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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 |  | |
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4901 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 305 of 331 06 November 2014 at 10:24am | IP Logged | ||
I searched Amazon for this series, and found that it is also a series of novels. There are at least 22 volumes, so I imagine they would be classified as "pulp"... possibly not great literature, but good reading for a French learner who enjoys policiers and wine. There's also a BD of the same name as the first novel in the series. It just came out in October so it might be the first of many. I have to say I agree that the second series of Un village français was disappointing by comparison to the first, nevertheless I found it worth watching. The third and fourth series begins to get more depressing as events (particularly with reference to Jews) march towards their inevitable conclusion. I'm somewhere near the beginning of season 4. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4881 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 306 of 331 06 November 2014 at 8:14pm | IP Logged | ||
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I still like Un village français, but it moved from a series that I wanted to binge
watch to one where I'd watch when I have the time. And I know how dark the history gets, so there is that additional tension ... 1941 is the calm before the storm, though the characters don't know it yet. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4881 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 307 of 331 23 November 2014 at 8:43am | IP Logged | ||
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Benchmarks:
Chapter 7 of Il gattopardo: 18 pages Kindle says: 8 minutes in chapter In reality: it took me 34 minutes. And: this was fast for me. I'd already done an hour of regular studying, so was in the zone. Regular pace is slower. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4881 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 308 of 331 15 January 2015 at 4:16am | IP Logged | ||
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Two month recap
Oh my poor log. I've been backing off on the intensity of my studying, though I've still been active. I'm viewing this as a period of consolidation rather than actively trying to reach new levels. Français I've been watching La sang de la vigne, and watching a few random movies. For books, I've finally started reading Le petit Nicolas. It's fun, and reminds me a lot of Calvin & Hobbes. It's also nice to do some nice, light French reading rather than the harder classics that I usually choose. I still listen to at least one episode from the Au coeur de l'histoire podcast, and also added two science podcasts to my rotation: Les Années lumière and Terre a terre. And I am somewhat amazed that I can actually follow along. It took me a long time to reach this point! I've also started re-listening to Pimsleur Level IV. I finished it about a year ago, but it's a nice refresher. Some of the lower level Pimseleur courses bored me to tears; the Level IV has more natural sounding conversations, and so I don't mind redoing it. Italiano I've had a harder time than I thought reaching a comfortable reading level, so I went back to my Assimil. I only do a few lessons a week, and should finish the active wave soon. I went back to my novel, Il Giardino dei Finzi-Contini, this week, and I've noticed a huge improvement in my comprehension. Assimil really works! I had done half of Pimsleur III back in March. I restarted the course, and just finished it last week. It's been really refreshing only working on two languages at a time. I was up to five at a time this summer, and while fun, I think I ended up stalling or losing ground in most of them. And while I tell myself I should stick with two for awhile ... Español I'm joining friends on a cruise to the Caribbean next month, and a lot of the guys in our group are Latino. We're also stopping for all of six hours at San Juan. So I figured, why not see if I can reactivate my Spanish this month? I haven't worked on Spanish at all since 2013; I didn't want it to interfere with my Italian. I restarted last week with Pimsleur IV, which I haven't touched since June 2013. And it's been coming back to me nicely. I also have Assimil's Perfectionnement Espagnol, which I never even started. I want to try a few chapters. If I like it, I'll consider using the second level for Italian also. ____________________________________________________ I haven't noticed much interference yet between Italian and Spanish. I think I've learned enough of both that they feel like very different languages. I can't switch between them in any way shape or form, but it's nice I can both two at the same time. Türkçe ελληνικά العربية On hold. I miss them all, but I don't have the time to study them actively, and I wasn't making much progress trying to study any of them passively. I'll reactivate Turkish or Arabic if I have a chance to voyage to the Middle East or North Africa, and Greek if I discover a wormhole back in time. ____________________________________________________ Plans January: Keep reading in Italian and listening to podcasts in French; actively study Spanish using Pimsleur and Assimil. February: Caribbean cruise. We'll see if I actually get to use any Spanish or French. I hope so. March-August: Intensive Italian, semi-intensive French, possibly passive Spanish September: Ancora Italia! - One week each in Napoli, Venezia, and Firenze. October-December: Finish Italian and French Super Challenge. Bring back Spanish. January-April 2016: Intensive Spanish and French. May-July 2016: El Camino de Santiago This is the big one! I haven't posted about this yet, but it's been on my mind a lot and my boss has finally given me the go-ahead to take three months leave from work to do the walk. I want to take 80 days and do the full route from Le Puy in France to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. This will give me a lot of motivation to keep my Romance languages alive! I had thought about taking six months off and doing a Silk Road adventure on top of that ... but maybe one epic adventure at a time is enough. ____________________________________________________ I missed that there was a Romance TAC Team this year. Time to go check them out. 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 309 of 331 15 January 2015 at 5:35am | IP Logged | ||
I know someone who did this (or part of it at least) for the past few summers. I think he has a bunch of videos. It looks great because there's this whole sense of community among everyone doing it and all the hosts taking walkers in - which will be great for meeting people and should inspire some deep, quality conversations. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4881 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 310 of 331 16 January 2015 at 9:17pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm excited for the chance to be totally immersed in a multilingual environment for
the summer. It gives me some added motivation to reach a nice level in my languages! Friday Update Français Le petit Nicolas is getting into all kinds of trouble. I can't believe I let this sit on my shelf for a year. I was missing out. In Terre à terre (France culture) I met Rossano Baldaccini, champignonniste à Forcalquier, in one episode, and Philippe Danton, botaniste sur l'île de Robinson Crusoé, in another. This is a surprisingly interesting science podcast. I can't imagine an American radio show spending an hour talking to a mushroom farmer. Or if they did, they would turn it into a Ted X talk full of Deep and Meaningful insights. It's refreshing to hear France culture's straightforward approach. I like how they let the people speak in their own voice. I've also just started to be able to hear different French regional accents. I don't necessarily recognize them, but I can tell country from city, and Quebec from France. This is a first! In Pimsleur IV (lessons 6-10, review), I fell in love, moved to California, got married, had a kid, got divorced, and moved back to France. Italiano I'm halfway through Il giardino dei Finzi-Contini. I'm semi-cheating: I'll read about fifty pages quickly in English, and then spend the next week reading slowly in Italian. It really helps for me to know the general plot when I tackle the Italian. It's a good story - I'd recommend this to other Italian students. At this point the fascists have passed the racial laws, and a group of students have found a refuge in the home of the aristocratic Finzi-Continis. There are some political discussions, but the core of the story so far is about the student Giorgio's unrequited love for the flirtatious Micòl. Español In Pimsleur IV (lessons 1-5, review) I discussed literature and my job. Some days I'm an engineer, some days a computer programmer. This is my first taste of Spanish in a year, and I'm pleased that it's coming back relatively easily. I still need assistance, but once I hear a phrase I can recall it afterwards. Edited by kanewai on 16 January 2015 at 9:17pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4901 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 311 of 331 18 January 2015 at 1:44pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm glad you've finally joined the cult of Petit Nicolas. It's a good reminder that reading should be fun!
And Pimsleur IV sounds really eventful. Who kept the kid? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4881 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 312 of 331 24 January 2015 at 2:55am | IP Logged | ||
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I was at a party two weeks ago and a guy came up and introduced himself in Spanish. I
don't know why. And I stumbled through a response, all the while thinking: But Spanish isn't my target language this month. Last weekend it happened again. A friend asked who spoke Spanish in the room. Yo, I lied. Por supuesto, lo hablo. Of course you do, she said, with all your travels. And she started to speak to me in Spanish, and I couldn't understand a word. Friday Update Français Le petit Nicolas is still getting into trouble. Otherwise, I'm trying to listen to a couple podcasts each week. My comprehension is improving each month, and it's nice to be able actually feel my progress. I'll have to remember this feeling the next time I hit a plateau. Italiano I'm so close to finishing Il giardino dei Finzi-Contini! Like other books, I was able to read a lot more smoothly after the first 150 pages. I've noticed that once I get a sense of how an author writes I am able to read without consulting an English dictionary, or even using the pop-up dictionary as much. I'm going to take a big leap with my next book: Il nomme della rosa. I had a bunch of easier books marked ... but this is the one I want to read, and I don't want to wait until my language is stronger. I figure: it's better to do something hard but interesting than easy but boring. I've also discovered Il cinema alla radio on RaiRadio3. It's basically listening to the movies over the radio - a mix of narration and actual clips from the movies. It's fun for movies that I've already seen - I can follow along somewhat, and don't get totally lost. I'll post the link on the Facebook page. Español Pimsleur IV (lessons 6-11, review) Still going good, though I'm starting to confuse the Italian and Spanish words more. Assimil Perfectionnment Espagnol - I did two chapters to see how it was using an advanced course with a French base. The first chapter was rough - there were too many idioms. The second went better, and I actually enjoyed trying to translate the exercises French > Spanish. I won't make a full push with this course until the fall, but I wanted to get a feel for it. If I end up loving it I'll order the Perfectionnement Italien also. It's too soon to tell, though. I played around with DuoLingo a bit one night. And as much as I like the concept behind the course, I'm beginning to realize that I just don't like the course itself. I was impatient to finish the section, and irritated by the stupid sentences. I've ended up deleting the app from my phone. I also started on Gran Hotel. It's a good show so far. I know a bunch of people on here are watching it, and I wanted to join in the fun! ----------------------------- My biggest challenge now is figuring out how to balance Italian and Spanish. I feel like I'm on the verge of leveling up in Italian, and am still just parroting Spanish and trying to recall what I've learned before ... but I want to be prepared if I get the chance to speak next week. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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