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Annette’s Croatian TAC 2013 - team Divan | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| AnnetteK Triglot Newbie NetherlandsRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4350 days ago 13 posts - 23 votes Speaks: Dutch*, EnglishC2, German Studies: Croatian | Message 1 of 11 27 January 2013 at 8:48am | IP Logged |
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Hi, I'm Annette. I live in Amersfoort in The Netherlands and I work at Utrecht University. I'm also still a (very mature ...) student, I'm studying towards a science degree with the Open University. I've been reading in this forum since 2010 and have done three 6WC's. When I saw there was going to be a TAC team for Croatian I figured it was time to finally join.
At the moment Croatian is the only language I'm studying. I started it in late 2010 but I haven't studied consistently. It’s been an on and off thing, depending on how busy I was at work and if I had exams and assignments coming up for my science courses. When I listen to a conversation I understand quite a bit and I can read basic texts, but my active skills are still lagging far behind. I've been using these courses: - Spoken World Croatian: I worked through this course completely. - Teach yourself Croatian: I don't have the audio for this. course, just the book. I read most of it. - Colloquial Croatian: I got to unit 12 and want to study the rest of it in the next few months. I also own "Bosnian, Croatian, Serbian: a textbook" and "Bosnian, Croatian Serbian: a grammar" (Ronelle Alexander) but so far I haven't used them much. Last summer (2012) I joined a summer course in Dubrovnik for three weeks. The book my group used was Učimo Hrvatski 2. My goals for 2013 By the end of this year I want to be able to understand movies, interviews and podcasts without too much effort and be able to hold a basic conversation. I'm planning a year off work - starting mid May - and I intend to spend 3 or 4 months in Croatia later this year. My native language is Dutch. Some info on my other languages: English I started learning English in secondary school, from age 12 (compulsory). That was in 1972, kids now start learning English in primary school. I loved English and found it an easy language to learn. I lived in Scotland for a while, so have no problems understanding a heavy Scottish accent. :-) German My mother is German and as a child I spent most school holidays with relatives in Germany, so I picked it up naturally, from a very early age. Norwegian While I was living in Scotland I studied Norwegian - I went to evening classes at Glasgow University. Travelling in Norway a year later I could manage fine with my basic Norwegian. Unfortunately I haven't used it since, so lost most of it. Russian I always love the sound of Russian and studied it for two years, about 25 years ago. I did a correspondence course, then two semesters at Amsterdam University. The courses were very focused on passive knowledge so I never learned to speak Russian, but I could read it o.k. My experience with Russian does help a little with Croatian. I already knew about the cases and verbal aspect (although I struggled with aspect then and I still do now ... ). I find that Croatian word order is harder than Russian (the clitics ...), but Croatian spelling and pronunciation are easier for me. Scottish Gaelic I did an intensive summer course (4 weeks) on the isle of Skye and a semester at Edinburgh university, but this is definitely the most difficult language I’ve studied and I didn't get very far. Once my Croatian is up to scratch, I'd like to revive my very rusty Russian. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| AnnetteK Triglot Newbie NetherlandsRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4350 days ago 13 posts - 23 votes Speaks: Dutch*, EnglishC2, German Studies: Croatian | Message 2 of 11 30 January 2013 at 9:52pm | IP Logged |
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In the next two months I'm going to try to study 8 to 10 hours a week. I'm not doing a science course at the moment, so I have a little more time (my next science course starts on the 1st April). My plan for February and March:
1. Study the remaining units of Colloquial Croatian (units 13 to 20). 2. Read "Harry Potter i Kamen Mudraca". I tried before, but didn't make it beyond the first chapter. This time I want to read two or three pages every day and choose five new words from each page to add to my Anki deck. Hopefully I'll no longer be able to find five unfamiliar words on every page by the time I'm halfway through the book. 3. Listen to a podcast or interview for 10-15 minutes every day. There's audio material with Spoken World Croatian and Colloquial, but I find I don't use it much. I actually often find it easier to follow an interview or talkshow ... probably because that's so much more interesting to listen to. 4. Watch a movie of two episodes of a tv-series every week. I own quite a collection of movies and tv-series in Croatian/ Bosnian / Serbian, but I didn't collect them because I wanted to learn the language. It's actually the other way round, I decided to learn the language because I had a collection of movies and tv-series, and also interviews, which I couldn't understand because they're not subtitled. I collected them because I'm a huge fan of a Croatian actress (long story and I won't bore you with it). I was lucky enough to meet her and befriend her, and when I saw her last summer she tried to talk to me in Croatian. I understood her o.k., but I froze completely and answered her in English ... I'm looking for some more Croatian, Serbian or Bosnian music to listen to. Right now it's Tony Četinski every day. :-) Oh, and I've registered for the 6WC for the 4th time with Croatian. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 6139 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 3 of 11 30 January 2013 at 11:18pm | IP Logged |
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Bok Annette! Nadam se da ti ne smeta što ti malo pišem na hrvatskom. Htio sam te pitati, kakve podcaste slušaš? A kada ćeš doći u Hrvatsku? U koji dio države misliš ići? Ja živim trenutačno oko 40 minuta izvan Rijeke. :)
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| AnnetteK Triglot Newbie NetherlandsRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4350 days ago 13 posts - 23 votes Speaks: Dutch*, EnglishC2, German Studies: Croatian | Message 4 of 11 01 February 2013 at 5:02pm | IP Logged |
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Bok ellasevia! Možeš pisati u hrvatkom, ja ne govorim (i pišem) dobro ali razumijem dosta. Ići ću u Dubrovnik po ljeti. Od listopada do siječnja bit ću u Zagrebu. Želim učiti hrvatski jezik na "Croaticum"(sveučiliste u Zagrebu).
Right now I'm mostly listening to audio and video of interviews with my actress-friend and talkshows in which she was a guest. Some old ones, some fairly recent. I'm still looking around for podcasts to follow. I'll definitely be following your blog. You seem to have picked up the language with lightning speed! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Kerrie Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Kerrie2 Joined 5392 days ago 1232 posts - 1740 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 5 of 11 02 February 2013 at 12:29am | IP Logged |
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Welcome to Team Divan, Annette. :)
I know, I am a little late. Real life has been crazy lately, and I'm just starting to get caught up with stuff here. We're glad to have you! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| AnnetteK Triglot Newbie NetherlandsRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4350 days ago 13 posts - 23 votes Speaks: Dutch*, EnglishC2, German Studies: Croatian | Message 6 of 11 03 February 2013 at 9:19pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks for stopping by Kerrie! I know there's no way I can keep up with you and some of the others on the
team, but I'll do the best I can. :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Kerrie Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Kerrie2 Joined 5392 days ago 1232 posts - 1740 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 7 of 11 05 February 2013 at 2:07am | IP Logged |
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Unfortunately, my Croatian has fallen off the map at the moment.
I'm trying to get back into doing my Assimil courses daily, but I am doing Russian for the 6WC, and working diligently on Spanish for the Super Challenge. (I want to read the whole Narnia series and Harry Potter #3 and #4 by the end of the month.) I feel like I've been making huge strides with my Spanish the past few weeks, especially since I started focusing on the vocab I come across in my reading. (Lo and behold, reading has gotten easier and easier because of that. haha) But I love Croatian, and I have lots of friends that speak it, so I know I will come back to it. Things (life) is starting to settle back down to normal again, so hopefully I can get back into doing Assimil every day for Croatian, at the very least. :) I live in the Midwest USA, and we were hammered with snow storms for the past two weeks. My kids had five snow days in two weeks! LOL 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| AnnetteK Triglot Newbie NetherlandsRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4350 days ago 13 posts - 23 votes Speaks: Dutch*, EnglishC2, German Studies: Croatian | Message 8 of 11 21 June 2013 at 1:11pm | IP Logged |
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It's been a while ... I had good intentions to update my blog regularly but then things became very busy at work - preparing for my sabbatical and training my replacement. And then I spent five weeks travelling in the U.S.
I've started studying again now and for the the rest of this year improving my Croatian will be a top priority. In a few weeks I'm off to Dubrovnik to join a summer school organized by the University of Zagreb. Four hours of language classes a day, five days a week. I joined this school for three weeks last summer and had a great time, so I'm really looking forward to going back. Until then, it's back to my self-study textbooks, my video-collection, and my (Croatian) Harry Potter books! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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