A language learners’ forum

Posted: **Thu Feb 28, 2019 11:33 am**

Denzagathist wrote:I feel like those are very generous estimates of my Croatian vocabulary size, though. I'm curious how the test extrapolates the final value from the answers to the test. In some cases I could have probably guessed the correct translation even though I didn't know the word, simply because I knew the Croatian translations of the other words listed as options. Depending on my degree of certainty in such cases, I picked either my guess or "I don't know".

I will likely have to adjust the algorithm, but actually there are many "connected" words -- if you know vidljiv "visible", you surely know nevidljiv "invisible", and so on. If you know prijatelj "friend", you know prijateljica "friend, female", and so on.

Everyone also knows words like analizirati "analyze", parsirati "parse", terorizirati "terrorize" etc. I picked words randomly out of a 70000-word dictionary. The extrapolation is trivial: you get 20 "frequent" words (out of 6000 most frequent) and if you know half of them, you know 3000 words. You get also 20 less frequent words (out of... 50000) and if you know fifth of them, you know 10000 words more. Total: 13000

In other news, I've reached the limit of my knowledge while exploring obscure parts of both Croatian and English syntax to explain constructions like:

- too big to...
- so/such... that...
- not... so/such... to...,

in 77 As If: Advanced Clauses. I still don't know how too big... to... construction is called in English, and how the matching Croatian construction is called.

The second construction is result clause...

Posted: **Fri Mar 15, 2019 10:45 am**

I've uploaded yet another minor update of the PDF files, containing all recent updates, and many small corrections. The files are available through the same links, and the file names are the same. I recommend anyone using one of them download the last update.

EasyCroatian_r47-forum.png

Posted: **Thu Apr 04, 2019 8:35 pm**

Anybody have strong feelings on Linguaphone vs. Assimil for this language? Serbian is my primary focus of the group - if I recall correctly Assimil does 50 lessons in Croatian and 50 in Serbian, or 50 in latin and 50 in cyrillic? And then an old HTLAL post I found said that Linguaphone is 99% Serbian.

I'm not sure if I'm going to do this or Czech as my 2nd Slavic language (will want both eventually), but my current research interests lead me more toward the FRY.

Posted: **Mon Dec 02, 2019 12:14 pm**

If anyone is using my web site, I've recently made significant changes to a number of chapters - more examples, many errors corrected, more explanations.

33 School Yard and Bunk Bed: Relations - added more examples (photos)
40 Future Tense - a bit expanded, added an example (song)
41 Somewhere, Nobody, Something... - chapter split from another chapter, a new example (song)
43 And, Or, But: Basic Conjunctions - added an example (song)
47 Of Flowers, Thorns and Counting Children - added an example (song)
48 Everybody, Each and Everything Else - split, expanded
59 Whose, What Thing and What Like - expanded, a new example (song)
60 Put, Give, Take, Get: More Verbs - major expansion, unfortunately no example song yet
61 The Friend I Saw: Relative Clauses - moved, expanded a bit, added a great example (song)
63 Bigger and Better: Comparatives - added an example (song)
64 Something is Heard: Fun with se² - almost completely rewritten, added an example (song), exercise
65 Carry, Bring, Drive: Transport Verbs - added an example (song)
68 Sneeze Once and Start Blooming - moved, a bit expanded, added a an (awesome) example (song)
73 Teach, Borrow, Succeed: Two-Sided Verbs - expanded, renamed
76 Inner, Outer, Step by Step: More on Space and Time - expanded a bit, added an example (song)

So, if you like to listen to music, there are many new songs

Also:
- most exercises now have a pop-up Croatian keyboard
- translation to French is under way (check Croate facile)

Posted: **Mon Jan 13, 2020 8:26 pm**

News about the Easy Croatian website:

- translation to German has started
- some chapters got expanded
- the first 40-ish chapters have been translated to French
- I am working on the chapter with "taboo words"
- I've decided to add a chapter on dialect variations since there are texts and songs in "dialects" people will likely encounter
- I found some parts of grammar missing from the blog

Posted: **Sun May 03, 2020 7:39 pm**

OK, group, question for you all:

Do you have a source for legal (seriously) ebooks and audiobooks?

So here's the thing: I want to L-R BCS to try and get back to my old scores (2+ to 3 range). I think L-R might be the way to go.

I asked on a FB group for learning Croatian, and here is one response:

audiobooks aren't really a thing here..when it comes to the literature translated from other languages, we still prefer physical books more than anything else, so I doubt you'll find either audiobook or e-book versions of the titles you mentioned [HP, The Martian, Dan Brown books, Hunger Games]

Now I'm torn. I really liked the wee bit of L-R I've done with Russian. And after reading the Italian experiment by Yuurei, I thought L-R might just be the method I needed to get my BCS back.

So, back to the question: I don't care if it is Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian, Montenegrin...if I can buy an eBook and audiobook of any of the books I'm looking for, I'd be happy for your recommendations!

Posted: **Mon May 04, 2020 8:54 pm**

Have you tried LibriVox ??

https://librivox.org/search?title=&auth ... m=advanced

Posted: **Mon May 04, 2020 9:20 pm**

rdearman wrote:Have you tried LibriVox ??

https://librivox.org/search?title=&auth ... m=advanced

Yes, which is fine if I want to read old stuff. And not interesting old stuff either. I want to L-R The Hunger Games, or HP, or The Martian.

Posted: **Thu Aug 20, 2020 8:29 pm**

Hello everyone! I'm trying to learn Croatian to at least a basic A1 level. Does anyone have any good channels to watch on YT? I've found some kids cartoons and a Croatian friend pointed me to the official Croatian school channel (created because of the pandemic) but I'm hoping to find something that is at least young adult level but in relatively simple Croatian. For German, I really like "Dinge Erclärt - Kurzgesagt" ( https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwRH98 ... 6NxXDo8npw ) on YouTube; I'd like to find something like that but for Croatian. It's probably just wishful thinking, but I remain hopeful for now!

Posted: **Mon Aug 24, 2020 4:15 pm**

annelions wrote:Hello everyone! I'm trying to learn Croatian to at least a basic A1 level. Does anyone have any good channels to watch on YT? I've found some kids cartoons and a Croatian friend pointed me to the official Croatian school channel (created because of the pandemic) but I'm hoping to find something that is at least young adult level but in relatively simple Croatian. For German, I really like "Dinge Erclärt - Kurzgesagt" ( https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwRH98 ... 6NxXDo8npw ) on YouTube; I'd like to find something like that but for Croatian. It's probably just wishful thinking, but I remain hopeful for now!

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCb2Ui ... SDw/videos

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