Radioclare's 2017 log (Croatian/Russian)

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

Postby Chung » Mon Sep 18, 2017 3:26 pm

Radioclare wrote:
Daniel N. wrote:In most series, the dialect is watered down. It's almost impossible you'll hear anything too dialectal in anything set in Slavonia, as such dialects are restricted to only few small villages there today. The stress is a so complex topic in South Slavic that a Croatian linguist (the link is on the image) wrote a 1000-page book on the topic, and that is just the first part :D


But as a foreigner, it's actually a brilliant thing that the dialect is watered down, otherwise I wouldn't be able to understand anything at all :lol: I think watching TV series is helpful for this because it gives me a 'flavour' of what the differences are in how people speak in a particular region, whether that's slightly different words they use or a different pronunciation, so I can learn something but on the other hand I can still understand the dialogue reasonably well :) For example, one of the key actors in 'Larin izbor' was Ivan Herceg, who is obviously not from Split, and I have read a few articles by people from Split saying how dreadful his attempt at the accent was. But it didn't matter to me, because from his character I was still able to learn things like how people say 'sritan' instead of 'sretan' and learn new words like 'marenda' which would never be in any of my textbooks.

At the moment I am watching a series set in Dubrovnik and I have read even worse controversy about the accents of the main actors in that, with people variously accusing them of sounding as if they come from Bosnia or Montenegro, but definitely not from Dubrovnik. I am not too concerned though, because ultimately I am not watching it to learn how to imitate a Dubrovnik accent but just to hear people talking in a different way. And I have already learned some new words, like 'dundo'.

In this map (I took it from the book I've mentioned), yellow areas have the final stress in words like žena and trava.


The map is incredible :shock: Stress is so complicated that it's enough to put anyone off trying to learn the language. The only positive is that next time I stress a word incorrectly, I will be able to console myself that perhaps it was actually correct in someone's dialect :lol:


I've sometimes do the same when I've spoken Czech with Slovak influence (or vice-versa) (see Eastern Moravian dialect), Slovak with Polish influence (or again vice-versa) (see Podhale dialect and Eastern Slovak dialects) or Ukrainian with Polish influence (cf. Southwestern dialects of Ukrainian - in Russian but hey it could be good practice for you to scan the list of characteristics)
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Re: Radioclare's 2017 log (Croatian/Russian)

Postby reineke » Mon Sep 18, 2017 3:58 pm

Radioclare wrote:
Daniel N. wrote:In most series, the dialect is watered down. It's almost impossible you'll hear anything too dialectal in anything set in Slavonia, as such dialects are restricted to only few small villages there today. The stress is a so complex topic in South Slavic that a Croatian linguist (the link is on the image) wrote a 1000-page book on the topic, and that is just the first part :D


But as a foreigner, it's actually a brilliant thing that the dialect is watered down, otherwise I wouldn't be able to understand anything at all :lol: I think watching TV series is helpful for this because it gives me a 'flavour' of what the differences are in how people speak in a particular region, whether that's slightly different words they use or a different pronunciation, so I can learn something but on the other hand I can still understand the dialogue reasonably well :) For example, one of the key actors in 'Larin izbor' was Ivan Herceg, who is obviously not from Split, and I have read a few articles by people from Split saying how dreadful his attempt at the accent was. But it didn't matter to me, because from his character I was still able to learn things like how people say 'sritan' instead of 'sretan' and learn new words like 'marenda' which would never be in any of my textbooks.

At the moment I am watching a series set in Dubrovnik and I have read even worse controversy about the accents of the main actors in that, with people variously accusing them of sounding as if they come from Bosnia or Montenegro, but definitely not from Dubrovnik. I am not too concerned though, because ultimately I am not watching it to learn how to imitate a Dubrovnik accent but just to hear people talking in a different way. And I have already learned some new words, like 'dundo'.

In this map (I took it from the book I've mentioned), yellow areas have the final stress in words like žena and trava.


The map is incredible :shock: Stress is so complicated that it's enough to put anyone off trying to learn the language. The only positive is that next time I stress a word incorrectly, I will be able to console myself that perhaps it was actually correct in someone's dialect :lol:


"Jeste li uspjeli uhvatiti koju hrvatsku riječ? Kakav vam je naš jezik?"

"Hrvatski jezik ima jako lagan izgovor, ali gramatika mi je iznimno teška pa ga je teško naučiti kako treba."

http://dubrovackidnevnik.rtl.hr/intervj ... -kao-ovdje
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Re: Radioclare's 2017 log (Croatian/Russian)

Postby Radioclare » Mon Sep 18, 2017 7:56 pm

Back to reality now after my wonderful trip to Portugal and Spain.

I flew from Lisbon to Madrid on Thursday and had some positive experiences with Esperanto in Madrid over the course of a long weekend there. A friend works at the national library there and on Friday he had arranged to give us a behind-the-scenes tour there, which was really fascinating. On Friday evening we also went out to dinner with a group of local Esperanto-speakers. There seem to be lots of lovely normal people who live in Madrid in and speak Esperanto. It makes a refreshing change after some of the other people I have to deal with.

On Sunday we flew home to a very cold and dark and wet England. Even when it's not raining, the air feels damp and horrible. Over the course of the journey home I read a novel called 'Večernji akt' by Pavao Pavličić. It's about a young guy living in Zagreb in the 80's who realises that he has an amazing talent for forging things. The book is about his exploration of his strange talent and how it gets out of control as more people find out about his abilities. The end of the book is quite surreal. I feel like I read it and understood the plot on the level of a small child, but that the book was probably making some serious comments about art which passed me by. One day I should probably read it again.

My holiday reading means that I'm already up to 220 books for the Super Challenge. But I haven't watched any Croatian TV since 19 August so I need to work on that part of the challenge.

As for Russian... let's not talk about Russian! My 6WC ran out of steam after 3 weeks as I desperately tried to get everything done at work before I went to Portugal, and I didn't do anything at all while I was away :oops:
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Re: Radioclare's 2017 log (Croatian/Russian)

Postby DaveBee » Wed Sep 20, 2017 8:10 am

I've just heard a french? spanish? song that has a bit of ska beat, so I thought you might like it (I do!): Manu Chao - me gustas tu
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Re: Radioclare's 2017 log (Croatian/Russian)

Postby Radioclare » Wed Sep 20, 2017 7:39 pm

DaveBee wrote:I've just heard a french? spanish? song that has a bit of ska beat, so I thought you might like it (I do!): Manu Chao - me gustas tu


No idea what it's about or what language it's in, but I do indeed like it; thank you :)
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Re: Radioclare's 2017 log (Croatian/Russian)

Postby Serpent » Thu Sep 21, 2017 12:17 am

:D A few clauses codeswitch to French, the rest is in Spanish :D (and yes I definitely like French when it's pronounced with a Spanish accent and vice versa :oops:)
It's a well-known song, I've heard it a lot though I never knew what it was called or what it meant.... :lol: My mum also often hums one of the bilingual lines (completely incorrectly) :D
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Re: Radioclare's 2017 log (Croatian/Russian)

Postby Radioclare » Sun Sep 24, 2017 8:40 pm

This is not a week in which much has been achieved.

I have started reading a Croatian translation 'Vikend' by Bernhard Schlink (Das Wochenende). I have read it at least once before, in German, but it's a very long time ago and so I don't remember the storyline at all. In fact I remember so little about it that I wonder whether my Croatian is better now than my German was at the point at which I read it in German, although that would be pretty mind-blowing. It's a very good book anyway, about a guy who has been in prison for terrorism (essentially having committed four murders as part of the RAF) and having served 24 years is now being released. His sister, who has a very close relationship with him, has arranged a get-together of all his old friends in a remote location to celebrate his release and help him start to acclimatise to life outside of prison. But there is a lot of tension in the air, with some friends unable to accept the rehabilitation of a murderer, while others maybe haven't moved on from the principles which motivated the RAF in the first place, and see this guy as a potential leader of a new generation of post 9/11 terrorists. I'm about halfway through it at the moment, and have no idea how it ends.

Otherwise I've watched a few more episodes of 'Zora Dubrovačka', and that's all.

I've been having strong feelings of guilt all week about my lack of progress with Russian. If I had spent all the time I've felt feeling inadequate that I haven't learned any Russian actually learning Russian, then I could perhaps have learned quite a lot :lol: But I may just have found a new source of motivation, because my Mom text me tonight to say she's signed up to a beginners' Russian class starting on Tuesday. Her main reason for signing up is that she wants to learn the alphabet. But it would be embarrassing if she ended up learning more than me, given that I've been allegedly learning Russian for quite a long time, and so this will possibly motivate me to try harder :)
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Re: Radioclare's 2017 log (Croatian/Russian)

Postby rdearman » Sun Sep 24, 2017 9:13 pm

Sorry, I'm confused. What does the Royal Air Force have to do with this terrorism thing in the book?
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Re: Radioclare's 2017 log (Croatian/Russian)

Postby Brun Ugle » Sun Sep 24, 2017 9:23 pm

rdearman wrote:Sorry, I'm confused. What does the Royal Air Force have to do with this terrorism thing in the book?

:lol: I was wondering the same thing for a moment. I ended up looking it up in a German dictionary and came up with Red Army Faction.
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Re: Radioclare's 2017 log (Croatian/Russian)

Postby Radioclare » Sun Sep 24, 2017 9:43 pm

Sorry, I did indeed mean RAF as in Rote Armee Fraktion and not Royal Air Force :lol: They were a group of extreme left-wing terrorists in Germany in the 1970s. They organised bombings, bank robberies, kidnappings etc. If you haven't already seen it, there's a brilliant German film about them called 'The Baader Meinhof Complex'.

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