Radioclare's 2017 log (Croatian/Russian)

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

Postby reineke » Tue Feb 14, 2017 2:51 pm

Daniel N. wrote:
reineke wrote:The author studied at Croaticum.

And created a course called "Croaticum 2A", bearing the Croaticum logo. It looks official.


It does, otherwise I wouldn't have bothered looking. Croaticum should probably do something about it.
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Radioclare
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Re: Radioclare's 2017 log (Croatian/Russian)

Postby Radioclare » Tue Feb 14, 2017 3:23 pm

When I was first learning Croatian I used this course which I found really useful and assumed really was made by Croaticum, so when I saw the other course I first assumed it was a sort of sequel. Although possibly the first one wasn't official either and I just didn't speak enough Croatian to notice any mistakes :lol:
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Re: Radioclare's 2017 log (Croatian/Russian)

Postby Radioclare » Tue Feb 14, 2017 9:40 pm

Daniel N. wrote:I've started writing my course, with some words, then grammar, then grammar drill, then words again... Clare, what do you think? Memrise: Easy-Croatian Vocabulary + Grammar


I've just worked through the course so far and it looks really great :) I love the mixture of grammar and vocab practice; that's quite rare on Memrise. Putting the third person present forms of the verbs in brackets seems to work really well :D

The only time I ran into an issue with this was when I was tested on "drink" and Memrise decided to offer both "piti (pije)" and "piti" as solutions. If you click "piti" then it is marked as incorrect (see screenshot).

2017-02-14.png


I'm not sure what the best solution to this is. Perhaps you can edit "piti (pije)" so that "piti" is also selected as an alternative correct answer (you can normally add alternative answers by going to edit level and clicking to the right of the word you want to add an alternative for).

The only other difficulty I had was on the accusative case drills where it is showing both the nominative and accusative of "riba" and "sestra" as "riba" and "sestra". That should be easy to correct at least :)
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Re: Radioclare's 2017 log (Croatian/Russian)

Postby Daniel N. » Wed Feb 15, 2017 8:08 am

Radioclare wrote:The only time I ran into an issue with this was when I was tested on "drink" and Memrise decided to offer both "piti (pije)" and "piti" as solutions. If you click "piti" then it is marked as incorrect (see screenshot).

This has also happened to me. I don't know where it takes possible answers from; I think it's a kind of cache, since I've deleted imati (A) from my database, but it still appears somehow in suggested answers :/

I'll have to read more about how Memrise works. These are definitely not random strings, they are strings that were in my database, but I've deleted them in the meanwhile.

Radioclare wrote:The only other difficulty I had was on the accusative case drills where it is showing both the nominative and accusative of "riba" and "sestra" as "riba" and "sestra". That should be easy to correct at least :)

That's the same problem, somehow... I still don't understand how this thing with multiple columns in a database and testing "directions" work. I'll try to improve and then come back to you for feedback. Thanks!

Radioclare wrote:When I was first learning Croatian I used this course which I found really useful and assumed really was made by Croaticum, so when I saw the other course I first assumed it was a sort of sequel.:

This course is very accurate (I couldn't find a single misspelling) and it's very consistent in marking grammar (i.e. verb aspect) and overall it appears "official".
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Re: Radioclare's 2017 log (Croatian/Russian)

Postby Radioclare » Sun Feb 19, 2017 4:07 pm

I had an email this morning from Youtube with a link to a new video uploaded by the Bosnian band, Dubioza Kolektiv.

One of the things I really like about them is that they periodically record acoustic versions of their songs in bizarre locations. For example, this version of their song 'Tranzicija', which they recorded while going up a mountain in two separate gondolas :)



One of my personal favourites is this version of 'Volio BiH', filmed in someone's bathroom :lol:



Sometimes they sing in other languages, like this song (which I'm guessing is Spanish). This one is filmed in a train station and random people keep walking in front of the camera :)



Anyway the latest video Youtube was alerting me to is equally bizarre, being filmed in a hotel room in Mumbai with an Indian singer called IP Singh :lol: (warning - some strong language in the English bits)



Hopefully you are all now sufficiently distracted from the fact that I haven't made much progress with Russian this week :oops:
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Re: Radioclare's 2017 log (Croatian/Russian)

Postby Radioclare » Sun Feb 19, 2017 9:29 pm

Time for a more serious update...

Russian
I finally finished the eighth and final disk of the Michel Thomas Foundation course. This feels like quite an achievement :D I can't decide what to do next in terms of Russian audio. I have the advanced Michel Thomas as well, but I also have Pimsleur. I'm thinking perhaps I should do some Pimsleur first and then return to Michel Thomas at a later date. I've told myself I have to use the audio I already have before I'm allowed to buy Glossika :lol:

Otherwise I am still plugging away at Duolingo. I thought it was quite inspiring when I noticed earlier in the week how Blaurebell was calculating in her signature how far through the tree she was. So I have counted and I am on 61/79. That made me feel a bit more cheerful - like the end is in sight - although I am still progressing very slowly with new material. By the time I've made everything gold each day, I've lost the will to learn a new topic.

I haven't done vast amounts with Russian on Memrise this week, so I'm still partway through the "Russian 2" course.

Croatian
I am still reading Ken Follet's 'Zima sveta'. I've probably read about 300 pages this week, and have another 300 pages to go before I get to the end of the book. It is soooo exciting, and really sad too. I haven't looked up much vocabulary, but one of the characters has just come out as gay, so I learned a couple of words ('nastran' and 'homić') which other characters were using to describe him. The plot is currently taking place in the 1940s, so not sure how outdated and/or offensive those words may be now. Overall I'm pleased with how fast I'm progressing through the novel, how effortless it feels, and how reading Serbian has stopped feeling strange. The only thing which is really still causing me problems with Serbian is the transliteration of English names. One of the characters is called Chuck (in English) so in the Serbian translation he is called 'Čak' which is fine, except that 'čak' is also a normal word (meaning 'even') in Croatian/Serbian, so every time 'Čak' starts a sentence I get caught out and initially think it mean 'even', before realising it's a name.

I've spent more time than I intended on Croatian Memrise this week, trying out Daniel's new courses. I finished the verb pairs course this afternoon, which was really cool, though words like 'inchoative' and 'semelfactive' are way above my head :lol:

I have watched a few episodes of 'Larin izbor' which is still taking place in Morocco and the plot has reached levels of idiocy which even I am struggling to believe. I still have about 50 episodes to go and then I will have to choose a new series :)
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Re: Radioclare's 2017 log (Croatian/Russian)

Postby zebracoupe » Mon Feb 20, 2017 10:24 am

By the time I've made everything gold each day, I've lost the will to learn a new topic.


Have you experimented with not following Duolingo's suggestion to make everything gold? I find that there is usually enough repetition just through progressing on to the new lessons - and it makes Duolingo a lot more fun!
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Re: Radioclare's 2017 log (Croatian/Russian)

Postby blaurebell » Mon Feb 20, 2017 11:48 am

Radioclare wrote:I thought it was quite inspiring when I noticed earlier in the week how Blaurebell was calculating in her signature how far through the tree she was. So I have counted and I am on 61/79. That made me feel a bit more cheerful - like the end is in sight - although I am still progressing very slowly with new material. By the time I've made everything gold each day, I've lost the will to learn a new topic.


Aww, that little progress meter definitely keeps me motivated for Duolingo. Luckily I was redoing my tree and things seem to be staying gold longer this time round. Also, which way round do you do your strengthening? The best strategy seems to be to go upwards from the bottom, so that you might strengthen more than one skill at once. Also, skill based strengthening is more effective than general strengthening. Still, keeping things golden is a nuisance. I tend to learn new stuff first and then basically try only to strengthen the stuff I find most difficult. Usually that already sorts out most of the rest. I'm getting to new content now though, so I might have to do more strengthening soon. Worst part of Duolingo! :roll:
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Re: Radioclare's 2017 log (Croatian/Russian)

Postby Daniel N. » Tue Feb 21, 2017 1:20 pm

Radioclare wrote:I've spent more time than I intended on Croatian Memrise this week, trying out Daniel's new courses.

I'd just like to inform you that both courses have been expanded. A lot. :P
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Re: Radioclare's 2017 log (Croatian/Russian)

Postby Radioclare » Tue Feb 21, 2017 9:06 pm

zebracoupe wrote:Have you experimented with not following Duolingo's suggestion to make everything gold? I find that there is usually enough repetition just through progressing on to the new lessons - and it makes Duolingo a lot more fun!


Noooooo.... I probably should try this because I agree with you that there is a lot of repetition even without keeping things gold.... But every time I log in and see I have a skill which has un-golded itself, it makes me feel anxious and I have to make it gold again straight away. I guess I'm suffering from some sort of weird perfectionism :lol:

blaurebell wrote:Aww, that little progress meter definitely keeps me motivated for Duolingo. Luckily I was redoing my tree and things seem to be staying gold longer this time round. Also, which way round do you do your strengthening? The best strategy seems to be to go upwards from the bottom, so that you might strengthen more than one skill at once. Also, skill based strengthening is more effective than general strengthening. Still, keeping things golden is a nuisance. I tend to learn new stuff first and then basically try only to strengthen the stuff I find most difficult. Usually that already sorts out most of the rest. I'm getting to new content now though, so I might have to do more strengthening soon. Worst part of Duolingo!


That's interesting - I have been going downwards from the top so perhaps I should try the opposite! :) I've been strengthening the individual skills and mostly using the timed practice because I feel like that is slightly quicker (though not sure whether it really is, maybe it just feels quicker because the clock is counting down!). Sometimes the speed of my Russian typing lets me down on the timed practice though.

Daniel N. wrote:I'd just like to inform you that both courses have been expanded. A lot.


OMG, you weren't joking when you said "a lot" :D That is going to keep me busy for quite some time!!
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