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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 4581 days ago 689 posts - 1119 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Esperanto Studies: Croatian, Serbian, Macedonian | Message 241 of 522 23 July 2014 at 12:20am | IP Logged | ||
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Thank you everyone for the advice :)
Documentaries are a good idea, because if I do watch TV in English then that's most likely what I would choose. Finding documentaries in Croatian may be challenge. I had a quick Google this evening and found two websites which may have some: dokumentarci.com dokumentarci.com.hr I suspect the programmes are in English with Croatian subtitles, though haven't been able to check this evening because my Internet is playing up and won't let me watch anything. Grrr. Otherwise I could have a look on the website of the Croatian broadcaster, HRT. They have a small TV on Demand feature on their website and I'm guessing that if I work my way through everything on the list, I'll eventually find a documentary :) The Serbian broadcaster RTS looks like it might be worth exploring too; I've just found a page where it looks like you can download programmes as podcasts. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Radioclare Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom timeofftakeoff.com Joined 4581 days ago 689 posts - 1119 votes Speaks: English*, German, Esperanto Studies: Croatian, Serbian, Macedonian | Message 242 of 522 24 July 2014 at 12:06am | IP Logged | ||
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I've been busy reading 'Pedeset nijansi siva' again today and am now on page 139. It's
a pretty boring book in all honesty but the repetitive nature of the vocabulary is definitely teaching me new words. I've made a spreadsheet where I'm recording the new words I learn, but I'm not going to post them here because I'm guessing there is some sort of forum rule against bad language and some of them are a bit rude. One interesting and non-controversial word I learnt today was 'peškir' which is an alternative word for towel and apparently comes from Ottoman Turkish. This evening I decided to take rdearman's advice and watch the rest of the film 'Korak po Korak' which I gave up on last week, trying to pick out the words I knew. I didn't do incredibly well at picking out any words - known or otherwise - but I'm starting to think(/hope!!) that the problem is partly with the quality of the audio. It's quite tinny and echoey, which I think is making things harder than they should be. I did understand a few whole sentences though; one where some men shouted at soldiers not to shoot them because they were Croatian, and one where the main character's husband came back and asked why she'd taken her wedding ring off. Afterwards I watched another episode of 'Bitange i Princeze' to reassure myself that my listening comprehension abilities aren't always so limited. I still find this series a bit difficult because of the speed of the speech, but the characters do all enunciate pretty clearly. Hopefully I'll have time to investigate documentaries more tomorrow :) Edited by Radioclare on 24 July 2014 at 12:13am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Radioclare Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom timeofftakeoff.com Joined 4581 days ago 689 posts - 1119 votes Speaks: English*, German, Esperanto Studies: Croatian, Serbian, Macedonian | Message 243 of 522 25 July 2014 at 12:25am | IP Logged | ||
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I read another 26 pages today and am starting to get more used to the ekavian spellings.
My boyfriend and I unexpectedly went out with some friends for dinner this evening as they were passing through our town. One of them is a native speaker of Esperanto, so we spent quite a while talking about Esperanto matters, though not in Esperanto because the other friend doesn't speak it. When I got home I dedicated the rest of my evening to watching a documentary. On one of the websites I found and linked to earlier in the week I found 2-hour programme called 'Težina lanaca'. No, not a trailer for the 50 Shades of Grey film, but seemingly a documentary about Yugoslavian history. This is my pet subject at the moment and I'm building up a collection of all the history books I can afford, so it seemed like an ideal choice. My use of the word 'seemed' is deliberate. Okay, there were some positives. Because this is a topic I am interested in, the two hours passed a lot more quickly than if I was watching a normal film. Although the narration of the documentary was in English (subtitled in Serbian Latin), there were plenty of times when people from the former Yugoslavian countries were interviewed in their language and subtitled in English. They all spoke more clearly than people in films and were fairly easy to understand :) There was some interesting archived footage used and some nice interludes of local music. There was the novelty value of listening to clips of Slobodan Milošević speaking in Serbian and understanding what he was saying... I think I'm out of positives now. As for the negatives... Well, I don't want to go into them in too much detail here because I know what the forum rules are around discussing politics, but let's just say it wasn't a very neutral documentary. I know it's hard to get a neutral viewpoint on a subject like this and whatever anyone writes about the break-up of Yugoslavia, one side or other is going to accuse them of bias, but it is possible to be a lot more neutral than this was. The basic premise of the film is that the West, in particular the USA, masterminded the war to further their own economic and political interests and out of a desire to 'colonise' the entire region. There were actually some interesting points made, but unfortunately the aim of them seemed to be to exonerate Serbia from any blame for anything ever and proclaim any suggestion that they might sometimes have been at fault to be part of a huge conspiracy theory. Conspiracy theories are a sore point for me because we have had some significant problems with conspiracy theorists in the British Esperanto movement over recent years, and so the minute someone starts expounding a theory like that it turns me right off. Still, it was an interesting way to spend an evening and I did learn a few things. Perhaps at the weekend I'll be able to find an actual Croatian or Serbian documentary programme. Edited by Radioclare on 25 July 2014 at 12:28am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Radioclare Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom timeofftakeoff.com Joined 4581 days ago 689 posts - 1119 votes Speaks: English*, German, Esperanto Studies: Croatian, Serbian, Macedonian | Message 244 of 522 27 July 2014 at 7:38pm | IP Logged | ||
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This weekend has unexpectedly involved a lot of wine, and therefore less Croatian than
I anticipated. I have watched one more episode of 'Bitange i Princeze' and read 298 pages of 'Pedeset nijansi siva' which means I am now at the end of it and have officially read my first book in Serbian. The good news is that I have quickly got used to the ekavian spelling. Although I should probably read the other two books in the series just to make sure I have fully mastered it ;) I got up with good pre-wine intentions on Saturday to make more effort with Macedonian. I revised the alphabet and found a nice website which seems like it will be good for covering the basics. There are some short audio clips you can listen to while reading the text which I worked my way through and found incredibly useful. You can also play 'Who wants to be a millionaire' in Macedonian, although that's a bit above my level right now. I was surprised to see that the website had won a prize part-financed by the Esperantic Studies Foundation. Saturday was Esperanto Day by the way! We went out for a drink in the evening to drown our Esperanto sorrows and I took my copy of 'Makedonisch, Wort für Wort' with me. I bought this ages ago and have been saving it up until it got within a month or so of my trip, but when I finally started reading it I was disappointed. There's a nice introduction to the grammar - more detail than I could take in after just one reading - but almost none of the words and phrases are written in Cyrillic. Instead everything is transliterated into a sort of phonetic Latin version for Germans. For example, пиво becomes piwo, паста за заби becomes paßta sa sabi etc. I understand that it's helpful to give people the pronunciation, but surely learning to read the alphabet is equally helpful?! Today I wanted to do some Croatian grammar revision so I sat in the garden with more wine and read 'Colloquial Croatian' from cover to cover. I have feelings of guilt towards this book because someone bought it for me as a birthday present - and I know it wasn't cheap - but I think it's a really poor textbook and so I've hardly used it. My copy is so pristine I could sell it 'as new' (as opposed to most of my other Croatian books, which are literally falling apart from overuse!). Having read the whole thing today, I still don't think it's a good choice of book if you're just starting to learn, but it's not bad if you've already mastered the basics and just want a refresher. There is more grammar detail than in 'Teach Yourself Croatian', though most topics aren't so well explained as in the Hippocrene 'Beginner's Croatian'. I think that's enough Croatian for one day, time to do some reading in English for a change! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Radioclare Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom timeofftakeoff.com Joined 4581 days ago 689 posts - 1119 votes Speaks: English*, German, Esperanto Studies: Croatian, Serbian, Macedonian | Message 245 of 522 29 July 2014 at 12:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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Well, I know I've been complaining a lot about how difficult it is to watch films, and I finally found a great excuse not to do it any more.
My house nearly burned down yesterday as a result of (not quite) extinguished barbecue ashes in a wheelie bin and I currently have no electricity. I think my Super Challenge might need to be suspended for a bit; obviously I can't watch films without electricity, but as I discovered last night, by 8pm the light isn't really good enough to read any more either. 
The good thing is that we are all fine and have had a lucky escape; it could really have been a lot worse. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7154 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 246 of 522 29 July 2014 at 4:39pm | IP Logged | ||
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Dayum...
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| sctroyenne Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5389 days ago 739 posts - 1312 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Irish | Message 247 of 522 29 July 2014 at 5:27pm | IP Logged | ||
Oh no! This has always been my greatest fear since I was a child. I'm glad you and your loved one(s) are safe and I hope you have a quick and painless recovery! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6595 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 248 of 522 29 July 2014 at 5:45pm | IP Logged | ||
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Ouch :(
We need a reading by candle light challenge to show support for you and save the planet ;/ 1 person has voted this message useful |
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