Radioclare's 2023 log (Russian, Croatian)

Continue or start your personal language log here, including logs for challenge participants
User avatar
Le Baron
Black Belt - 3rd Dan
Posts: 3510
Joined: Mon Jan 18, 2021 5:14 pm
Location: Koude kikkerland
Languages: English (N), fr, nl, de, eo, Sranantongo,
Maintaining: es, swahili.
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=18796
x 9386

Re: Radioclare's 2023 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby Le Baron » Sat Jan 07, 2023 8:36 pm

Radioclare wrote:I also really wanted to go to Belarus; it's one of a handful of European countries I haven't been to yet.

I was there in the late 1990s. I met a young engineer there. The Soviet countries seemed to have a lot of female engineers, then I found out she also had an economics degree! We corresponded for a long time. I still have her letters in those old 'airmail' envelopes. She got married and it petered out. She had beautiful Russian handwriting.
3 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 2023 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby IronMike » Sat Jan 07, 2023 10:46 pm

Radioclare wrote:
IronMike wrote:Moomins! We have several nice hb copies of Moomin troll in Russian and English. Got them in Moscow. Our Finnish and Swedish friends were fine propagandists for Moomin troll. I make cocktails nightly on a Moomin troll tray. ;)

:) EAB is going to publish the Moomins series in Esperanto over the next few years. The first book is already out and the second should follow soon.

Oh. My. Great googly moogly.
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.

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 2023 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby Radioclare » Sun Jan 08, 2023 9:47 pm

Week 1 update
Time for an update :) I think I am going to try updating weekly and see how that goes, though I'm not going to commit to always updating on the same day of the week. I've got some travels coming up later this month which mean that a couple of Sundays in January definitely won't be good days to update.

Russian
I feel like I'm benefitting from new year enthusiasm at the moment, so I've got quite a lot done this week.

  • Finished reading Лев, Колдунья и Платяной шкаф (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe) from my Narnia collection and started reading the third book, Конь и его мальчик (The Horse and His Boy). I'm only a couple of chapters into the latter at the moment. As the Narnia book is so big and heavy (>900 pages), I won't be taking it away with me so I may have to start reading something shorter and lighter in Russian soon.
  • Made a decision to give up on the 10 000 Russian words Memrise course I was working through last year. I was about 3 000 words into it when I quit. I do think it was a good course but I'd got to a stage with it where I had a silly number of reviews being generated by my inability to memorise some of the more obscure verbs it was introducing. So in the spirit of having a new start, I decided to give up. I will keep using Memrise - it's a good activity for when travelling if nothing else - but I haven't decided which course I'm going to use next. Maybe I'll go back to the official Memrise Russian courses.
  • Watched two episodes of the telenovela Обручальное кольцо. I'm determined to do better at watching Russian TV this year so I decided to give this one another go. I've already had several false starts with this series so I've watched both episodes once, if not twice before. I don't think my comprehension was necessarily any better watching them a third time :lol:
  • Watched the Азербайджан (Azerbaijan) episode from the Varlamov series about former countries of the USSR. It was 2.5 hours in total, so quite a marathon. I spread it over the week in instalments rather than watching it all in one go and I found it fascinating. I mean, some of it was too complex for me and went over my head - especially some of the historical and political stuff which I wasn't familiar with - but I learned a lot about Azerbaijan from the parts I did understand. There was a very in-depth presentation of the history of Azerbaijan at the start and it was interesting to hear about the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict from a different point of view. The Armenian point of view was presented in the Armenia episode I watched before Christmas - and I'm more familiar with that anyway because I have a friend in Armenia - so I found it genuinely interesting to hear the opposing arguments. It was also interesting to hear about the role that conflict played in the end of the USSR. And the single most interesting thing I learned is that Azerbaijan is a wine-producing country! Didn't expect that at all :shock:
  • Finished lesson 17 of the New Penguin Russian Course. It was a recap of things like telling the time and giving dates. Neither are particular strengths of mine in Russian so the revision was useful.
  • Finished the final two lessons of Stage 2 of the Red Kalinka video course. Apparently this brings me up to A2 level, so I'm guessing the Stage 3 lessons will start to feel harder. The final lesson I did today was about the instrumental and I got some good revision out of the exercises. I also find that I'm picking up the odd new fact which has passed me by in other courses. Today I learned that мороженое (ice-cream) is an adjective so its instrumental is мороженым. Today's exercises weren't too difficult but the lesson I did earlier in the week had a challenging multiple choice one, where you had to pick the correct case that a word in a given sentence was in... complicated by the case names being given in Russian.
  • Listened to one Russian with Max podcast while being out for a walk on Friday afternoon. This one was about the difference in lifestyle and attitude between people who live in big Russian cities and people who live in the countryside, so it discussed stereotypes like people being friendlier in villages than in Moscow. It seemed a bit similar to the UK, where there's a perception that people in London are less friendly.

Croatian
  • Watched five episodes of the telenovela Kumovi while on the treadmill before work. Still really enjoying this one, though I think I'm getting towards the end of it. I'm currently up to episode 144 out of 171.
  • I had this BCMS grammar as a birthday present so I'm slowly working my way through it and taking notes as I go as a bit of revision. So far I'm not actually that impressed by it; it's nowhere near as comprehensive as the books by Ronelle Alexander. But it's still early days; I'm only up to the genitive case at the moment.
  • Made an effort to actually do some writing in Croatian on a couple of occasions this week. I decided to write about my trip to the USA last summer; I was there for three weeks which gives me plenty of material to write about. I think the worst thing about writing in a foreign language is trying to choose a theme, so this solves that problem at least. I've written over 1 000 words so far and I've only got as far as Dublin, so it should be a topic that keeps me going for some time :lol:

German
  • Started reading Vanitas - Rot Wie Feuer by Ursula Poznanski. It's the third and final book in a series about a woman who is in hiding from the mafia. Russian mafia actually, so there's even a tiny bit of Russian in it at times :) It's been a really exciting series in general but this final book in particular has got me on the edge of my seat. I'm around 200 pages/50% of the way through it at the moment and hoping to finish it next week.

Esperanto
  • Sometimes people ask what they can listen to in Esperanto, so I just wanted to give a plug to a relatively new podcast Usone persone. I listened to an episode in the car on the way home from a family trip away on Monday and it was really long but I enjoyed it.

YTD totals - Russian: 9.4 hours, Croatian: 7.2 hours, German: 3.4 hours, Esperanto: 1.9 hours
16 x

User avatar
Teango
Blue Belt
Posts: 766
Joined: Mon Jul 06, 2015 4:55 am
Location: Honolulu, Hawaiʻi
Languages: en (n)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 9&p=235545
x 2943
Contact:

Re: Radioclare's 2023 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby Teango » Mon Jan 09, 2023 6:44 am

A great start to 2023, Clare! Так держать! 8-)
2 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 2023 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby IronMike » Wed Jan 11, 2023 1:11 am

Radioclare wrote:Esperanto
  • Sometimes people ask what they can listen to in Esperanto, so I just wanted to give a plug to a relatively new podcast Usone persone. I listened to an episode in the car on the way home from a family trip away on Monday and it was really long but I enjoyed it.

Holy crap, thank you for this recommendation. I've needed a podcast since Pola Retradio only broadcasts twice weekly. ;)
3 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.

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 2023 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby Radioclare » Sun Jan 15, 2023 1:34 pm

Week 2 update
Hello from northern Finland :) I'm going to be in the little village of Saariselkä for the next week, partly on holiday and partly doing a bit of remote work. It's minus 20 and snow everywhere at the moment; so beautiful :) The week just gone was a normal week at home though and a reasonably productive one for languages again.

Russian
  • Listened to three Russian with Max podcasts while out on various walks. The first was a fairly recent one, with some interesting bits in it; he talked about how Christmas isn't a big deal in Russia and also discussed giving up smoking. I then listened to an older one, which was less interesting. It was quite a weird topic - all about a Russian man who had given up his possessions to go and study under an American spiritual teacher called Carlos Castaneda. I found it a bit of an odd theme - and not one that I'm interested in - so I can't say I enjoyed it loads. Actually, I didn't even finish it because partway through my walk it started raining and I went home :lol: But it was a good experience to try and listen to a podcast about a theme where I didn't know anything at all, to see how much I could understand. On Friday night I was then really busy with packing and didn't have much time for Russian, so I listened to the most recent podcast which was about newspaper articles discussing a boom in travel to Argentina by Russian women who want to give birth there. Healthcare is free in Argentina even for tourists and children born there receive Argentinian citizenship, which makes it easier for the parents to also get Argentinian citizenship if they want it. But really the podcast was discussing propaganda in the media and how in this instance some of the reporting was twisting facts to suit the narrative of the newspaper, because no one would actually travel all the way from Russia to Argentina (which is a long and expensive journey!) just for the healthcare.
  • In the first podcast, Max mentioned a Russian group called АлоэВера who his wife likes. I've never succeeded at getting into Russian music as much as I have Croatian music, so I decided to give listening to them a try. I wouldn't say I absolutely loved the songs I listened to, but some of them were ok. I generally have to listen to things quite a lot before they start to grow on me. It gave me something different to listen to this week anyway :)
  • Read another couple of chapters of Конь и его мальчик. I think I found this one quite slow as a child and I'm finding it quite slow as an adult too, to be honest.
  • Completed the first lesson of stage 3 of the Red Kalinka video course. The theme of this lesson was shopping. I learned some new words like корзина (basket). The grammar was the genitive case, including an introduction to genitive plurals, so the course is definitely getting more difficult now!
  • Watched another episode from the Varlamov series about the USSR. This one was about Russia and the nostalgia of some people for the USSR. It was the least interesting one in this series that I've listened to so far, but also the shortest so that was fine. I deliberately chose a short one because I had quite a busy week.
  • Watched one more episode of Обручальное кольцо. I tried really hard to focus on this one and I did feel like I got a bit more out of it.
  • Completed chapter 18 of the NPRC, which is about comparatives. I found these quite overwhelming the first time I tried to learn them, so it's good to have another look over them now I'm more confident in Russian.

Croatian
  • Made a bit more effort with writing in Croatian. Currently up to 1 932 words about my trip to the USA.
  • Studied another few sections of my BCMS grammar book. These parts covered the dative and accusative cases and were pretty straightforward. I think this textbook has some good summaries in it, it's just not very in depth. But in fairness, it's not aiming to be; the blurb on the back says that This book covers all the grammar necessary for everyday communication (reaching B1 and B2 of the CEFR, ACTFL Intermediate-Intermediate Mid). I also studied a fun section on the vocative case which included examples of how to the vocative is used in insults :)
  • Watched another four episodes of the telenovela Kumovi. Although I'm getting towards the end of the episodes from the first season, I saw something online which made me think it's coming back for a second season soon.

German
  • Finished reading Vanitas - Rot wie Feuer which was 400 pages of German in total. It was a good page-turner; dramatic and quite violent in places, but I really enjoyed it and it was a good conclusion to the series, tying up lots of loose ends.

Esperanto
  • Listened to an episode of the podcast Usone persone while traveling to Heathrow on Saturday morning. This one was about the baza legolisto compiled by William Auld. It wasn't a topic I'm familiar with - and it seems like I've never read any of the books on the list - so it was interesting to listen to. Esperanto is the only one of my languages easy enough to listen to at 6am before breakfast :lol:

YTD totals - Russian: 17.2 hours, Croatian: 12.5 hours, German: 6.2 hours, Esperanto: 2.9 hours
15 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 2023 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby Radioclare » Sun Jan 22, 2023 9:39 pm

Week 3 update
Just got home from a fabulous week in Saariselkä. The scenery in Finnish Lapland is absolutely stunning at this time of year; so much snow, so many trees, so few people. Yesterday evening was particularly special because I unexpectedly saw the northern lights while taking out some rubbish! Couldn't have had a better end to the trip :) There are only a few hours of daylight so far north at this time of year so my week involved making the most of those until lunchtime, then doing half a day of work in the afternoons. That means I haven't had the most productive of weeks from a language point of view.

Russian
  • Read the entirety of Загадка Эндхауза (Peril at End House) by Agatha Christie. I packed this so that I could get some Russian reading in while I was away - because my Narnia book that I'm otherwise working my way through was far too big and heavy to pack - but I didn't plan to finish it during my trip. However, it turns out that this is one of the few Agatha Christies that I've never read in any language, including English. So one day I got a bit overexcited about finding out who the murderer was and accidentally read the entire book :oops: Definitely the fastest I've ever read a book in Russian. But I did really enjoy reading it, which is positive; I'd love to get to the point where I could read in Russian for pleasure the way that I do in my other languages and although I'm not there yet, it feels like I'm getting a bit closer.
  • Revised chapter 19 of the New Penguin Russian Course. The grammar in this one was mainly about the conditional. There was also a summary of different prefixes, which was quite useful.
  • Otherwise just kept up with my Memrise reviews most days, so hopefully I shouldn't be back from holiday with a huge backlog.

Croatian
  • Nothing to report this week. I packed my BCMS grammar book but didn't get around to opening it :(

German
  • Started watching a series called Arctic Circle - Der unsichtbare Tod in German. My sister bought me the DVD for Christmas because it's set in Ivalo, near to where I was visiting in Finland. It's a really exciting drama about a dangerous virus discovered in a small community in Lapland. I was hoping to finish it before I came home but so far I've only watched six out of (I think) ten episodes.

Esperanto
  • Read Kometo en Muminvalo and really enjoyed it. I'd never read or watched anything involving the Moomins as a child so I didn't know what to expect, but I was pleasantly surprised at what a good read it was. And how humorous it was; there were some bits that made me laugh out loud. Would definitely recommend and I think it would be a good book to try if you're not too confident at reading in Esperanto. There were some words I didn't know but overall it wasn't full of difficult vocabulary.
  • Listened to another Usone persone podcast on the drive home from the airport. This was quite a long one about best experiences at Esperanto events. I think there's probably a theme that everyone remembers their first big Esperanto event as being their best :)

YTD totals - Russian: 24.1 hours, Croatian: 12.6 hours, German: 10.6 hours, Esperanto: 6.3 hours
11 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 2023 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby Radioclare » Sun Jan 29, 2023 9:23 am

Week 4 update
I got home from Saariselkä on Sunday afternoon. I had four fairly intense days at work and then on Friday I flew back to Finland, this time to Tampere. It's just a strange coincidence - my other half was invited to an Esperanto-related meeting in Tampere this weekend and it just happened to be the weekend after we got back from a pre-planned trip to Lapland.

Russian
  • Finished Stage 3 - Lesson 2 of Red Kalinka video course, the theme of which was life at the office. It included the word бухгалтер in the vocabulary list, which is always a strong choice :) The grammar was introducing aspect for the first time.
  • Watched an episode about Latvia from the Varlamov series about former countries of the USSR. I've only been to Latvia once but I had been planning to spend a week there in summer 2020 and explore some of the countryside, so I was interested to see this episode. Hopefully one day I'll manage to rebook my trip. The Varlamov episode covered some controversial points, like the status of Russian-speakers in Latvia. Not a topic to discuss here but I did read an interesting book on the theme in Esperanto a few years ago, Idoj de la imperio. Less controversially, there was a segment on the Latvian seaside at Jurmala, which I visited back in 2013, so that was cool to see :)
  • Read another two chapters of Конь и его мальчик from my Narnia collection. The story is starting to get a little bit more interesting now so I should persevere with it, although because I've been away from home again for the weekend, I haven't made loads of progress.
  • Watched one episode of the telenovela Обручальное кольцо. This is a repeat of an episode I already watched at some point last year. It's only episode 4 so I haven't made great progress with my quest to rewatch it from the beginning and get further than last time this year. But I only really engage in listening activities when I'm at home and I've been in Finland for 12 days of January!
  • Started revising chapter 20 of the NPRC. Unfortunately this is the chapter introducing verbs of motion. And unfortunately I decided to start it on a day when I'd only had three hours sleep courtesy of an early morning flight to Tampere!
  • Listened to two Russian with Max podcasts while walking around the Tampere. The first was a recent one, about an hour long, about different types of reading and how to read, particularly if you want to retain what you are reading. The second one was an older one about what life is like in smaller Russian towns compared to big cities.

Croatian
  • Watched three episodes of Kumovi. I only do this when I'm on the treadmill - which requires being at home - so again, limited progress this week.
  • Continued making notes from my new BCMS textbook, this time about the instrumental case.
  • Started reading a detective novel called Ispovjedna tajna by Drago Hedl. I think it's the second book in a series in which I haven't read the first, but the prose is nice and I'm enjoying it. It's set between Osijek and Belgrade and the storyline deals with links between the Croatian and Serbian underworlds. So far I've read about 100 pages.

German
  • Nothing this week. I was supposed to continue watching the Arctic Circle series but my evenings this week seem to have got taken up with other things. Hopefully next week.

Esperanto
  • Just a few hours of conversation with some of the local Esperantists here in Tampere. When I say conversation, mostly other people talking and me listening, particularly on the day when I only had three hours of sleep :lol:

YTD totals - Russian: 31.3 hours, Croatian: 18.1 hours, German: 10.6 hours, Esperanto: 8.5 hours
10 x

User avatar
stell
Orange Belt
Posts: 178
Joined: Sat Jan 15, 2022 11:25 pm
Location: Canada
Languages: English (N1), French (N2), Spanish (advanced), Tagalog (perpetual toddler), Russian (beginner)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=17696
x 996

Re: Radioclare's 2023 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby stell » Sun Jan 29, 2023 2:29 pm

Radioclare wrote:Just a few hours of conversation with some of the local Esperantists here in Tampere. When I say conversation, mostly other people talking and me listening, particularly on the day when I only had three hours of sleep :lol:

Hey, it counts! Listening is often harder than speaking...including in a native language, for many people. :lol:
5 x

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 2023 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby Caromarlyse » Tue Jan 31, 2023 9:08 pm

Radioclare wrote:The Varlamov episode covered some controversial points, like the status of Russian-speakers in Latvia. Not a topic to discuss here but I did read an interesting book on the theme in Esperanto a few years ago, Idoj de la imperio. Less controversially, there was a segment on the Latvian seaside at Jurmala, which I visited back in 2013, so that was cool to see :)


On the topic, there are these videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOBGaVJH54A and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRSmuuXg7hI. There are similar about the status of Russian in Estonia and Lithuania, as well as a video (and separate podcast) appraising these "Baltic tour" videos and giving some behind-the-scenes detail.
2 x


Return to “Language logs”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: guyome and 2 guests