Re: Radioclare's 2017 log (Croatian/Russian)
Posted: Sun Feb 05, 2017 6:09 pm
Croatian
I finished reading 'O Jeruzaleme' this weekend, which takes me up to 133 books for the Super Challenge, and I've started reading Ken Follett's 'Zima sveta' ('The Winter of the World') in Serbian. I know, I know; I said I wanted to read more original literature, and I will get around to that at some point But this is the second novel in a brilliant trilogy. I enjoyed the first book so much that I read it twice last year - once in Croatian and once in Serbian - even though it was around 900 pages, and so it was always on the cards that I was going to read the second and third books too. This second one is just over 900 pages again, of which I've read about 150 this weekend. The third one is going to be even longer when I get to that. It's a nice relaxing thing to read though, because Ken Follett doesn't use difficult words
I've finally found some time to watch TV this weekend as well and managed five episodes of 'Larin izbor'. Half the cast is still in Morocco which is somewhat bizarre, especially because the Moroccan characters are speaking to each other in broken English rather than Arabic. I guess at least they're not speaking Croatian
I found a nice course on Memrise from Croaticum, which I've learned about 100 words of so far. I did their beginner course on Memrise a few years ago. This one is more advanced and has some interesting vocabulary in it. The 6WC definitely gives me some more motivation to do 'boring' things like Memrise than I would normally have.
Russian
The 6WC is going okay. I'm on disk 7 of the Michel Thomas now and we're still being taught how to pronounce здесь, but otherwise it is good and I am definitely learning stuff.
I've spent quite a bit of time on Russian Memrise too and completed the 'Russian 1' course so now I'm ready to move onto 'Russian 2'. The course really is streets ahead of anything else on Memrise. There are other courses which have audio - the Duolingo vocab one I'm working my way through, for example - but the quality of the audio varies significantly, with some words being pronounced loudly and others quietly. That makes it really difficult to use the audio part of the course when on public transport, for example, because if you turn the sound up to catch a quiet word, you then find that when it gets to a louder word the entire carriage gets to hear it Whereas the audio on this official Memrise one is perfect; all spoken at the same volume and really, really clear. The phrases it teaches are really useful too; far more useful than the obsession Russian Duolingo has with plates of rice.
I am still plugging away with Duolingo but it does feel like a chore. I've managed to advance forward by another couple of topics, but I still find I'm spending my 90% of my time trying to keep things gold.
Otherwise I think I really need to start making progress with some Russian textbooks now, but I'm being lazy and procrastinating. I started reading my 'Teach Yourself Russian Grammar' book again yesterday, but unfortunately I was at the chapter on the accusative plural of animate nouns and a few minutes of that was enough to make me fundamentally re-examine my reasons for learning Russian
I finished reading 'O Jeruzaleme' this weekend, which takes me up to 133 books for the Super Challenge, and I've started reading Ken Follett's 'Zima sveta' ('The Winter of the World') in Serbian. I know, I know; I said I wanted to read more original literature, and I will get around to that at some point But this is the second novel in a brilliant trilogy. I enjoyed the first book so much that I read it twice last year - once in Croatian and once in Serbian - even though it was around 900 pages, and so it was always on the cards that I was going to read the second and third books too. This second one is just over 900 pages again, of which I've read about 150 this weekend. The third one is going to be even longer when I get to that. It's a nice relaxing thing to read though, because Ken Follett doesn't use difficult words
I've finally found some time to watch TV this weekend as well and managed five episodes of 'Larin izbor'. Half the cast is still in Morocco which is somewhat bizarre, especially because the Moroccan characters are speaking to each other in broken English rather than Arabic. I guess at least they're not speaking Croatian
I found a nice course on Memrise from Croaticum, which I've learned about 100 words of so far. I did their beginner course on Memrise a few years ago. This one is more advanced and has some interesting vocabulary in it. The 6WC definitely gives me some more motivation to do 'boring' things like Memrise than I would normally have.
Russian
The 6WC is going okay. I'm on disk 7 of the Michel Thomas now and we're still being taught how to pronounce здесь, but otherwise it is good and I am definitely learning stuff.
I've spent quite a bit of time on Russian Memrise too and completed the 'Russian 1' course so now I'm ready to move onto 'Russian 2'. The course really is streets ahead of anything else on Memrise. There are other courses which have audio - the Duolingo vocab one I'm working my way through, for example - but the quality of the audio varies significantly, with some words being pronounced loudly and others quietly. That makes it really difficult to use the audio part of the course when on public transport, for example, because if you turn the sound up to catch a quiet word, you then find that when it gets to a louder word the entire carriage gets to hear it Whereas the audio on this official Memrise one is perfect; all spoken at the same volume and really, really clear. The phrases it teaches are really useful too; far more useful than the obsession Russian Duolingo has with plates of rice.
I am still plugging away with Duolingo but it does feel like a chore. I've managed to advance forward by another couple of topics, but I still find I'm spending my 90% of my time trying to keep things gold.
Otherwise I think I really need to start making progress with some Russian textbooks now, but I'm being lazy and procrastinating. I started reading my 'Teach Yourself Russian Grammar' book again yesterday, but unfortunately I was at the chapter on the accusative plural of animate nouns and a few minutes of that was enough to make me fundamentally re-examine my reasons for learning Russian