Radioclare's 2019 log (Croatian/Russian)

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Radioclare
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Languages: Speaks: English (N), Esperanto, German, Croatian
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Re: Radioclare's 2019 log (Croatian/Russian)

Postby Radioclare » Sat Jul 20, 2019 8:33 pm

20 July
Had a walk around Bedford this morning before coming home and it turns out it's quite a pretty place. This afternoon I was making arrangements for a short trip to Spain at the end of August, although that might not end up happening because there are airport strikes planned for the weekend in question.

Russian
I spent half an hour or so this afternoon making a start on chapter 8 of Colloquial Russian. This is the chapter about holidays, so the content is more interesting than in the chapter about sport :lol: So far I've just been reading and listening to the dialogues and doing the short exercises which follow them. I've got to a stage in the book where quite a few of the words in the dialogues feel "new" to me, i.e. I feel like I need to make the effort to learn them, so I began contemplating whether or not I should create a new Memrise course for myself consisting of useful vocab from this textbook.

I couldn't decide whether to do it or not, because on the one hand it felt like it would be a really useful thing to have but on the other hand it felt like it would be a really boring thing to create. My motivation to create a course was diminished by the fact that I had previously created a Colloquial Russian course on Memrise the first time I was trying to use this textbook (maybe some time in 2018?) but I thought I'd deleted it. Either when I was annoyed about Memrise changing to Decks or at some other point when I was trying to rationalise the number of Memrise courses I was studying. If there's anything less fun that typing hundreds of words into Memrise and uploading the corresponding audio, it's doing all that when you know you've already done it once before :lol: I'd pretty much decided I wasn't going to bother... when I logged into Memrise and found that I hadn't actually deleted my course :o It turns out I'd just unsubscribed from it in some way but it was still lurking there in the background so I was able to start learning it again. Starting learning it again meant in practice that I had 872 reviews to do. That took a while! But definitely not as long as starting from scratch would have done, so overall a good result :)

To do something slightly more relaxing, this evening I also listened to a Russian Progress podcast about profanity in Russian. I started off just listening, but somewhere in the middle it got too difficult for me and I had to go back to the beginning and follow the text while listening.

Total time = 86 minutes. Streak = 201 days

Croatian
I need to make a conscious effort to restore a bit more Croatian to my life. I have been trying to get back into watching my series this week and starting to wonder what I'm going to watch next. I had one very confused moment where I saw a character whose face I definitely recognised, but who I just couldn't place in the story. Eventually - with the help of Google - I realised she was actually a new character to this series but I recognised the actress from 'Zora dubrovačka' :lol:
4 x

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Radioclare
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Re: Radioclare's 2019 log (Croatian/Russian)

Postby Radioclare » Sun Jul 21, 2019 7:00 pm

21 July
A weekend day spent completely at home. I haven't actually got too many of those this summer, so have been making the most of today.

Russian
Somehow I had 200+ Memrise reviews to clear today. When I'd done that, I revised the vocab from Chapter 8 of Colloquial Russian in my newly discovered Memrise course. I seem to have got as far as entering the vocab from unit 10 last time I was working with this textbook. Mostly I find all my failed attempts to learn Russian embarrassing (what do I answer if someone asks how long I've been learning Russian?! :lol: ) but finding this course that past-me made is one positive bonus :)

I also finished reading and listening to all the dialogues in Chapter 8 and doing the associated exercises this afternoon. I then started the grammar section of this chapter and found it was about adjectives. And I think this section on adjectives was almost the point at which I got fed up with the textbook and gave up last time, because it pretty much says "Russian adjectives have lots of endings. There's a table of them at the back of the book". I still don't really think that's a great way to teach them; I would prefer to have them introduced gradually, in the same way that the book has introduced the noun endings. But at least this isn't the first time I've attempted to learn the adjective endings, so I'm not quite as dismayed by it as I was first time around. I spent some time copying out tables and attempting to memorise them. I didn't do any of the exercises because if I had done them just after staring at the tables, I'd probably have got them correct. But the test will be whether I can get any of them correct tomorrow, 24 hours after having allegedly memorised them :lol:

Total time = 43 minutes. Streak = 202 days

I could have spent more time studying Russian today but I didn't, because...

Bulgarian
I decided that my brain wasn't confused enough by two Slavic languages and have started learning Bulgarian :) Well, I'm spending the first week of September in Bulgaria so I'm hoping to acquire "survival Bulgarian" before then. I would be doing a 6WC in Bulgarian if the 6WC still existed, but I guess I'm essentially doing my own private 6WC between now and September. I have never learned any Bulgarian previously, although I did have a failed attempt at learning Macedonian some time in 2014/15.

My boyfriend bought me an A1 Bulgarian workbook for Christmas so I made a start on that today and got through the first chapter. The good news is that the alphabet is almost the same as in Russian, so I was able to hit the ground running that respect. A few letters look the same but are pronounced differently (for example, щ is "sht") and there is a new vowel ъ to contend with, but I was happy to find that I don't need to install another keyboard and can use my Russian one to type Bulgarian.

I also found quite a cool website called Bulgaro, which has some online lessons to learn basic Bulgarian. You can only get so far without a subscription but I did some of the free lessons this morning and found them really good. The style is a bit like Duolingo, but with more useful vocabulary.

Total time = 94 minutes
6 x

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Radioclare
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Re: Radioclare's 2019 log (Croatian/Russian)

Postby Radioclare » Mon Jul 22, 2019 9:20 pm

22 July
I think the trend of Monday being my most productive day of the week continues. I seem to have more willpower on a Monday :)

Russian
I got through all my Memrise reviews on the train and had time to learn new vocab too. I'm now officially over halfway through the Memrise 3 course.

I completed lesson 12 of Pimsleur 3 on the way to work. Lots of case endings in this lesson and some practice of the instrumental, which was useful for me. All without any explanation of what the cases are, of course. If I was just learning with Pimsleur I would be extremely confused right now :D

This evening I continued with chapter 8 of Colloquial Russian. I did the first grammar exercise, which involved putting nouns and adjectives in the correct case. There was a hard and soft adjective in each case (except nominative) for a noun of each gender, which amounted to 30 sentences in total. I got 25/30, which I was quite pleased with. It seems I'm better at masculine nouns than feminine or neuter ones, so that's interesting to know. Maybe because I always start memorising the masculine endings and lose the will to live by the time I've got to the end of those :lol: There weren't any questions on plurals, so maybe they will be covered in a subsequent lesson. Anyway, I was fed up of grammar by the time I'd done 30 sentences so I decided to save the second exercise for tomorrow.

Finally I watched a Russian Progress video, which was an interview with a couple of Russian teachers.

Total time = 98 minutes. Streak = 203 days

Bulgarian
I did another lesson on bulgaro.io, which was learning basic words like please, thank you, good morning etc. I learned that in some situations, Bulgarians use the word "мерси" to say thank you. I thought this was funny - I wonder what the history of it is?! I also learned how to say "Може ли едно кафе, моля?" which is one of the key phrases I wanted to master for my holiday :)

I also studied another page in my Bulgarian textbook, starting the second chapter. The page I was studying was about names for different professions, all of which so far seem very similar either to Croatian or Russian. I'm contemplating whether I need to make a Bulgarian Memrise deck to keep all these words straight in my head.

Total time = 19 minutes
3 x

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Radioclare
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Re: Radioclare's 2019 log (Croatian/Russian)

Postby Radioclare » Tue Jul 23, 2019 10:17 pm

23 July
It's surprisingly hot in the UK at the moment. I was actually glad to be in the office today for the air conditioning :lol:

Russian
After Memrise on the train, I did lesson 13 of Pimsleur 3 on the way to work. This lesson started teaching a little bit about aspect.

This evening I did the exercise in Colloquial Russian which I'd lost the will to do yesterday. It actually wasn't too bad.

I figured that since I'm finally making some progress with Russian, I should start trying to do some basic writing. Hahahaha. There's nothing like trying to string a coherent sentence together in a language to make it clear that you don't know anything at all. The benefit of recording all my Russian time on Toggl is that I can tell you it took me 46 minutes to write 150 words, most of which are probably wrong :lol:

Total time = 112 minutes. Streak = 204 days

Croatian
Writing in Russian was so strenuous that it made me feel quite nostalgic for the days when I used to try and write 150 words of Croatian. Maybe I should start doing that again to cheer myself up :lol:

For the time being, all I am doing is continuing with my series. Less than 20 episodes to go now! The current storyline revolves around the characters stealing a parrot and smuggling it across the border from Bosnia :shock: I actually thought I must have misheard the word when I first heard it because it seemed like such a surreal storyline but no, they really are smuggling a parrot.

Bulgarian
I bought a phrasebook, which arrived today :) I found the Lonely Planet phrasebook really helpful leading up to my Russia trip, so I've gone for the same brand with Bulgarian. I've decided that I will make a Memrise course but only include words that are actually going to be useful for my trip, as opposed to all the random words in my textbook. Like it will be useful to know how to say I want a coffee, but not so useful to know how to say that I am an American man. Hopefully this means I get the benefit of doing Memrise, without so much hassle of making a course :)

Total time = 14 minutes
3 x

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cjareck
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Re: Radioclare's 2019 log (Croatian/Russian)

Postby cjareck » Wed Jul 24, 2019 6:43 am

Radioclare wrote:I figured that since I'm finally making some progress with Russian, I should start trying to do some basic writing. Hahahaha. There's nothing like trying to string a coherent sentence together in a language to make it clear that you don't know anything at all. The benefit of recording all my Russian time on Toggl is that I can tell you it took me 46 minutes to write 150 words, most of which are probably wrong :lol:

Open Google Translate set it to translate from Russian into English and start writing in Russian. You will receive instant feedback ;) I use this method for Russian and Hebrew, and it works quite good - it corrects basic spelling mistakes in words by suggesting the correction and the translation gives you a general idea if the text actually means what it was supposed to.
3 x
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Listening: 1+ (83% content, 90% linguistic)
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Radioclare
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Re: Radioclare's 2019 log (Croatian/Russian)

Postby Radioclare » Wed Jul 24, 2019 9:37 pm

cjareck wrote:Open Google Translate set it to translate from Russian into English and start writing in Russian. You will receive instant feedback ;) I use this method for Russian and Hebrew, and it works quite good - it corrects basic spelling mistakes in words by suggesting the correction and the translation gives you a general idea if the text actually means what it was supposed to.


That's a good idea, thanks :) I often just google phrases that I'm not sure of as well and see how many hits different versions I get. If there are no hits, I know I've made a serious mistake :lol:

24 July
I was working at home today. I missed the office air con.

Russian
After work this evening I listened to a Russian Progress podcast, which was explaining the phrase "мир тесен". Then I decided to do a bit more of Colloquial Russian and unexpectedly managed to finish chapter 8. The remaining grammar points were mainly about the use of свой, which feels like a fairly straightforward bit of grammar, so the exercises didn't take me very long.

Total time = 38 minutes. Streak = 205 days

Bulgarian
I did a few more exercises on the Bulgaro website and I set up my Bulgarian Memrise desk. I started practising the numbers 1 - 10.

Total time = 11 minutes
2 x

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Radioclare
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Re: Radioclare's 2019 log (Croatian/Russian)

Postby Radioclare » Thu Jul 25, 2019 10:10 pm

25 July
The weather was hotter than the UK rail network could cope with today and so there was absolute chaos at my station on the way home. I left work on time at 17.30 and wasn't sitting on a moving train until 19.00. All very frustrating, and I didn't manage to use any of that time productively for language learning. It was too noisy in the station to listen to any audio and I felt like I couldn't even do a bit of Memrise without audio, because I was constantly trying to figure out whether I was on the right platform and check both the boards and my train app for updates about when a train might arrive.

Russian
Anyway, the journey to work was fine at least and I did my usual Memrise, as well as lesson 14 of Pimsleur 3. I'm honestly not sure what this lesson was trying to teach. The only new word I remember it introducing was река. I mean, it wasn't a new word for me but a word which hadn't previously been used in Pimsleur. I only seem to average 3 - 4 lessons of Pimsleur a week, so it's still going to take me a while to get to the end of the course (I think there are 32 lessons in this level).

This evening I watched a Russian Progress vlog about St Petersburg, which was really cool because I recognised lots of places I'd been :) And I started chapter 9 of Colloquial Russian with great enthusiasm, only to find that chapter 9 is the one about dates and I absolutely hate dates. I starting trying to make notes about which case is used for what, but I didn't have enough motivation to do the first exercise.

Total time = 88 minutes. Streak = 206 days

Bulgarian
I practised the numbers 1 - 10 via Memrise on the way to work and I think I've mastered them now. I also did another of the lessons on the Bulgaro website this evening, which was about gender and plurals. I find when I'm typing the exercises that I'm making more mistakes influenced by Russian than by Croatian, which I think is largely due to the alphabet.

Total time = 14 minutes
1 x

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Radioclare
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Re: Radioclare's 2019 log (Croatian/Russian)

Postby Radioclare » Fri Jul 26, 2019 10:19 pm

26 July
Cooler today and my train was running properly again. It was actually half empty in both directions; I think people were so traumatised by yesterday that they decided not to bother even trying to get to Birmingham today.

Russian
More Memrise on the train and I learned some interesting things this morning, like that посетить means to visit a place and навестить means to visit people. I only knew посетить before and would have used it in both circumstances.

I was working at a client which is about a 30 minute walk from the station, so I did lesson 15 of Pimsleur 3 on my way. This lesson was teaching constructions using "before" as a conjunction, which was something that I hadn't encountered before so really useful.

I failed to do any Colloquial Russian this evening - oops :oops:

Total time = 77 minutes. Streak = 207 days

Bulgarian
I practised the numbers again and made some more progress with my Memrise deck, adding some common greetings and expressions and downloading the audio from Forvo.

Total time = 11 minutes

Croatian
I've watched an episode of my series every night this week. The priest has finally kissed the girl and decided to raspopiti se. The moment when he takes his dog collar off is rather dramatic...

4 x

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Radioclare
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Re: Radioclare's 2019 log (Croatian/Russian)

Postby Radioclare » Sun Jul 28, 2019 8:46 pm

27 July
I spent most of today in an Esperanto trustee meeting. The English summer has returned to normal and it rained all day :lol:

Russian
I only just managed to scrape 30 minutes into today because I didn't really have much time to myself. I was antisocial and went and sat in a different room to everybody else for a bit before the meeting officially kicked off, which enabled me to do 10 minutes of Memrise.

I eventually got another 20 minutes done while drinking wine in the late evening.

Total time = 32 minutes. Streak = 208 days

28 July
I was working in the Esperanto library all day today (cataloguing books) so I didn't have any opportunity to do any study until around 7pm once I was home.

Russian
I did a little bit of Memrise so that I don't have to start Monday morning with a huge backlog of reviews and then I felt really tired, so I watched an old Russian Progress video (that I hadn't previously seen) about St Petersburg while drinking coffee. It was quite a long one (over 20 minutes).

By the time I'd got to the end of that video I was sufficiently caffeinated to do some proper study. I reread the section in chapter 9 of Colloquial Russian about dates and then did quite a long exercise which for a list of dates required writing sentences like "Today is the 1st of May. On the 1st of May we are going to Moscow". This was a good test of whether I could remember both all of the ordinal numbers and all of the months of the year, and how to put the months into the genitive, but by the time I'd done lots of repetitions I felt like I was making progress. I actually surpassed my expectations and got most of the exercise correct; it was just my spelling which let me down in a few places.

Once I'd done that, I read the rest of the texts and dialogues in the chapter. It looks like the main grammar point is going to be the future tense, so I stopped when I got to the start of the grammar section and may tackle that tomorrow evening, subject to feeling sufficiently awake.

Total time = 54 minutes. Streak = 209 days

I didn't have time to do anything in Bulgarian or Croatian on either day, unfortunately. Except for listening to some Croatian music to dull the boredom of cataloguing :lol:
5 x

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Radioclare
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Re: Radioclare's 2019 log (Croatian/Russian)

Postby Radioclare » Mon Jul 29, 2019 8:54 pm

29 July
I was in the office today and I had a three-hour internal meeting which drained my will to live.

Russian
I did Memrise on the train and in a wonderful twist of fate, given that I was practising dates the other day, the part of the Memrise Russian 3 course which I have got to is teaching months and ordinal numbers :) Definitely good reinforcement and practising on Memrise should help me to correct my spelling errors from the other day.

I completed lesson 16 of Pimsleur 3 on the way to the office. It was another one of those lessons where I'm not sure what I learned except that the word for translator is переводчик.

This evening I wanted to make some progress with the grammar in chapter 9 of Colloquial Russian. It turns out this chapter is only about the nice future tense, not the horribly difficult one, so that cheered me up. Once I'd made notes on the grammar points I was hoping to get through all of the exercises but there were so many of them that in the end I only got about a third of the way through. There are basically two pages of exercises where you are given a phrase in the present tense and you have to rewrite it, first in the past tense and then in the future. They're really useful exercises, but too much to get through in one evening.

Total time = 98 minutes. Streak = 209 days

Bulgarian
I started reading the Bulgarian phrasebook which I bought last week. The Lonely Planet phrasebooks have quite a good simplified grammar summary at the start. Overall I really like the look of Bulgarian so it's a shame that I won't have more time to try and properly learn some of it before I go to Bulgaria.

Total time = 13 minutes
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