3 x

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

Postby Radioclare » Thu Aug 04, 2022 8:34 pm

4 August
Had to go and see another client today. That's three outings I've had in one week! Almost like real life :D

Russian
I was really bored on the way home because I'm still not very good at this actually leaving the house business and so I forgot both my kindle and my ear phones. I cleared my Memrise reviews while waiting for a train at the station but for some unknown reason I barely had any today, so I had to learn 20 new words to pass the time. After 20 words the train still hadn't come, so in desperation for something productive to do with my phone I opened Clozemaster for what must be the first time in several years. I had plenty of reviews there to keep me busy :lol:

Otherwise just a bit more reading this morning. Bit confused by the story as it seems like we know who the murderer is now but there's still almost half of the book to go.

Total - Russian: 51 mins, Croatian: 99 mins
9 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 » Fri Aug 05, 2022 10:10 pm

5 August
Went out for dinner with family tonight so didn't have a lot of free time in the evening.

Russian
The good news is that I was able to finish work early and get some Russian in before I went out. So I did a bit of Memrise, even a little bit of Clozemaster and then worked through a section in TY Russian Grammar about dates. This was a good refresher of which cases are used in which circumstances etc. Dates and telling the time are both things that I could definitely practise more.

Total - Russian: 68 mins, Croatian: 67 mins
7 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 Aug 06, 2022 8:54 pm

6 August
A day at home today which was nice :) Have started planning my upcoming travels to the Azores. If I manage to get through the next month without any flights being cancelled, I'll finally be doing this trip that was initially booked for June 2020.

Russian
I had some admin and housework to do this morning, but then I was able to devote some time to languages. I cleared my Memrise reviews and cleared all my Clozemaster reviews too. I'm not sure whether I'm going to keep doing Clozemaster - I'm finding it quite fun, but not sure whether I'm actually learning anything. At least, not if I do the reviews as multiple choice.

I made a bit more progress with the detective novel I'm reading and then I managed to finish the chapter about numbers in TY Russian Grammar. I started the next chapter, which is about pronouns and which promises to be quite straightforward. At least, the bit I've done so far has been quite straightforward.

This evening I watched a Russian with Max video which was essentially a vlog around Sarajevo. I enjoyed it to some extent, as I'm obviously interested in that part of the world and Bosnia is on my list of countries that I'd really like to visit. However I found it a bit bizarre that he got through 25 minutes of talking about Sarajevo without once mentioning the Bosnian war, the siege of Sarajevo, anything like that. Obviously there is a lot more to the history of Sarajevo than what happened in the 1990s, but it just felt a bit odd to me not to acknowledge it at all. I don't know, maybe he just didn't want to use the word "war" in a Russian video right now. He's probably regretting making a video about Bosnia at all because people in the comments section have strong views about him describing Gavrilo Princip as a terrorist :lol:

Croatian
I started a new chapter in 'Hrvatska na drugi pogled' today which is about art and architecture in Croatia during the 19th and 20th centuries. Definitely not my specialist subject so I guess I'll learn something. Also spent quite a bit of time reading Jeffrey Archer in Croatian and watched another episode of 'Uspjeh'. I'm really enjoying it, despite the adverts driving me mad. As you'll see from the trailer below, it's quite dark. Definitely wouldn't encourage you to book a holiday to Zagreb :D



Total - Russian: 67 mins, Croatian: 137 mins
11 x

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

Postby Radioclare » Sun Aug 07, 2022 9:20 pm

7 August
Another fairly quiet day today, with a visit to my family in the afternoon.

Russian
That left the morning free for language stuff. I've almost reached the 75% mark in the Russian novel I'm reading and feeling a bit more positive about it now. And I continued with the pronouns chapter in TY Russian Grammar, which is so straightforward I'm almost enjoying it :lol:

Esperanto
The big achievement of this morning was that I finally finished the textbook 'Enjoy Esperanto'. Parts of the final chapter blew my mind a bit. It was about uses of the reflexive pronoun in complex sentences and honestly, I'm not sure I'll ever understand the grammar behind all of it. But I do have an unconscious sense of what feels right and what doesn't so I'm going to continue sticking with that and hoping for the best :)

Total - Russian: 60 mins, Croatian: 86 mins, Esperanto: 48 mins
8 x


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