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How hard is Agatha Christie really? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| Rincewind Tetraglot Newbie Brazil Joined 4645 days ago 19 posts - 35 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English, Spanish, French Studies: German, Russian | Message 9 of 21 01 March 2012 at 12:43am | IP Logged | |||||
Go read "Ulysses".:) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Sandy Newbie United Kingdom Joined 5573 days ago 37 posts - 61 votes  | Message 10 of 21 01 March 2012 at 1:24am | IP Logged | |||||
That quote shows that it is a waste of time trying to understand every word or phrase. "Well-blued hair" is probably a unique combination of words. I doubt if you will find it written anywhere else. No one will ever need to use "well-blued" so there is no need to find out what it means. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| espejismo Diglot Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 4996 days ago 498 posts - 905 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: Spanish, Greek, Azerbaijani | Message 11 of 21 01 March 2012 at 4:51am | IP Logged | |||||
But it does enrich the fictional character if you know what it means... Wikipedia does a marvelous job at explaining the concept, which, as it turns out, carries a certain political connotation in the UK. This was a major revelation to me. There are a lot of elderly women in Russia who have light blue or light purple hair, and I would have never guessed it's the result of trying to conceal naturally yellowed gray hair by rinsing it in ink or special anti-yellowing shampoos! I was told that it even became fashionable at some point in the Soviet Union and women would try to make their hair extra purple on purpose (think Dame Edna). It's really funny to see these old ladies with "well-purpled hair" in the US. They always turn out to be Russian. :) Edited by espejismo on 01 March 2012 at 4:58am 7 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4613 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 12 of 21 05 March 2012 at 6:25am | IP Logged | |||||
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Compare the styles of Agatha Christie and Herman Hesse
Agatha is difficult to read, too many adjectives in a row, tiring, long sentences, Herman Hesse: short, clear, poetic style, easy to read No wonder, Agatha is not held in high regard, while Herman's books are praised. ;) Agatha's books are like a script for a movie (scripts are boring to read, but they function as a basis for a great movie or a sitcom). Agatha was the mother of ''self-copy&pasting''. Edited by Medulin on 05 March 2012 at 6:38am 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| lindseylbb Bilingual Triglot Groupie ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4877 days ago 92 posts - 126 votes Speaks: Mandarin*, Cantonese*, English Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 13 of 21 08 March 2012 at 4:42pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I cant even finish some of her books translated in chinese though I LOVE miss Marple in the ITV tv series. Maybe detective fictions don't fit me. Nor her way of description. What I wander is, whats the best way to treat those old fashioned vocab? To look them up or just ignore them? I encountered a lot in Jane Austins works.
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| Ольга Newbie Russian FederationRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 3921 days ago 16 posts - 22 votes Speaks: Russian* Studies: EnglishC1, German, French | Message 14 of 21 06 January 2014 at 4:31pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I am reading Sittaford Mystery by Agatha Christie in the original.I am contstantly
finding about 10 unknown words in the text.First time it was quite a complicated task for me, because I had to translate every new word, but then I decided to listen to audiobook and follow to the lines in the book simultaneously.It gives outstanding results. I can catch sense in general, but more frequently I understand the plot completely. At the beginning I did not believe in myself and didn't trust myself, I supposed that I see only some general points from text, but when I began to tell some snippets from detective story in my native language to my relatives I was pleasantly suprised that could tell them even some details from the story. Maybe later I will build the dictionary of frequent words of the detective story and learn them by heart. I am learning some interesting words by heart from the book. Besides it's necessary for my university, my tutor asked me to write down some interesting collocations and idioms from the book.It's quite a useful task. Edited by Ольга on 06 January 2014 at 4:32pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4954 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 15 of 21 06 January 2014 at 4:49pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I love Agatha Christie's books. I think, should we rate difficulty on a scale 1 to 10, her books would be scattered all the way from 4 to 8. There are differences. Short stories with Marple are, in my opinion, easier than the long situated in Ancient Egypt for example.
OP, why would it be bad to ask about English? Far from everyone here is an English native :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| PeteP Newbie United States Joined 4982 days ago 27 posts - 48 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Romanian | Message 16 of 21 06 January 2014 at 6:56pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I recommend The Hunger Games as a good first novel. It is written in first person
present (As opposed to Harry Potter's third person past "then Harry looked at his hand"). In The Hunger Games, what you get is more "I look at my hand". The only downside is that I cannot find the audio for The Hunger Games in Romanian :-( So, I read The Hunger Games, but listen to mp3s from Radio Free Europe's Moldova section Edited by PeteP on 06 January 2014 at 6:57pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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