Radioclare's 2021 log (Russian, Croatian)

[Radioclare]

9 February
It snowed a bit more today, which was pretty, although it's all melted now.

Russian
Unfortunately I didn't finish learning about fractions in Schaum's yesterday, so I had to continue with it today. First of all I learned how to say "one and a half" and then I moved onto a section about how to say decimal fractions out loud. This was probably slightly more useful because you might be able to want to order a certain size of drink in a restaurant, for example.

I allowed myself another two chapters of 'Eclipse' afterwards to recover. I looked up the word "челюсть", which I could tell from context was a body part, but couldn't work out which one. Turns out it's "jaw". For Twilight fans, this was the scene where Jacob kisses Bella and then she punches him in the jaw, breaking her hand

Total - Russian: 80 mins, Croatian: 46 mins, German: 25 mins (yesterday)

[Radioclare]

10 February
It feels like all the days are blurring into one another at the moment. It's difficult to keep track when you don't go anywhere and don't do anything

Russian
I finished fractions yesterday and so today I got the treat of a simple topic in Schaum's - days of the week I looked ahead and tomorrow's topic looks like months of the year, which is possibly the only thing which is easier in Russian than in Croatian. I know this is all building up to a topic I dislike in any language - giving dates and telling the time - but for now I can enjoy some easy grammar exercises.

I read another two chapters of 'Затмение', which means I'm now two thirds of the way through the book. I could easily have kept reading and done another few chapters if I hadn't committed to watching a TV episode on the treadmill every day. Today was a Russian TV day, so it was back to 'Татьянин день'. I have a theory that I walk faster on the treadmill when I'm watching Croatian rather than Russian. I'm not sure whether this because the Croatian series has vastly superior music or whether I just find Croatian more energising

Total - Russian: 128 mins

[Caromarlyse]

10 February
It feels like all the days are blurring into one another at the moment. It's difficult to keep track when you don't go anywhere and don't do anything

Tell me about it!

[Radioclare]

11 February
I knew today was definitely Thursday, because I had a meeting that I wasn't really looking forward to. There was a technical thing that I was slightly dreading talking about. But this morning someone else on the team unexpectedly volunteered to present that bit because they thought it would be good for their development. There's probably a moral in there about not dreading things too much in advance

Russian
Nice easy section on months and seasons in Schaum's today, following by an exercise on how to say things like "last Tuesday", "next July" etc.

I only read two more chapters of 'Eclipse' - two chapters being the daily limit I've set for myself so that I don't get carried away with it - but they were either quite long chapters or I was reading very slowly, because I ended up spending an hour and a half on it. Just under three quarters of the way through the book now so I may even finish it over the weekend.

It was a Croatian day on the treadmill and I definitely walked half a kilometre faster than yesterday

Total - Russian: 110 mins, Croatian: 47 mins

[Radioclare]

12 February
There was nothing I was particularly dreading at work today. I had a call with a colleague in Brazil - it sounds like they have better weather there, even if there's just as much Covid and audits are no more exciting

Russian
I finished work half an hour earlier than usual and had time to study some Russian grammar before dinner. Today's topic was dates. In theory it's not too complicated, but I suspect that by the time I come to do the exercises tomorrow I will have forgotten which case to use in which circumstances.

I had a glass of wine with dinner so I then needed to wait a while before I was able to go on the treadmill. This provided me with an opportunity to read three more chapters of 'Eclipse'. 85% of the way through the book now!

Eventually I did go on the treadmill and watched an episode of 'Татьянин день'. Somewhat unexpectedly, between episode 43 and episode 44 the action skips forward by six months with no warning. I guess this saved everyone the hassle of making it look like the actress playing Татьяна 1 was pregnant for multiple episodes. One thing I do find slightly strange about this series is that a lot of the key moments seem to happen off screen. The trial of Татьяна 1 in which she was sentenced to 5 years in prison wasn't shown, for example. Last episode a minor character made a suicide attempt, which was only portrayed by the other characters standing around shaking their heads about what a catastrophe it was. And in this episode we have a couple of shots of Татьяна 1 looking like she might be about to go into labour, before five minutes later she's handed a baby I suspect maybe the series didn't have a very big budget! It does make the storyline harder to follow though than if all the action was portrayed visually, at least for someone with my level of comprehension.

Total - Russian: 150 mins

[Radioclare]

13 February
I secretly quite like these lockdown weekends when there's no expectation that you'll go anywhere or do anything. Apart from some housework and a bit of Esperanto work in the morning, I didn't do anything useful today at all

Russian
I did the exercise on dates in Schaum's this morning which, as predicted, I haven't quite mastered yet. Then I studied a fairly straight forward section about how to express people's ages, and moved on to the section on telling the time. I hate telling the time, so I only read the very first part of this and I'm saving the rest for tomorrow.

It was a Croatian day on the treadmill, so I watched an episode of 'Drugo ime ljubavi' for my first 45 minutes of exercise, but then it was so cold in the house that I decided I couldn't work up the enthusiasm to go outside for a walk and get even colder, so I decided to do a second session on the treadmill and watch some Russian. I couldn't face another episode of 'Татьянин день' so I searched YouTube for an Антон Птушкин video of suitable length instead (I only needed about 30 minutes of video to hit my 10 000 steps for the day). In the end I chose a video about Dubai - partly because of the length and partly because I'm in a phase where I only want to watch travel videos about places I don't actually want to go Dubai is a place which has never been on my bucket list, but I still enjoyed the video and I also felt like my comprehension of these videos has increased noticeably since I first started watching them last year. I guess suffering through all these episodes of a mediocre telenovela is helping

Today was my designated day for forcing myself to write 500 words in Russian. I've given up posting what I write on Lang 8 because if I'm going to post 500 words on Lang 8, I feel like they need to be 500 coherent words on a single theme. Whereas if I'm just writing for the sake of forcing myself to write, the paragraphs don't necessarily all need to hang together in a coherent way. I feel like it would be useful to have a penpal, to give myself a reason to write coherently, but every time I've tried signing up to a language exchange site I just get messages from people who want to Skype and practise speaking. All I want to practise at the moment is writing.

In the evening I relaxed with my Kindle and finished reading 'Затмение'. In total that gives me 640 pages towards my Russian Super Challenge, which now stands at 65 'books', which is significantly ahead of my Croatian Super Challenge so I should probably choose a Croatian book to read next. My Russian films challenge is significantly behind my Croatian one though, so I still haven't completed a half challenge for Russian.

German
Earlier in the day I spent an hour reading German, which was enough to finish 'Das Erbe von Winterfell'.

Total - Russian: 266 mins, Croatian: 81 mins, German: 61 mins

[IronMike]

Боже мой, вы читаете быстро! Я бы любил окончить книгу так поспешно.

[Radioclare]

Боже мой, вы читаете быстро! Я бы любил окончить книгу так поспешно.

Я читаю довольно быстро на английском (и на немецком), но думаю, что на русском читаю медленно. Мне понадобилось 14 часов, чтобы прочитать книгу «Затмение». Но одна из моих целей в этом году – больше читать. Из-за пандемии у меня много свободного времени, чтобы читать

[Radioclare]

14 February
I felt a bit tired today. It may be something to do with a decision to celebrate Valentine's Day yesterday rather than today and the amount of wine consumed last night as a result

Russian
I tackled telling the time in Schaum's today. It was just as painful as I expected. I thought when I opened the book that I might actually finish the topic today, which would have brought me to the end of the chapter on numbers, but after half an hour I had had enough so I stopped. I'll hopefully be able to finish it tomorrow instead.

I wanted to read in English for a change today, so I didn't start reading another book in Russian. The weather was pretty damp and miserable so I didn't go outside and decided to do two sessions on the treadmill instead. Today was scheduled as a Russian TV day, so I watched an episode of 'Татьянин день' and actually found myself enjoying it. I feel a bit lukewarm about this series at times, but this was quite a big episode because the hero Сергей finally married the evil Татьяна 2, still not knowing that Татьяна 1 has just given birth to his daughter. I was quite interested to see what a Russian wedding would look like, but unfortunately it happened off-screen so I all I got to see was the after-party. At one point one of the characters put a plate on the floor in front of Татьяна 2 and she smashed it with her foot. Everybody clapped, so I'm guessing it's some sort of wedding tradition.

Given that I'd enjoyed it I decided to watch a second episode. If I was surprised the other day to find six months had passed between episodes, imagine my shock today when it turned out that five years had passed between episode 45 and episode 46 The significance of 5 years passing is that Татьяна 1 has now served her prison sentence, so this episode was all about her returning to Moscow with her daughter. The highlight came at the end, when she finally found out that while she's been in prison, her supposed best friend Татьяна 2 has married Сергей.

I definitely feel like my comprehension of this TV series is improving, perhaps because I've now watched enough episodes to get used to the characters' voices. I think I've got around 170 episodes left to watch, so I'm hopeful that by the time I get through those I'll have some serious improvement in listening comprehension!

Total - Russian: 137 mins, Croatian: 77 mins

[Serpent]

Russian
I started studying a section about adjectives used as nouns in Schaum's. There was quite a bit of new vocab, which was useful, but one new word which really confused me: уборная. The translation given in my book was "half bath". What on earth is a half bath? Surely something either is a bath or it isn't? I googled уборная and as far as I can tell, it just seems to be a toilet.

Catching up Yes, уборная is a toilet, I have no idea where they got "half bath" from It's related to уборка and (головной) убор, so perhaps it was originally something like a walk-in closet/wardrobe room? (Btw, клозет is another old-fashioned word for this)
Just like zahod, it's hardly ever used in real life unless you're being ironic or something. I remember someone using it at a café when telling me that I had to buy something to use the уборная.
Another synonym is сортир, that's something ppl laugh at when learning French This one is relatively more common, though still not as common as туалет