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Inhaling Belgium | ||
Tags: Belgium | Super Challenge | Living abroad | Dutch | Total Annihilation Challenge (TAC) | French | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Mohave Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Mohave1 Joined 4010 days ago 291 posts - 444 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 81 of 116 06 March 2014 at 1:30am | IP Logged | ||
I am not normally a person who would watch cat videos on you tube either, but this is terrific for French learning! Thanks for sharing! 1 person has 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 82 of 116 06 March 2014 at 8:10am | IP Logged | ||
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I loved it too! On the serious side, "dansons la capucine" is a very old song which dates back to the French
revolution, it is the (then) more politically correct version of the following one (same tune): Dansons la carmagnole Vive le son, vive le son Dansons la carmagnole Vive le son du canon There are other couplets as well talking about Marie Antoinette with a nasty nickname but I can't remember. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Suzie Diglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4232 days ago 155 posts - 226 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Dutch | Message 83 of 116 09 March 2014 at 12:36pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hi Mohave and Agantik, great that you liked it!
Agantik, this is very interesting. Based on your explanations I searched for a bit more information, learning that "La carmagnole" itself is again another popular song of this era. I really enjoy that the better one can dig into a language, the more one can learn more about the culture and history of another country. Yesterday I enjoyed a wonderful restful and sunny day in my garden and found the time to dig more into language studies. However, I did only a tiny bit of French grammar, but read a lot in "De tweeling" instead. The past weeks have confirmed that my plan to participate in the next Super Challenge is not a bad idea - I really have trouble to motivate myself to do active grammar training. I have a lot on my plate right now, and my weekends are mostly fully booked with long 'to do' lists. I still return to Germany most weekends and holidays, to take care of my parents' house, sorting things, renewing and do some other organisational stuff. I really hope this will end within 2014. Whenever I have some spare time, I prefer entertainment. So maybe even if I fail to motivate myself to intense self-training, the super challenge will not only be doable, but truly enjoyable for me. My goal for now is to finish "De tweeling" before May, to read bits and pieces in my French grammar, and to have a fresh start then with the Harry Potter series (which is already waiting in parts in both Dutch and French on my book shelf) in May. I so much look forward to spending pleasant hours in the garden this summer, reading and enjoying the sun..... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Suzie Diglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4232 days ago 155 posts - 226 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Dutch | Message 84 of 116 20 April 2014 at 12:52pm | IP Logged | ||
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Again, more than a month has passed since my last update....While it is a bit late for a monthly update of my March activities, I do not really feel I can add a lot for April either, so I'll just summarize. The past weeks have been quite intense ones, loaded with non-language related activities, and I really need the Easter weekend to relax....
French: Not that much active learning activities. I did watch quite a lot of TV though. On weekdays, there is a double episode of "Gilmore Girls" on AB3 each night, and it falls into my cooking, dinner and cuddling-the-dog time. As I already know the series, it is tremendously easy to follow even if I leave the room for a couple of minutes. I keep also having some conversations in French and am finally also noticing some improvement here, based on feedback from a colleague and a neighbour. You can't believe how happy I am! Still, I am finding myself in funny situations, like last week, when we were discussing Easter activities in the Catholic church in Belgium. I was surprised to learn that the Belgians eat onions (les oignons) during mass...which they, in fact, don't. They were speaking of the lamb (l'agneau), and again, they are not eating any lamb in church either, but just talking about it a lot (again a lapse in my comprehension skills). Still, I had a lot of fun during the discussion and learned a lot of "Easter" and "Catholic" vocabulary these days. Dutch: I finished "De tweeling"! What an intense and heartbreaking novel it was. Difficult to read at times (not because of the language, but because of the content). I will give a little summary later, when my book and I will be in the same country again. In addition, I am learning bits and pieces of Dutch passively every day. During Christmas break, my computer at work somehow decided that the Flemish Google version would suit me most as a default, and since then, I happily press the button 'Zoeken' when doing a Google search. Normally, I am ending up with the same websites, except for specific cases, when the Dutch wikipedia version is the first hit. I just adore this little piece of unintentional exposure and even cited a Dutch report in one of my assessments last week.... I have just signed up for the Super Challenge. French will be my priority here. Even though I have only little time in the moment (which I believe will continue throughout the summer until autumn), I am looking forward to having a lot of spare time afterwards. 5000 pages and 9000 minutes of videos should thus be doable. A tiny part of mine has quite high expectations, like a double challenge in French and half challenges in Dutch and English, but for the time being, I am happy with the minimum goal. I cannot wait to spend summer in the garden, reading Harry Potter. I glanced a bit into the first book, and am delighted to see it is much easier to read than "Inferno". I think it will be a good idea for me to start with the reading part mostly, both for "season" reasons, as well as for improvement of my language skills. I have great trouble to understand spoken words and have hit a border in my listening comprehension. For me, it is much easier to a) extend my passive vocabulary as well as to b) shift passive to active skills by reading. At least it worked that way in English for me. My preparation for the Super Challenge is: Complete as much as possible of your non-language related tasks.... 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5012 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 85 of 116 22 April 2014 at 11:52am | IP Logged | ||
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It's great to read you again, Suzie.
The SC is surely a great choice. Such an amount of input will have many effects and I'm sure even the grammar will go much faster after that (so that you won't need to spend as much time on it and it will be more enjoyable). P.S. I'm a bit ashamed to say it but I enjoyed the cat video, thanks ;-) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Hekje Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4706 days ago 842 posts - 1330 votes Speaks: English*, Dutch Studies: French, Indonesian | Message 86 of 116 22 April 2014 at 5:20pm | IP Logged | ||
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Ooh, I can't wait for your thoughts on De tweeling! Tessa de Loo, right?
Your garden sounds absolutely lovely. There's nothing better than being outdoors in the sun with a good book surrounded by plants. :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Suzie Diglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4232 days ago 155 posts - 226 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Dutch | Message 87 of 116 01 May 2014 at 11:06am | IP Logged | ||
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Hi Cavesa, thanks for stopping by, and your encouragement. I also do hope the Super Challenge will improve my grammar, since I was too lazy/never found the time to do proper exercises to work on it (sigh).
Hekje, thanks for your kind words - I am delighted to see today that the weather forecast was wrong and the sun is shining! Today's bank holiday will allow me to spend some beautiful hours outside, accompanied by a courageous little wizard... Yeah, it's the start of the Super Challenge today! I cannot wait to begin reading, but it did not feel right, as I have been a bad, bad, team mate in the past weeks. So I thought I should at least update my log beforehand. So, De tweeling.... Yes, Hekje, the author is indeed Tessa de Loo. I read somewhere that it even made it into the cinema. After several failed attempts in the past years I am glad I could complete it now. The story is intriguing. Two little twin sisters, born during World War I in Germany, get separated from each other at the age of 6. While one girl stays in Germany, the other moves to the Netherlands. Losing contact to each other, both live their lives, before finally meeting again, by chance, at old age. It is the story of one shared root and two different fates - one in the country responsible for the Shoa and World War II, and one in the role of the victims who suffered from that. Having developed strong feelings against the Germans, the Dutch twin has immense difficulties to overcome her hatred to warm up to her lost sister. The thoughts during a sleepless night of the German twin summarize the book quite well : "Als wij tweeën niet over al die barrières heen kunnen stappen, hoe moeten anderen dat dan doen?" (If the two of us cannot overcome these barriers, how should anyone else be able to do so?) I cried like hell at the end of the book. It was a difficult read in general. But worth doing it. I really do recommend the book. Ok, back to the Super Challenge! Everyone, have a good start! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Suzie Diglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4232 days ago 155 posts - 226 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Dutch | Message 88 of 116 01 May 2014 at 11:14am | IP Logged | ||
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Super Challenge
Books read in French Harry Potter à l'école des sorciers (J. K. Rowling) (298 p.) Doctor Who: Apollo 23 (J. Richards) (277 p.) Ronya, fille de brigand (A. Lindgren) (280 p.) Poirot joue le jeu (A. Christie) (232 p.) Charmed: Le secret des druides (Eloise Flood) (151 p.) L'Indice de la peur (R. Harris) (368 pages) Flubber (C.E. Dubowski) (121 pages) Meurtre au champagne (A. Christie) (307 p.) Mephisto Club (T. Gerritsen) (480 p.) Charmed: la statuette maléfique (D.G. Gallagher) (150 p.) Cauchemar génétique (Preston & Child) (660 p.) La première colonie (G. Dupuis) (17 p.) Histoire d'Alice qui ne pensait jamais à rien (et de tous ses maris, plus un) (F. Dannemark) (112 p.) Videos watched in French Bones, Saison 2, épisodes 5-21, et saison 3 Eureka, saisons 4 et 5 Glee, Saison 1, épisodes 1-17 Gilmore Girls, quelques épisodes Monk, quelques épisodes Grey's Anatomy, 1aison 6 Doctor Who, Saison 8 The Big Bang Theory, quelques épisodes How I met your mother, quelques épisodes Friends, quelques épisodes NCIS, quelques épisodes Supernatural, saison 1 Die Hard V: Belle journée pour mourir Le seigneur des anneaux: La trilogie Evolution Sabrina Indiana Jones et le temple maudit Audiobooks in French Le petit Nicolas (R. Goscinny) Le Da Vinci Code (D. Brown) Edited by Suzie on 08 May 2015 at 6:59am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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