Radioclare's 2021 log (Russian, Croatian)

Continue or start your personal language log here, including logs for challenge participants
User avatar
Radioclare
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2250
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 12:59 pm
Location: England
Languages: Speaks: English (N), Esperanto, German, Croatian
Learns: Russian
x 10434
Contact:

Re: Radioclare's 2021 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby Radioclare » Sat May 15, 2021 9:25 pm

15 May
Nice quiet weekend day today. I got up at 07.30 and went on the treadmill before breakfast again, which makes it 8 days in a row I've managed this now. Not pretending I'm always going to do this at weekends, but I want to try and keep the habit up for as many days in a row as I can to try and help it stick.

Russian
Exciting news - after a bit more effort today, I finally got to Memrise zero :) So I guess I can stop reporting my number of outstanding Memrise reviews every day! Now I just need to keep on top of them and stop the number getting out of control again!

I also spent a reasonable amount of time on the B1.1 textbook, working my way through some of the grammar exercises. The theme so far is -ся verbs which is good, because they're definitely something I still need practise on.

Croatian
I decided I couldn't stomach another episode of 'Zlatni dvori', so I tried the first episode of another telenovela called 'Najbolje godine' this morning. Honestly, I'm not sure it was much better. Most of the episode was an engagement party, which seemed to involve a lot of local tradition. The groom-to-be had to climb a tree trunk to retrieve a bottle of rakija, then present his fiancée with a cow. She had to milk the cow, he had to drink the milk and then he was supposed to present her with the engagement ring. At this point the story got too surreal for me, because he dropped the ring, the ring got picked up by a bird, the bird got shot by a character who happened to have a gun and the ring fell into the lap of another female character, who I'm guessing the male lead is ultimately going to marry instead of the girl he was getting engaged to... I'm not sure this one is for me, I might have to try a third telenovela tomorrow!



German
I finally finished reading 'Das letzte Königreich', a translation of 'The last kingdom' by Bernard Cornwell. I really love the TV series of the same name, but I didn't find the book quite as gripping in comparison, perhaps just because the storyline deviated from the TV series quite a bit. At 474 pages, it's another fairly long book to add to my list of books read in German this year.

Total - Russian: 75 mins, Croatian: 46 mins, German: 152 mins
7 x

User avatar
Radioclare
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2250
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 12:59 pm
Location: England
Languages: Speaks: English (N), Esperanto, German, Croatian
Learns: Russian
x 10434
Contact:

Re: Radioclare's 2021 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby Radioclare » Sun May 16, 2021 9:35 pm

16 May
Another weekend day without a lie in, but still very relaxing :)

Russian
Inspired by the fact that I got through all my Memrise reviews yesterday, I actually started learning some new vocabulary this morning. These were some of the new words I'd collected from the text about Pushkin at the start of my B1.1 textbook. I'm trying to make sure my reviews don't build up to such a horrendous state again, so I stopped myself learning very many words.

I also tried more of the grammar exercises in the textbook. They were still on the theme of reflexive verbs, but I found them really difficult because half the time I didn't know either which case should follow the verb or which preposition the verb should take. This meant I got about 50% of the exercises wrong, so I think I need to look up the verbs properly, try to learn the corresponding prepositions and try again.

Croatian
I tried a third series this morning and I think this is the one I'm going to watch :) It's called 'Čista ljubav' (Pure love) and it opened with a fatal car crash, which is my kind of telenovela. I wasn't originally planning to watch this series, because I know that about 75 episodes in the actor playing the lead male character is switched for a different one and I always find it really disconcerting to have to get used to a character suddenly looking different. But the other series really haven't grabbed me. This one is exciting and seems to have a strong line in dramatic music, so I think it's the best choice regardless :)



What else? The reading part of my Croatian Super Challenge is lagging behind everything else so I started reading a new novel in Croatian today. This one is called 'Kolekcionar grijeha' and it's actually a translation from a Russian novel by Daria Desombre. I've never read any of her books in any language before, but I had one sitting in my Russian to-read pile and this one sitting in my Croatian to-read pile. I figured it would be better to try one of her books in Croatian first to figure out how hard they are and when I'll be ready to try one in Russian. So far I'm about 50 pages in and enjoying it :)

Total - Russian: 83 mins, Croatian: 155 mins
6 x

Lawyer&Mom
Blue Belt
Posts: 980
Joined: Sun Mar 04, 2018 6:08 am
Languages: English (N), German (B2), French (B1)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=7786
x 3767

Re: Radioclare's 2021 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby Lawyer&Mom » Sun May 16, 2021 10:07 pm

The Croatian tv shows look cheesy, but wow, Croatia looks really great! So pretty! Enjoy your virtual travel via telenovia!
1 x
Grammaire progressive du français -
niveau debutant
: 60 / 60

Grammaire progressive du francais -
intermédiaire
: 25 / 52

Pimsleur French 1-5
: 3 / 5

User avatar
Radioclare
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2250
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 12:59 pm
Location: England
Languages: Speaks: English (N), Esperanto, German, Croatian
Learns: Russian
x 10434
Contact:

Re: Radioclare's 2021 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby Radioclare » Mon May 17, 2021 9:58 pm

Yes, it is really pretty! I think most people visualise the coast when they think about Croatia, but some of the inlands bits are really beautiful too :)

17 May
I started the day with a great plan of everything I was going to achieve today, this week etc. Then at 9.15 someone phoned me and told me to drop everything and prioritise something (that he deemed) more urgent. I hate it when that happens!

Croatian
I watched the second episode of 'Čista ljubav' on the treadmill before work. The main character is a disgraced policeman who has just got a job as a dustman (smetlar) and his first shift was a nightshift. I'm sure I've been on holiday in another country where the dustmen come round to empty the bins at night, but I can't remember where it was. I remember being surprised by it, because in the UK the dustmen only come during the day.

This evening I experimented with some LWT in Croatian. I've been thinking for ages that I want to try and increase my active vocabulary in Croatian, but I'm at the stage where I've mastered the wordlists in textbook so it's more challenging to collect new vocabulary. The obvious solution seems to be intensive reading, but I hate intensive reading :lol: I tried it today with a couple of the chapters of 'Kolekcionar grijeha', the book I started reading yesterday. I think if I continue with this as an activity, I need to do LWT on something that I'm less excited about reading so that it doesn't spoil the experience.

Russian
I went out for a walk at lunchtime and within 5 minutes it started raining torrentially, so I had to turn around and come back. I took the opportunity to get the rest of my steps in by watching another episode of 'Татьянин день' on the treadmill. This episode was the wedding of Татьяна 1 and Игорь, a marriage which is clearly all going to end in tears. It was interesting to see a Russian wedding though. When the bride and groom arrived at the reception they were both forced to take a bite out of a large loaf of bread (unclear why!). Also all the wedding guests periodically started shouting something which I couldn't quite catch (it sounded like "gorka") and every time they did it, it seemed to be obligatory for the bride and groom to kiss.

Total - Russian: 58 mins, Croatian: 111 mins
4 x

User avatar
Meddysong
Yellow Belt
Posts: 60
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 1:04 pm
Languages: English (N), Esperanto (C1), French (C1), Italian (B1); a smattering of various other languages, principally Romance ones.
x 170
Contact:

Re: Radioclare's 2021 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby Meddysong » Mon May 17, 2021 10:45 pm

Radioclare wrote:I'm sure I've been on holiday in another country where the dustmen come round to empty the bins at night, but I can't remember where it was.

I think it was when we were in Naples. Mind you, we were lucky they came at all: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naples_ ... ent_crisis
3 x

User avatar
AroAro
Green Belt
Posts: 356
Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2020 12:57 pm
Languages: • Native - Polish
• Certified - C1: French, Italian, Romanian; B2: English, German
• Estimate - B2: Russian; B1: Bulgarian
• Learning - Czech, Hebrew
• Dabbled in - eo, la, uk, sw, lt, oc
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... d80b60a5e9
x 1793

Re: Radioclare's 2021 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby AroAro » Tue May 18, 2021 7:06 am

Radioclare wrote: When the bride and groom arrived at the reception they were both forced to take a bite out of a large loaf of bread (unclear why!). Also all the wedding guests periodically started shouting something which I couldn't quite catch (it sounded like "gorka") and every time they did it, it seemed to be obligatory for the bride and groom to kiss.


It's a Slavic tradition to greet guests with bread and salt, though nowadays you can see it only at the weddings (I had it at my wedding too!). Salt will preserve the love between the bride and the groom while bread represents prosperity and hospitality (and also Christ for Christians). Centuries ago, salt was extremely expensive and bread was part of every day diet, so both products were of big importance.

In Polish, they would shout "gorzko, gorzko!" - as everyone knows, vodka is very bitter so the kisses are supposed to make it feel sweet in the mouth...
6 x
corrections are welcome

aaleks
Blue Belt
Posts: 884
Joined: Thu Apr 13, 2017 7:04 pm
Languages: Russian (N)
x 1910

Re: Radioclare's 2021 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby aaleks » Tue May 18, 2021 9:20 am

Radioclare wrote: It was interesting to see a Russian wedding though. When the bride and groom arrived at the reception they were both forced to take a bite out of a large loaf of bread (unclear why!). Also all the wedding guests periodically started shouting something which I couldn't quite catch (it sounded like "gorka") and every time they did it, it seemed to be obligatory for the bride and groom to kiss.

There's a tradition when a bride and groom out of a big round loaf of bread (каравай) upon their arriving at the reception. The one of them who ends up biting off the bigger piece is going to be the "ruler" of their family. That's a joke, of course :)
AroAro wrote:In Polish, they would shout "gorzko, gorzko!" - as everyone knows, vodka is very bitter so the kisses are supposed to make it feel sweet in the mouth...


That's the same in Russian :)

(Only the word is not "gorka" but "горько")
6 x

User avatar
Ogrim
Brown Belt
Posts: 1009
Joined: Mon Jul 27, 2015 10:29 am
Location: Alsace, France
Languages: Norwegian (N) English (C2), French (C2), Spanish (C2), German (B2), Romansh (B2), Italian (B2), Catalan (B2), Russian (B1), Latin (B2), Dutch (B1), Croatian (A2), Arabic (on hold), Ancient Greek (learning), Romanian (on hold)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/viewtopic.php?t=873
x 4169

Re: Radioclare's 2021 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby Ogrim » Tue May 18, 2021 10:17 am

Meddysong wrote:
Radioclare wrote:I'm sure I've been on holiday in another country where the dustmen come round to empty the bins at night, but I can't remember where it was.

I think it was when we were in Naples. Mind you, we were lucky they came at all: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naples_ ... ent_crisis


in Spain they also work at night. In the summer when we're there I've woken up several times at 4am because of the noise they make (Spanish dustmen shout a lot when they work :evil: .)
2 x
Ich grolle nicht

User avatar
Radioclare
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2250
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 12:59 pm
Location: England
Languages: Speaks: English (N), Esperanto, German, Croatian
Learns: Russian
x 10434
Contact:

Re: Radioclare's 2021 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby Radioclare » Tue May 18, 2021 8:33 pm

Thanks everyone :) This is why it's so interesting to watch TV in different languages - there are all sorts of things you can learn, from what time of days the bins are emptied to what the traditions are at weddings :)

Here's a screenshot from the series - not very clear, but the bread was big and round, and I reckon the pot on top of it might have been salt!
bread-salt.png


18 May
I was going to do some grammar tonight, but then I ended up going to the pub for dinner instead.

Russian
I didn't do any grammar after the pub. I did clear my Memrise reviews though, which don't feel too onerous now that I have got them down to zero. I also watched another episode of 'Татьянин день' which was a continuation of the wedding scenes, although I didn't learn about any interesting new traditions in this one.

Total - Russian: 49 mins, Croatian: 50 mins
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
5 x

User avatar
Radioclare
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2250
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 12:59 pm
Location: England
Languages: Speaks: English (N), Esperanto, German, Croatian
Learns: Russian
x 10434
Contact:

Re: Radioclare's 2021 log (Russian, Croatian)

Postby Radioclare » Wed May 19, 2021 9:59 pm

19 May
Today felt like a frustrating day for some reason.

Russian
It was sunny all day and then 10 minutes before I wanted to go out for a walk at lunchtime it started raining. So rather than going out, I went on the treadmill and watched another episode of 'Татьянин день'. The highpoint was when I heard and understood the word 'похищение' (kidnapping), which I'd learned from reading 'Murder on the Orient Express' a couple of weeks ago. Otherwise, not done anything very exciting, just a bit of Memrise.

Total - Russian: 51 mins, Croatian: 91 mins
3 x


Return to “Language logs”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: guyome and 3 guests