Radioclare's 2019 log (Croatian/Russian)

[Radioclare]

18 June
I survived the role plays and I'm home; luckily, it was only a 2-day course

Russian
My journey home took three hours and involved four different trains. Fun! On the first couple of trains I did Memrise, managing to clear all my reviews and also learn some new vocabulary. I feel a bit like recently, my objective with Memrise has just become to clear reviews and by the time I've done that, I've lost the energy to actually learn anything new. Obviously that isn't an ideal approach! I'm still trying to finish the official Memrise Russian 2 course and I managed to make some progress towards that today.

On my third train I had to stand, but then on my fourth train I was able to devote some time to Colloquial Russian and I got all the way to the end of chapter 3. I came to a bit about adjectives which I remember finding really confusing the first time I read it but which I feel like I understand properly now, so that was a good boost of confidence Obviously it's only chapter 3 so the subject matter isn't too challenging and I was just able to read without taking notes, doing the exercises in my head. Once I get further through the book, I'll start studying properly and writing the exercises out.

Total time = 73 minutes. Streak = 169 days

[Radioclare]

19 June
I had a nice relaxing time sitting in the office today. I didn't have to throw a bean bag to anyone or write my feelings on post-it notes and this made me happy.

Russian
I attempted to be more disciplined with Memrise today, so I got through all my reviews and then did an extra 10 minutes learning new words. If I can keep this up I should be able to finish the Russian 2 course this week.

On the way to the office I started Pimsleur 3. Definitely not something I ever thought I'd hear myself say! I finished the first lesson and it was actually quite hard. When I first started using audio courses during my commute I used to be quite self conscious about it and either make the responses in my head or whisper them under my breath. But with this Russian Pimsleur, I've got to the stage where I just don't care anymore so I tend to walk round Birmingham city centre saying phrases in Russian out loud. This isn't normally a problem but today it was slightly awkward because I bumped into a colleague while in the middle of trying to say something random like "его самолёт должен прилететь в три часа" to myself and I think they found this more than slightly odd

Total time = 49 minutes. Streak = 170 days

[Radioclare]

20 June
I had a 140-mile round trip for my commute today, which was kinda tiring. But I'm working from home tomorrow, so it all balances out overall

Russian
Lots of time on the train meant lots of time for Memrise! It probably should actually have meant lots of time working because it's a quiet train so normally when I come this way I get quite a bit done. But I forgot that although the train has Wi-Fi, for some reason it doesn't let me connect to my work VPN so if I'd wanted to work, I needed to have planned in advance things I could do offline and I didn't... so yeah, lots of time for Memrise! And I surpassed my own expectations, finishing the Russian 2 course I'm sure I'll have a tonne of reviews waiting for me tomorrow, but I'm happy to have got to the end of this one because I cheated and started Russian 3 before I went to Russia. There was a good reason for this; Russian 3 had some more useful travel vocabulary in it whereas the end of Russian 2 was relationship vocabulary, so I was deliberately trying to prioritise what was most useful ahead of my trip. But I felt like the end of Russian 2 was hanging over me as a loose end

Once I got off my train I had a walk of about a mile to my client so by the time I'd got back to the station in the evening, I'd finished lesson 2 of Pimsleur 3. I normally only do Pimsleur in Birmingham, which is partly just habit (I made a rule for myself that once I've passed through the ticket barrier at Birmingham New Street, I have to switch my iPod from music to Pimsleur!), but it's partly because the route I take from the station to my office is almost 100% pedestrianised and I find that results in ideal Pimsleur conditions because it's not too noisy. The walk I had today definitely presented sub-optimal Pimsleur conditions because I was going along some pretty busy roads and there was so much traffic noise that sometimes I just had to guess what I was supposed to be responding to

This evening I've been trying to find something interesting to watch in Russian. I feel like I have a reasonable amount of time when I'm too tired to do anything properly useful but still awake enough to do some Russian listening practice, if I could find things I wanted to listen to. I'm not at a level yet where I feel it's useful for me to start trying to watch TV; short videos of 10 - 15 minutes on Youtube are the limit of my concentration span. So I'm just experimenting with watching a few different things in the hope that Youtube starts recommending me things I'm interested in Tonight I watched part of a documentary about Chernobyl.

Total time = 95 minutes. Streak = 171 days

[Radioclare]

21 June
I worked from home today But I worked until 7. I feel like it's easier to finish work on time on a Monday than a Friday, because on Mondays you can still be optimistic about how much you're going to achieve whereas on Fridays you have to face up to everything you haven't managed to get done

Russian
Between work and dinner I did Memrise, getting through my reviews from Russian 2 and starting to learn some new vocabulary in Russian 3.

After dinner I went out for a drink so when I got home I didn't feel like doing anything too intellectual. I started trying to find interesting travel videos to watch in Russian, but I think I'm easily bored because I struggled to find anything that really grabbed me. In the end I tried searching for videos about London, because I figured watching a video about a place you know is an interesting way to judge how good someone's videos are. That was mildly amusing There was one video where someone commented about how narrow the metro seemed, which after having seen how spacious the metro is in Moscow I can understand. One video tried to explain the concept of binge-drinking Another guy had read about how the staff in Pret can give free coffees and actually managed to get one. The strangest was possibly a guy who I think (if I understood correctly!) was trying to explain that it's okay to eat in public in London (like on the street or on the Tube), the implication being that it's somehow shameful to do this in Russia

I will try to be more productive tomorrow.

Total time = 81 minutes. Streak = 172 days

[Radioclare]

22 June
I ran out of time to update my log yesterday because I got too caught up reading a book. But I had a nice quiet day at home and I realised it's the first Saturday I've spent at home since 18 May and the last one I'll spend at home until 20 July

Russian
I did Memrise on my computer today rather than on the app, which I rarely do. They seem to have changed the design of the website at some point; overall I prefer the app.

I started chapter 4 of Colloquial Russian. I remember asking a question about one of the dialogues in this chapter previously because a student was described as living in a "hostel" and I didn't understand what was meant by "hostel" in this context. I don't even want to think about how long ago that was! The chapter definitely seems easier second time around, although there is still a lot of content in it.

In the evening I watched a few videos on Youtube, made by Russians living in England, broadly on the theme about what they found good/bad/different about living in England. My Russian comprehension is only at the level where I can get the broad gist of what's being said, but I found it interesting listening practice. I was particularly interested when one girl listed the amount of spiders as a minus of living in England. I'm not sure where in Russia she was from, but the video seemed to imply she hadn't routinely found spiders walking round her home there, and that the climate in England meant there were more of them here. I absolutely hate spiders, so if there are fewer of them in Russia I am seriously considering emigration

Total time = 128 minutes. Streak = 173 days

German
I finished reading 'Der Seelenbrecher' by Sebastian Fitzek. OMG, my mind is blown. I can't even begin to explain the plot twist without ruining it for everyone else, but wow... the ending was totally unexpected. And it really is one of those books where you don't really find out what it's about until quite close to the end, so I was reading in a total state of suspense. I recommend it, but I don't think it would be a good book to read if you're completely on your own, because by the time I got to the end of it I felt like I needed a conversation with another human being to make sure I hadn't lost my mind There was a point towards the end where some of the characters were given a post-it note and then I turned the next page of the book, found a post-it note stuck to it and nearly screamed... I can't really explain without spoiling the story, but it really is that scary! I've seen the genre which Fitzek writes in described as "Psychothriller", at least in German, and it's really quite unlike anything else I normally read.

23 June
Another day at home, although I spent at least half of this one planning my upcoming trip to Sicily.

Russian
Memrise is going well. I've already learned the first 100 words in the 'Russian 3' course.

There was a new Russian Progress video released today, featuring more people at the polyglot gathering speaking in Russian. On the one hand it's quite impressive to see how good other people's Russian is - and they really were all very good - but on the other hand, I find these videos of foreigners speaking Russian less useful at the moment; I'd rather try to listen to native speakers.

I finished chapter 4 of Colloquial Russian this afternoon. There were some useful exercises for practising genitive endings, so I made myself write them out. Sometimes it's easy to read a textbook and think "yeah, I know that" but then sometimes when you actually try to do the exercises, you realise there's something that you're not sure about and need to check.

I also spent a couple of hours reading Twilight and got to the end of chapter 9. I feel like it's getting a little bit easier with each chapter

Total time = 251 minutes. Streak = 174 days

[Radioclare]

24 June
Today was one of those days at work where I got no work done because I went from one meeting to another, and by the end of it I felt exhausted by being polite to people

Croatian
I've been struggling to get back into my series after a long break, but I watched two episodes back to back this evening and I think I'm officially hooked again. The priest's father is wanted by the police for tax evasion and the girl who has got a crush on the priest has just been arrested for helping the father cross the border into Bosnia. Very exciting!

Russian
Lots of Memrise on the train this morning and quite a bit on the way home too. Bizarrely, Memrise's Russian 3 course so far seems easier than the Russian 2 course.

On the way to work I did most of lesson 3 of Pimsleur 3. My walk to the office isn't long enough to finish an entire lesson so I normally finish it on the way back to the station in the evening. I failed at that today because I got stuck walking with a colleague, but in the end I finished it while standing on the train home. In my head, I hasten to add

Total time = 89 minutes. Streak = 175 days

[Radioclare]

25 June
I haven't been terribly productive today because I'm just on the verge of getting an annoying cold.

Russian
I had my 140-mile round trip again today so I had lots of time for Memrise. That was good, because today was one of those days where just my reviews took 30 minutes.

While walking to/from the client I did lesson 4 of Pimsleur 3. Again, it was a bit challenging because of all the traffic noise, and also on the way back to the station in the evening I was running a bit late, so probably had less than optimal levels of concentration while I panicked about whether I was going to miss by 18.30 train and have to wait until 19.30 for the next one

Total time = 91 minutes. Streak = 176 days

[Radioclare]

26 June
I worked from home today which in my head made it the most relaxing day of the week but actually I ended up working until 20.30 so it was probably actually the least relaxing

Russian
That meant I didn't start doing any Russian until after dinner. I spent 25 minutes doing Memrise on my computer, but that was literally just doing reviews and I got a lot of them wrong so I'll probably have to do them all again tomorrow.

In order to do something more enjoyable I then listened to the audio for chapter 9 of Twilight, which took about half an hour or so. I feel like I've understood a lot more in this chapter than in some of the earlier ones but I'm not sure whether that's because my Russian has improved or, more likely, because it was a chapter made up almost exclusively of dialogue. I'm at a stage where I stand a reasonable chance of understanding dialogue, but sometimes zero chance of understanding narration.

Total time = 57 minutes. Streak = 177 days

[Radioclare]

27 June
The good news is that my slight cold didn't develop into a proper cold and I felt loads better today. Also I had a really difficult call to make this morning and it went 10 times better than I expected so that cheered me up considerably

Russian
What didn't go well was my journey to work! I was on my 140-mile round trip again and the morning train is normally really quiet and peaceful, because it's not a popular commuter route at all. Imagine my surprise when I got on this morning and found it was absolutely rammed, to the point where I couldn't get a seat. It took me a while to figure it out but eventually I realised it was full of India fans on their way to some important cricket match that was happening in Manchester today. They were far too cheerful and excited for 7.30 in the morning.

Anyway, I stood and did Memrise for half an hour or so and then spent the rest of the journey standing, not doing Memrise and feeling grumpy

While walking to and from the client I did lesson 5 of Pimsleur 3 but the traffic noise was so bad that I'm contemplating whether I need to re-do the lesson. The past few lessons have been dealing with verbs of motion and there's quite a lot to take in. It will be impossible to master verbs of motion - or indeed any complicated point of grammar - by doing Pimsleur, but I feel like it's useful familiarisation. Also, today's lesson finally covered "Sunday" so I've officially got to the end of the week. I find it slightly bizarre that all the other days of the week were covered somewhere in Pimsleur 2 but Sunday for some reason was judged difficult enough to be reserved for Pimsleur 3

This evening I watched a video of a Russian woman trying Marmite (it was supposed to be a video about strange foods in Britain). I'm not sure I learned any Russian from it but it was a good laugh

Total time = 72 minutes. Streak = 178 days

[Radioclare]

I forgot to say that I wasn't going to post for a couple of days because I was going camping.

28 June
I was working in Birmingham on Friday which felt quite restful after the the long journeys I'd had on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Russian
I did plenty of Memrise on my way to work, although most of it was just reviews. I debated with myself whether to repeat lesson 5 of Pimsleur 3 while walking to the office, but in the end I decided to push ahead to lesson 6. There's so much repetition in Pimsleur anyway that it actually felt fine. I had to go out at lunch time to buy some antihistamine because a scheduled Amazon delivery had failed to arrive, so I finished the lesson then.

Total time = 52 minutes. Streak = 179 days

29 June
Camping Well, when I say "camping" I mean sleeping in a camping pod, which is a relaxing form of camping that doesn't involve the inconvenience of having to pitch a tent

German
I started reading a German translation of Frederick Forsyth's 'The Fourth Protocol'. I found the opening chapter more difficult than I normally find reading in German, because there was a very long and technical description of a man trying to crack a safe. But overall it seems like it's going to be an exciting story, and I like reading in German

Russian
I sat in the sunshine for a while between breakfast and heading out for the day and made a start on chapter 5 of Colloquial Russian. On the face of it, it didn't feel like there was a lot of content in this chapter compared to chapter four (which felt like it had a lot of grammar in it).

Total time = 46 minutes. Streak = 180 days

30 June
One thing about camping is that there isn't a lot to do once it gets dark, so I ended up going to bed at the incredibly early hour of 21.30 last night and that meant I actually woke up before my alarm this morning

Russian
After breakfast I sat outside in slightly colder and more cloudy weather than yesterday and finished chapter 5 of Colloquial Russian. Once I got to the exercises at the end of the chapter - and forced myself to write them all out - I found there was actually some really useful practice in it. Also it turns out it's really easy to focus on Russian when you're sitting outside with no computer and barely a signal on your phone

When I got home I found there was a new Russian Progress video about swearing in Russian, so I watched that a couple of times. He covered 10 words, which was a lot to take in all at once, but it was a cool intro to the topic

Total time = 62 minutes. Streak = 181 days