Radioclare's 2018 log (Croatian/Russian)

[Spoonary]

I’m still terrible at switching between languages. Once a Spanish tutor asked me to say something in Norwegian and I couldn’t remember how to say it. I finally managed to say it, but very awkwardly and with a horrible accent. Then suddenly I couldn’t switch back to Spanish. I even have trouble switching between Norwegian and English with most people. I can only do it with people I’m accustomed to using both languages with. If you surprise me with a different language, even one I know well, my mind goes completely blank. I’ve even forgotten English when someone’s surprised me with it out of the blue.

Oh, this has happened to me too. Like when I lived in Spain and communicated with my Polish housemates in Spanish, sometimes they would throw an English word in and I would completely miss it. I always felt quite bad about it actually because it made them think their English was really poor or something, when what was really happening was that I was focussing so hard on listening out for Spanish words that I wasn't ready for English's many phonemes

Also, while I'm here: Clare, I read your post in Esperanto about the UK conference in Wales. I did the math(s) and you're right, it does work out to be pretty expensive, and for that reason (as well as the fact that it falls right on my birthday and I don't think I have that many holiday days to take), it looks like I'm going to have to give it a miss. It's a shame really because I was planning on going to the Brita Kongreso again this year, but hey ho.

[Radioclare]

Thank you for the comments, everyone

No, he didn't One of his sons supports Arsenal though

The question doesn't literally imply "who is your favourite player in Arsenal?" though yeah your reaction is quite reasonable To make it clear that you're asking "who is your favourite player in general?" I would insert вообще either before or after кто.

I'm glad I'm not going mad I was just confused because if the guy said his favourite team was Arsenal and that they were the best team in the world, I couldn't quite understand why his favourite player then wouldn't be an Arsenal player. But I am probably over-thinking the dialogue!

I’m still terrible at switching between languages. Once a Spanish tutor asked me to say something in Norwegian and I couldn’t remember how to say it. I finally managed to say it, but very awkwardly and with a horrible accent. Then suddenly I couldn’t switch back to Spanish. I even have trouble switching between Norwegian and English with most people. I can only do it with people I’m accustomed to using both languages with. If you surprise me with a different language, even one I know well, my mind goes completely
blank. I’ve even forgotten English when someone’s surprised me with it out of the blue.

It's reassuring to know that it's not just me who struggles with this! Every time I try to speak Esperanto these days, for the first few minutes I struggle not to introduce Croatian words into it. But then after a while it feels like my brain warms up a bit and I'm okay again.

The other thing I am really struggling with switching at the moment is keyboards. My Cyrillic typing is still quite slow, but it's quicker than my handwriting for writing out the answers to exercises etc. But I find if I've been typing Russian for 20 minutes or so and then switch back to my normal keyboard to type something in English, there's a minute or so where my fingers seem to freeze and can't find any of the letters at all. There's definitely something about switching that my brain doesn't like

Oh yes, that very Russian word фокстерьер Seriously though, I really liked Colloquial Russian but I had the same issue with the audio, and I just could not stand the voice of the English-speaking lady on the CD recordings who would give you instructions ("listen to the dialogue and answer the questions that folllow in English"). But I think you should stick with Colloquial, because although the learning curve is quite steep, most grammar issues are well covered and you are better equipped to move on to more advanced courses or even native material.

Yes, the lady on the CD has a dreadful voice! I don't know what it is but everything she says just sounds so patronising and the intro to each dialogue seems to go on forever. I find I am listening to the Colloquial audio the bare minimum of times, because I find it so irritating, so it's a good job that I'm doing Assimil at the same time to get more listening in.

jare is a young goat (kid); it's one of "young animal" neuter nouns, that get -t- whenever anything is added to them;

Thank you for the explanations Daniel, and also for the links to the Russian materials I have a suspicion that when I was first learning Croatian I skipped all the bits in my grammar books about baby animals; firstly because they seemed like such complicated nouns and secondly because I couldn't imagine that I would ever want to use them. But I guess now wouldn't be a bad time to revisit things like that.

Also, while I'm here: Clare, I read your post in Esperanto about the UK conference in Wales. I did the math(s) and you're right, it does work out to be pretty expensive, and for that reason (as well as the fact that it falls right on my birthday and I don't think I have that many holiday days to take), it looks like I'm going to have to give it a miss. It's a shame really because I was planning on going to the Brita Kongreso again this year, but hey ho.

I know, it really is expensive I don't think I would be going either to be honest if I didn't have to. The programme actually sounds really interesting this year, but I'm really surprised by how much the accommodation costs in April and the train fares added up to quite a bit of money too. There are a few other courses and things happening over the next few months if you are interested - http://esperanto.org.uk/events/

****

This week has been okay... maybe not quite as productive as I hoped. I missed one day of Assimil and I'd like to tell you a story about how something majorly important came up at work which meant I just couldn't fit it in... but actually, what happened was that I got overly involved in reading websites about travelling in Iceland while performing convoluted calculations about whether I could afford to go (possibly not - it must be the only place in the world that makes Finland feel cheap!) and I just forgot about it. And then once I'd forgotten it one day, I came dangerously close to deliberately not doing it the next day because I'd broken the streak. But luckily I managed to pull myself out of that mindset and crack on with it, with the result that I've now finished the passive phase and started the active phase this evening. Yay (I think!). I feel like I will probably be able to cope with the active phase for the first 10 lessons or so and then it is probably all going to fall apart

I'm going to be away from home this weekend, so it may not be as productive for language learning as I would like.

[Serpent]

1. А какая твоя любимая команда?
2. Моя любимая команда Арсенал. Это очень хорошая команда, лучшая в мире.
1. А кто твой любимый игрок?
2. Ну, конечно, Дэвид Бэккэм.

You typed everything up nearly perfectly, but it's supposed to be Бекхэм. (or Бекхем, but either way it's х after к)

And well, I guess the author didn't want to seem too biased Besides, Arsenal's had many foreign stars, but it would be kinda pointless to teach ppl how to write a French name in Russian
Maybe they also didn't want it to be too confusing for non-British users of the book. Everyone has heard of Beckham, and he's played in the USA for a few years too.

...I now looked up and apparently he did train with Arsenal in 2008 just to stay fit while living in London between the American seasons. I remember him training with Tottenham too. (Ok here's a pic with Luka too while I'm at it) See, he was welcomed everywhere. I can totally understand why the author didn't want to mention someone more controversial

Which year was the book published btw?

As for -e nouns, I've always wondered about Mile from Budva

[Brun Ugle]

I’m still terrible at switching between languages. Once a Spanish tutor asked me to say something in Norwegian and I couldn’t remember how to say it. I finally managed to say it, but very awkwardly and with a horrible accent. Then suddenly I couldn’t switch back to Spanish. I even have trouble switching between Norwegian and English with most people. I can only do it with people I’m accustomed to using both languages with. If you surprise me with a different language, even one I know well, my mind goes completely
blank. I’ve even forgotten English when someone’s surprised me with it out of the blue.

It's reassuring to know that it's not just me who struggles with this! Every time I try to speak Esperanto these days, for the first few minutes I struggle not to introduce Croatian words into it. But then after a while it feels like my brain warms up a bit and I'm okay again.

The other thing I am really struggling with switching at the moment is keyboards. My Cyrillic typing is still quite slow, but it's quicker than my handwriting for writing out the answers to exercises etc. But I find if I've been typing Russian for 20 minutes or so and then switch back to my normal keyboard to type something in English, there's a minute or so where my fingers seem to freeze and can't find any of the letters at all. There's definitely something about switching that my brain doesn't like

My realtor sent me an email yesterday and I was trying to answer it this morning, but I forgot to switch the keyboard on my tablet from English to Norwegian. I typed my reply in Norwegian, but autocorrect changed all the words to similarly spelled English words. So when I looked up at what I’d written, it was just nonsense. Then when I started to write this, I forgot at first to switch back to Norwegian.

This week has been okay... maybe not quite as productive as I hoped. I missed one day of Assimil and I'd like to tell you a story about how something majorly important came up at work which meant I just couldn't fit it in... but actually, what happened was that I got overly involved in reading websites about travelling in Iceland while performing convoluted calculations about whether I could afford to go (possibly not - it must be the only place in the world that makes Finland feel cheap!) and I just forgot about it.

I was there with some workmates in 2011 and we all thought Iceland was pretty cheap. But then again, it was 2011 and we live in Norway.

[Radioclare]

You typed everything up nearly perfectly, but it's supposed to be Бекхэм. (or Бекхем, but either way it's х after к)

This time I am going to blame the book and not my typing

Screenshot_20180210-080203.png

Which year was the book published btw?

I've got the third edition which was published in 2010. The first edition was 1993 and the second was 1997 so I guess he could have been introduced in one of those (no idea where those dates are in relation to his career!).

[Daniel N.]

As for -e nouns, I've always wondered about Mile from Budva

Just to clarify this problem for people unfamiliar with Croatian/Bosnian/Serbian/Montenegrin: certain names are specific for some regions, and their declension can be region specific.

So the accusative of Mile, depending on the region, can be Mila, Milu or Mileta.

The accusative of Ivo can be Ivu or Iva. And when people hear a name which is rare in the region they live, they often have to guess which declension it follows (and often fail).

[Serpent]

To clarify, I was referring to the "Budva na pjenu od mora" series (so by "from Budva" I mean from this series). The character was supposed to be from Belgrade and the form Mileta was used.

@Clare argh, definitely a typo (even Бэкхэм is borderline.. most people can't really pronounce it with two э's) And wow this text is quite advanced.
93 would be too early but in 97 even I knew Beckham (and hated him )

[Radioclare]

I hope the misspelling of David Beckham's name is the only mistake in my textbook

I'm back from my weekend away now and, as predicted, I didn't get loads of studying done. I am reading a novel in German at the moment, so I got a couple of hours of that in on the train. I also spent about an hour of train time reading Colloquial Russian and trying to get to the end of the exercises in chapter 7 (the past tense and the instrumental).

One unexpected element of the weekend was that on Saturday night I ended up going to the cinema to see a Russian film I was planning to go to the cinema but hadn't looked at the listings to see what was on, and when I eventually did on Saturday afternoon I realised that all the big commercial cinemas were pretty much exclusively showing 'Fifty Shades Freed'. Actually I wouldn't have minded seeing that, but I haven't seen 'Fifty Shades Darker' yet so it would have been a bit out of sequence, and I was with my sister who hasn't read the books. So she then suggested we try a more obscure cinema which tends to show more artsy/intellectual sorts of films, and we found it was showing a Russian film called 'Нелюбовь' (Loveless).

It seemed like fate that I had to go and see it, although I didn't have a clue what it was about. It turned out to be quite a harrowing story about a divorcing couple whose son disappears from home after hearing them having a dreadful argument. The film has won or been nominated for all sorts of prizes and I can see why, but it was not an easy film to watch at times. The good thing was that this cinema had a bar so we were able to accompany the film with wine It was really cool to watch something in Russian though. I obviously wouldn't have got very far without the English subtitles, but whenever I did manage to understand a sentence I got very excited

You can watch the trailer for the film here...

[Radioclare]

My entire day yesterday was ruined by Windows updates. First my work computer required one, which took an hour longer than advertised, and then in the evening my personal computer spent several hours seemingly installing the same update That meant I had to focus on "offline" language learning activities for a while!

I've started chapter 8 of Colloquial Russian, which is called "Любимый отдых" (Favourite holidays). I approve of this, because I find holidays a lot more interesting than I find sport But I have a question about the words for holiday in Russian.

Throughout the course of the chapter, the book uses three different words for holidays and I don't feel like it defines them very clearly:

отпуск - leave, holiday
каникулы - vacation
отдых - rest, holiday

Are all these words interchangeable? Or is there some nuance in meaning? As far I'm concerned a holiday is a holiday, a vacation is when an American has a holiday and leave is something you might get from the army...

I must say that there are some things about this book that I am finding a bit odd. In the first seven chapters it has taught the case endings for singular nouns and I thought chapter 8 was going to cover the endings for adjectives. But rather going through them in detail, it just says that there is a table of them in the appendix and leaves you to your own devices to learn them It also seems to escalate quickly in terms of difficulty. I flicked ahead to see what grammar was covered in each chapter and found that chapter 11 is already the passive, which surprised me because in textbooks I've used for other languages, that tends to be in one of the final chapters. It made me a bit concerned about how much Russian grammar there was to learn in chapters 12 - 18 which is more difficult than the passive. But then when I flicked through I found that chapter 16 is teaching negation and chapter 18 is teaching conjunctions Maybe there are some nasty surprises lurking for me in Russian negation and conjunctions, but generally I would have thought those were some of the more straightforward bits of a language so I'm not sure why they're so far back in the book....

Anyway, the further I get through Colloquial Russian the more I think that this wouldn't be a good introduction for someone who is a complete beginner. I am only just about coping with it and this is my second Slavic language and the fourth language I've tried to teach myself, plus I have two failed attempts at learning Russian behind me already (2004 and 2011). But if I gave this book to someone like my Mom (who is also learning Russian, but her main experience of learning languages is from attending classes) I think that because it goes so fast she might just conclude Russian is too difficult and give up.

On a completely different and unrelated theme, I forgot to say last time I posted that another reason I missed a day of Assimil was that I got caught up watching a new video by Dubioza Kolektiv. It's mainly about the history of the band and the making of their new album and I wouldn't really recommend that you watch the entire thing (it's over an hour) unless you are a huge fan. But it does have English subtitles and I thought some of you might be interested in the first five minutes or so when some of the band members talk about how they got into music when they were growing up during the war in Bosnia

[MamaPata]

Hopefully a native speaker can confirm, but I was always told that каникулы were more like school holidays - so students and school kids.

I definitely find that a lot of Russian textbooks jump quite fast, even the ones I like. And similarly, negation is always quite late, but I wouldn't say it needed to be! I've only used the second Colloquial Russian, so I can't comment there specifically, but it fits with my general experience! I think one of the problems is that there are fewer intermediate/advanced textbooks than there are for say Spanish or French.

If you're looking for stuff specifically on grammar, Khavronina's Russian in Exercises or the Schaum's grammar are both useful for drills, if not particularly exciting!