Radioclare's 2017 log (Croatian/Russian)

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Re: Radioclare's 2017 log (Croatian/Russian)

Postby IronMike » Mon Jan 16, 2017 5:32 am

Well, everyone already beat me to it due to my forum-less Sunday. (For some reason, I couldn't get to the forum at all yesterday.) But yes, машина is the norm.

Автомобиль is still a fun word to have in your noggin as sometimes you just want to use masculine adjectives due to their ease of declension. ;)
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Re: Radioclare's 2017 log (Croatian/Russian)

Postby MamaPata » Mon Jan 16, 2017 7:06 am

I find feminine adjectives easier! Basically everything is ой and I like not having to remember things!
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Re: Radioclare's 2017 log (Croatian/Russian)

Postby Radioclare » Mon Jan 16, 2017 10:19 pm

Thank you everyone for your comments :) It's good to know that it is worth me learning both words. And I have learned some bonus Norwegian into the bargain :lol:

But don't try to scare me about adjective declensions... I've only got as far as nouns at the moment!
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Re: Radioclare's 2017 log (Croatian/Russian)

Postby Daniel N. » Tue Jan 17, 2017 8:49 am

Serpent wrote:bank machine is банкомат and is also a type of автомат).

btw I keep meaning to say that I found it completely mindblowing that hour is saat in Turkish :)

This word, bankomat is quite widespread, it's used in Croatia (not sure about Serbia, though), Czech Rep., Poland... but I don't know how it's pronounced in Russian (i.e. where the stress is). Somehow I guess it's bankomát :)

The hour is sat also in Croatian (in Serbia they have čas for hour as well, but sat prevails in speech).

Radioclare wrote:Thank you Daniel, that is really helpful. I always get confused about how to say something is translated from one language to another and it had totally escaped my notice that it should be accusative after na. But now you have explained it, it makes sense :)

It's the same in Russian, they just have pere- instead of pre- (due to different outcomes of metathesis of the old prefix per-):

Первый полный перевод Библии (G) с латинской Вульгаты (G) на старославянский язык (A) выполнил в XV веке (L) новгородский толмач Дмитрий Герасимов.

Wiki:Перевод

Russian often seems just like my language + a weird spelling ;) But this could help you, since you can concentrate on differences in usage of cases, and there are not many.
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Re: Radioclare's 2017 log (Croatian/Russian)

Postby Serpent » Wed Jan 18, 2017 11:28 pm

Yeah Croatian sat is exactly why I found the Turkish word mindblowing :P

In Russian it's pronounced bankamát, sort of. the unstressed o is not a pure a but close enough.

Nice example, it's indeed the same in Russian. Note that the word толмач is archaic and only used in a historical context. (it's related to Dolmetscher :D and wait I think Finnish tulkki too) The normal word is переводчик, which per se doesn't imply written or oral translation (usually переводчик текстов or устный переводчик respectively). When it's not specified it basically just depends on the context.

Do you know any differences with the case usage? I never bothered to pay attention so far :oops:
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Re: Radioclare's 2017 log (Croatian/Russian)

Postby Radioclare » Fri Jan 20, 2017 10:46 pm

Oh dear, what a week :( I haven't read a single page of Croatian, written a single word of Croatian or listened to any Croatian at all. And for once I can't even blame work, which is going a bit better than it normally does at this time of the year! Unfortunately there have been various stresses and crises ongoing with my voluntary work, which mean that I've spent most of my evenings engaging in long and tedious email correspondence in English.

Trying to find the positives where I can...

1) I've still got my streak on Russian Duolingo (85 days!)
2) I've done a bit of Russian Memrise most days, albeit mainly just watering existing words rather than learning new ones.
3) I finally finished the third disk of Michel Thomas and I'm halfway through disk 4 now.

The high point of Michel Thomas for me so far is the point at which the teacher asks the pupils what the verb работать makes them think of (clearly wanting them to say 'robot') and the guy who has the role of slightly-dim-learner says "rubber duck" :lol:

Other than that the first three disks are quite boring - or possibly they seem that way to me because I've listened to the beginning so many times - but this is my first time getting as far as disk 4, so that has some novelty value at least.

I'm going away to a mystery location this weekend (no idea where - my boyfriend is taking me to celebrate our 10 year anniversary!) and I'm not taking my computer, but I have packed my TY Russian book and pen/paper in case I feel particularly virtuous. And I should be able to keep up with Duolingo on my phone.

Not everyone is necessarily feeling positive about world events today, but I have some good news: yesterday I met someone who has been inspired to learn a language by Donald Trump! Yes, really :shock: There's this guy at work who was basically moved from my department to another one where his incompetence would be less noticeable and he seems to spend a lot of his time lurking in corridors, laying in wait for people who have actual work to do and then inflicting long conversations on them. My heart sank when I got 'captured' by him on the way back from to my desk from the bathroom yesterday afternoon, but he caught my attention when he told me that he had just started learning Spanish. I asked him what had prompted this, expecting him to say he'd just booked a holiday to Spain. Imagine my surprise when he said it was because of Donald Trump. Donald Trump??!

"Yeah, it's because of all the Mexicans, innit. I saw Donald Trump on the TV and he said that America is full of Mexicans and they're gonna take over everything. So I'm learning Spanish now to get ahead like, for when that happens".

I hope that's not too much politics for this forum, but I thought it was hilarious :lol:
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Re: Radioclare's 2017 log (Croatian/Russian)

Postby Brun Ugle » Sat Jan 21, 2017 7:13 am

Actually Donald Trump has inspired me too. I'm going to start Russian as soon as I figure out how to work it into my schedule.
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Re: Radioclare's 2017 log (Croatian/Russian)

Postby IronMike » Sat Jan 21, 2017 7:59 am

To take it away from Trump- and America-slamming to be serious for a minute, anyone who wants to travel to the U.S. and already knows English, and wants to learn another language for the trip, well then of course they should learn Spanish. Latin American Spanish. It is the most-spoken L2 in the country, according to the latest (and probably many previous) census.

I'm trying to get to the US Census data page, but being in Russia it keeps telling me I'm blocked and don't have permission to view the page. :o My VPN (cheapy, free one) isn't cutting through the chaff either. But I've used that page before, and there is a section in there which I think is called "Language Use in the home" or smthg like that. If you go to that, you can see Spanish is the most populous. Most places you visit in the states (and not just the south) you can hear Spanish. (Along with many other languages. You want polyglot fun, go visit Washington, DC...languages galore, it's wonderful!)
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Re: Radioclare's 2017 log (Croatian/Russian)

Postby DaveBee » Sun Jan 22, 2017 4:35 pm

Brun Ugle wrote:Actually Donald Trump has inspired me too. I'm going to start Russian as soon as I figure out how to work it into my schedule.
Mrs Trump seems to have some impressive language skills:
She speaks six languages: Slovene, English, French, Serbo-Croat, German and Italian.
I'm a bit surprised by the German. Slovene and Serbo-Croat make sense given her Slovenia/Yugoslavia origin, and English, French, Italian go with a fashion model career, but why German?
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Re: Radioclare's 2017 log (Croatian/Russian)

Postby Chung » Sun Jan 22, 2017 5:32 pm

IronMike wrote:To take it away from Trump- and America-slamming to be serious for a minute, anyone who wants to travel to the U.S. and already knows English, and wants to learn another language for the trip, well then of course they should learn Spanish. Latin American Spanish. It is the most-spoken L2 in the country, according to the latest (and probably many previous) census.

I'm trying to get to the US Census data page, but being in Russia it keeps telling me I'm blocked and don't have permission to view the page. :o My VPN (cheapy, free one) isn't cutting through the chaff either. But I've used that page before, and there is a section in there which I think is called "Language Use in the home" or smthg like that. If you go to that, you can see Spanish is the most populous. Most places you visit in the states (and not just the south) you can hear Spanish. (Along with many other languages. You want polyglot fun, go visit Washington, DC...languages galore, it's wonderful!)


For those who are even lazier than I, here's the link to the data from the latest census about language spoken at home by Americans 5 years and older.

And yes, Spanish is the second-most spoken language at home; almost certainly it's the most-frequently known second language among those with no ties to Latin America or Spain after accounting for neighborhoods (e.g. in a typical Chinatown, you're more likely to run into a Sinitic language than otherwise).

The highlights of the census for me are:

1) The population of those 5 years and older is 291,484,482 of which 25,148,900 report speaking English less than "Very Well", and 231,122,908 speak only English at home. 60,361,574 of them speak something other than English at home.

2) Of these 60 million-odd people, 37,458,470 of them speak Spanish (safe to say that it means Latin American Spanish in practice).

3) In third place are speakers of a Sinitic language with 2,896,766 of them reporting to speak such a language (Mandarin, Cantonese etc.) at home.

DaveBee wrote:I'm a bit surprised by the German. Slovene and Serbo-Croat make sense given her Slovenia/Yugoslavia origin, and English, French, Italian go with a fashion model career, but why German?


I'm guessing that it's mainly because of Slovenia's proximity to Austria but it may also have tied to an attempt to improve her modelling prospects further among Westerners who were familiar starting in the 1990s with Claudia Schiffer, Gisele Bündchen (rather a Brazilian with German heritage) and Heidi Klum. According to Wiki, Trump's maiden name is "Knavs", which in Slovenian sounds just like German "Knauss", and in the '90s she started to use the second spelling. "Melania Knauss" would have made the uninitiated associate her with those supermodels and their German names; her being able to speak German could have reinforced that impression given by the name alone.
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