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| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5001 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes  Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 729 of 1317 10 October 2013 at 7:52pm | IP Logged | |||||
No, it doesn't automatically need only one dubbing and original but it is often the case. DVDs can come in anything from one to eight or so languages and it is always necessary to check. And far too many DVDs are only original or one+original. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4680 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 730 of 1317 10 October 2013 at 8:19pm | IP Logged | |||||
WTFZOMG?! These prices look like what I paid in the bookstores in Rome. Real books at real prices, "free" shipping? How is this possible? No wait, don't tell me, I don't want to know. Just send me the books. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4820 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 731 of 1317 10 October 2013 at 11:18pm | IP Logged | |||||
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@emk: I'd forgotten that he mentioned Joyce in the context of the airplane test. However,
I also noticed that "Pride and Prejudice" was on his list of Great Books, and archaisms apart, I suspect you'd ace that, assuming that you can put up with that sort of novel (I guess a comedy of manners and a mild satire on the social conventions of that time in England). [Edit: In French, I mean, of course! :-) ] Have you ever tried, or would you ever try "Le Grand Meaulnes" (Henri Alain-Fournier)? I actually found that quite difficult in English, for some reason. Perhaps not so much the language as for the rather confusing plot. Edited by montmorency on 10 October 2013 at 11:25pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5524 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 732 of 1317 12 October 2013 at 9:25pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Whoo-hoo! I just finished all ~400 pages of Le Père porcher, which I started late Tuesday night after falling asleep. This puts me at 8,864 pages, with 1,136 remaining for the year. In terms of unknown vocabulary, this book was actually quite a bit more challenging than Le pont de la rivière Kwaï. I probably averaged a couple of unknown words per page, despite having read the French translations of other books in this series. That still puts me a bit above 98% vocabulary comprehension, though. We'll see what happens when I start importing these sentences into Anki; I should be busy for a while. But I find an occasional Anki binge to be quite useful, because it helps pick up the stubborn words that I can't learn from context.
My Anki backlog has been cleared out for everything but Egyptian, which is still a work in progress.
I just glanced at a few excerpts, and the language looks reasonable. But the plot summaries were quite long and complicated, so I can see why it might have been annoying. I already have a long backlog of genuinely good French classics, and of enjoyable books with no redeeming intellectual virtues, so I'm not very likely to ever get to it. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Avid Learner Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4654 days ago 100 posts - 156 votes Speaks: French*, English Studies: German | Message 733 of 1317 13 October 2013 at 6:07am | IP Logged | |||||
Actually, "bière", in French, is a synonym for "cercueil". That's not the word we use in everyday language, of course. ;) See etymology #2 here. It apparently comes from old French, so it amuses me that you happened to use this as an example of an English word you didn't know. ;) Edited by Avid Learner on 13 October 2013 at 6:09am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| sctroyenne Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5383 days ago 739 posts - 1312 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Irish | Message 734 of 1317 13 October 2013 at 6:34pm | IP Logged | |||||
When I reread L'Etranger not too long ago I was beating myself up for encountering this word that I didn't know right at the beginning (from the context I knew that there was no way he could be talking about beer) until I looked it up and realized I didn't know the word in English either. Reading Lolita in French I also experienced this but I caught on early enough that Vladimir Nabokov is quite the lexicomane. Edited by sctroyenne on 14 October 2013 at 5:28am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5524 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 735 of 1317 14 October 2013 at 5:13am | IP Logged | |||||
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My next novel is Le Déchronologue, another bit of French science fiction. According to Amazon.fr, Le roman a été récompensé par le prix européen Utopiales, le prix du Lundi, le prix Bob Morane et le Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire, which is a pretty nice slate of prizes.
The basic idea is "17th century French pirates in a world where the past and future are leaking into the present." Happily, the author takes this premise quite seriously, and builds rich characters and a believable background. The vocabulary is moderately challenging, thanks to lots of archaic maritime details. But if you like either science fiction or old-fashioned sailing ships, this looks like a winner.
In English, it turns out that I guessed correctly: A bier is a table on which you lay either a dead body, or (in modern times) a coffin containing a dead body.
I got beat up occasionally by certain Assimil Egyptian lessons, which featured vocabulary that I didn't know in English or in French. Both the wildlife and the culture of ancient Egypt cam be pretty alien. Playing around Also, a minor distraction for Saturday and Sunday. It's still very much an experiment, and it's headed in a different direction than either LingQ, LWT or readlang: 
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| Bakunin Diglot Senior Member Switzerland outerkhmer.blogspot. Joined 5122 days ago 531 posts - 1126 votes Speaks: German*, Thai Studies: Khmer | Message 736 of 1317 14 October 2013 at 5:43am | IP Logged | |||||
What's this, emk? It looks monolingual and very interesting! Is it what I hope it is, a reading application that allows you to mark sentences, a word in it, which is then looked up automatically in a monolingual dictionary, and then a flashcard is created for export to Anki? Are you going to share this? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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