Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5010 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian
| Message 2393 of 3737 14 June 2012 at 1:52pm | IP Logged |
drfeelgood17 wrote:
And nothing beats a good grammar book for bedtime reading. |
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A nice novel in one of my target languages does.
And sometimes it's like a book and crosswords puzzle in one volume :-)
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tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4708 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish
| Message 2394 of 3737 14 June 2012 at 3:32pm | IP Logged |
Quote:
..when you answer to a question like: Which ones of your possessions would you
take with you if a natural disaster (an earthquake for instance) strikes?
Answer: My language manuals! The grammars!! Duh |
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This reminds me of a play by Amélie Nothomb I finished a few days ago. The play
effectively asks the question whether, during a war where you're freezing cold and have
no heating resources bar a library, whether you would burn the books to keep warm (and
which ones you'd burn first).
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vermillon Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4679 days ago 602 posts - 1042 votes Speaks: French*, EnglishC2, Mandarin Studies: Japanese, German
| Message 2395 of 3737 14 June 2012 at 4:24pm | IP Logged |
tarvos wrote:
This reminds me of a play by Amélie Nothomb I finished a few days ago. The play
effectively asks the question whether, during a war where you're freezing cold and have
no heating resources bar a library, whether you would burn the books to keep warm (and
which ones you'd burn first). |
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I'd say she's going further by implying that even out of war time these books could be burnt without remorse!
By the way, I really love this author, and considering the shortness of her books, I'm sure they make very pleasant readings for learners of French.
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montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4829 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh
| Message 2396 of 3737 14 June 2012 at 6:40pm | IP Logged |
tarvos wrote:
asks the question whether, during a war where you're freezing cold and
have
no heating resources bar a library, whether you would burn the books to keep warm (and
which ones you'd burn first). |
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:-) I would carefully stack all the books from a complete set of shelves safely out of
the
way somewhere. Then smash the shelves as well as I could to burnable-sized pieces, and
use those :-)
Edited by montmorency on 14 June 2012 at 9:24pm
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Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6704 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map
| Message 2397 of 3737 15 June 2012 at 5:39pm | IP Logged |
tarvos wrote:
This reminds me of a play by Amélie Nothomb I finished a few days ago. The play effectively asks the question whether, during a war where you're freezing cold and have no heating resources bar a library, whether you would burn the books to keep warm (and which ones you'd burn first). |
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I wonder how long burning Amélie Nothomb could keep me warm.
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Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6598 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish
| Message 2398 of 3737 15 June 2012 at 7:49pm | IP Logged |
When you're waiting for your exam and instead of revising you read in Italian.
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emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5533 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map
| Message 2399 of 3737 15 June 2012 at 8:11pm | IP Logged |
When you take a "break" from French the day before the DELF exam, and still wind up
getting in 3 or 4 hours anyway, thanks to MC Solaar in the car, huge stacks of
interesting French books all over the place, a whole bunch of acquaintances that want
to wish you good luck in French, and so on.
Oh, and when you download the 200-character preview of Kanjis dans la tête, the
French version of Hesig, because it's not technically studying French.
And during the "rest" day afterward, you're staring at the sales copy for Assimil :
L'Égyptien hiéroglyphique with your wife, because seriously, it's just too cool.
When you're OK mentioning all this on HTLAL, because nobody around here is going
to stage an intervention.
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Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6704 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map
| Message 2400 of 3737 16 June 2012 at 10:48am | IP Logged |
When you buy a book about Carcassonne pas en français ou espagnol ou anglais, mais en catalan et en russe - et vous déplore vivement qu'il n'existe pas en ancien français et occitan aussi.
EDIT: When you wrote the thing above and didn't even notice that you inadvertently had slid into French. I had to read EMK's post below to notice it.
Edited by Iversen on 18 June 2012 at 5:17am
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