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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 17 of 292 11 January 2015 at 12:15am | IP Logged |
Thanks Serpent :) Feeling a lot better today fortunately and have got quite a lot of stuff done, although sadly most of it wasn't language-related.
I realised this evening that I was in danger of losing my 37-week streak if I didn't log some activity for the SC straight away, so I sat down to watch
an episode of the Montenegrin soap opera 'Budva na pjenu od mora'... and unexpectedly ended up watching three and getting to the end of series one!
I have definitely posted before that I have found some of the episodes of this programme as slow as treacle but in episode 10 things started to get more
interesting as various plot lines were nearing conclusion and all the good guys were getting set for happy endings. Then in episode 11 something dramatic
and unexpected happened which meant I had to watch episode 12 immediately to see how everything was resolved :) Having finished the first series now I
think I can admit that I've enjoyed it despite myself so I am definitely going to watch series 2.
More interesting than the storylines has probably been the opportunity to listen to Montenegrin accents, which still sound pretty odd to me. I have
noticed a lot of š sounds where no š should be, a lot of dropped h's (they always say "oću" rather than "hoću" for example) and sometimes the emphasis
being on a different syllable of a word to the one I expected, so that their speech seems to have a different rhythm somehow. There are still whole
phrases of dialogue than I can't make head nor tail of at times.
I was googling the series this evening and found an article
on a Croatian TV website which suggests that the series may have achieved cult comedy status in Croatia because viewers there have found the
regional dialect and accents so hilarious.
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| 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 18 of 292 11 January 2015 at 9:53pm | IP Logged |
Today hasn't quite been the productive day I had hoped. I still feel like I'm walking
around in a bit of a daze.
I have been trying to salvage the wrecks of my resolutions and have got back on track
with writing my 50 words/day. I've just posted 739 words for correction on lang-8
(about 500 of them have been written this year, the first three paragraphs were
written last year when I was starting early to get in the habit).
***
U rujnu sam bila na odmoru u Makedoniji. To je bio prvi put da sam bila u toj zemlji,
premda sam proteklih godina često razmišljala o tome kako ću jednog dana ići tamo. Ove
godine sam imala priliku kupiti povoljnu kartu iz londonske zračne luke Luton do
makedonske zračne luke koja se nalazi malo izvan glavnog grada Skoplja. Ta zračna luka
se zove Aerodrom Aleksandar Veliki po narodom junaku. Aleksandar Veliki je bio kralj
starog makedonskog carstva. On je kontroverzni lik zato što Makedonci vjeruju da je
bio Makedonac, a Grci isto tako vjeruju da je bio Grk.
Sam zračna luka nije velika, mada je veća od nekoliko drugih zračnih luka na Balkanu,
primjerice one u Splitu i Ljubljani, ako se uopće može reći da je Ljubljana na
Balkanu. Kad sam stigla u Makedoniju, malo sam se bojala zbog toga što samo malo
govorim makedonski jezik i nisam znala da li mnogo ljudi u Makedoniji dobro govore
engleski. Mislila sam da ću možda probati govoriti na srpskom i nadala sam se da su ta
dva jezika dovoljno slične da me ljudi mogu razumjeti.
Srećom nisam imala velikih problema dok sam bila u Makedoniji. Čovjek koji je
pregledao naše putovnice pitao je mog dečka koliko dugo ćemo ostati u zemlji i moj
dečko nije znao točan odgovor, a to je najgore što se dogodilo u zračnoj luci.
Kupila sam vožnu kartu za autobus iz zračne luke do centra grada unaprijed preko
interneta. Kad sam izašla iz zračne luke, odmah sam vidjela autobus, a bio je vrlo
mali i već pun ljudi. Malo sam se bojala da moja karta možda ne vrijedi i da neće biti
mjesto za mene. Srećom ta briga nije bila potrebna, jer se konačno pojavio drugi
(veći) autobus. Put do Skoplja nije bio dug, a bio je zanimljiv: moj prvi pogled na
Makedoniju!
Znala sam da moram sići na glavnom autobusnom kolodvoru, a nisam znala točno gdje je
to. Stigli smo na jednog malog autobusnog stanici, koja se nalazila ispod mračnog
betonskog podvožnjaka. Nisam vidjela nikakav pokazitelj da je ovo pravo mjesto, ali
postala sam zabrinuta da ću možda propustiti pravu stanicu, pa sam naglo sišla s
autobusom. Srećom sam zapravo bila na pravom mjestu, jer sam se nalazila ispred
želježničkog kolodvora (koji je pored autobusnog kolodvora).
Sljedeći zadatak je bio da pronađem apartman, koji sam rezervirala. Imala sam plan
grada, na kojim se može vidjeti pravu ulicu. Krenula sam i nakon deset minuta sam
prelazila rijeku Vardar. To je bio prvi put da sam vidjela tu rijeku i bila sam malo
razočarana. Kad sam čitala knjige o Makedoniji, zamislila sam da je to velika rijeka,
a zapravo je prilično mala. Izgleda da nema dovoljno vode za plivanje, a da je
vjerojatno moguće hodati kroz nju!
Hodala sam prema sveučilištu, koje se zove Sv. Kliment Ohridski. Moj apartman se
nalazio na ulici Kliment Ohridski, pa se to činilo kao dobra ideja. Išla sam ispred
sveučilišta, iza sveučilišta i oko sveučilište, ali nisam uspjela naći pravu ulicu.
Kad sam pregledala kartu, vidjela sam da je ta ulica zapravo mala staza između dvije
zgrade, pa sam počela šetati između svih zgrada i konačno sam stigla la pravo mjesto.
Našla sam zgradu u kojoj se nalazi apartman i išla sam dizalom na sedmi kat. Tamo
nisam vidjela ništa. Nitko nije bilo tamo, premda sam se javila vlasniku apartmana da
ću biti tamo u dva popodne i sada je bilo točno dva.
Čekala sam tamo skoro pola sata, a nitko nije došlo. Tražila sam mobitel u prtljazi i
nazvala vlasnika. Konačno se javio i bio je vrlo zbunjen. Rekao je da me čeka na
drugoj ulici koja se zove Bulevar Sv. Kliment Ohridski. Tada sam i ja bila zbunjena,
zato što sam bila na ulici Kliment Ohridski i ne na bulevaru. Pitao sam ga da li sam
na pogrešnom mjestu. Namjerno je išao na to mjesto zato što su svi drugi gosti, koji
su koristili GPS da pronađu apartman, stigli na bulevar i ne na ulicu. Vlasnik je bio
vrlo iznenađen da sam našla pravo mjesto bez pomoća, pa sam mu objasnila da nemam GPS
i koristila sam običnu kartu. Ponekad je najstarija tehnologija najbolja!
Kad sam malo kasnije konačno ušla u apartmanu, bila sam jako zadovoljna s njim. Bio je
lijep, prostran stan i imao je pogled na grad. Popila sam čašu makedonskog vina i
odmorila sam se nakon putovanje. Radovala sam se sutradan, kad budem imala vremena
istražiti grad.
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 19 of 292 13 January 2015 at 1:07am | IP Logged |
I had an early train this morning (6.42!) and spent the first part of my journey
reading until I woke up enough to do some work. I decided to start again at the
beginning of 'Krpar, Krojač, Soldat, Špijun', although I have already read the first
100 pages once, because I was getting confused about both the plot details and the
character names, and this morning I seemed to have forgotten even some of the things
which I did know when I started reading it on 1 Jan.
As I went through I made a list of some of the words I didn't know to look up later:
- zbornica: Google translate gives this as 'assembly hall' but it's a translation of
'common room' in the English version of the book.
- prikolica: caravan, trailer
- novajlija: new boy, novice
- kliker: marble
I got some corrections for yesterday's text at lang-8:
U rujnu sam bila na odmoru u Makedoniji. To je bio prvi put da sam bila u toj zemlji,
premda sam proteklih godina često razmišljala o tome kako ću jednog dana ići tamo. Ove
godine sam imala priliku kupiti povoljnu kartu iz londonske zračne luke Luton do
makedonske zračne luke koja se nalazi malo izvan glavnog grada Skoplja. Ta zračna luka
se zove Aerodrom Aleksandar Veliki po narodom junaku. Aleksandar Veliki je bio kralj
starog makedonskog carstva. On je kontroverzni lik zato što Makedonci vjeruju da je
bio Makedonac, a Grci isto tako vjeruju da je bio Grk.
Sam zračna luka nije velika, mada je veća od nekoliko drugih zračnih luka na Balkanu,
primjerice one u Splitu i Ljubljani, ako se uopće može reći da je Ljubljana na
Balkanu. Kad sam stigla u Makedoniju, malo sam se bojala zbog toga što samo malo
govorim makedonski jezik i nisam znala da li mnogo ljudi u Makedoniji dobro govore
engleski. Mislila sam da ću možda probati govoriti na srpskom i nadala sam se da su ta
dva jezika dovoljno slične da me ljudi mogu razumjeti.
Srećom nisam imala velikih problema dok sam bila u Makedoniji. Čovjek koji je
pregledao naše putovnice pitao je mog dečka koliko dugo ćemo ostati u zemlji i moj
dečko nije znao točan odgovor, a to je najgore što se dogodilo u zračnoj luci.
Unaprijed sam kupila voznu kartu za autobus iz zračne luke do
centra grada preko interneta. Kad sam izašla iz zračne luke, odmah sam vidjela
autobus. Bio je vrlo mali i već pun ljudi. Malo sam se bojala da
moja karta možda ne vrijedi i da neće biti mjesta za mene. Srećom
ta briga nije bila potrebna jer se konačno pojavio drugi (veći) autobus. Put do
Skoplja nije bio dug, ali je bio zanimljiv: moj prvi pogled na
Makedoniju!
Znala sam da moram sići na glavnom autobusnom kolodvoru, ali nisam
znala točno gdje je to. Stigli smo na jednu malu
autobusnu stanicu, koja se nalazila ispod
mračnog betonskog podvožnjaka. Nisam vidjela nikakav pokazatelj da
je ovo pravo mjesto, ali postala sam zabrinuta da ću možda propustiti pravu stanicu,
pa sam naglo sišla iz autobusa.
Srećom, zapravo sam bila na pravom mjestu, jer sam se nalazila
ispred želježničkog kolodvora (koji je pored autobusnog kolodvora).
Sljedeći zadatak je bio da pronađem apartman, koji sam rezervirala. Imala sam plan
grada, na kojim se može vidjeti prava ulica.
Krenula sam i nakon deset minuta sam prelazila rijeku Vardar. To je bio prvi put da
sam vidjela tu rijeku i bila sam malo razočarana. Kada sam čitala knjige o Makedoniji,
zamislila sam da je to velika rijeka, a zapravo je prilično mala. Izgleda da nema
dovoljno vode za plivanje i vjerojatno je moguće hodati kroz nju!
Hodala sam prema sveučilištu, koje se zove Sv. Kliment Ohridski. Moj apartman se
nalazio na ulici Kliment Ohridski, pa mi se to činilo kao dobra
ideja. Išla sam pored sveučilišta, iza sveučilišta i
okolo sveučilišta, ali nisam uspjela pronaći
pravu ulicu. Kada sam pregledala kartu, vidjela sam da je ta ulica zapravo mala staza
između dvije zgrade, pa sam počela šetati između svih zgrada i konačno sam stigla la
pravo mjesto. Našla sam zgradu u kojoj se nalazi apartman i išla sam dizalom na sedmi
kat. Tamo nisam ništa vidjela. Tamo nije bilo
nikoga, premda sam se javila vlasniku apartmana da ću biti tamo u dva popodne
i sada je bilo točno dva.
Čekala sam tamo skoro pola sata, a nitko nije došao. Tražila sam
mobitel u prtljazi i nazvala sam vlasnika. Konačno se javio i bio
je vrlo zbunjen. Rekao je da me čeka na drugoj ulici koja se zove Bulevar Sv. Kliment
Ohridski. Tada sam i ja bila zbunjena, zato što sam bila na ulici Kliment Ohridski i
ne na bulevaru. Pitala sam ga da li sam na pogrešnom mjestu.
Namjerno je išao na to mjesto zato što su svi drugi gosti, koji su koristili GPS da
pronađu apartman, stigli na bulevar a ne u ulicu. Vlasnik je bio vrlo iznenađen da sam
našla pravo mjesto bez pomoći, pa sam mu objasnila da nemam GPS
nego sam koristila običnu kartu. Ponekad je najstarija tehnologija
najbolja!
Kad sam malo kasnije konačno ušla u apartman, bila sam jako zadovoljna s njim. Bio je
lijep, prostran stan i imao je pogled na grad. Popila sam čašu makedonskog vina i
odmorila sam se nakon putovanja. Radovala sam se
sutrašnjem danu, kada ću imati vremena istražiti
grad.
What can I learn from these corrections??
- A few stupid case-ending errors. Actually not as many as I expected, I'm quite happy
with that :D
- A few word order errors. I think the one most worth noting is "Tamo nisam ništa
vidjela" as opposed to "Tamo nisam vidjela ništa". I always get confused with negated
sentences.
- Sticking with that theme, I wrote "Nitko nije bilo tamo" for "There was no one
there", which was corrected to "Tamo nije bilo nikoga" which I would never have
thought of in a million years, so I need to try and absorb that as well.
- I didn't know whether 'nitko' takes neuter or masculine verb endings. Judging by the
fact that "nitko nije došlo" was corrected to "nitko nije došao" I need to remember
that it's masculine from now on.
- I had a bit of confusion with conjunctions, notably when it's most appropriate to
use 'ali' and when to use 'a' to mean 'but'. I perhaps need to find the section on
conjunctions in my grammar book and reread. It's one of those things that seems
deceptively simple until you try to actually say something.
- At one point I forgot I was a woman and wrote "pitao sam" rather than "pitala sam".
Whoops.
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 20 of 292 13 January 2015 at 9:12am | IP Logged |
Radioclare wrote:
- A few word order errors. I think the one most worth noting is "Tamo nisam ništa
vidjela" as opposed to "Tamo nisam vidjela ništa". I always get confused with negated
sentences.
- Sticking with that theme, I wrote "Nitko nije bilo tamo" for "There was no one
there", which was corrected to "Tamo nije bilo nikoga" which I would never have
thought of in a million years, so I need to try and absorb that as well. |
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I'd say English is being a weirdo here tbh. What would be the normal word order in Esperanto?
Quote:
- At one point I forgot I was a woman and wrote "pitao sam" rather than "pitala sam".
Whoops. |
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Whoops right at those books that focus much more on the male forms. ^^ If you want to practice them more, consider reading something written in the first person with a female protagonist, like The Hunger Games maybe, or an autobiography... or even just something shorter :)
Or wait, are twilight and 50 shades written like that too?
1 person has voted this message useful
| Meddysong Triglot Groupie United Kingdom timeofftakeoff.com Joined 3599 days ago 56 posts - 84 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, French Studies: Italian, Catalan Studies: Swedish
| Message 21 of 292 13 January 2015 at 12:56pm | IP Logged |
Serpent wrote:
I'd say English is being a weirdo here tbh. What would be the normal word order in Esperanto? |
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Most naturally for us would be "neniu estis tie", I think.
Perhaps a helpful way of thinking about it is not as "nobody was there", a positive statement if you think that there's not a negation in there, but "there wasn't anybody there". See how it works? When we use "wasn't", just as "nije", then we naturally use a word order closer to the 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 22 of 292 13 January 2015 at 5:51pm | IP Logged |
Serpent wrote:
Whoops right at those books that focus much more on the male forms. ^^ If you want to practice them more, consider reading something written in the first person with a female protagonist, like The Hunger Games maybe, or an autobiography... or even just something shorter :)
Or wait, are twilight and 50 shades written like that too? |
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Yeah, Twilight and 50 Shades of Grey are both written in the first person with a female protagonist and I've read thousands of pages of both, so not sure what my excuse is! I guess I'm still getting used to the concept of specifying gender so frequently and sometimes I just forget. Perhaps it would be educational to read Twilight again :)
Meddysong wrote:
Perhaps a helpful way of thinking about it is not as "nobody was there", a positive statement if you think that there's not a negation in there, but "there wasn't anybody there". See how it works? When we use "wasn't", just as "nije", then we naturally use a word order closer to the Croatian. |
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Fancy seeing you here :D Do you have a log now too?
That does help with the word order but the added complication (which I hadn't thought of) in Croatian is the case. If I think about that sentence I would naturally assume "nobody" is nominative, which is why I had written "nitko". But the "nije bilo" is the past tense of "nema" (there isn't) which is followed by the genitive with this kind of meaning, hence "nikoga".
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 23 of 292 15 January 2015 at 12:00am | IP Logged |
I only had about half an hour of free time yesterday by the time I'd finished work-related activities, so I wasn't able to do
anything terribly productive. I went on Youtube to have a look at Macedonian videos in the hope of finding a cool alphabet song
like this one I really love for Serbian but I didn't find
anything very interesting. The only thing I did establish is that for some reason there are a lot of episodes of the children's
programme 'Noddy' in Macedonian on Youtube :D I started watching one of them and I could actually understand a reasonable amount,
but it was all cheating based on the words being similar in Croatian rather than on me actually having learned anything.
This evening I have had four hours of travelling home, so I took the opportunity to read some more of 'Krpar, krojač, soldat,
špijun'. I read 75 pages today which takes me more or less back to the point where I stopped reading the first time. I feel like
I've understood it a lot better on my second reading :)
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 24 of 292 17 January 2015 at 7:18pm | IP Logged |
I'm a little bit disappointed by my lack of achievement this week. All I managed
during the week was to stay on top of my Memrise watering and to read 100 pages or so
of 'Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy'.
I didn't succeed in writing 50 words any day during the week, so I've just had to
write my entire 350 at once. I guess this means I was right to make writing 350 words
a weekly goal rather than writing 50 words a daily goal! Continuing with the theme of
Macedonia, this week's words are about my visit to Skoplje.
This is the uncorrected version before it goes on lang-8
Quote:
Sljedeći dan sam istražila Skoplje. Čitala sam mnogo članaka na engleskom koji
se radili o kontroverznom projektu "Skoplje 2014". Taj projekt je ideja makedonske
vlade. Cilj je proljepšati grad, koji nema puno lijepih povijesnih zgrada zato što je
sve bilo uništeno zemljotresom 1963. Vlada gradi nove zgrade koje ima neoklasičnu
stilu. Gradi se i puno spomenika. Spomenici oslikavaju poznate povijesne likove,
primjerice Aleksandar Veliki. Projekt je kontroverzni zato što puno košta, a
Makedonija nije bogata zemlja. Mnogo Makedonaca su siromašni i nezaposlenost je veliki
problem. Kaže se i da je projekt previše nacionalistički, jer vlada proba prikazati da
je Makedonija velika zemlja s važnom prošlosču. Ali ne svi ljudi koji žive u
Makedoniji su etnički Makedonci. Ima i mnogo Albanaca, a projekt "Skoplje 2014" ne
slavi i albansku povijest.
Bila sam dakle jako uzbuđena da imam priliku vidjeti kako Skoplje zapravo izgleda.
Bilo mi je odmah jasno da je projekt još ne završen, bez obzira na to da je već 2014.
Bio je ponedjeljak i svugdje sam vidjela radnike, koji još grade novi grad. Vidjela
sam nove urede za vlade, nove muzeje i čak nove mostove. Bilo je puno novih spomenika,
ali nisam dovoljno znala o makedonskoj povijesti da razumijem točno tko je tko.
Stari grad u Skoplju nije velik. Ima starih most (koji se zove "Kamen Most") preko
rijeke Vardar. Na sjevernoj strani rijeke Vardar je star tvrđava. Staza do tvrđave je
jako strma, a kada sam konačno stigla tamo bio je vrlo lijep pogled na grad. Moguće je
bilo vidjeti cijeli grad, rijeku Vardar i planinu "Vodno", koja se nalazi izvan grada.
Na vrh planine Vodno se nalazi gigantski hrišćanski križ. Planina ima žičaru. Odlučila
sam da ću je sutra posjetiti.
Vrijeme u Skoplji je bilo sunčano i toplo. To je lijep, a nam iz Engleske bilo je
zapravo previše toplo! Nakon tri sati šetanja u gradu morali smo se vratiti u apartman
i popiti hladnu vodu. Nisam znala je li sigurno piti vodu iz slavine u Makedoniji, ali
bila sam toliko žedna da sam je ipak popila. Ništa strašno se nije dogodilo, pa
prepostavljam da je voda čista. Uvijek pijem vodu iz slavine, čak kada putujem, ali
sjećam se da mi je netko rekao da je to ponekad opasno kada sam bila u Ukrajini. Ali
Makedonija nije Ukrajina i Skoplje mi je jako svidjelo. Spomenici su ludi, ali grad je
lijep i ljudi su prijateljski :) |
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