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TAC 2012 - Team Ne Nur - Hrvatske Krave

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ellasevia
Super Polyglot
Winner TAC 2011
Senior Member
Germany
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2150 posts - 3229 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian
Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian

 
 Message 25 of 76
15 April 2012 at 9:11am | IP Logged 
Weeks 11-15: March 11 – April 14

Total Study Time This Period: 60.54 hours
Total Study Time in 2012: 207.2 hours

I can’t believe how quickly time flies! How is it that it has already been over a month since I last wrote here? Quite a lot (and at the same time, very little) has happened since then…

I’ve recently broken 200 total study hours this year. That pales in comparison to Solfrin Cristin, who accomplished the same feat in a mere six weeks, but I’m content with that figure nonetheless. The last three weeks of this period weren’t quite as productive as the first two due to having been in Hawaii and then immediately loaded down with schoolwork as soon as I returned, but I’m still continuing to make progress with my language studies, albeit small.

I said before that I intended to do lots of reading in foreign languages while I was in Hawaii. What actually happened was that I carried several books with me halfway across the Pacific and then barely touched them. To my credit, I did quite a lot of thinking about reading them, but there was always something in my way – the motion of the plane put me to sleep, the sun on the beach was too bright, the books were in my room and I was out on the veranda, or I suddenly became very interested in studying classical art.

On the other hand, I managed to aggravate my family considerably by studying too much at times. They were taking a long time to get ready on the morning we left for Hawaii, so I decided to try to fit in one more TY Croatian lesson before leaving, which delayed our departure. I believe my father got a nice picture of me glaring at the camera while studiously copying out Croatian vocabulary in the sand-free zone I had created on the beach. I was also scolded for being antisocial because I was listening to an Italian podcast while waiting to get into a restaurant.



EDIT: Just noticed that I had accidentally listed some Japanese study time as Esperanto, so that changes the totals for each of those. Too lazy to fix the graph though.

Hrvatski
This Period: 28.51 hours
2012 Total: 58.18 hours

The first two weeks of this 5-week period saw a huge explosion in my Croatian motivation. Since I last updated this log, I have accomplished the following:
- Colloquial Croatian lessons 4-5
- TY Croatian lessons 10-15
- Beginner’s Croatian lessons 3-5
- Spoken World Croatian lesson 6
- Mass vocabulary review
- Radio listening
- Lots of reading and writing

Regarding the radio listening entry, I downloaded a Croatian radio app that allows me to stream live radio broadcasts from Croatia on my iPod. However, because of the time difference there was never any actual programming on when I tried listening during the day. One night I decided to turn it on to listen to while I fell asleep… Bad idea. I understood just enough of what they were saying to know what they were talking about (weather, politics, news, etc.), but not enough to pick up on any of the details. This frustrated me so much that I unintentionally kept myself up for nearly two more hours trying to grasp the meaning of the broadcast. Needless to say, I was a wreck in the morning.

Some of the reading and writing I mentioned refers to corresponding with my host family partly in Croatian. Just this past Wednesday, the 11th, I received my placement in Lovran, a small, picturesque town just outside of Rijeka on the Croatian coast! I’m extremely lucky to have been placed on the coast, since the vast majority of exchange students to Croatia go to either Zagreb or Varaždin. (Not that those cities are at all inferior, just that they’re not on the coast. :)) I’m very pleased about my placement and now more than ever I can’t wait for August. Now just to sift through the mountains of paperwork and procure my visa…

Suomi
This Period: 3.0 hours
2012 Total: 26.9 hours

Exactly a month ago I did my oral Finnish test with our evaluator. I did some review of grammar and vocabulary beforehand, mainly by reading back through the review lessons from Assimil. The oral exam itself wasn’t nearly as bad as I expected, though still horrible on my part. However, the evaluator told us later that he would assess us as at about A2 level in Finnish, so I’m perfectly happy with that result. Now if only I had the time to maintain that level…

Nederlands

In recent weeks I’ve begun another translation/editing job with Sprachprofi at the Pod101 websites, this time with a beginning Dutch course. It’s quite fun and simple, I get to review my Dutch, and read more about Dutch culture. While I’m talking about Dutch, I’ve also read a few more chapters of Harry Potter.

OTHER
@Gallo1801: Žao mi je da odgovorim tako kasno! Nisam imao priliku tražiti hrvatske podcaste, ali jesam našao neki radio-stanice, kao sam objasnio ranije. U stvari upotrebljavam knjigu TY Complete Croatian, koja ima ljubičast cvijet na naslovnici ako se dobro sjećam, ali imena karaktera su ista. Sretan put u Hrvatsku ovog ljeti! Kamo ćeš u Hrvatskoj ići?

Edited by ellasevia on 16 April 2012 at 7:23am

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Teango
Triglot
Winner TAC 2010 & 2012
Senior Member
United States
teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5554 days ago

2210 posts - 3734 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Russian
Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona

 
 Message 26 of 76
15 April 2012 at 6:12pm | IP Logged 
Aloha and welcome back from the stunning islands of Hawai'i. Congrats too on breaking 200 hours of study already this year! It's great to see you making lots of progress in Croatian, and the coastal town of Lovran, along with its beautiful Adriatic waters, looks great for immersing in. ;)

Edited by Teango on 16 April 2012 at 4:34am

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Gallo1801
Diglot
Senior Member
Spain
Joined 4900 days ago

164 posts - 248 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: Arabic (Written), Croatian, German, French

 
 Message 27 of 76
16 April 2012 at 9:37pm | IP Logged 
I think I got the gist of what you said... Most likely Umag on the other side of Istra,
but that could change. The plan is to work on a farm (wwoof) but that can still change!
I think my version is the edition just before TY overhauled their language offerings.
Yeah, unfortunately there aren´t as many resources for Hvratski. Lately I've tried to
translate lyrics of Proljeće by Luka Nizetic and Lijepa by Filip Dazdar. I'm still to
early to really get much use of it, but will help in after a few more lessons. How are
you finding the grammar? ie the cases
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Kerrie
Senior Member
United States
justpaste.it/Kerrie2
Joined 5393 days ago

1232 posts - 1740 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish

 
 Message 28 of 76
16 April 2012 at 10:21pm | IP Logged 
Apparently Assimil has a new Croat (French-based, of course) program out, which was only published in February.

Philip, do you like the Spoken World Croatian book? I started with it a few months ago and felt overwhelmed with it. I am thinking of going back to it or the Colloquial book now that I've finished the Livemocha courses.
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ellasevia
Super Polyglot
Winner TAC 2011
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 6140 days ago

2150 posts - 3229 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian
Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian

 
 Message 29 of 76
17 April 2012 at 2:44am | IP Logged 
@Teango: Mahalo and hvala to you, Teango! (I also had fun while in Hawaiʻi by saying some of the Hawaiʻian names -- like "Puʻu Huluhulu" -- and taking pictures of signs in the language.)

@Gallo1801 That sounds exciting! You'll be right up near the Slovenian border! The cases honestly haven't been too hard for me, but only because I had already had a good grasp on their forms and how they worked in Russian (and to a lesser extent, in Polish), and the two are very similar. Croatian is actually simpler. Most of the difficulty I'm having grammar-wise is regarding the correct word order, and in particular the tricky placement of clitics.

@Kerrie: HVALA HVALA HVALA LIJEPA for telling me!! I had no idea that they had published a new Croatian course. I need to get that; I LOVE Assimil. As for Spoken World Croatian, I do like it. However, I can definitely see where you could have been overwhelmed by how much it throws at you in the beginning. I've found TY's pace to be much more manageable because the lessons are shorter and easier to squeeze into a busy schedule, so I might recommend getting partway through that before starting with Spoken World.
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Kerrie
Senior Member
United States
justpaste.it/Kerrie2
Joined 5393 days ago

1232 posts - 1740 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish

 
 Message 30 of 76
17 April 2012 at 2:57am | IP Logged 
OMG, you are so funny. That's exactly how I reacted when I found that out a few days ago, too.   I have been so mad the last three days. I haven't had internet access (because my provider SUCKS) and I haven't been able to order it yet!!

I actually switched to the Livemocha courses, because I'm so familiar with them, and I got a decent grasp on the language that way, I think. Knowing full well that it's full of lots of mistakes, but it's a little like doing Michel Thomas. If you go into it knowing the shortcomings, you don't turn them into hard habits.

As to word order for clitics, interrogative (li), then verbal, pronominal, then reflexive. If that helps at all.

Edited by Kerrie on 17 April 2012 at 2:57am

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ellasevia
Super Polyglot
Winner TAC 2011
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 6140 days ago

2150 posts - 3229 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian
Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian

 
 Message 31 of 76
17 April 2012 at 4:17am | IP Logged 
Just ordered it. It was exorbitantly expensive, but hopefully it'll be worth it. :)

I've seen rules for the ordering of the various clitics in Croatian, but memorizing grammar rules that way never seems to work for me. I just need enough exposure to the language for it to become intuitive -- that's how it was with Spanish, French, Greek, German, etc.

Edited by ellasevia on 17 April 2012 at 4:17am

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Kerrie
Senior Member
United States
justpaste.it/Kerrie2
Joined 5393 days ago

1232 posts - 1740 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish

 
 Message 32 of 76
19 April 2012 at 8:25pm | IP Logged 
I ordered mine the same day you ordered yours, and mine came today. I'm so excited. (But I have four more hours of work to do right now. Then it's play time. LOL)


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