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Radioclare’s TAC log 2014 (*jäŋe/*ledús) | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Radioclare Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom timeofftakeoff.com Joined 4575 days ago 689 posts - 1119 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Esperanto Studies: Croatian, Serbian, Macedonian | Message 185 of 522 25 May 2014 at 10:42pm | IP Logged | ||
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I banned myself from reading any of Twilight today until I had done several hours of
Esperanto accounting work in the morning. When I did sit down to read, I armed myself with paper and pen so that I could write down the words I was looking up. Because I mainly read on the train I have been looking up words via the Google Translate app on my phone, but I find that I keep looking up the same words over and over again and that I'm not committing them to memory. So, tedious as I knew it would be, I wanted to record words which have cropped up multiple times and add them to Memrise so that I could learn them properly. This meant that my reading was a lot slower than usual and I only got through 48 pages before my other half suggested I might like to do something useful, like hang up the washing that I'd left sitting in the machine for an hour or so. I'm hoping this will be time well spent though and make it easier for me to finish this book (and read the three sequels!!) because it seems like the author doesn't have a very original vocabulary and keeps using the same descriptions over and over again. In total I entered 125 words. I made myself watch another two episodes of 'Bitange i Princeze' this evening. Mainly because I'm trying to stop my films total becoming less than half of my books total. I suspect I will completely fail at this. Reading is so easy, TV is so hard. Today's good news is that I finally figured out how to get a Croatian keyboard to work on my computer. This is useful, although I suspect it may take a lot of typing for me to get used to 'z' being in a different place! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Radioclare Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom timeofftakeoff.com Joined 4575 days ago 689 posts - 1119 votes Speaks: English*, German, Esperanto Studies: Croatian, Serbian, Macedonian | Message 186 of 522 26 May 2014 at 10:01pm | IP Logged | ||
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I read 188 pages of Twilight today and got to the end of the first book. Don't judge me ;) Today was a public holiday in the UK
and it was pouring with rain, so I couldn't really have gone anywhere. Admittedly, I had a lot of Esperanto work I could have done. But perhaps it is time to stop letting Esperanto rule my life. I actually only intended to read another 50 pages or so today, but right about the time that I was going to stop reading, the novel actually developed a plot(!) with some evil vampires coming on the scene, and I got totally hooked. Since childhood I have had a really unfortunate tendency to get addicted to fiction, particularly when I have no idea how a story is going to end, because I don't deal very well with suspense. My reading speed in English is very fast, so assuming a book has less than 400 pages I can normally read it cover to cover in one sitting if I need to. Obviously that isn't the case in Croatian, but once I realised I was hooked on the story I decided it was better to spend a few hours today getting it out of my system than to ration myself to 50 pages and then risk missing my stop on the train tomorrow if I got engrossed in a particularly exciting bit. I read less carefully than yesterday, so I just concentrated on understanding the action and the dialogue between the characters rather than looking up every word I didn't know. When I posted my pages to Twitter I realised that I am now on 21.8 'books', which seems a bit crazy when I've only just finished my third ever book in Croatian, so I put the text into a word count tool and overall it worked out as approximately 260 words per page. I'm going to assume that is okay unless I come across anything in the SC thread which indicates otherwise. Of course, now I have a dilemma - what shall I read next? The second Twilight book - 'Mladi Mjesec' - is calling to me. That, however, is 527 pages, and I do have actual things I need to accomplish in real life. I could reread 'Sumrak'; I often do this in English - read a book once through ridiculously quickly to see who dies etc, then reread it for a second and third time more slowly to actually enjoy it - but it does seem a slightly different proposition to reread 478 pages in Croatian. I could read 'Pedeset nijansi sive', which I found in a dark corner of the internet the other day, and which I shouldn't get caught up in because I've already read it in English once. I could force myself to read the book on Spanish history as punishment for being so undisciplined today ;) We shall see. I have obviously completed failed on yesterday's stated aim of not reading more than twice as many books as I have seen films. There are Twilight films, right? Let me just go see if I can find them dubbed into Croatian...! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Radioclare Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom timeofftakeoff.com Joined 4575 days ago 689 posts - 1119 votes Speaks: English*, German, Esperanto Studies: Croatian, Serbian, Macedonian | Message 187 of 522 29 May 2014 at 12:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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I haven't updated my log for a couple of days because I'm too ashamed. You don't even want to know how many pages I have read. Let's just say that I started the second Twilight book - 'Mladi Mjesec' - on Tuesday morning and I finished it this morning.
I'm quite disappointed with myself because my aim for the challenge is to read sustainably and consistently, which should be for about an hour a day while I commute. I have been reading a lot more than that, which feels like cheating. I haven't watched any films since Sunday, and my Macedonian 6WC has died a sad and lonely death from neglect. Unfortunately, there are two more Twilight books to read, so I suspect things may get worse before they get better. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Radioclare Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom timeofftakeoff.com Joined 4575 days ago 689 posts - 1119 votes Speaks: English*, German, Esperanto Studies: Croatian, Serbian, Macedonian | Message 188 of 522 31 May 2014 at 10:49pm | IP Logged | ||
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No update yesterday, because my boyfriend and I attended a medieval banquet in a nearby town and stayed in a hotel overnight. It was really good fun, though did
limit my reading opportunities. Since my last post I have started reading the third Twilight book - 'Pomrčina' (Eclipse) - and am on page 181 out of 585 at the moment. I felt quite proud of myself this afternoon because I managed to sort out Croatian subtitles for the first Twilight film. Finding them was the easy part; getting them to play without the letters č and ć being mangled was a different matter! I solved the problem in the end and watched the entire film. Initially I was going to watch with the English audio muted - so just reading the subtitles - but then I realised I'd miss the music and any other sound effects so I left the English on, but at a low volume. The dialogue of the film seemed quite simple in comparison to the book, so I had a nice sense of achievement from being able to understand a lot of the subtitles, and for those where there were words I didn't know it was useful to have the English translations. I don't think watching subtitled films would be a great strategy for the challenge in general as what I am struggling most is following Croatian audio in real time. But given that I feel compelled to watch all the Twilight films now, I think I may as well do it with Croatian subtitles and have it count towards the challenge. ***** This is my summary at the end of the first Super Challenge month.... I have finished reading my first four books in Croatian: 1. Ubojstvo u Orient Expressu 2. Vrata Rima 3. Sumrak 4. Mladi Mjesec When I say "first" I do mean these are the first books I have ever read in Croatian, not just my first for this challenge. I feel like that's an achievement so I was quite sad this afternoon at the thought that it could be discouraging other people. It's true that I am a naturally fast reader, and perhaps I have a higher tolerance than some people for not understanding all the words on a page. I've made a list of 125 words which I didn't know at the start of Twilight and wanted to learn because they kept cropping up, but otherwise I have just been trying to understand from context. I don't feel my level is above B1 though and I think the main reason I've got through so many pages is that I've spent a lot of time on it (nearly 47 hours according to my 6WC stats). I have read 1,774 pages in total, which works out as approximately 38 pages per hour. Is that unreasonable? I don't know. I get discouraged myself sometimes when I look at everyone who is learning French and Spanish, because it seems like there are so many more resources available and so many more people who are able to encourage one another and share recommendations. But ultimately I don't think being discouraged is a helpful mindset and it's better to focus on what I personally am trying to achieve: speaking fluent Croatian :) Anyhooow, my achievements with films are more mixed! I have watched one original Croatian film (Pjevajte nešto ljubavno) and 17 episodes of a television series (Bitange i Princeze). In addition to that there is the play 'Galeb' which I went to see last week (Croatian spoken, English surtitles), the Twilight film I watched today (English spoken, Croatian subtitles) and a few assorted bits of Deutsche Welle etc. I am struggling with the films and feel like my listening comprehension is so much lower than my reading comprehension. I guess it's because when I'm reading I can go back and read a line 10 times if I need to, whereas the characters in films have a nasty habit of continuing to talk even if I haven't understood their previous sentences ;) I am grateful to rdearman for some useful advice on how to fit films into a busy schedule. And to Serpent for all her encouragement and telling me about Tadoku :) 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| rdearman Senior Member United Kingdom rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5228 days ago 881 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin | Message 189 of 522 31 May 2014 at 11:14pm | IP Logged | ||
Don't you hate that? I've noticed people do that in real life too! Keep up the good work, and don't forget audio books. Also, you don't have to change films, keep watching the same one over and over, you'll understand more each time. Seriously, I think TV shows are the way to go. Especially soap operas, where people say the same stuff over and over. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6589 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 190 of 522 31 May 2014 at 11:32pm | IP Logged | ||
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And sports ;) I expect to log a looot of "movies" during the world cup :)
Yay Tadoku! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Radioclare Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom timeofftakeoff.com Joined 4575 days ago 689 posts - 1119 votes Speaks: English*, German, Esperanto Studies: Croatian, Serbian, Macedonian | Message 191 of 522 01 June 2014 at 9:48pm | IP Logged | ||
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So, today I have tried to restrain myself from reading too much. Admittedly I read 67
pages before I got out of bed (whoops!) but apart from that I've done quite well ;) I've spent most of the day reading Spanish guidebooks in English and trying to navigate Spanish transport websites in preparation for my holiday to Spain later this month. We are travelling from Bilbao in the north to Seville in the south via Salamanca, Madrid and Cordoba. The original plan was to travel by train but I feel like I'm fighting a losing battle with the Renfe website so I'm coming round to the idea of travelling by bus instead. This afternoon I indulged my Twilight addiction by watching the second movie - 'New Moon' - with Croatian subtitles. I like the idea of audio books in Croatian but I'm struggling to find any at the moment. I will keep looking! I would really like to find a TV series with Croatian audio and Croatian subtitles; I need to figure out the Croatian for "subtitles for the hard-of-hearing" and get googling. Football isn't normally my thing but I'm in the process of trying to win a Croatian football shirt on ebay in preparation for the World Cup. I regret not having bought one when I was in Croatia during Euro 2012. We were supposed to be having a World Cup party at home for the Brazil-Croatia match, but now I've got to work in London that week (grrr!). Still, I'm sure that in the whole of London I will be able to find somewhere that is showing the game :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Radioclare Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom timeofftakeoff.com Joined 4575 days ago 689 posts - 1119 votes Speaks: English*, German, Esperanto Studies: Croatian, Serbian, Macedonian | Message 192 of 522 03 June 2014 at 9:42am | IP Logged | ||
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I didn't update my log yesterday because I didn't feel I had anything to share beyond my undying enthusiasm for Twilight ;)
As of this morning I'm on page 532 of "Pomrčina", so I expect to finish it today. Then I'm going to be unable to stop myself reading "Breaking Dawn", which has over 700 pages. Once that's done, I'm going to read "Polje mačeva" which is one of the sequels to "Vrata Rima" as penance. It's about the life of Julius Caesar and I'm expecting it to be quite dull. Judging by "Vrata Rima" it will also be a lot harder to understand than the Twilight books. I can see from looking at my stats that whereas I can read between 20 and 30 pages of a Twilight book during a 35 minute train journey, on the same journey a few weeks ago I was getting through on average only 10 pages of "Vrata Rima". So I think this will be a good way of slowing down my reading stats. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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