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The drunk snail’s journey (TAC14)

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Cavesa
Triglot
Senior Member
Czech Republic
Joined 5007 days ago

3277 posts - 6779 votes 
Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1
Studies: Spanish, German, Italian

 
 Message 73 of 161
08 June 2014 at 3:06pm | IP Logged 
SECOND SC COUNT OF 2014:

Advanced Super Challenge Residuals (alias better late than never):
French:
-books:81,5/200, which means I've added 1150 pages approximately since the last time.
-movies:148,5/200, added 8
English books: not changed

New Challenges:
German not started yet for me.

Spanish:
books: still nothing
movies: 14,5/100, which is nice.
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patrickwilken
Senior Member
Germany
radiant-flux.net
Joined 4531 days ago

1546 posts - 3200 votes 
Studies: German

 
 Message 74 of 161
08 June 2014 at 3:26pm | IP Logged 
Cavesa wrote:

New Challenges:
German not started yet for me.


Have you thought about what books you'd like to start with?
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Kerrie
Senior Member
United States
justpaste.it/Kerrie2
Joined 5393 days ago

1232 posts - 1740 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish

 
 Message 75 of 161
08 June 2014 at 3:40pm | IP Logged 
Cavesa wrote:
I need to get back to Spnish but there is so little time. Just a short overview of books I have still to finish to add them to the ASCS count so that I can dive into new books (especially Spanish ones): The Dragon Reborn by Jordan, The Fellowship of the Ring, Les Royaumes du Nord by Pullman, part 1 of La Malerune by Grimbert, Silverthorn by Feist.


One of my goals with the SC this time around is to be able to go back to Jordan's series. It's one of my favorite series, and I want to go back and finish it now (that I won't have to wait years for each installment!) I just love the world that he creates. I'm not usually one for fantasy, but I'll make an exception for his series. :)

I started reading it long ago (before my kids arrived, eleven years ago), and I want to re-read them from the beginning. I think I read the first five or six of them, but it's been a long time. I picked up the first one in 2012 (the first SC) and it was soooo way over my head in Spanish that I just put it away for later. I may come back to them in the next few months, though. I think it is more in the "quite a challenge, but doable" range for me now.
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Cavesa
Triglot
Senior Member
Czech Republic
Joined 5007 days ago

3277 posts - 6779 votes 
Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1
Studies: Spanish, German, Italian

 
 Message 76 of 161
08 June 2014 at 4:35pm | IP Logged 
I've got some German books lying patiently in my bookshelves. However, those are likely to be too hard. I don't get the large advantage of knowing a related language this time, English is a much smaller headstart for German than French for Spanish. I think I'll get a translation of something not too hard. Perhaps Harry Potter or Eragon (I've seen it in a bookshop and I have never finished the series before). Or I have good experience with Charlaine Harris. The True Blood series I've been reading in French is great and she wrote others as well. Or I might even read the Vampire Diaries (just for learning German purposes of course ;-) ). But not Twilight, I have to keep to SOME standards. :-D

Kerrie, I've already noticed you were another WoT fan! It's worth finishing, now that the series is whole. Sanderson did a good job replacing Jordan, even though some things could have been done better, in my opinion (there are clearly a few pieces missing in the last book). Have fun. And don't forget to start with book 0, the New Spring. It is really great and gives book 1 a totally new dimension, in my opinion.
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Kerrie
Senior Member
United States
justpaste.it/Kerrie2
Joined 5393 days ago

1232 posts - 1740 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish

 
 Message 77 of 161
08 June 2014 at 5:09pm | IP Logged 
Hrm, I had not even thought about that, starting with the New Spring. I will have to find a copy of it.

I'm probably a couple weeks away from finishing the Historian (700 pages, in the middle of getting ready to move a 4-bedroom house full of stuff).. but once we are done moving, I think I will start on Jordan again. :D
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patrickwilken
Senior Member
Germany
radiant-flux.net
Joined 4531 days ago

1546 posts - 3200 votes 
Studies: German

 
 Message 78 of 161
08 June 2014 at 5:16pm | IP Logged 
Cavesa wrote:
I've got some German books lying patiently in my bookshelves. However, those are likely to be too hard. I don't get the large advantage of knowing a related language this time, English is a much smaller headstart for German than French for Spanish. I think I'll get a translation of something not too hard. Perhaps Harry Potter or Eragon (I've seen it in a bookshop and I have never finished the series before). Or I have good experience with Charlaine Harris. The True Blood series I've been reading in French is great and she wrote others as well. Or I might even read the Vampire Diaries (just for learning German purposes of course ;-) ). But not Twilight, I have to keep to SOME standards. :-D


If you want something very easy to start with I would recommend the Percy Jackson series, that is a bit easier than HP. I read the first three books in the True Blood series and found them quite difficult (much harder than HP) probably there were a lot of words about dating and stuff. :p

You might want to check out the Game of Thrones series. I had already read them in English when I started German, but I did have a look at them and they seemed actually pretty straightforward. Perhaps around a latter HP book. You could presumably more than finish the SC just doing Game of Thrones come to think of it.

The Anne Rice vampire books are very accessible too. Lestat remains my favorite vampire.

I am going to check out the last season of Vampire Diaries in German sometime soon. It's a bit silly, but sometimes the stories really are very good. I enjoyed watching all the True Blood series in German, though the series really has gone off the rails a bit since they abandoned the Harris books. I don't hold out much hope for the last season.

I recently saw the really excellent Swedish film Let the Right One In (2008) dubbed German.

I would never read Twilight. Vampires that sparkle in sunlight aren't to my taste. :)

Edited by patrickwilken on 08 June 2014 at 5:59pm

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Gemuse
Senior Member
Germany
Joined 4080 days ago

818 posts - 1189 votes 
Speaks: English
Studies: German

 
 Message 79 of 161
09 June 2014 at 4:16am | IP Logged 
Angelus. Now THAT was a vampire.
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Cavesa
Triglot
Senior Member
Czech Republic
Joined 5007 days ago

3277 posts - 6779 votes 
Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1
Studies: Spanish, German, Italian

 
 Message 80 of 161
09 June 2014 at 2:01pm | IP Logged 
I accidentally saw first Twilight movie with my exboyfriend years ago. We had no clue what it was, we just wanted to go to the cinema and they said "romance/horror". He was the only male there and the girls were horrified we were laughing at the "wrong" times :-D Really, not my cup of tea.

I found The Song of Ice and Fire to be among the more difficult books in English. It isn't that straightforward, the style is more like Tolkien than the easier authors. Martin works perfectly with individual language of the characters. And I don't have lots of the vocabulary in other languages than English (not even Czech sometimes :-D ). I find it curious you are under a totally opposite impression. And I found True Blood to be quite easy. There is not that much "dating" vocabulary, or does even something like that exist? :-D Lots of everyday words (yes, that is different from most books) and so on.

Well, as far as favourite vampire themed works go, I loved the original Dracula by Bram Stoker. It is an epistolar/diary novel and the base of all the vampires in popular culture. No sparkling ;-) (and no happy ending). And Dracula in the Van Helsing movie. And in the Underworld and Blade series :-) And interesting use of Vampires is in King's book series The Dark Tower. (and his other books, like Salem's Lot). And BD: Le Prince de la Nuit follows the classical approach really well.

Percy Jackson. I've seen the series in a bookshop but it looked like one of the mediocre, template following works as thousands of others lately published. Is the story good? Is it somehow original? Is it fun?


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