Radioclare's 2022 log (Russian, Croatian)

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

Postby Caromarlyse » Tue Jun 21, 2022 3:26 pm

Have you heard of ivi.ru? I've just been told about it and am thinking about trying it out - I'm not a big series fan, but it would be good for me!
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Radioclare
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Re: Radioclare's 2022 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby Radioclare » Tue Jun 21, 2022 4:56 pm

Caromarlyse wrote:Have you heard of ivi.ru? I've just been told about it and am thinking about trying it out - I'm not a big series fan, but it would be good for me!

Yes, that's what I was using back when I was watching the series Татьянин день :) I found it a really good website and easy to use; there seemed to be loads of stuff that you could watch for free without a subscription. I lost the will to live with the plot of Татьянин день, but I should probably just choose something else on there and give it a go.

21 June
A more productive day at work today, which I needed.

Russian
I had a technical problem with the website I normally use to watch my Croatian telenovela this morning, so I ended up listening to Russian on the treadmill this morning instead. Russian before breakfast is still not my preferred activity, but I got through it. I decided to watch some of the Russian with Max videos on YouTube. I started with one about travelling by train from Belgrade to Bar in Montenegro, which I found really interesting. I was planning to take the train from Bar to Belgrade back in 2014 and was really excited about it; I'd planned a 2-week trip to the Balkans around this train. Then there was really bad flooding over the summer, which resulted in significant damage to the railway line. I couldn't take the train anymore but I was stuck with a holiday which involved me being in Bar and needing to get to Belgrade for the flight home, so I had to endure the horror of a 12-hour bus journey through Montenegro and Serbia. Would never do that again :lol:

Taking that train is still on my travel bucket list, so I enjoyed the video. The couple in these videos speak unnaturally slowly, so it's not good listening practice for me from the point of view of trying to understand speech at native speed; the audio is sufficiently slow that if I don't understand something it's because I don't know the word, not because I'm failing to tell where one word ends and the next one starts. But I think there is some benefit to listening to slow audio, from the point of view that it can help me with pronunciation because all the words are pronounced very clearly. So I might watch some more of them :) I started a second video about visiting the town of Kragujevac in Serbia but I didn't get to the end of that one before breakfast.

Total - Russian: 46 mins
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Radioclare
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Re: Radioclare's 2022 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby Radioclare » Wed Jun 22, 2022 6:22 pm

22 June
Very warm and sunny today. Almost wished I was in the office with the air con, but not going in this week because there's a train strike in the UK.

Russian
I cleared my Memrise reviews after work. I had quite a few because I hadn't logged in yesterday and maybe not the day before either.

Later I continued reading 'Имя потерпевшего: Никто'. I'm 95 pages into it now and have no idea what's happening, but that's the way it is with these detective novels.

Words I looked up today included липовый (shame, faked, forged). Or else, I think, relating to the wood of lime trees. But that definition didn't make sense in the context of the book!

Total - Russian: 31 mins, Croatian: 48 mins
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Radioclare
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Re: Radioclare's 2022 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby Radioclare » Thu Jun 23, 2022 7:59 pm

23 June
Have just been watching a short video (in English) by the Ukrainian travel blogger, Anton Ptushkin. It's really interesting, about him travelling to the Donbas region (where he's originally from) to deliver some aid and about a wine warehouse in Kyiv that lost €15m of stock when it was bombed early this year.

Russian
More of the same this evening; cleared some Memrise reviews and then continued reading. I'm unlikely to finish this Russian novel before I set off for my trip to the US this time next week (eek :shock: ) but I'm hoping it's small enough that I can pack it and bring it with me to finish.

The main word I looked up today was валютчик, which I think is a person who changes money/works as a money changer. Possibly illegally/changing money on the black market, as the person being referred to in the story was definitely a criminal.

Croatian
I haven't posted much about Kumovi, the telenovela I'm currently watching in Croatian. It's allegedly a drama but it's more of a comedy really, set in a small village in inland Dalmatia and featuring a group of families who are always at each other's throats.

Huge spoiler - so don't read on if you intend to watch this - but one of the characters faked his own death recently. I don't know why but this seems to be a popular storyline in Croatia; I've already watched another telenovela where a character does exactly the same thing. I'm just getting to the inevitable stage of the plot where other character start to find out that this guy isn't actually dead. The clip below shows a couple of characters finding this out from the episode I watched today. The allegedly dead character is the second one to walk through the door, around the 1 minute mark. This scene really made me laugh on the treadmill this morning :lol:



Total - Russian: 53 mins, Croatian: 47 mins
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Radioclare
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Re: Radioclare's 2022 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby Radioclare » Fri Jun 24, 2022 5:35 pm

24 June
Busy busy. Will be at home this weekend but the next weekend I'll spend at home is that of 30 July, so it feels like there is a lot to do.

Russian
I was going out for a walk at lunchtime by myself today, so I brought my ear phones and listened to a couple of podcasts (both from Что это было?).

The first was called "Что дает Украине статус кандидата в члены ЕС" and was about Ukraine becoming a candidate for the EU. The second was called "Как Карьков бомбили кассетными боеприпасами". I didn't get to the end of that one - my walk just wasn't long enough - and I felt like I understood it less well.

Total - Russian: 31 mins, Croatian: 47 mins
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Radioclare
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Re: Radioclare's 2022 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby Radioclare » Sat Jun 25, 2022 12:00 pm

25 June
Going out with my family tonight so updating my log a bit earlier than usual.

Russian
Was cleaning the kitchen this morning - which is one of my least favourite tasks - so I used the time to listen to a podcast. I've had enough of Что это было? over the past few weeks - the topics really can be quite heavy - so I decided to try a podcast from Russian with Max. I've watched some of his videos on YouTube recently, but this was the first time I'd listened to one of the podcast episodes on Spotify. Overall I found it pretty good. It didn't bother me so much that it was slow while I was cleaning, because it was just nice to have something to listen to. And the fact that it was slow meant I could try to pay attention to things like verbs of motion. So overall a useful experience :)

Total - Russian: 44 mins, Croatian: 48 mins
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Re: Radioclare's 2022 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby David27 » Sat Jun 25, 2022 1:10 pm

I like the Russian with Max podcast. The YouTube videos I find slower and I lose interest so I don’t watch them as often, but while doing something like cleaning or taking a walk or driving I have liked his podcasts, and have been listening since I found it last December.
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Radioclare
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Re: Radioclare's 2022 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby Radioclare » Sun Jun 26, 2022 1:05 pm

David27 wrote:I like the Russian with Max podcast. The YouTube videos I find slower and I lose interest so I don’t watch them as often, but while doing something like cleaning or taking a walk or driving I have liked his podcasts, and have been listening since I found it last December.

Yes, I agree the podcast I listened to yesterday definitely seemed to have more pace than the YouTube videos I watched a few days ago! I found it difficult to sit still long enough to watch the videos without getting distracted by something else, whereas the podcast kept my attention. Or at least the bit of my attention that wasn't on cleaning :)

26 June
Still busy with all sorts of tasks. I'm leaving home on Thursday afternoon and I'm going to be away for just over three weeks which is the longest I've ever gone away anywhere, so it feels like there is a lot of admin to sort out.

Russian
I forced myself to sit at the computer and clear my Memrise reviews fairly on this morning, because I hadn't logged in for a couple of days and didn't want them to get out of control.

Then I was going to sit down and make some more progress with the detective novel I'm struggling through, but in the end I stopped myself. I'm about a third of the way through - so I'm planning to bring it to the US with me to finish - but there will be no point bringing it if I read a chapter every day between now and Thursday and end up nearly finishing it.

Instead I listened to a couple more Russian with Max podcasts. I'm unlikely to be doing much/any listening while I'm away, so it feels like a good use of time to focus on that, rather than reading, this week.

I'm starting to think about whether I'll manage to keep my streak while I'm away. Both my 30 mins of Russian streak and my 10 000 steps a day streak. I don't think I'll deliberately break them but these things do get harder on days when you're travelling a lot!

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

Postby Radioclare » Mon Jun 27, 2022 6:42 pm

27 June
Had a trip to the dentist this morning, which is never the brightest start to the week. A meeting I was going to have to travel to the office for got cancelled though, so that was positive and saved me a lot of time :)

Russian
The dentist is about a mile away so I walked there and back and used the opportunity to listen to a couple more Russian with Max podcasts. The first one I listened to was about schools in Russia and I found that really interesting; I think some of these podcasts could be good to listen to repeatedly and build vocabulary on a particular topic.

Croatian
There was quite a moving moment on my telenovela this morning when the main character (he who faked his own death) came out as alive to the whole village and was promptly arrested (turns out faking your own death is quite a serious crime in Croatia... I mean, it probably is everywhere to be fair!). There's some nice "klapa" (a type of traditional Dalmatian music) in the clip below.



Also - I have probably mentioned this before - but even if you don't speak Croatian it's worth considering following Croatian traveller Kristijan Iličić on Instagram. He's just got back from a trip to Afghanistan and is uploading stories showing what life is like there under the Taliban. He travelled to Afghanistan a couple of years ago, then led a massive fundraiser to help the guy who had been his guide there escape the country with his family when the Taliban took control. I can't decide whether I think it's brave or foolish to travel there again at the moment, but it's definitely fascinating to watch. His content is generally about 50% in Croatian (when he's addressing the camera) and 50% in English (when he's talking to his guides).

Total - Russian: 35 mins, Croatian: 48 mins
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Radioclare
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Re: Radioclare's 2022 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby Radioclare » Tue Jun 28, 2022 10:06 pm

28 June
So much to do, so little time. Today was the official 1-year anniversary of me starting my new job. To celebrate it I actually ended up working a little bit of overtime :lol: But I really can't complain about the handful of extra hours I've had to work this year.

Russian
I'm continuing with the objective of trying to get as much listening in as possible over the next few days, before I go away for 3 weeks and do zero listening. So I listened to another couple of podcasts tonight. One of them was about train travel, which again was another opportunity to revise vocabulary on a particular theme.

Total - Russian: 39 mins, Croatian: 59 mins
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