8 JanuaryA very frustrating day at work; one of those where something goes wrong and you can't stop being annoyed about it, even after the end of the working day. If it wasn't for the challenge, I definitely wouldn't have done any Russian today!
RussianI did a bit of Memrise on the train to work today, but I didn't manage to get a seat so after a while I had to give up because it was too cramped. This evening I returned to chapter 11 of Penguin Russian and worked through the sections and exercises on reflexive verbs. I feel like I'm starting to grasp these now, but there definitely aren't enough exercises in the book so I'll have to go back to the Schaums at some point to practise properly. There is a lot of new vocab to learn in Chapter 11 so tomorrow I'm planning to concentrate on putting that into Memrise.
Total time = 36 minutes. Streak = 8 daysCroatianI finished all the available episodes of 'Na granici', so yesterday I experimented with watching an episode of the news programme, 'Dnevnik'. I was expecting it to be about half an hour but it lasted for 45 minutes instead, which felt quite long. This is the first time in ages that I've watched Croatian news and my observations are that it was both more difficult and more boring as a listening exercise than I expected
In terms of difficulty, both the vocabulary and sentences are more complex then in telenovelas. I guess telenovelas have become my comfort zone now and I can follow them without 100% concentration. Like if I get bored and I want to check my phone, I can mostly do that without losing the plot. Watching 'Dnevnik' felt like regressing a bit in my abilities and going back to the days when listening was hard work which required proper concentration. I think this means it would be good for me to force myself to walk 'Dnevnik' more often!
It really did seem a bit dull though
Maybe I was just unlucky, but the first few news items were dealing with internal politics and I don't know enough about Croatian politics to find this exciting. Perhaps if I watch the news more frequently, I'll get into it. At one point they started interviewing someone who I thought seemed a right crank; he came into the studio wearing a T-shirt with a slogan on it, then began his interview by forcefully going off on a tangent which didn't relate to the question the presenter had asked him, ignoring the presenter's best efforts to get him back on track. I hadn't understood who he was when he was introduced so I eventually googled him... and found out that he was in fact not a crank but the leader of a main opposition party. So yes, I definitely have a lot left to learn
The second half of the programme was more interesting. There were some items about the celebration of Orthodox Christmas in Croatia, which were genuinely interesting, and then some lighter news items which were easier to follow. There was nothing about Brexit, which was quite refreshing
I'm going to give it another go this evening and try to get through another episode before bed.