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Kanewai 2015: Team Caesar | ||
Tags: Super Challenge | Catalan | Ancient Greek | Turkish | Polyglot | Arabic | Total Annihilation Challenge (TAC) | Italian | Japanese | French | Spanish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4892 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes  Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 233 of 331 27 January 2014 at 8:40pm | IP Logged | ||
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I really like MT too. I did the full Italian course back in 2011, along with two levels of Pimsleur, and felt really confident while in Rome. I didn't have a huge vocabulary, but I was very comfortable at the basic level. I was really hoping I could just start where I left off.
I think the problem with a lot of courses is that they jump ahead too fast. My FSI-charts estimate that it takes about 300 hours of study to reach a strong A2 in languages like Turkish, Greek, and Russian. Assimil tries to get you to that level after only 15 hours! My goal is to be able to speak simply, but to speak well. With that in mind, I finished up Teach Yourself Lesson 3 this morning. The chapters are short enough that I am going to attempt to over-learn them, so that at least the basic endings and forms are burned into my skull and start to feel natural. ______________________________________ Another mistake I was making was in not allowing enough time in between languages. We might study for thirty minutes, but that information settles in over the next couple hours. It doesn't work to do thirty minutes of Turkish and jump right into thirty minutes of Italian. There's not enough time to process either. The irony is: I knew this already. I think I've even advised newbies to follow the same advice. I just didn't apply it myself! So I started my new routine this morning: gym at an ungodly hour, then a bit of Turkish at the coffee shop, and now I'm at work. I'll do another set of Italian before dinner. This should be more sustainable than my original plan. ______________________________________ I also have a couple movies I can recommend: Home, Ursula Meier (2008) - A family's individualistic lifestyle is threatened when a new superhighway opens in front of their house. It's a sad comedy that really grew on me over time.  Harem Suare, Ferzan Özpetek (1999) - Set in the harem during the fall of the Ottoman Empire. Beautiful, but somewhat confusing. From the same director who did Steam and His Secret Life. In Turkish, Italian, and French.  Ieri, oggi, domani; Vittorio de Sica (1963) - Three short comedies starring Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni. Light and funny, and OMG is Sophia Loren sexy.  Nicolas le floch, Le Fantôme de la rue Royale (2009) - Nicolas investigates the mysterious goings on of a rich family with dark secrets. These are classic mysteries that remind me of old Agatha Christie and Sherlock Holmes books. *** MHz Networks plays one new episode of Nicolas a week, in French with English subtitles.  Bocaccio '70 (anthology, 1962) - Four more fun Italian shorts. I've only watched two so far.  And one to avoid: Fellini's Casanova. I couldn't make it through more than 20 minutes. It felt like a bad episode of Benny Hill. The critics say the movie was ugly on purpose, as a commentary on ... something. I don't care. Ugly is ugly. Edited by kanewai on 27 January 2014 at 8:48pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| agantik Triglot Senior Member France Joined 4638 days ago 217 posts - 335 votes Speaks: French*, English, Italian Studies: German, Norwegian | Message 234 of 331 02 February 2014 at 8:09am | IP Logged | ||
It´s funny how our love for languages urges us to follow paths still unexplored by native speakers! I mean a lot of French speakers have never tried reading Proust for lack of courage and / or lack of linguistic skills even in their own language...Keep up the good work! Edited by agantik on 02 February 2014 at 8:11am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4912 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 235 of 331 02 February 2014 at 1:46pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hey hey! I'm just posting to say Hi, and I'll be following you because you are on team Deuxième and because your log looks interesting. Also, I've always thought your advice was useful and level-headed. Except, perhaps, for this madness about not drinking!
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4892 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 236 of 331 03 February 2014 at 10:07pm | IP Logged | ||
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Third Set
I had to make some major changes this set. I slowed down my pace a lot, and officially put aside Assimil Le Turc. I have finished two Assimil editions (French and Spanish), and failed to finish three (Turkish, Arabic, Ancient Greek). I already a decent background in French and Spanish before I started, and a limited background in the others. And now I think that Assimil is not a beginner's course in any way, shape, or form. I still think it's great for moving from approximately A2 > B1, and I think I'd like to come back to Le Turc one day ... after I have a better understanding of the basics of the language. Français - I finished 19 levels of Pimsleur IV. That's not bad for three weeks. I'll finish the rest closer to my trip. I like this level of Pimsleur, and am interested to see what the fifth-level is like when it comes out. The dialogues are much more practical than they were on Levels I-III. We're no longer asked to buy the girl at the bar a drink over and over (Level 1), or have ten lessons in a row about playing tennis with Mrs. Jones on Sunday (Level 3). This level we learn to exclaim quelle horreur! when our friend shows up for lunch at the port in a tight yellow coat. I am sure that this will come in handy. In fact, I plan on wandering around Nice muttering quelle horreur at random strangers, just for effect. I'm about 1/3 of the way through À l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs. It's slow reading! I like that there is more of an actual story here than in Du côté de chez Swann, though so far there haven't been any of the beautiful, sublime passages that were sprinkled through Swann. The plot itself isn't terribly compelling - I find that I like it better the next day when I'm reflecting back on what I read than I do when I'm actually reading it. My plan this round was to start working my way through FSI Lesson XXIII. I don't know yet if I'll actually do this or not. Türkçe - I picked up Teach Yourself again, and finished Lesson 5 this morning. I'll start FSI again once I have the two courses more in sync (I think about lesson 7 of Teach Yourself matched up with lesson 16 of FSI). I feel much more comfortable again with my Turkish. Sometimes the old-fashioned methods of learning - vocabulary lists and grammar drills - really do work better than the newer methods. Italiano - FSI FAST was ok, but it's not on the same level as the full FSI courses. I did a couple hours of Michel Thomas, and have started in with Living Language. I'll tear through the beginning lessons quickly, and then settle in to more formal studying. I'm also planning on starting up Pimsleur II this round. I'm also feeling good about Italian at the moment ... it feels like a little extra studying will really pay off. ελληνικά - nada Español - nada side to Jeffers: The madness didn't last long at all. In fact, the walk to the bottle shop takes exactly one-half of a Pimsleur lesson ... and so now every time I study Italian I end up with another bottle of wine. ____________________________________________________________ Summer Plans: I'm tempted now to continue with Turkish and Italian through the summer. Instead of my current cycle of learning and forgetting languages, I'd like too see if I can bring them to a point where I can maintain them without a lot of stress. I figure, I've got the momentum going now. It will be easier with Italian ... there are a lot of books I'd love to read in the original. Though that might mean delaying Spanish ... again ... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| renaissancemedi Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Greece Joined 4361 days ago 941 posts - 1309 votes Speaks: Greek*, Ancient Greek*, EnglishC2 Studies: French, Russian, Turkish, Modern Hebrew | Message 237 of 331 04 February 2014 at 9:02am | IP Logged | ||
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It's motivating to read about your turkish progress. It's interesting that the combination FSI+TY is so popular. Somehow we all decided to do the same thing this year, each one seperately. Do you suppose we found a winning combination here?
As for Assimil Ancient Greek I never cared for its strong french accent. If you end up using it, be careful about that part. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4892 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 238 of 331 13 February 2014 at 11:12pm | IP Logged | ||
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3.2
Slowly chugging along, but enjoying it. Super Challenge II I know I can do the book part of the Super Challenge in three languages, and would really enjoy it, but the movie part has my stumped. I wouldn't enjoy watching 100 movies or shows in each language. I think what I'm going to do is sign up for Italian, Spanish, and French; read a lot, watch what I want, and make a decision later on which of the three to go for the diamonds with. I set up a page already, with books that I've earmarked over the past year. And I even made it pretty by copying and pasting the country flags from Kerrie's page! I'll probably continue with Harry Potter (Spanish) and Percy Jackson (Italian) in the beginning, but my real goal is to tackle the classics (Dante, Cervantes, Bocaccio) and modern greats (Jorge Luis Borges, Gabriel García Márquez, Umberto Eco, Italo Calvino). Türkçe I spent a long Sunday morning working only on Turkish, and made some big gains. Sometimes these longer sessions really help by immersing yourself in the language. We also had our first study group with our İstanbul adventures. A good friend spent years as an archaeologist in Anatolia, and we got together over pizza and Lambrusco for a night of Turkish. Predictably, none of the other guys has even opened a book - they all claim to be bad at languages, based on their experiences of trying to study for ten minutes every other weekend. This is the norm, isn't it? I'm ok with it; I assumed I would be the group translator anyway. It gives me more incentive to study and get it right! I'm currently on Lesson 17 of FSI (future, and "future in the past" ) and Lesson 7 of Teach Yourself (directions; simple present-wide tense). I'm still taking it slow, and making sure I really understand a section before moving on. At some point in the next couple weeks I'll stop and regroup, and focus more on speaking and producing the language. I also printed out a verb chart, which was intimidating. There are all sorts of strange creatures ahead, like the "The Past Progressive Tense of Report and Presumption" and the "Pluperfect Indefinite (Doubtful Distant Past)" (e.g., etmemişmişim, I think that I had not done). Assimil remains opaque. Italiano Meanwhile, my Assimil Italian arrived unexpectedly, and I like it. For now I'm rotating through Living Language, Italian, and Pimsleur II. It sounds like a lot, but there hasn't been anything super challenging yet. I'd like to keep on with Italian after my trip, and have notified Team Forza that I'll be sticking around. Although I think I woke them up from siesta ... it's been a pretty quiet thread. Español I reopened Harry Potter y la Orden del Fénix from where I left off, around page 400, and read a few pages to see how my comprehension was. And I'm glad to report that I can still read! I was worried that I had lost a lot. I'm looking forward to restarting my reading, although I want to get my Italian up a few levels before I do. ελληνικά EMK started ringing a bell and crying bring out your dead! And so I will. Perhaps with Homer, or perhaps I'll move to the relatively easier but still really quite hard Classical period. I don't have time now, but come June I'll be able to work it in. I've found that I can balance two active languages nicely; I'm still not sure what my passive limit is. Français Warning: Minor Proust Spoiler Alert! I finished the first part of À l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs, Autour de Mme Swann. I enjoyed some of it - the dull courtesan from the first book has turned out to be a dynamic and exciting character, and the narrator develops a crush on her bad-girl daughter Gilberte. But the love is unrequited, and it took me weeks to plod through his endless whining. It reminded me too much of Swann's equally nauseous and endless whining about Odette de Crécy in Du côté de chez Swann , and I thought: I will not make it through the series if I have to listen to a variation on this in every book. And then, in Noms de pays : Le pays the narrator's grandmother takes him out of Paris on a trip to Balbec (somewhere on the coast), and suddenly the Proust I love is back, and I find myself highlighting half a dozen passages right at the start of the second part. I've just learned how to copy kindle highlights to my computer, so get ready for lots of favorite in the months ahead! C’est pourquoi la meilleure part de notre mémoire est hors de nous, dans un souffle pluvieux, dans l’odeur de renfermé d’une chambre ou dans l’odeur d’une première flambée, partout où nous retrouvons de nous-même ce que notre intelligence, n’en ayant pas l’emploi, avait dédaigné, la dernière réserve du passé, la meilleure, celle qui quand toutes nos larmes semblent taries, sait nous faire pleurer encore. Hors de nous? En nous pour mieux dire, mais dérobée à nos propres regards, dans un oubli plus ou moins prolongé. C’est grâce à cet oubli seul que nous pouvons de temps à autre retrouver l’être que nous fûmes, nous placer vis-à-vis des choses comme cet être l’était, souffrir à nouveau, parce que nous ne sommes plus nous, mais lui, et qu’il aimait ce qui nous est maintenant indifférent. ......................................................... Mais enfin le plaisir spécifique du voyage n’est pas de pouvoir descendre en route et de s’arrêter quand on est fatigué, c’est de rendre la différence entre le départ et l’arrivée non pas aussi insensible, mais aussi profonde qu’on peut, de la ressentir dans sa totalité, intacte, telle quelle était dans notre pensée quand notre imagination nous portait du lieu où nous vivions jusqu’au cœur d’un lieu désiré, en un bond qui nous semblait moins miraculeux parce qu’il franchissait une distance que parce qu’il unissait deux individualités distinctes de la terre, qu’il nous menait d’un nom à un autre nom. .................................................... English translations (not mine) That is why the better part of our memory exists outside ourselves, in a blatter of rain, in the smell of an unaired room or of the first crackling brushwood fire in a cold grate: wherever, in short, we happen upon what our mind, having no use for it, had rejected, the last treasure that the past has in store, the richest, that which when all our flow of tears seems to have dried at the source can make us weep again. Outside ourselves, did I say; rather within ourselves, but hidden from our eyes in an oblivion more or less prolonged. It is thanks to this oblivion alone that we can from time to time recover the creature that we were, range ourselves face to face with past events as that creature had to face them, suffer afresh because we are no longer ourselves but he, and because he loved what leaves us now indifferent. ....................................................... But after all the special attraction of the journey lies not in our being able to alight at places on the way and to stop altogether as soon as we grow tired, but in its making the difference between departure and arrival not as imperceptible but as intense as possible, so that we are conscious of it in its totality, intact, as it existed in our mind when imagination bore us from the place in which we were living right to the very heart of a place we longed to see, in a single sweep which seemed miraculous to us not so much because it covered a certain distance as because it united two distinct individualities of the world, took us from one name to another name. Edited by kanewai on 13 February 2014 at 11:15pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4912 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 239 of 331 14 February 2014 at 12:39am | IP Logged | ||
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I found your list of novels very interesting indeed. Do you have all of them, or are they just on your hit-list?
I'm on Pimsleur III myself, and my county libraries don't have IV, so that might be the end of the road for me. But I'm definitely going to start working quelle horreur into my swearing. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4892 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 240 of 331 14 February 2014 at 12:54am | IP Logged | ||
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I have a lot of the French novels - the classics are free on kindle, and I've found
them over the years at used book stores and library fundraisers. I downloaded a lot of Italian samples on my kindle, just to gauge their difficulty. I'm not ready yet, but I can tease out their meanings, so I'm not so far away. Surprisingly - since Spanish is more or less the second language in the US - it's hard to find good and affordable books in Spanish! I bought French and Spanish IV on audible. Every once in awhile they will have a sale on credits, and a Pimsleur level is 5 credits - so it comes to $40 to $60. That's not bad. I don't know if audible has the same catalog in the U.K., though. The one drawback is that you can't copy the recordings off audible, so it's hard to share. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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