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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 193 of 522 04 June 2014 at 9:54am | IP Logged | ||
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As expected, I finished "Pomrčina" yesterday evening and started reading the final book - "Praskozorje" - on the train this morning. The pdf I have of this one isn't very good quality and is missing the accents over the letter 'c' in some places. Also the person who typed it didn't have a 'w' on their keyboard, so 'Edward' is written as 'Edvvard'. I spent about half an hour last night searching to see if I could buy a proper ebook version, as obviously the version I have is not a legitimate one. But I am getting the impression that ebooks are not big in Croatia yet because I couldn't find anything at all. I should perhaps purchase the English-language ebooks instead and use them as a parallel text to do some intensive reading at some point.
The pdf has about 500 pages (approx. 350 words to a page) whereas the paper book seems to have around 700 pages. But I am going to stick to counting pdf pages so as not to inflate my page count too much. I succeeded in winning a Croatian football shirt on ebay and it has now been despatched, which is exciting. My boyfriend has decided to come to London the evening of the match so that we can watch it together in a bar somewhere :) 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 194 of 522 06 June 2014 at 12:03am | IP Logged | ||
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I've continued reading "Praskozorje" over the past two days and am now on page 209 out of 556 in my PDF. I was able to spend quite a
lot of time reading it today because I was working in London, so had over two hours sitting on the train. I have tried to be good this week and read more slowly, looking up more of the words that I don't know. "žrtva" (victim, sacrifice) is one that sticks in my mind from today. Also "zamka" (trap) and "natjerati" (to force, to compel). My Croatian football shirt arrived :) It's a little bit big, but it will be okay. Now I just need to learn some Croatian football vocabulary, like what to shout if they score a goal.  Edited by Radioclare on 06 June 2014 at 11:11am 2 persons have 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 195 of 522 07 June 2014 at 12:03am | IP Logged | ||
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More reading of "Praskozorje" today; I'm now on page 307 of my pdf. I don't want to spoil the story for anyone else but the chapters I've been
reading today deal with some medical scenes and I've been extremely glad that my knowledge of Croatian is imperfect, because even with only understanding 50% of the descriptions I feel nauseous! Incidentally, if anyone else is thinking about reading the Twilight books in any language for the Super Challenge, I have found a website which has a detailed chapter summary for every chapter of every book. It starts by explaining what has happened in that chapter, then gives some key quotes and finishes with a summary of the most information information learned from that chapter. It's not quite a parallel text, but it's been useful to me in a few chapters where there was a lot of description (particularly when there were fights between vampires/werewolves) and I've been struggling to follow the finer points of the action. It's also helped me to understand a few jokes that I wouldn't otherwise have got. So I recommend it, but definitely don't read the chapter summaries before you read the chapter as it won't leave you any surprises! Random words which I have learned while reading today: zdjelična kost - pelvic bone kralježnica - spine lom - break, fracture Let's hope I never have to use those while on holiday in Croatia :D 2 persons have 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 196 of 522 08 June 2014 at 12:17am | IP Logged | ||
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I've continued reading 'Praskozorje' today and am now on page 415. I've only got 141
pages left and then I get my life back. Today's reading put me at over 50 'books' so I got another blue star thingy. This evening I also watched the film version of 'Eclipse' with Croatian subtitles. I have the subtitles for both parts of 'Breaking Dawn' now too but having read the part of the book that the first film covers I'm wondering whether I'm actually too squeamish to watch it. We shall see! I spent most of today doing Esperanto work rather than reading in Croatian because next weekend is the most exciting one of the year; the Esperanto Association of Britain's trustee working weekend. You wouldn't one to miss that one ;) Especially not with the exciting 1800-word Treasurer's Report that I spent the afternoon writing for it. Actually the most interesting thing about the meeting is probably that it will be in English rather than Esperanto. Not because we couldn't have it in Esperanto if we wanted to, but more because what on earth would be the point of six English native speakers sitting around a table all weekend and having a meeting in Esperanto? We may speak Esperanto at mealtimes. Or we may not, depending on how we feel. Personally I don't like speaking Esperanto at breakfast. I don't like *speaking* at breakfast until I've had at least one cup of coffee. Heresy, I know. Anyhow, in other barely-relevant news - I need to learn Spanish. I've got 13 days until I go to Spain and my fiancé's passport hasn't turned up. So if it doesn't come within the next few days, I've got to make the choice either to cancel everything (and lose a not inconsiderable amount of money) or to go on my own. He thinks I should go without him, but I'm not sure I'm brave enough to spend two weeks travelling alone around a country where I don't speak a word of the language. Well, I know one word of Spanish - 'si'. I learned it from Manuel in 'Fawlty Towers'. I'm not sure it's enough to get me from Bilbao to Seville in one piece. Edited by Radioclare on 08 June 2014 at 12:19am 2 persons have 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 197 of 522 08 June 2014 at 10:10pm | IP Logged | ||
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I finished 'Praskozorje' today :D I hereby promise that my crazy Croatian reading is
over and from now on I will only be reading for about an hour per day (on weekdays) while I commute. I think reading the 'Twilight' series in Croatian has been a good experience. It was over 2000 pages of Croatian in total which I have been able to read in a fairly short period of time due to the language level being pretty simple (especially the dialogue). I've now read just over 50 'books' (6 actual books) for the SC and I have definitely seen some improvement in my Croatian reading speed. I have quite a long list now of new words I have learned which should help me when I come to read more complicated books over the coming weeks. I feel though that I would have to do a lot more than just read the same number of pages again to see the sort of progress I want in my Croatian, so I'm tempted to challenge myself to read 100 actual books in Croatian rather than 100 'books'. I'm hesitating because I don't own anything like that quantity of Croatian books and buying them seems rather expensive. Perhaps I should aim for 50 instead. I have been trying to learn some Spanish today, with limited success. My brain seems to be incompatible with learning a Romance language. My poor boyfriend keeps showing me words and saying "Surely you can recognise this one from Esperanto?" and I am just staring at them thinking "Oh my God, as far as I'm concerned this may as well be written in Klingon". I have focussed on trying to memorise key phrases. So far I have (almost!) mastered: Buenos días Adiós Gracías Por favor No comprendo No hablo español ¿Habla inglés? Tomorrow I think I need to expand my repertoire so that I can ask where the toilet is and order a glass of white wine. Then all basic needs should be covered ;) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| VivianJ5 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4254 days ago 81 posts - 133 votes Speaks: English*, French | Message 198 of 522 09 June 2014 at 11:24am | IP Logged | ||
Congratulations, Clare! You've passed me in the Super Challenge...don't worry, I'm working on catching up ;-). In a twisted way, I'm really happy to find out someone else got addicted to Twilight! I used to get embarrassed by my love for this story (especially as an English teacher; I mean, please! The writing is anything but literary), but I'm long over that. Welcome to the club :-). I've just looked over your learning log, and have to admit I'm amazed: how the heck do you manage to read (and listen/watch) while working - and full-time, I'm assuming? I'm "not currently employed," so have endless time to read/watch/listen, and have a hard time keeping up my stats. And don't get me started on watching films: like you, I'm not a film/TV person, so making myself sit down to focus on a movie isn't on my list of favorite things to do with my time. Plus, although my French is decent, I DO have to focus, or I'll miss half the story. All in all, I'd much rather be reading ;-)... Thank you for making the challenge more interesting! Now if we could just find another series like Twilight to be hooked on, we'd be past 100 "books" in no time... 3 persons have 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 199 of 522 09 June 2014 at 5:34pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks Vivian :) I think I should take a screenshot of the rankings to capture this unexpected moment; I'm sure it won't last long!
I am also glad that I am not the only responsible adult who has become addicted to 'Twilight'. It's definitely not the sort of book I would normally read, but perhaps that's why I've found it so much fun. I think the fact that it badly written makes it an ideal choice for reading in a foreign language; the same vocabulary is repeated again and again, which is useful when you are learning. Also I noticed that none of the characters in the book are capable of just plain *saying* anything - they have to chuckle or growl or sigh (preferably deeply) - so I learned so many new phrases! I do work full time but I'm lucky(?!) in that I have 60 mile round trip to work and I don't drive, so I have at least an hour per day sitting on public transport which I can use to read Croatian. My strategy when I started the Super Challenge was to stick to that amount of reading per day because I know it's sustainable, but when I started reading 'Twilight' I got so excited about the story that I spent a couple of hours every evening reading as well. I'll have to stop that now, not least so that I can force myself to watch some films! It helps that my boyfriend does all the cooking and we don't have kids, so once I get home from work my evening is my own. Also after years of setting too many goals and never achieving any of them, I've dedicated this year solely to learning Croatian, so when I have free time it is my activity of choice. I am really impressed also by @sctroyenne who seems to have an almost perfect balance between books and films and has a star in each :) 2 persons have 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 200 of 522 10 June 2014 at 12:02am | IP Logged | ||
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This evening I decided to be brave and watch 'Breaking Dawn - part 1'. Oh my God, what a harrowing film! I was glad that
I had the subtitles to focus on to distract me from the blood. I watched this one with the English vocals on mute so that I couldn't cheat and I was pleased that I was able to understand almost all the words in the subtitles. On the train this morning I started reading 'Polje Mačeva', which is the third book in the Julius Caesar series I mentioned before. This is definitely a lot harder to read than Twilight and I managed 36 pages in total on the trains. I looked up the phrase for 'Excuse me, where's the toilet?' in Spanish and it looks like nothing on this earth. But the word for 'wine' is 'vino', so at least that will be easy to remember because it's the same as Croatian but pronounced completely wrong ;) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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