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Radioclare’s TAC log 2014 (*jäŋe/*ledús) | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4705 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes  Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 409 of 522 05 November 2014 at 2:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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They are not that expensive. If you plan to travel a lot by train around Belgium, I
recommend buying a Go Pass. You pay a flat fee for 5 train trips (one-way), or you can buy one for 10 trips. You can put multiple people on a pass. This is what I did when I was in Belgium and travelled within the country (for travels to the Netherlands I booked the intercity online. It'll be back when you go, it disappeared after the Fyra debacle). This is the situation from about 3 years ago, but to my knowledge they still have the Go Pass. As for cities and things to visit around Brussels, one thing that I recommend is going down to the Butte du Lion (which is located in Waterloo...), but don't go to Waterloo station. Go to Braine l'Alleud station instead (Eigenbrakel), it's closer by. This is the site of Napoleon's famous loss. Unfortunately the statue's on the top of a hill. The only way to get to Waterloo station itself is to take a very slow regional train. They're not as well maintained (I believe it's in the direction of Nivelles from Bruxelles-Midi). Waterloo station is tiny and there's nothing there, and you'll have to walk further. If you want, you can also take the bus from Bruxelles-Midi, but in that case I don't know the stop you have to get off at - I went to the Butte du Lion years and years ago, and I never revisited it even though I've been to Waterloo dozens of times. There are more trains to Braine l'Alleud. Flanders is more interesting than Brussels. I never visited Ghent, but it's rumoured to be very good. I've been to Antwerp a bunch of times, that's great. If you want to visit the old Jewish quarter it's quite interesting. And maybe you want to buy diamonds there :p Bruges is also extremely romantic, but it may be less so in winter. Mechelen is also good apparently. Edited by tarvos on 05 November 2014 at 2:06pm 2 persons have 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 410 of 522 06 November 2014 at 11:14am | IP Logged | ||
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Thank you for all the advice, tarvos; there are lots of ideas there and I really appreciate it. I hadn't thought of going to see the Butte du Lion but that's a fantastic idea because my boyfriend is really interested in the history from that time :) I will definitely look into the train pass - it sounds really useful!
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| 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 411 of 522 06 November 2014 at 11:28am | IP Logged | ||
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I went back to reading translations yesterday and started reading 'Raskol', which is the Croatian translation of C J Sansom's book 'Dissolution'. My boyfriend very kindly gave it to me in advance of Christmas as it is the first book I was missing in a series of which I have all the others.
My first impression so far is that it is a really difficult book. There is so much unusual vocabulary. New words I have had to look up so far are: raskol - schism lobanja - skull tjeme - pate krčma - tavern opat - abbot kuga - plague ukinuti - abolish redovnik - monk redovnica - nun relikvija - relic varka - sham, delusion I didn't watch any TV in Croatian last night and I didn't do any grammar study either, because (unusually!) there was something on TV that I wanted to watch in English. Perhaps this evening. 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 412 of 522 07 November 2014 at 10:28am | IP Logged | ||
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I'm up to page 86 of 'Raskol' now and still finding it quite heavy-going. I think it's partly the vocabulary and partly the fact that it's very small print, so it feels like you've been reading for ages but you've actually only got through a few pages.
I watched two more episodes of 'Bitange i Princeze' last night which takes me up to 74.8 films. I've watched 10 episodes in November so far which I feel quite happy about. Serpent has found a Montenegrin TV series set in Budva which looks quite cool, so I'm going to start watching that once I've finished all of 'Bitange i Princeze'. I'm finding the 6WC bot very interesting to see how much time I've spent doing different things. So far this week I've spent 7 hours reading in Croatian and 5.75 hours watching TV. Everything else combined is only about 5.5 hours which isn't very impressive. I'm extremely excited because I'm going away for the weekend to visit my sister. It will be over 2 hours on the train each way to get to where she lives so I need to decide whether I want to spend the time reading 'Raskol' or whether to pack a grammar book and work on that. A grammar book would be the mature decision but they're quite heavy so I'm weighing up whether I want to carry it around with me all weekend. I've had a remarkably Esperanto-free week, which has been nice, but it's the calm before the storm. October was our financial year end so the next few months are going to be full of really boring stuff :( 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4705 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 413 of 522 07 November 2014 at 10:43am | IP Logged | ||
It helps if you've lived in Brussels yourself, and your ex-girlfriend's parents lived in Waterloo :) I've spent almost two years travelling back and forth, it was my first real experience of going abroad and doing things on my own. :) In other words, you're welcome :) 2 persons have 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 414 of 522 09 November 2014 at 10:17pm | IP Logged | ||
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I had a really lovely weekend but it didn't involve a lot of Croatian.
I did bring my BCS textbook away with me in the end, so I was able to spend about 3 hours across the two train journeys making notes on grammar. I got through 3.5 chapters and definitely learned some interesting things, which confirmed to me that this is at least worth doing. I think I'm getting a lot more out of grammar study now I've done so much reading for the SC, because I've seen examples in real life of most of the things I'm reading about. And that was it - no reading, no watching TV, nothing for the Super Challenge at all. But sometimes it's nice to have a few days off :) 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 415 of 522 11 November 2014 at 10:04am | IP Logged | ||
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I'm still progressing slowly with 'Raskol'; I've made it to page 127 now. I'm finding it pretty boring, perhaps because there is so much vocabulary that I don't know. I haven't got the motivation to look it all up, particularly if I can tell it is a descriptive passage about the inside of a monastery or something like that, because I know I'd be skimming the passages on church architecture even if I were reading it in English.
I watched one episode of 'Bitange i Princeze' last night but otherwise had a fairly lazy evening. I had some Esperanto correspondence to do with the World Esperanto Association, who have the strangest, most antiquated system of accounting I have ever had the misfortune to encounter. This morning I was listening to a cover of a German song 'Für Immer Punk' by my favourite Croatian band 'Hladno Pivo' but I am struggling to take it seriously because they pronounce 'punk' as 'pank'. To be fair I'm sure that's how it is pronounced in the German original but it just sounds really funny to me. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4705 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 416 of 522 11 November 2014 at 12:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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That's how you spell it in Russian Cyrillic too. The sound of the English "u" is best
approximated by a in Croatian and Russian. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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