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Advanced ESL Team Thread - TAC ’14 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Emme Triglot Senior Member Italy Joined 5348 days ago 980 posts - 1594 votes  Speaks: Italian*, English, German Studies: Russian, Swedish, French | Message 25 of 45 08 January 2014 at 8:36pm | IP Logged | |||||
Well, that’s the same everywhere! But as emk always says, from a certain level upward you no longer take as a model the person on the street, but you aim to hold your own when talking to an ‘educated’ native speaker. The titles you mentioned are excellent, if on the “popular” side (i.e. anyone with a little interest in British or American literature will have already read them. At least I have as I suppose most of us.) Maybe we should look for something slightly off the beaten path: still relevant, but that we may have overlooked until now. I will track down the Fitzgerald short story, as I knew of it but I haven’t yet found the time to read it and your reminder comes just at the right moment. And you’re absolutely right when you say that cultural references are more likely to come from TV and movies than from literature nowadays. But a little variety in the media we spend our time with (TV, films, novels, non-fiction, pop-music etc.) certainly can’t hurt, don’t you think? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Zireael Triglot Senior Member Poland Joined 4652 days ago 518 posts - 636 votes Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, Spanish Studies: German, Sign Language, Tok Pisin, Arabic (Yemeni), Old English | Message 26 of 45 08 January 2014 at 9:08pm | IP Logged | |||||
Looks like my interest is piqued. Judging by what druckfehler and you wrote, it shouldn't be that hard for me either. Any way to find out if there's any accomodations for the disabled? I'm profoundly hearing-impaired, so taking a normal listening test is out of the question... 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| milesaway Triglot Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 4332 days ago 134 posts - 181 votes Speaks: French, English*, Russian Studies: Finnish, Sign Language | Message 27 of 45 09 January 2014 at 9:26am | IP Logged | |||||
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circumstances/">IELTS does allow for special circumstances. You can use a headset,
FM system or lip-read if that's easier. There are some other options too. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4666 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese | Message 28 of 45 09 January 2014 at 12:15pm | IP Logged | |||||
I read and enjoyed "Cakes and Ale" by Somerset Maugham. "Fountainhead" by Ayn Rand was quite interesting too. Ian McEwen's "The Cement Garden" is one my daughter enjoyed at school. "Captain Corelli's Mandolin" and "The Picture of Dorian Gray" are books that I remember enjoying at the time (and which I would re-read if I could find the time :-)). A selection from by Orwell, Hemmingway, Wodehouse and Conrad are probably worth looking at. Dickens probably doesn't fall in the remit (not being contemporary) but should be in your arsenal somewhere.
I was just following instructions and suggesting where to look for cultural references. I for one don't watch enough TV or films to keep up with the latest trends and I fill the void with reading (albeit not so much in English these days). As long as you know that that's not necessarily typical of the people you're likely to meet in the street or a pub. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Zireael Triglot Senior Member Poland Joined 4652 days ago 518 posts - 636 votes Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, Spanish Studies: German, Sign Language, Tok Pisin, Arabic (Yemeni), Old English | Message 29 of 45 09 January 2014 at 1:56pm | IP Logged | |||||
Great - seriously considering taking IELTS when the MA is out of the way - it's taking up a lot of my time and I'm splitting the free time between relaxing and learning Arabic and keeping my German floating... Carry on folks, nothing to see here! :D 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Emme Triglot Senior Member Italy Joined 5348 days ago 980 posts - 1594 votes Speaks: Italian*, English, German Studies: Russian, Swedish, French | Message 30 of 45 09 January 2014 at 4:28pm | IP Logged | |||||
Thank you! Keep the suggestions coming! They are all great, but apart from the Ayn Rand, I’ve already read all the others. Am I that well-read?!? Sure, majoring in English literature probably made me particularly attentive to the kind of novels I felt I should know. I went to an “istituto tecnico” (technical high school after which you can enter either University or the job market) rather than a “liceo” (secondary school preparatory to University) and so I always felt an inferiority complex towards people who reached University better prepared to higher studies. So I started to read wildly and widely to make up for lost time … and then I kept on reading even after the gap had probably been closed. But I’m happy if I can find a few like-minded literature buffs to share our reading experiences. I come from a year (2013) when for various reasons I read very few English novels* and that’s why I intend to put an extra effort into reading during TAC’14. *when I write 'English novels', I usually mean novels written in English. British, American, Canadian, Australian, Indian etc. authors are all fair game. Edited by Emme on 09 January 2014 at 4:29pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| espejismo Diglot Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5052 days ago 498 posts - 905 votes Speaks: Russian*, English Studies: Spanish, Greek, Azerbaijani | Message 31 of 45 09 January 2014 at 5:36pm | IP Logged | |||||
Conrad can indeed be challenging. It reminds of this ridiculous old thread on Antimoon, a now defunct forum: "It was the stillness of an implacable force brooding over an inscrutable intention" (The thread contains expletives!) What about Nabokov? David Foster Wallace? edit: Truman Capote. All his novels and short stories. He's my new favorite author. You can also try J. M. Coetzee, if you're into Dostoyevsky-influenced type of authors. - a fellow English major Edited by espejismo on 09 January 2014 at 5:54pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| dampingwire Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4666 days ago 1185 posts - 1513 votes Speaks: English*, Italian*, French Studies: Japanese | Message 32 of 45 09 January 2014 at 7:34pm | IP Logged | |||||
I read my first few Conrad stories without realising that his native language was Polish and he was writing in (I think) his 3rd language. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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