Radioclare's 2022 log (Russian, Croatian)

[Radioclare]

23 October
Another nice quiet day at home

Russian
I had another go at reading 'Игольное ушко' this morning and I feel like I'm getting on a bit better now. Words I looked up today included:

особняк - mansion
кличка - nickname
жевательная резинка - chewing gum

Later on I started reviewing chapter 9 of the NPRC. This chapter is the genitive and I only went over the first part of it, which was about the genitive singular. I'm saving the part about the genitive plural for another day

Croatian
Went back to watching the telenovela 'Kumovi' this morning. I got up to episode 96 previously, then it paused over the summer, but it started back up again weeks ago now so currently 130+ episodes have been released. That means I'm behind with it and haven't been 100% successful at avoiding spoilers on social media. But I think being behind will work out for the best because these telenovelas tend to have quite a pause around Christmas and New Year as well. Anyway, I watched episode 97 this morning and it was good; episode 96 had finished at a pretty exciting point. I felt like the characters spoke more quickly than in Novine though!

Total - Russian: 104 mins, Croatian: 48 mins

[Radioclare]

24 October
Felt tired this afternoon and may have accidentally drunk too much coffee as a result

Russian
I didn't have time for a proper walk at lunchtime but I did manage 15 minutes on the treadmill, which I used to re-watch the Russian with Max video I'd watched a few days ago. This was the one where I'd been through the transcript looking up unknown words at the weekend. I wanted to see whether there was an improvement in my understanding second time around, but the results were inconclusive; I felt like I'd understood the majority of it first time around anyway so the scope for improvement was a bit limited. I'll have to try this again with a podcast I think.

This evening I also watched an episode of 'Обручальное кольцо'. I haven't been doing a very good job of watching this recently so I need to try and get back into the habit again.

Total - Russian: 59 mins, Croatian: 48 mins

[Radioclare]

25 October
Another new prime minister! Hopefully this one lasts for a bit and I can spend less time following the news on Twitter.

Russian
Did a bit more reading tonight. I looked up the word "артрит" which, somewhat obviously, means "arthritis" I was staring at it for ages unable to work that out, never mind...

Otherwise I invested a bit more time in the Red Kalinka video course, with the result that I've now finished the first stage (I think there are four stages in total). I've found the exercises quite useful. There's been some good practice of verb conjugations, which I definitely need, and there was a nice exercise on opposites tonight which made me think a bit.

Total - Russian: 139 mins, Croatian: 55 mins

[Radioclare]

26 October
Nice sunny day today. Enjoyed having a walk outside, although I forgot to bring my phone with me to listen to a podcast.

Russian
I did a bit of Memrise after work and then I carried on reading 'Игольное ушко'. The main word I looked up was "Золушка" which is the Russian name for Cinderella Oh and I also looked up "чайка", which is a gull; that was one of those that I looked up and then realised I should have already known it.

Total - Russian: 57 mins, Croatian: 47 mins

[Le Baron]

The main word I looked up was "Золушка" which is the Russian name for Cinderella

The only reason I know that word is because it is a ballet by Prokofiev. Otherwise I'd never have known

[Radioclare]

The main word I looked up was "Золушка" which is the Russian name for Cinderella

The only reason I know that word is because it is a ballet by Prokofiev. Otherwise I'd never have known

Impressive ballet knowledge. I should have known Чайка because it's a play by Chekov and I've even been to see it, but the first three letters "чай" (tea) confused me and made me think maybe it was some sort of Russian teapot or something

[Le Baron]

Well now I've learned something else! The likelihood of me having read Chekhov in Russian is, these days, very very slim indeed.

It's pretty close to the word for teapot, I'd have been fooled.

[Radioclare]

27 October
It got to lunchtime today and I actually remembered that I was supposed to be listening to a Russian podcast while I went for a walk. Unfortunately, when I picked up my earphones it turned out that one of them had run out of charge. I've got no idea how one earphone can have 80% charge and the other one can have 0% charge when they're both in the same charging box, but never mind. No podcast today!

Russian
Maybe because I was annoyed about that, I haven't got much done this evening. My Memrise reviews weren't too numerous so I learned 10 new words. Then I read a bit more of 'Игольное ушко', but it really only was a bit (about 9 pages). I did look up some more new words though:

рядовой - a private (in the army)
известняк - limestone
винтовка - rifle

Looking at that list of words in Russian, it strikes me that none of them bear any relation to the equivalent Croatian words. Private is pozornik in Croatian, limestone is vapnenac and a rifle is puška. Obviously not a very scientific sample but I do think the similarity of Slavic languages is sometimes overrated

It also just occurred to me that I didn't know the word for limestone in Esperanto so I had to look it up: kalkoŝtono.

Total - Russian: 31 mins

[snoopy]

27 October
Obviously not a very scientific sample but I do think the similarity of Slavic languages is sometimes overrated

It is also extremely misleading, as позор/pozor means 'shame' in Russian and 'attention' in Czech and пушка is a 'cannon' in Russian

[Radioclare]

28 October
I've gone away for the weekend without my computer. Hoping to get lots of reading done

Russian
I've packed the Ken Follett I'm currently reading in Russian, of course. I spent the best part of an hour reading it earlier and have now passed the 100 page mark. I do feel like reading in Russian is starting to get a bit easier - at least, it's starting to feel less painful than it did - although I still wouldn't describe it as easy. The main word I looked up this evening was барсук, which is a badger. Croatian was no help to me here either (badger is jazavac).

Total - Russian: 59 mins