Radioclare's 2017 log (Croatian/Russian)

[Daniel N.]

It's not a secret that I like listening to Croatian music, and today I found a really cool video about the evolution of Croatian music over the past century. This guy has basically sung a little bit of the lyrics of a handful of songs from each decade and put them together into one video

The guy is great. I noticed two interesting things: he sings a verse from Crvena jabuka song Zovu nas ulice from 2:57 (which I would rather call 'Bosnian', since they were based in Sarajevo), and instead of

Zovu nas ulice, idemo na- napolje (Streets are calling us, we're going out)

He sings:

Zovu nas ulice, idemo na- na more (i.e. we're going to the seaside)

I don't know if it's intentional or not... napolje is not that common in Croatia, after all (van prevails).

Also, he ignores all songs non in standard language before 1990's, and there was a considerable number of hits (e.g. performed by Oliver Dragojević), but after 1990's, he includes them, starting with Cesarica (3:43). He also completely ignores a number of performers, including Gibonni.

[Radioclare]

Thanks for sharing! I haven't heard "Hajde du" since... ESC 1990.

Did you also recognise 'Džuli' from ESC 1983? This is another one where I'm not 100% sure why it's 'Croatian'. Some of the scenes in the video look very Montenegrin to me.

I noticed two interesting things: he sings a verse from Crvena jabuka song Zovu nas ulice from 2:57 (which I would rather call 'Bosnian', since they were based in Sarajevo), and instead of

Zovu nas ulice, idemo na- napolje (Streets are calling us, we're going out)

He sings:

Zovu nas ulice, idemo na- na more (i.e. we're going to the seaside)

I don't know if it's intentional or not... napolje is not that common in Croatia, after all (van prevails).

I didn't know the song so I didn't realise that

Also, he ignores all songs non in standard language before 1990's, and there was a considerable number of hits (e.g. performed by Oliver Dragojević), but after 1990's, he includes them, starting with Cesarica (3:43).

I read something somewhere recently which said that 'Cesarica' was either the best or most popular Croatian song of all time (I can't remember which, and can't find the article again now!).

The most interesting thing I noted was that several songs in the list featured in 'Larin izbor' Lara sings a rendition of 'Ginem' during the period while she thinks Jakov is dead and she's a widow. And there's a klapa version of 'Malo mi za sriću triba' at Lara's wedding to Nikša.

[jeff_lindqvist]

Thanks for sharing! I haven't heard "Hajde du" since... ESC 1990.

Did you also recognise 'Džuli' from ESC 1983? This is another one where I'm not 100% sure why it's 'Croatian'. Some of the scenes in the video look very Montenegrin to me.

Yes and no, I could have bet it was a cover of the Shakin' Stevens song "Oh Julie" just based on the style, but at a closer listen they weren't that similar (apart from the style itself plus the accordion).

Maybe the singer (or composer) was Croatian?

[Brun Ugle]

It's not a secret that I like listening to Croatian music, and today I found a really cool video about the evolution of Croatian music over the past century. This guy has basically sung a little bit of the lyrics of a handful of songs from each decade and put them together into one video

That was brilliant. Thanks for posting it.

By the way, Croatian just came out on the new Glossika, if you’re interested. Maybe you’re too advanced for Glossika though.

[Radioclare]

Maybe the singer (or composer) was Croatian?

I looked him up and Wikipedia says he was born in Montenegro (to a Montenegrin father and a Belgian mother), but it seems to have been in Croatia that his music career took off. So perhaps both countries can legitimately claim him

By the way, Croatian just came out on the new Glossika, if you’re interested. Maybe you’re too advanced for Glossika though.

Thank you for letting me know! I just had a go with it, but I have to confess that I don't really understand how it's supposed to work now The website was reading me a sentence in English followed by the same sentence in Croatian, while both were written on the screen in front of me so it didn't really seem like it was possible for me to test whether I knew the sentence (unless I closed my eyes/didn't look at the screen!). I need to go and read some more of the Glossika threads here I think...

[Brun Ugle]

Maybe the singer (or composer) was Croatian?

I looked him up and Wikipedia says he was born in Montenegro (to a Montenegrin father and a Belgian mother), but it seems to have been in Croatia that his music career took off. So perhaps both countries can legitimately claim him

By the way, Croatian just came out on the new Glossika, if you’re interested. Maybe you’re too advanced for Glossika though.

Thank you for letting me know! I just had a go with it, but I have to confess that I don't really understand how it's supposed to work now The website was reading me a sentence in English followed by the same sentence in Croatian, while both were written on the screen in front of me so it didn't really seem like it was possible for me to test whether I knew the sentence (unless I closed my eyes/didn't look at the screen!). I need to go and read some more of the Glossika threads here I think...

I don't think there have been any threads about how to use the new Glossika. The ones I've seen have been about people's frustrations with the new site, its cost, and their poor communication skills. The site is still not great, but it has gotten a bit better and they have big plans, so I think it will end up better than we might imagine, but they are so secretive and mysterious, that it's hard to know what's going on.

Anyway, this is how I use it: I have the chorus function on and depending on the language, I give myself some extra time by setting the pause after the source language to 1x, 2x or even 4x. It's a bit annoying because the 1x, 2x or 4x is based on how long the source language sentence is and sometimes there is a huge difference between the length of the English sentence and the target language sentence which means that sometimes I have to wait forever for them to say the target language sentence and other times it comes too fast and I don't have time to say it myself before they do. I struggle with that more for Japanese than I have for German or Spanish. I don't know how Croatian will be. I also like to have IPA turned on for target language. That gives you the sentence in normal script with IPA underneath.

Once I'm set up, what I do is listen to the English without looking, try to say the target language sentence before they do, listen to the target language sentence, and chorus the target language sentence when it is repeated. Sometimes I chorus on both repeats if I've managed to say the whole sentence in the pause before they start saying it.

A session starts with a review of the sentences from the day before, then the ones from the day before that, the the day before that, etc. New sentences come up toward the end of your session. The first time new sentences come up, I look at them while going through them. After that, I try to do it without looking at the screen much. I might have to look a few times before I get it right on the harder sentences.

[Radioclare]

Thank you for the advice, Brun Ugle; that is really useful I will try it like that next time and see what I think. I hadn't even realised you could play with the timing of the pause etc!

This week has been a bit of a write-off for me as far as the 6WC is concerned. I came down with a virus early in the week and it was such a nasty one that on Wednesday I had my first day off sick from work since January 2014 I was making good progress with Russian Pimsleur before then (I was up to lesson 14 I think) but I've lost momentum now and probably need to go back and repeat quite a few.

I did get some Croatian reading done once I felt a bit better on Wednesday evening, but less than 100 pages. And I have watched a few more episodes of 'Zora Dubrovačka' to the point where I've actually passed the halfway point and reached the end of the first season. The second season picks up the story five years after the first season ends, which is very reminiscent of 'Larin izbor'. I always find that a bit disconcerting so I haven't properly got into the second season yet. But it finally feels like completing the Double Challenge is in sight, because I'm up to 191.7 films now

I'd like to say I'm going to get lots of language stuff done this weekend, but I'm not because I'm going away to a mystery destination (organised by my boyfriend). I will bring some Croatian books to read at least

[Radioclare]

I haven't posted for a while, mainly because I don't feel like I've made a lot of progress with anything.

My mystery trip turned out to be to Tenerife, which was a complete surprise It was a long way to go for a weekend, but on the flight there I read an interesting book about the fall of the Ottoman empire, and on the way home I started reading a book called 'Svjetionik', which is a Croatian translation of the P D James novel 'The Lighthouse'. That means that I'm in the unfortunate position of having two unfinished Croatian books on the go (I'm still only 486/1192 pages into 'Na rubu vječnosti') and not very much time to read.

It was my birthday last week and so I'm feeling old. My boyfriend bought me some very simple children's books in Russian. They're books for children who are learning to read which is cool, but they're still way above my level.

It's hard to even explain how little Russian learning I've been doing recently. There have been more goings-on in the Esperanto world, which have taken up vast quantities of time. Work has been quite overwhelming too; today I had my first experience of dismissing someone, which was 'interesting'. None of this is very conducive to doing anything meaningful in my spare time, so I've more or less given up on the 6WC.

The good news is that I finish work for Christmas on 15 December and after that I'm hoping to have some time to myself, to think about priorities and goals for next year, and make some sort of action plan to get back on track.

[Elenia]

That 'like' is to you getting a bit of down time!

[Serpent]

Mine was about dismissing someone too. Must've been a really frustrating situation if you've had to resort to that

(And about the Russian books which ones?)