NIKOLIĆ's log: An exercise in futility (Arabic, Romanian)

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NIKOLIĆ
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Re: NIKOLIĆ's: IT,RO,SV, GR, 中文 log.

Postby NIKOLIĆ » Sat Sep 19, 2015 9:25 pm

Another long due update. I haven't written anything in this log for almost a month.

ROMANIAN:
I went to Romania a couple of days ago with my parents because they needed a chauffeur to drive them around. My uncle had a cracked pipe and some problems with the walls/windows in his apartment in Jimbolia, and since my dad is a plumber by trade and a skilled artisan, my uncle called him for help.
I drove my mom around the "city" the entire day, since she had to go pick up some documents and whatnot, so I got to listen to some authentic Romanian on the streets and in shops and offices. I wanted to buy a new wallet so we stopped by a bookshop that was close by. At that time, I totally forgot that I wanted to buy some books in Romanian, but as soon as we walked into the bookshop I remembered. There wasn't much selection, but I found some interesting books, 2 of them that I had previously read in Serbian, "Gulliver's travels" and "Robinson Crusoe". I wanted to buy another book but I couldn't make up my mind between "White fang" by Jack London and some Romanian folk tales, but I went for "White fang" in the end. The 3 books cost around 16LEI(4$US (dirty cheap, I know) but I didn't want to buy too many books because I would probably end up not finishing any of them. Jimbolia is pretty close to the Serbian border (around 5kms) and my car spends about 4.7l/100km, so it's like a 5$ trip there and back. I'm gonna stock up on more books when I go there next time.

Image

I started reading "Robinson Crusoe" today, and this is what the first page looks like. I had 33 unknown words on the first page (not counting cognates), so my word comprehension was around 85-90%. I read the entire page out loud and my mom corrected my pronunciation. The plan for now is to "intensively" read at least 3-5 pages a day, until I expand my vocabulary a bit and dive into some extensive reading, because just reading this one page was a painstaking process of using google translate, verbix.com and a ROM->ENG WordReference dictionary to peace out this puzzle that is Romanian. I still didn't understand a half of a sentence even thought I knew all the words. I asked my mom to explain what it means or to translate it for me, but she was unable to explain. She speaks Serbian at around a C2 non-academic level, but she has a lot of trouble translating anything other than single words and short phrases. I guess her brain just isn't wired for translating longer, more complex phrases. I asked her what "să aibă" means and what the infinitive was, but then I had to give her some examples to explain to her what "infinitive" is. She said that it means "to have" but I thought she was wrong and that this is just some synonym for "to have", but it took me 5 minutes to figure out that "aibă" is actually the 3rd person sg. and pl. subjunctive of the verb "to have". Romanian, why you so silly?

Image

Notes:
I realized that I'm not a person that can stick to a schedule/set routine, be it studying or anything else. I'm more of an on the fly, impromptu kind of guy(hehe this rhymes), so I won't be making any more definitive plans, at least not when it comes to language learning. Or will I?

FIN
Last edited by NIKOLIĆ on Mon Sep 28, 2015 12:21 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: NIKOLIĆ's: IT,RO,SV, GR, 中文 log.

Postby Serpent » Sun Sep 20, 2015 8:09 am

Sounds great! :D Did you get to practise speaking? :)
The one Romanian folk tale I've read was quite disturbing, including a pregnancy that lasted 3-4 years :shock: But I guess your mum can recommend you something better :D
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Re: NIKOLIĆ's: IT,RO,SV, GR, 中文 log.

Postby NIKOLIĆ » Mon Sep 21, 2015 1:41 pm

Serpent wrote:Sounds great! :D Did you get to practise speaking? :)
The one Romanian folk tale I've read was quite disturbing, including a pregnancy that lasted 3-4 years :shock: But I guess your mum can recommend you something better :D


Yes, I did get to practice speaking. I spoke with the customs officers even though my mom was in the car. Once we got to my uncle's apartment, my mom and uncle started switching between Serbian and Romanian, while I mostly code-switched since I didn't know at least one word in every goddamn sentence that I wanted to say. :D We then got invited over for coffee by our uncle's neighbor. My uncle introduced us to his neighbor and his kids and instead of saying "Îmi pare bine" I said "plăcere", which was an obvious influence by the Italian "piacere (di conoscerti/la)" haha. :D I kept asking my uncle to translate words that I didn't understand, such as "interest rate", "ashtray", "drivers license" etc, and I wrote them all down (around 80 words, yes I was a pain in the ass) in my "Notes" app on my phone. I also had a couple of short interactions with a couple of people. I wouldn't call literally exchanging a few words "speaking", at least not if I go by HTLAL standards. :)

Disturbing you say? It sounds like it's right up my alley. :D

Yeah, I'll definitely ask her to recommend me something better. I also want to buy some kids/adult poems/poetry books, preferably something that Romanian children read as a part of their elementary and high-school curriculum. :)
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Re: NIKOLIĆ's: IT,RO,SV, GR, 中文 log.

Postby NIKOLIĆ » Sat Sep 26, 2015 2:15 am

ROMANIAN:
Finished Assimil Romanian - lesson #39. Also wrote a short text and made a recording of me reading lesson #39 and posted it on lang-8 for corrections.

Robinson Crusoe - reading page #11 right now. 259 more to go.

Ieri am fost în România cu părinții mei. Am mers la unchiul meu în Jimbolia. Eu am condus mașina și călătoria nu a durat mult, pentru că Jimbolia e aproape de granița cu Serbia. Am dublă cetățenie, așa n-am avut probleme la vamă. Azi mă duc din nou fiindcă tata are niște treabă acolo. N-am scris nimica de multă vreme, dar sper că o să scriu mai des.

Comments: 1. Și "frecvent" e corect, dar e mai natural "des".


Assimil Romanian - #39 Recording

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Re: NIKOLIĆ's: IT,RO,SV, GR, 中文 log.

Postby NIKOLIĆ » Sun Oct 18, 2015 8:04 pm

ROMANIAN:
Finished Assimil Romanian - lesson #50 and did 2 active wave lessons. Finished lesson #4 of Colloquial Romanian. Watched a documentary called "Locuri misterioase din România" and an episode of "Nimeni nu-i perfect". Still chugging along.

Robinson Crusoe - page 40/270.

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Re: NIKOLIĆ's: IT,RO,SV, GR, 中文 log.

Postby NIKOLIĆ » Mon Oct 26, 2015 4:03 pm

There was a challenge thread on another forum regarding reading poetry, so I recorded myself reading en excerpt from "The Raven" by Poe.

Working on that bass voice.

The Raven
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Re: NIKOLIĆ's: IT,RO,SV, GR, 中文 log.

Postby NIKOLIĆ » Mon Nov 23, 2015 12:18 am

The prodigal son returns ...

Found a new apartment and finally signed a new contract with my ISP. Here we go again.

ROMANIAN:
Assimil - 56/101
Colloquial Romanian - 5/20
+Read 50 more pages of "Robinson Crusoe". I gotta step up my reading game.
+Watched the first 4 episodes of Umbre.
+Memorized some song lyrics.

These pesky Romanian indirect and direct object pronouns were giving me a headache, so I made this little Excel cheat-sheet for easy reference, and it's paying off:
Image

Song of the day:


MANDARIN:
Assimil - 39/105
New Practical Chinese Reader 1 - 5/14
Pimsleur 1 - 12/30
+Practiced writing characters.
+Revised around 15 Assimil lessons.


ITALIAN, SLOVAK, GREEK:
:|
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Re: NIKOLIĆ's: IT,RO,SV, GR, 中文 log.

Postby NIKOLIĆ » Sat Dec 12, 2015 3:15 am

ROMANIAN:
Assimil - 61/101
Colloquial Romanian - 6/20
+Finished the first (and apparently last) season of Umbre. I wasn't able to find neither subtitles nor transcripts for it, so I had to watch it like that. I feared that I might get discouraged and stop watching it due to low comprehension, but that wasn't the case. I couldn't understand a lot of what was said, but context and further developments in the show made up for it. The show was broadcasted on HBO(Ro) and it set the bar pretty high for what TV shows should be like, as far as I'm concerned. I still haven't watched a lot of Romanian TV shows, but if I had to rate it on a scale of 1 to 10, I'd give it a 9.5.
+Spoke with my mom for around an hour.

MANDARIN:
Assimil - 41/105
New Practical Chinese Reader 1 - 7/14
Pimsleur 1 - 13/30
+Practiced writing characters.

ITALIAN:
Assimil - 79/105

SLOVAK:
Colloquial Slovak - 2/16

GREEK:
Assimil - 2/92

HUNGARIAN:
Assimil - 2/85

Song of the day:
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Re: NIKOLIĆ's log: An exercise in futility.

Postby NIKOLIĆ » Sun Jan 24, 2016 3:56 am

From now on, I will try to write as much as possible in my TLs. Corrections are more than welcome.

Română:
Asta va fi prima mea încercare de a scrie în limba română pe acest forum, așa că hai să-ncerc să scriu ceva deștept. Sper că n-o să fac prea multe greșeli. Luna aceasta am pus accentul pe lectură. Am început să citesc "Cei Trei Mușchetari", "Frăția Inelului" și "Îngeri și Demoni", folosind FLTR . Mi se pare că cartea cea mai ușoară de citit este "Îngeri și Demoni" a lui Dan Brown, fiindcă am citit-o deja în Engleză, și în plus, Dan Brown folosește termeni și structuri gramaticale care nu-s prea greu de înțeles. Am învățat o grămadă de cuvinte noi, și pot să le înțeleg aproape pe toate imediat după ce le aud. În vreme ce citesc, ascult des muzică, că nu prea îmi place liniștea.
Luna aceasta am stat de vorba cu mama mea mai des decât în anul trecut. Vorbim pe Skype în românește pentru că am o colegă de cameră care îi place să-și bage nasul unde nu-i fierbe oala. Astfel, ea nu poate să înțeleagă nimic, și eu am șansa de a practica limba română. Am început în urma cu câteva zile să urmăresc declarațiile de presă ale guvernului României. Îmi place faptul că pun un videoclip pe YouTube și o transcriere a discursului, așa că dacă nu-nțeleg ceva, pot să arunc o privire la transcrierea.

În ceea ce privește limba italiană, sincer să fiu, n-am prea studiat-o. Am numai citit unele articole, dar asta-i tot ce am făcut.

Chineza și slovaca încă stau pe loc.

Poate voi pune acest text pe lang-8 ca să-l corecteze cineva, și dacă-l corectează cineva, o să editez acest "post".

Српски:
Мислим да би био ред да напишем нешто и на правом матерњем језику овде, пошто сам већ написао нешто на давно изгубљеном матерњем језику, румунском. Знао сам да причам румунски кад сам био мали, али сам био заборавио скоро све јер нисам причао ни са ким дуго времена. Имам испит из техника превођења за пар дана, и нисам се баш богзна како припремио. Испит ће бити из два дела. Један је теорија, а други превођење неког текста. Сад сам код куће, а за пар дана се враћам у Нови Сад. Почетком следећег месеца опет крећем мало озбиљније да играм билијар. Купио сам нов штап и планирам да играм што више турнира. У клубу у којем тренирам, сваке недеље се одигравају 3 турнира: aматерски понедељком, турнир са хендикепом четвртком, и отворени турнир недељом. Успео сам једном да освојим аматерски и једном сам био други, а да бих освојио овај са хендикепом, мораћу мало више да се потрудим, јер играју стварно добри играчи.

Edit: added corrections
Last edited by NIKOLIĆ on Mon Jan 25, 2016 7:45 pm, edited 4 times in total.
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Re: NIKOLIĆ's log: An exercise in futility.

Postby Robierre » Sun Jan 24, 2016 10:09 am

NIKOLIĆ wrote:Мислим да би био ред да напишем нешто и на правом матерњем језику овде,

Nadam se da ti je Robinson Crusoe bio u boljem prijevodu nego moj hrvatski kojeg trenutno čitam. Ali sviđa mi se knjiga.
Sretno na ispitu!
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