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Radioclare’s TAC log 2014 (*jäŋe/*ledús) | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| rdearman Senior Member United Kingdom rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5023 days ago 881 posts - 1812 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin | Message 265 of 522 08 August 2014 at 4:07pm | IP Logged | |||||
I played about with Esperanto about 10 years ago... think I have enough time to learn Esperanto before April? :) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Radioclare Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom timeofftakeoff.com Joined 4370 days ago 689 posts - 1119 votes Speaks: English*, German, Esperanto Studies: Croatian, Serbian, Macedonian | Message 266 of 522 08 August 2014 at 4:23pm | IP Logged | |||||
You have enough time to learn it three times over before then - it is a lot easier than Mandarin ;) If you are interested I could send you a complimentary Mini-Trio from Esperanto House next weekend. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| rdearman Senior Member United Kingdom rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5023 days ago 881 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin | Message 267 of 522 08 August 2014 at 4:34pm | IP Logged | |||||
That sounds great! But the problem I always had with it was, who do you talk to? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Radioclare Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom timeofftakeoff.com Joined 4370 days ago 689 posts - 1119 votes Speaks: English*, German, Esperanto Studies: Croatian, Serbian, Macedonian | Message 268 of 522 08 August 2014 at 5:51pm | IP Logged | |||||
That's a fair question ;) The difference to other languages is perhaps that you have to put more effort into seeking out people to speak to. I met some Esperanto-speakers when I was in Madrid last month, but only because they saw my holiday photos of northern Spain on Facebook and sent me a message. I'm going to meet up with some Esperanto-speakers in Belgrade in a few weeks, but again only because I've arranged it in advance. The chance of meeting an Esperanto speaker coincidentally as you walk down the street is next to zero. It's probably a bit easier to find people to talk to online these days than it was 10 years ago, as websites like lernu.net have taken off; Lernu has a reasonably vibrant forum with both English and Esperanto sections and there are always other beginners there looking to practise. I think they have some sort of IM/chat function where you can talk to other people in real time. Attending an event in the UK is a good way to take the first step of practising speaking in face-to-face. Although most people at such events are native English-speakers or foreigners living in the UK, there's an unspoken rule that we only speak in Esperanto during the event so that everyone has chance to practise and experience an immersion environment. That said, people will normally switch to English if it's clear someone is struggling to understand. Once you've got over the initial hurdle of speaking, attending an international event is the best way of making friends and then suddenly you have people all over the world you can speak to :) There's normally a good sense of community at these events; everyone is in the same boat of wanting to meet new people to speak to and in general Esperanto-speakers are very tolerant and open. I first started learning Esperanto back in 2004 because I wanted to communicate with a girl from Transdniester who only spoke Russian and Esperanto, and for me the best moments with Esperanto still come when I realise either a) I'm talking to someone with whom Esperanto is my only common language or b) I've been talking to someone for half an hour and I actually don't know where they're from and what their native language is. Esperanto is definitely not everyone's cup of tea; our main aims at the Esperanto-Asocio de Britio are just to make people aware of Esperanto (because you have to have heard of it before you can decide it isn't for you!) and to make it possible for the small minority who are interested to learn it. Drop me a line with an address if you'd like some books :) 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Radioclare Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom timeofftakeoff.com Joined 4370 days ago 689 posts - 1119 votes Speaks: English*, German, Esperanto Studies: Croatian, Serbian, Macedonian | Message 269 of 522 10 August 2014 at 12:38am | IP Logged | |||||
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Today was an unusual day for my Super Challenge as I didn't do any reading in Croatian
at all, but I did watch half of a film called 'Neke druge priče'. It's quite a strange film because it's made up of five separate stories (with the characters not connected in any way) set in Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia, Macedonia and Slovenia. So far I've only watched the Croatian one (which was about an artist who finds out one of the twins she is pregnant with has Downs Syndrome and has to contemplate whether to terminate the pregnancy) and the Serbian one (where a woman finds herself sharing a hospital room with the man who killed her husband). The version I found on Youtube has English subtitles, which I do admit I found useful, though I agree with whoever said that the subtitles don't necessarily always translate exactly what was said. One interesting cultural point in the Serbian story was when the nurses in the hospital were celebrating New Year and one of the patients asked a nurse to dance. She said something like "I'll dance with you at Christmas" but in the English subtitles it was translated as "I'll dance with you next week". I guess because an English audience would be confused about why Christmas was coming after New Year. I have been doing some more planning for my trip to Macedonia, which has involved making use of quite a few websites in Macedonian today. Given how little time I have invested in Macedonian so far I'm pretty lucky that I can understand quite a lot of the vocabulary I need from Croatian/Serbian. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Radioclare Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom timeofftakeoff.com Joined 4370 days ago 689 posts - 1119 votes Speaks: English*, German, Esperanto Studies: Croatian, Serbian, Macedonian | Message 270 of 522 10 August 2014 at 10:24pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I thought things at home couldn't get any worse and then there was a massive storm this
morning and, because the front of my house is currently devoid of guttering and slates, all the water collected in a pool on the flat roof of my garage. The flat roof couldn't hold it and it began seeping slowly into the garage and causing the ceiling to cave in. So now I have a second insurance claim, which wouldn't have occurred if the first insurance claim had been resolved in a timely manner :( I haven't got quite as much studying done today as I hoped. I've read through some of the Hippocrene Croatian book to revise my grammar, but haven't got as far as writing out the exercises (which was my actual aim!). I got a bit distracted planning out the Serbian and Montenegrin part of my upcoming holiday. With great reluctance I've had to give up on the idea of taking the train from Bar to Belgrade. I'm really disappointed because the only reason I was making a somewhat long journey from Skopje to Bar was for the purpose of making this train journey, which has been a dream for several years. Unfortunately the flooding in the Balkans earlier this year has damaged part of the route and, while trains are running via a diversion, they are only running at night. There doesn't seem much point paying to go on one of the world's most beautiful train journeys in the dark, but I've been hesitating for several weeks over whether to change my plans because I'd already booked accommodation in Bar which I would lose money on if I cancelled. Today I finally found a day bus from Podgorica to Belgrade (previously all I'd found were night buses, which really aren't my thing!) and while I'm sure it won't be as exciting as the train, I've decided to give it a try. So, my route will stay as this; starting in Skopje, ending in Belgrade. I wrote several emails in Serbian to bus companies today about timetables and tickets, and got replies back in Serbian, which was a nice feeling. So I *think* I have successfully reserved tickets on the Podgorica-Belgrade and Niš-Bar routes that I wanted. Time will tell! The thread about hairy goals has made me start thinking about what I want to do next year. Should I start learning another language? I have enough resources for Czech and Russian to start learning without spending a penny. I feel a peculiar sense of obligation towards Czech, which I started failing to learn over 10 years ago. But I'm hesitating to commit to it again because I'm actually far more interested in going to Slovakia right now. Bratislava is one of my favourite places anywhere ever (I think I've been five times in the past three years!) and it was announced last week that the World Esperanto Congress 2016 is going to be in Nitra. So in my head I'm already planning a holiday where I fly to Bratislava, spend a few days at the congress in Nitra, then explore eastern Slovakia (which I've wanted to do ever since I saw the beautiful scenery on the train from Bratislava to Kiev) and eventually fly back from Košice... Perhaps I should study Czech and then convert it to Slovak via Chung's log :D On the other hand, I really do want to learn Russian and although I don't think I can afford a Russian holiday for several years, part of me thinks perhaps I should start learning Russian now anyway because it's so difficult that I'll need several years to get to any sort of useful level! But then there's yet another part of me which is disappointed with how little progress I've made with Croatian this year and doesn't think I should be allowed to take on another Slavic language if I can't master one of the easier ones first. And finally my boyfriend has been making dangerous noises about wanting to go to France again next year, in which case I may be reminded of my very badly kept promise to learn French (eek!). Good job December is still such a long way away :) Edited by Radioclare on 10 August 2014 at 10:25pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Radioclare Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom timeofftakeoff.com Joined 4370 days ago 689 posts - 1119 votes Speaks: English*, German, Esperanto Studies: Croatian, Serbian, Macedonian | Message 271 of 522 11 August 2014 at 9:57pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Over the weekend and this evening I've read another 252 pages of 'Pedeset nijansi
slobodniji', with the result that I have now read 100.6 books for the Super Challenge. That means I've technically finished the reading part of the challenge, which I guess is sort of an achievement. I'm obviously going to continue reading though - I feel like I'm just getting started really. Over the next few months I hope to be able to move on to reading original books rather than translations from English. And obviously I'm still not doing too well with the film part of the challenge! One star in that has cost me far much more effort than four stars in reading. I *think* I'm starting to see some progress in my reading ability. I can remember a vague and distant past when reading German novels felt like this. That gives me hope that one day I might be capable of reading Croatian as well as I can read German. Learning German seemed to require so much less effort than this. I have tried to analyse the differences and the main ones I have come up with are that I used to write about 1,000 words of German per week (bad German, but a lot of it!) and that I was in love with a German at the time. I don't think my fiancé would be terribly impressed if I started dating a Croatian but I think I could definitely make more effort with writing, so I'm going to try writing something - however bad - in Croatian every day between now and my holiday. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Radioclare Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom timeofftakeoff.com Joined 4370 days ago 689 posts - 1119 votes Speaks: English*, German, Esperanto Studies: Croatian, Serbian, Macedonian | Message 272 of 522 12 August 2014 at 9:40am | IP Logged | |||||
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This is what I wrote in Croatian yesterday:
Znam da moram vježbati svoj hrvatski, pa sam odlučila da ću malo pisati na hrvatskom svaki dan. A o čemu pisati? To nije bilo vrlo zanimljiv dan. Radila sam, vratila se kući i čitala. Trenutno nema struje kod mene. To je prilično duga priča. Radi se o požaru koji se dogodio prije dva tjedna u kanti za smeće ispred kuće. Dogodio se zbog greške mog dečka koji je stavio pepeo iz roštilja u kantu. Pepeo je još bio topao, i dok smo spavali, zapalio je kantu za smeće. Imali smo sreće što je susjed u pet ujutro prošao pored kuće i primijetio plamen. Susjed je lupao na vrata da nas probudi. Kad sam se probudila, nisam znala što se događa. Dečko mi je sišao dolje da istraži i odjednom je počeo vrištati da bi trebala izaći iz kuće. Kad sam i ja sišla dolje, odjednom sam shvatila zašto, zato što je dnevna soba bila pun dima. Srećom smo uspjeli izaći bez problema. Susjed je već nazvao vatrogasce, koji su uskoro stigli i ugasili vatru. Prednji dio kuće je oštećen, a najveći problem je to što je požar rastopio kablove za struju ispred kuće. Nevjerojatno je koliko danas za sve treba struje. Bez struje se ne možemo istuširati, skuhati hranu ili čitati nakon što pada mrak. Nadam se da ćemo za dva tjedna opet imati struju i radujem se tome. Corrections which I got from a lovely person on Lang 8... 1) Incorrect use of commas. I keep putting them before relative clauses where they're not needed. Note to self: this isn't German! 2) I didn't know how to say "go downstairs" so I originally said "otišao dolje". It was corrected to "sišao dolje" which sounds better. I hadn't thought of that verb at all. 3) I wrote "primetio" instead of "primijetio". Reading ekavian is obviously messing with my head. 4) I wrote "A o čemu da pišem?" to see whether I could get away with it but that was corrected as a mistake to "A o čemu pisati?". Not sure whether what I wrote would be acceptable in Serbian or whether it was just plain wrong. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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