Radioclare's temporary(?!) log

[Daniel N.]

I can't listen to it on my mobile phone, but I bet it's "Jakove" (vocative) and "odgovori mi" (DL).

I will check it in detail tomorrow

[Radioclare]

I just got home and listened again and Daniel is completely right, of course, so I have corrected I don't know why it didn't occur to me that it couldn't possibly be an -a in the vocative

Impressive!! I should try some intensive listening as well, like you say I'm doing

Seriously, I usually do intensive listening for the vocabulary only, not for the listening itself. Not pausing for words I didn't understand the audio for. I still use the subtitles largely as a crutch. I really need to try focusing on the audio, pausing, rewarding. The one person who has been doing intensive listening the way you did is lorinth, with Mandarin. It is something really useful and necessary at some moments in the journey, though it's tiresome indeed.

Oops, well I'm sorry I accused you of doing intensive listening if that is not what you are doing I was catching up on your log the other day and I obviously misunderstood your technique! I don't think I would have the patience to do this very often as it definitely takes a lot of time, but I will investigate lorinth's log

[Daniel N.]

I have carefully listened to the clip Clare supplied, and here are my corrections to her transcript:

Lara: Jakove, šta je bilo?

Jakov: Ti. Zašto mi nisi rekla?

Lara: Zato što sam htila uzet' neko vrime sama sebi da smirim emocije.

Jakov: Dobro. Kad je išta između nas bilo mirno?

Lara: Nikad. Šta si sad doša?

In their dialect, the past participle in masc. gender is normally always -a/-ja (bija = bio, ima = imao, doša = došao) and words like posao/posl- are posa/posl-. However, this telenovela has "dialect light": they use such endings only here and there, so it can be easily understood anywhere, even in Serbia (where Croatian telenovelas are popular).

Jakov: Još me pitaš?

Lara: Jakove, šta radiš?

Jakov: Lara, idemo!

Lara: Čekaj, smiri se malo.

Jakov: Lara, dovoljno smo čekali! Sad je red na nas.

Jakov: Nemamo više šta čekat'. Uzmi naše dijete i idemo.... Lara, zašto šutiš?

Lara: Zato što Zlaja i ja ne idemo nigdi.

Jakov: A zašto? Odgovori mi zašto, molim te.

Lara: Jakove, dobro znaš zašto i ne tribam ti stoput odgovarat' na isto pitanje. Ne vjerujem (maybe: virujem) ti, ne mogu ti oprostit. Žao mi je. Ne mogu i molim te, nemoj više dolazit'. Samo mučiš i sebe i mene kad ovako non-stop dolaziš. Ajde, odi ća.

strictly speaking, in their speech, I don't hear any difference č vs. ć. However, ća "away" is usually spelled with ć (it's not related to ča "what").

Jakov: Znači tako. Ostaješ ovdje s njim.

Lara: To šta ostajem u konobi nema veze s Nikšom.

Jakov: Nema. Ajde me onda molim te reci zašto ostaješ ovdje jer meni stvarno nije jasno.

Lara: Zato što je ovo moj dom.

Jakov: A ne misliš li možda da je vrijeme da izgradiš novi dom, tamo di ti je i mjesto.

Lara: Dobro, di bi ja to tribala gradit' novi dom, ajde mi molim te reci. Kako ne shvaćaš da je ova konoba jedino misto di sam pronašla sebe, prijatelje, posa. Tu sam dite rodila. To je jedino misto u ovom gradu di sam se osjećala prihvaćeno. Ali naravno da ti to niti možeš niti želiš shvatiti. Nemaš pojma kako je to kad se osjećaš kao uljez među ljudima koji bi ti tribali biti obitelj, koji bi ti i mogli i morali pomoći. A ne žele, jednostavno dopuštaju da se tako osjećaš.

Jakov: Lara, ako ti misliš da ja ne znam za taj osjećaj, onda... onda me ni ne poznaješ.

Lara: Možda je to istina. Neka. Ali ti si onako napravio toliko stvari koje od tebe nisam očekivala.

Jakov: Da. Znam. To si mi ponovila, i to više puta.

Lara: Pa, žao mi je.

Jakov: Pa i meni je žao. Lara, i meni je žao, i koliko ti puta to moram reć' da me opet počneš vjerovat'.

Lara: Isuse, prestani mene krivit za ono što si ti napravija.

Jakov: Dobro Lara, nećemo se sad raspravljat'. Nema smisla. Ti si odlučila, jel tako? Znači ostaješ ovdje u ovoj krčmi do dalje...

Lara: Ne znam, ne znam Jakove. Možda odem u Korčulu, nemam pojma. U svakom slučaju...

Jakov: U svakom slučaju želiš bit što dalje od mene, to si htjela reć?

Lara: Nisam to rekla, ne uzimaj mi riči iz usta. U svakom slučaju imat ćeš priliku da budeš ravnopravan roditelj našem ditetu. Toga se ne tribaš bojat'.

Jakov: Znaš šta ja mislim, Lara. Ja mislim da si ti jedna kukavica. Da si ti jedna najobičnija kukavica koja se zapravo boji reć' šta želi i šta zapravo osjeća.

Lara: Kako osuđuješ govorit mi tako nešto u mojoj kući.

Jakov: Zato što je to istina. Ajde, pogledaj me u oči i reci da nije tako!

Jakov: Ti stvarno misliš da si ti tolko jaka da ćeš moć vječno lagat sebi.

Lara: Jedino što sam sigurna je da nisam toliko jaka da podnesem još jedan ovakav razgovor.

Jakov: Dobro, a zašto Lara?

Lara: Prestani Jakove, pusti me.

Jakov: Priznaj, čekaj samo malo. Šta je tolko teško podnijet moju blizinu. Čega se ti bojiš? Da nećeš izdržat? Da će tvoj ..... popustit?, jel?

Lara: Pusti me na miru!

Jakov: Lara, molim te, molim te, priznaj da me voliš, priznaj da me želiš isto kao i ja tebe. Molim te, nemoj se opirat', znaš da imamo samo jedan život.

Lara: Makni se od mene, makni se od mene. Ne osjećam ništa više prema tebi. Ništa!

Jakov: Lara, lažeš.

Lara: Ne lažem. Kunem ti se životom da ne lažem. Jedino do čega mi je stalo je moj Zlaja. Jedino. Samo na njega mislim. Samo o tome. A tebe više ne želim, ti si jednostavno stvar prošlosti i šta god da napraviš, šta god da kažeš ne može to promijeniti. Zgazio si me, uništio si me, ne mogu ti to nikad oprostit' i neću ti nikad oprostit, kunem ti se. Ti si kriv za sve to i bilo bi ti pametnije da to prihvatiš šta prije.

I think it's obvious they talk quite fast, however, that's simply a characteristic of Dalmatia (the rest speaks slower). It's also obvious that unstressed vowels are not pronounced clearly (therefore all Clare's problems with mixing up mi and me)...

The final remark: I have a dictionary of the Korčula dialect, and... what Lara speaks is not the Korčula dialect

[Radioclare]

I have carefully listened to the clip Clare supplied, and here are my corrections to her transcript

Thank you Daniel I really appreciate you taking the time to write the corrections for me. It's really interesting to see what I've got wrong and I think I've learned quite a bit from doing this

In their dialect, the past participle in masc. gender is normally always -a/-ja (bija = bio, ima = imao, doša = došao) and words like posao/posl- are posa/posl-. However, this telenovela has "dialect light": they use such endings only here and there, so it can be easily understood anywhere, even in Serbia (where Croatian telenovelas are popular).

I didn't realise this but it makes sense now you say it

Samo mučiš i sebe i mene kad ovako non-stop dolaziš. Ajde, odi ća.

You know, I must have listened to this sentence more than 10 times and I just couldn't figure out the word "non-stop" How ironic that it was an English expression I couldn't understand!

strictly speaking, in their speech, I don't hear any difference č vs. ć. However, ća "away" is usually spelled with ć (it's not related to ča "what").

Thank you, I'd never seen it in print before and so I wasn't sure!

I think it's obvious they talk quite fast, however, that's simply a characteristic of Dalmatia (the rest speaks slower). It's also obvious that unstressed vowels are not pronounced clearly (therefore all Clare's problems with mixing up mi and me)...

This makes me feel better about having misheard some bits

[Radioclare]

I was feeling particularly virtuous yesterday evening and I managed to hit the elusive Memrise zero! I need to have a serious look at the courses I am currently subscribed to on Memrise so that I don't log in to backlogs of several thousand when I don't feel like using it for a while. I don't want too much clutter on there when I start using it for Russian.

Finishing my watering is one good thing about the 6WC. The only other thing I am doing consistently is watching TV, and this is just because I want to see how many episodes it takes for Lara and Jakov to get back together The rest of my time is being dominated by work. I think for Christmas perhaps I need some time management books

[Radioclare]

I haven't had a very productive week for languages. Work continues to dominate and Wednesday was a particularly bad day. The number of working days between now and Christmas is getting smaller and smaller whereas the list of tasks which need to be accomplished before then seems to be getting bigger and bigger.

Anyway. One small good thing which happened this week is that a photo I took during the summer is being included in an exhibition called "Photographing Croatia" which is being held at the Croatian Embassy in London. Unfortunately I entered a resized version of the original image and then when they asked me for the actual image a few weeks ago, my camera broke and I couldn't extract it from there. But in the end they said they would just put a small version of it on the wall so that the print quality wasn't a problem. And my picture made it onto the flyer too (mine is the photo of the amphitheatre in Pula on the bottom right).

The other news is that tomorrow is my birthday. On the one hand this isn't good because it sparks off an existential crisis about what I'm doing with my life. But on the other hand it is good because people may buy me Croatian-related presents I went to visit my family today and so opened my presents from then a day early. My parents and my sister each bought me a book from Istros Books, who publish literature from South Eastern Europe in English translation.

Istros books.jpg

Both looks really exciting so it will be difficult to choose which to start first

My parents also bought me this book: "Zagreb - A Cultural and Literary History" by Celia Hawksworth.

Zagreb.jpg

She's the author of Colloquial Croatian, which admittedly isn't a book I have got much time for, but I'm hoping that this will be good anyway

[Radioclare]

Well. Today is not going to rank as one of my happiest birthdays of all time, but fortunately this is not because of reasons which are important but for reasons which relate to the Esperanto movement. I can't go into the details in public... yet... but if you want one piece of advice then it would be to never, ever, get involved in the organised Esperanto movement. Learn Esperanto by all means and have fun with it, but never ever get involved in the movement. That is all.

On the upside, I have had some really cool presents Among other things, my boyfriend bought me a Croatian grammar book...

croatian grammar.jpg

...as well as a big Ken Follett book translated into Croatian and a German novel called "Die Therapie" by Sebastian Fitzek.

My boyfriend's parents also bought me a little calendar featuring pictures of Pope Francis which they must have bought when they were on holiday in Italy earlier in the year. It was very thoughtful of them considering we don't share many religious views in common, and I'll be able to use it to learn the names of the months in Italian

[Daniel N.]

Regarding that Croatian grammar, it seems it has a couple of minor errors. There's a Croatian linguist who wrote the following review, so you can consult it when you find something that looks strange to you (she's always hypercritical, I for example think that calling a word "conjunction" or "adverb" is simply a matter of choice...):

https://bib.irb.hr/datoteka/446647.rev_art_GRUBISIC.PDF

[tarvos]

Regarding that Croatian grammar, it seems it has a couple of minor errors. There's a Croatian linguist who wrote the following review, so you can consult it when you find something that looks strange to you (she's always hypercritical, I for example think that calling a word "conjunction" or "adverb" is simply a matter of choice...):

https://bib.irb.hr/datoteka/446647.rev_art_GRUBISIC.PDF

They aren't the same thing, though. Adverbs modify verbs, other adverbs or adjectives, whereas conjunctions link two phrases or sentences together.

[Daniel N.]

They aren't the same thing, though. Adverbs modify verbs, other adverbs or adjectives, whereas conjunctions link two phrases or sentences together.

That's what's written in most textbooks and learned in schools, but it's often very hard to draw the line (to put it mildly).

Let me illustrate with a very simple and common word — i (usually translated as "and")

It can join two nouns:

(1) Pili smo pivo i kavu.

However, it can be used on its own before a noun, and now it means "also":

(2) Pili smo i kavu.

And it can be used before each noun in sequence, meaning "both... and...." (this is simply an emphasized version of the sentence 1):

(3) Pili smo i pivo i kavu.

It can of course join many other things. And it has its negation: ni.

What to do with it? Some grammars say that i in the sentence 1 is a conjunction, but in the sentence 2 it's an adverb (but it cannot be moved anywhere else, so it looks more like a preposition?!). And in the sentence 3... you have an adverb and a conjunction! The online dictionary of Croatian (HJP) even says there are two different words, and the i in 2 is a "word for intensifying" (without stating what it really is, a conjunction or what) — see here

Next, there's a word osim "except".

It can be used before virtually anything else: a noun, a prepositional phrase, a clause, even a verb in infinitive. But when it's used before a noun (or a noun phrase) that's in nominative or accusative case, it changes the case of the phrase into genitive.

What HJP does? It lists three identical words (osim) — one is a preposition, another is an adverb, and the last is a conjunction! If a word doesn't fit into the preconceived scheme, let's split it to several words having identical meanings and never overlapping (that is, the preposition-osim is used before nouns in G, but if osim found before a noun in DL, that it's the adverb-osim...)

It's well-known that adverbs are a catch-all category, with words having very little in common: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adverb#Ad ... 2_category

The are more examples of words that defy classification, there are works in linguistic literature on problems with various Croatian words, I can give links if someone is interested. Of course, the main problem is how to fit a modern language into a 2000-year-old scheme that was invented for Latin and rough anyway...