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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
 songlines Pro Member Canada flickr.com/photos/cp Joined 5215 days ago 729 posts - 1056 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 185 of 243 19 April 2013 at 5:47am | IP Logged | ||
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Continuing my posts on Montreal bookstores...
Drawn and Quarterly, website . I had previously only known Drawn and Quarterly as a publisher (see Wikipedia article for a long list of -ahem - illustrious comic-book /graphic novel artists they've been associated with), but didn't know they had a bricks and mortar store. Which they do: 
Just minutes away from where I was staying in Mile End, and near two famous bagel shops I'd been planning to visit. Much of the stock seems to be in English, but it's not limited to D & Q publications themselves. (Their website sells only D&Q-published titles; and the 211 Bernard Ouest store doesn't do online sales. ) It's a lovely bookstore: large windows let light into the store. With its warm brick walls and wooden shelves the ambiance is warm, casual, and welcoming. - An extensive range of authors and titles, many of which I noted for reserving from the library upon my return home. They also seem to have an active programme of author events, so it would definitely be a good place for an Anglophone graphic-novel-reading Htlal-er to check out if visiting Montreal. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| songlines Pro Member Canada flickr.com/photos/cp Joined 5215 days ago 729 posts - 1056 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 186 of 243 19 April 2013 at 6:00am | IP Logged | ||
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Planète BD: website
Ah, a little world of BDs. Bins upon bins upon bins of them, all (as far as I could tell) in French. Unfortunately, this was my last stop before I had to rush to the station for my train home to Toronto, but I had time to snap a few photos, chat with one of the helpful clerks (we had a brief conversation en français about Blake and Mortimer, and my reservations about the stereotypical illustrations of Asian people in the first three volumes; and agreed that the books - as with some of the Tintin titles - were products of their time), and vow to return. 
(You won't be able to tell from the first photo, but the gleaming gold book facing outward on display, smack dab in the middle of the bins along the wall, is a copy of Ab Irato). Renaud-Bray: website (no photos taken) Renaud-Bray used to have a store in Toronto; but unfortunately, it closed after only a year or so. Nevertheless, it still has 29 (I think?) stores in Quebec, with a third of those in the Montreal area (i.e. including the neighbouring communities) alone. So it's a chain, with all that implies, but a regional chain: An all-purpose selection, with a range of bestsellers, literature, the usual non-fiction, and - at the Mile End location I visited - a decent BD selection. Edited by songlines on 19 April 2013 at 6:01am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| songlines Pro Member Canada flickr.com/photos/cp Joined 5215 days ago 729 posts - 1056 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 187 of 243 06 May 2013 at 11:10pm | IP Logged | ||
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A long overdue summary of language-related work done since 19 February:
Assimil: 230 minutes (3 hours, 50 minutes). Finished NFWE, single waving it. Films: 5. Flashcards: temporarily in hiatus. Podcasts/ TV: 620 minutes (10 hours, 20 minutes). A mix of RFI, TFI, Radio-Canada via Tou.tv, and France 24. Reading, book-books: 397 pages, from: Le tour du monde en 80 jours, l'Histoire de Pi, and Le Hobbit. Books completed: 2; Finished the Verne and Martel; still mid-way through Tolkien. Reading, bandes- dessinées: 939 pages. BDs completed: 17, including: Ab Irato, volume 1. Blacksad. volume 2, Arctic Nation. Blake and Mortimer. volumes 5-8, India Dreams Murena. Rides, by Paco Roca. Le Sursis, by Gibrat. volumes 1-2 Le Vol du corbeau, by Gibrat. volumes 1-2. XIII. volumes 1-4. The films included two seen at the Cinéfranco festival: Un bonheur n'arrive jamais seul, a romantic comedy starring Sophie Marceau and the talented Gad Elmaleh. - Elmaleh's character, Sacha, is a commitment-phobic bachelor who still happily lets his mother clean his flat and do his laundry; nevertheless, Elmaleh brings such charm to the performance that one can well understand his winning the attentions of a princess. Another Cinéfranco film, La vérité si je mens, was less succesful. It's the third in what one assumes is a very popular series. Very broad humour, with some laugh- out-loud moments, but also quite a few cringe-worthy ones. Also La délicatesse with Audrey Tatou (okay); and Celeste and Jesse Forever (dubbed and captioned version), a small film which deserves far more attention: intelligently scripted, with excellent performances. I had rather a binge on BDs, and am particularly enjoying the Blake and Mortimer titles, and Ab Irato. - Both have lots of "oh, so that's how one says that!" moments. Have also just started Le chat du Rabbin (thanks to Kanewai for the recommendation!) - a sheer delight! Books: switched from the Francis Ledoux translation of Bilbo le hobbit to the one by Daniel Lauzon, which is somewhat more accessible. The latter is in a Kindle e-book edition, which - like iBooks- has a pop- up (monolingual) dictionary, and allows highlighting in a variety of colours (very useful for marking vocab for later study). Other: Oh, and I had my above-mentioned visit to Montreal. Have also been continuing to try working in French with Francophone (or French-speaking) patrons and colleagues. Most of the interactions have been relatively short (five minutes or so), but some reference questions have stretched to fifteen to twenty minutes. At our library we offer a service known as "Book a Librarian", in which patrons can make appointments for 30- 60 minutes of dedicated staff time: it can be (for example) for help with a research project; or to take a class they can't attend during the time scheduled for group classes; get one-on-one help learning how download e- books, etc. A very nice patron from Quebec wanted a session on learning how to use her new MacBook; she was comfortable in English, but was happy to allow me to do the session in French. Apart from a couple of points when I repeated things in English for clarity, and also times when I had trouble understanding her, I managed to conduct the full 45 minute session in French. I can't say it was particularly good French, but it was a small milestone nonetheless. Edited by songlines on 06 May 2013 at 11:37pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5015 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 188 of 243 07 May 2013 at 5:34am | IP Logged | ||
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Such beautiful bookstores!
And of course a great log. :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4895 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 189 of 243 15 May 2013 at 10:47pm | IP Logged | ||
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Love the bookstore reviews - there's too many to see and visit in one trip!
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5538 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 190 of 243 16 May 2013 at 12:20am | IP Logged | ||
OK, you've convinced me to check out Blake and Mortimer, and along with kanewai, you've definitely encouraged me to keep an eye open for Le chat du Rabbin the next time I'm in Montreal. I'm also impressed by the scale and scope of your BD binge. Oh, and I recently had reason to realize, once again, how librarians are the secret masters of knowledge: I was recently speaking to the local town librarian, who dug through her inter-library loan database to find a significant cache of Vargas novels at a local university library. The next step is to go talk to those librarians, and see how far I can follow the trail, and what else they might be able to turn up. After all, while learning from native media is cool, amazing and enormously effective, it can get pretty expensive at times. So yay libraries! Edited by emk on 16 May 2013 at 12:21am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| songlines Pro Member Canada flickr.com/photos/cp Joined 5215 days ago 729 posts - 1056 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 191 of 243 27 May 2013 at 9:40pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks for your comments and visits to my log, Cavesa, Kanewai, and EMK!
Re. Blake and Mortimer, Emk: I don't know if you noticed it a page or so back in this thread, but I posted a short snippet for you - given your interest in Ancient Egyptian - about a couple of the early titles. See post 180. As for me, I too have been swept up in the Fred Vargas wave here on Htlal, and have reserved a couple of her books from the library. So yes, - yay libraries! Edited by songlines on 27 May 2013 at 9:43pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| songlines Pro Member Canada flickr.com/photos/cp Joined 5215 days ago 729 posts - 1056 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 192 of 243 31 May 2013 at 4:45pm | IP Logged | ||
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Cross-posted in the Team Pax thread:
A couple of links for those Htlal members learning French: http://www.dufrancaisaufrancais.com/
This might be particularly useful for folks (e.g. Kanewai, Emk) who've studied/speak European French (e.g. via Assimil, etc.) and are travelling to Quebec. - And, of course, vice-versa; but I believe that here on Htlal there are more members in the former category than the latter. There are short articles, a dictionary section (click on the actual words/terms to get full explanations, including indications as to which usages are FR and which are QC, a games/quiz section. And a short snippet from Radio-Canada about the 2014 edn of Le Robert, with particular mention of Canadian/Quebec terms. The link is too long to post, but if you Google "Radio-Canada.ca Dictionnaire Robert", it should be the first/one of the first results. Edited by songlines on 31 May 2013 at 4:50pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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