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Sg1 - Triomphe/Lobo/Forza TAC ’14

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emk
Diglot
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United States
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2615 posts - 8806 votes 
Speaks: English*, FrenchB2
Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian
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 Message 17 of 28
04 January 2014 at 10:23pm | IP Logged 
sillygoose1 wrote:
A little more than halfway through Extension du domaine de la lutte. The more formal vocab in this book is awesome. I feel so pretentious making up sentences in my head using these words/phrases.

I read about half of that and I need to finish it. It's such a charmingly bitter book, if that makes any sense. :-)

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sillygoose1
Tetraglot
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 Message 18 of 28
04 January 2014 at 10:27pm | IP Logged 
Haha I know exactly what you mean. Have you read Les particules elementaires? So much more bitter/depressing. Quite the ride though.
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sillygoose1
Tetraglot
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United States
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566 posts - 814 votes 
Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French
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 Message 20 of 28
12 January 2014 at 11:08pm | IP Logged 
French:

Finished Extension, watched Paris a tout prix & Mince alors, started reading Le sermon sur la chute de Rome.

Extension was good and I learned some neat vocab. It does get to be a sort of hard read at some points, but the rest is fine.

Paris a tout prix was ok, but if my native language were French, I'd never bother watching it. My comprehension was good for the most part. there were a few sentences that I didn't catch, but nothing that impeded me from understanding. There was, however, one plot point that went over my head.

Mince alors was bleh. I noticed my comprehension was better than when I watched Paris a tout prix.

Le sermon is pretty good so far, but I need to read more of it to get a better idea. Romance language sentences are insane. Some of these pages it seems were composed of 1-2 sentences.

I think I'm going to finish the rest of Antigone 34 this week.


Spanish:

Started reading Marina by Zafon, my favorite Spanish author. I also have some Cortazar & Marquez on deck.

For those who have read Shadow of the wind or The angel's game, Marina has the same setting in Barcelona with the same descriptors. If Shadow of the wind was an adult book, Marina is a 17 year old, if that makes sense. This is just from the first two chapters however. I hear it gets darker as the story goes on.

Watched 6-7 episodes of La que se avecina. Finally, a Spanish series that I can watch the whole thing in one sitting for multiple episodes without getting bored. This show is hilarious. My comprehension is surprisingly good. I can understand the main plots and most of the side plots fine. I like this show so much that I'm going to start watching other shows to boost my comprehension so I can enjoy La que more. I hope it stays somewhat the same throughout its 7 seasons. Fisica o quimica coming up!


Italian:

Started the 3rd book by Larsson. It's not too bad so far. A lot of transparency. I still need to get around to watching some movies!
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sillygoose1
Tetraglot
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United States
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Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French
Studies: German, Latin

 
 Message 21 of 28
18 January 2014 at 3:28am | IP Logged 
French:

Watched Il reste du jambon, Un prince presque charmant, & Camille redouble.

I was happy with my comprehension in total. I was able to watch comfortably and understand the plot without forcing myself to have to understand. I still get aggravated when I hear some sentences and can't understand them nor pick out some words, then I miss some details pertaining to the plot, but whatever. It'll pass.

I haven't been reading at all since school started and because I really have no problems reading, I guess I've subconsciously put reading aside. Every time I go to read telling myself that I have to in order to get more vocab, I always have to remind myself that if illiterates can speak a language, then I should probably be focusing more on listening/speaking since I can already read well.

I'll try to get through Le sermon sur la chute de rome before the semester ends.


Spanish:

Almost done the first season of Fisica o quimica. Comprehension has been becoming better with each episode (I watched 1-2/day). I actually haven't watched it the past few days in favor of working on French, but I'd like to get back into it soon. A lot of words that I've heard before & forgot came back to me once I heard them again. I still have quite a lot of listening to do in order to get better, so I'll be working on heavy audio input along with French for the duration of this year, accompanied by some light reading. Some sentences go right over my head.

I started Cronica de una muerte anunciada. It's not too bad, just some really obscure words.


Italian:

Nothing



I decided to take a language learning break. I feel a burnout coming on and since school started, I don't want to burn myself out too much. Besides, watching movies/series everyday in a different language gives me headaches & makes me grumpy sometimes. I'll probably be back in a week or two.

Edited by sillygoose1 on 18 January 2014 at 3:29am

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sillygoose1
Tetraglot
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United States
Joined 4637 days ago

566 posts - 814 votes 
Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French
Studies: German, Latin

 
 Message 22 of 28
30 January 2014 at 7:31pm | IP Logged 
Time to get back into the swing.

After two weeks of no language learning, I need to retake this somehow. Here's what I've done today.

French:

Nothing. I'd like to start reading Plateforme by Michel Houellebecq, watch some movies, and get into a tv series.


Spanish:

One episode of La que se avecina. I'm also starting to read Introduccion a la mitologia griega.

Listening comprehension was better than what I remembered. Still some words I didn't understand + the bad sound due to the streaming didn't help much. The plot & subplots were understood pretty well, compared to a month ago, with a little room for improvement.

When I tried to read Rayuela, besides the book not catching my interest at all, there were some words that I remember having learned before but forgot. Not sure if this was due to the break or not, but this is a sign that I need to find more stuff to read.


Italian:

Nothing. I'm thinking about making the month of February my Italian month where I read & watch movies mainly in Italian with some side reading/tv watching in French & Spanish to keep my skills up. I really need to get my Italian to a B2 level soon.
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sillygoose1
Tetraglot
Senior Member
United States
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566 posts - 814 votes 
Speaks: English*, Italian, Spanish, French
Studies: German, Latin

 
 Message 23 of 28
08 March 2014 at 5:32am | IP Logged 
Back after about a month or so. Many of you probably have no idea who the hell I am anyway. :P

I've taken the last month working hard on my languages so I haven't really had any desire to post, as that would've taken time away from learning.


French:

I watched a lot of movies since the last update that I don't even remember many of them. Many were comedies, some thrillers. There's not much to say right now except that I'm just keeping a solid pace. I mean, I'm not sure how to actually improve my French anymore that doesn't involve watching movies/series. But so far things are going well. I have about 50-60 movies + 20 or so seasons of TV to get through. I have a week and a half off so I'm looking to profit from it.


Spanish:

According to my last post, I remember exactly where I was with Spanish. I can say happily that I have seen a drastic listening improvement. Due to some casting choices in La que se avecina, I've decided to stop watching it. On the other hand, one of my first Spanish series, Aida, I've decided to take back on. One of the main reasons I stopped watching it was because I got bored not understanding. Now I have fun because I can understand so much more. There are still some gaps in listening, but if my French is anything to go by, watching more will help. I also watched my first movies w/o subs, "Tension sexual no resuelta" & "Amigos". Both were pretty good with some of my favorite Spanish actors from other programs.


Italian:

All of those previous posts where I only did light reading? Done. I jumped into it one day after I felt my Spanish was adequate enough that the rest of my learning could be from just TV stuff so one day I popped open an Italian movie. Then a few more. Then about 10 up to now. I feel really comfortable with basic chats in Italian. I'm a little iffy on the conjugation patterns & colloquial speech still, but it shouldn't take that long to get over just as I did with Spanish. I'm excited to see what the next month brings.


Wanderlust:

German:

Going through Living Language Ultimate. Even though I did Assimil + Perfectionnement + read half of Harry Potter, this language is just ridiculous for me. I really want to know it, but it's so tedious. The grammar isn't a problem for me as much as the vocab.

I found a cheap Assimil Russian in a bookstore surprisingly, so I'm leafing through that. I also downloaded some materials for Hebrew, Arabic, & Korean just to fiddle with. Nothing drastic for now, just a change of pace.
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BAnna
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4623 days ago

409 posts - 616 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Spanish
Studies: Russian, Turkish

 
 Message 24 of 28
09 March 2014 at 1:15am | IP Logged 
Glad to hear you're doing your thing even if it means you aren't posting that often. That's really the point of "How to
learn any language", right?
I'll definitely have to check out some of the resources you've mentioned, though of course the list of interesting
things to watch and read and do and see is already outrageously long...
BTW, Russian is awesome, and of course so is German, and Spanish, and French, and Italian, and, and, and ...how to
find enough time?!?


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