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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
 songlines Pro Member Canada flickr.com/photos/cp Joined 5207 days ago 729 posts - 1056 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 57 of 243 04 January 2012 at 8:09am | IP Logged | |||||
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For those (one and a half?) forum members arriving at this thread with the commencement of TAC 2012:
Welcome! A few quick pointers: -In all cases of internal links, please copy and past the URL, removing any extra spaces inserted by the forum anti-spam software. Due to a computer glitch, my internal Htlal links don't work properly. - My background; and summary of the French course material I own: In the first post of this thread. - Long list of (mainly) news and audio/video resources (some transcripted) in this post: http://how-to-learn- any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=24268&PN=1&TPN=3# 329617 . (Message 22, page 3 of this thread. ) - Other transcripted resources linked on page 4, Message 26; page 6, Message 41. The past year started off decently enough for a couple of weeks, then ran off the rails with a looong hiatus till July. My sadly all-too-modest achievements for 2011: - Took part in two 6-Week Challenges, with French in July; Mandarin in November. - Took part in the Tadoku Reading Challenge in October, with 776 pages read. - Finished the first half (that is, the passive wave) of Assimil. - Watched/listened to, off and on, a variety of news sources, as re. the list mentioned above. Temporarily hampered somewhat by the loss of my mainstay (CBC, Radio-Canada) when all the TV stations here went to digital-only signals. (Problem now solved, $400 later, by upgrading my antenna etc.) -Watched a number of films in French, using closed captions (ie French captions) where possible. -Best of all, I started reading fiction in French, mostly of material for which I had an English original/translation, or which I had previously read: Tintin (various); the first three Harry Potters; Philip Pullman's "The Golden Compass/Les Royaumes du Nord" (still part-way through this); some Conan Doyle; Dick King Smith's "Babe"; Guillaume Musso's "Parce que je t'aime" and Yann Martel's "Mais que lit Stephen Harper?" (still part-way through this too). I'd be thrilled if I could continue at my pace of October-November 2011. But, at minimum, 30-60 minutes each day, sustained over the course of 2012, would be at least something to aim for. As I previously quoted (from AJATT on this thread http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?T ID=17888&PN=1&TPN=3#330674 ,
For 2012: - Continue with all the 6WC and Tadoku Challenges - they were hugely motivating! - Finish both of the Assimils, complemented by other courses (FIA, Living Language) from time to time. - My biggest challenge: working on grammar in an organized fashion. - I'm most looking forward to: reading more fiction! I've now signed up for the January Tadoku Challenge, so plan to be focussing very much on reading this month. And am looking forward to reading my fellow "Romantics" team members' logs; in addition to a growing number of logs I'm "watching". - They're inspiring and interesting reading, whether or not the languages are on my "hit list". Edited by songlines on 05 January 2012 at 7:00am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| songlines Pro Member Canada flickr.com/photos/cp Joined 5207 days ago 729 posts - 1056 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 58 of 243 07 January 2012 at 7:18am | IP Logged | |||||
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Translations, bilingual texts .
Here's an interesting article, by translator Céline Graciet, on her blog Naked Translations, comparing two translations of Barack Obama's inaugural speech. She quotes and analyses two short sections from Libération and Le Monde respectively, and also offers her own translation of the passage. The full texts are: (Please copy and paste, removing extra spaces inserted by the forum bot: only one link seems to work; the others break.) Libération: http://www.liberation.fr/monde/0101313402-point-par-point-le -discours-d-investiture-de- barack-obama-nouveau-president-des-etats-unis .Translation by the AFP, Agence France-Presse. Le Monde, reposted at re-so.net (the original text at Le Monde is behind a paywall). Translation by Ariane Corbin-Favier. The original transcript of the speech at the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/20/us/politics/20text-obama.h tml - Am reading my way through all three versions. Quite interesting. I'm always on the lookout for bilingual texts, and Re-so.net, the source for the Le Monde text, had links to another Obama speech, as well as an to essay by Aung San Suu Kyi. Both of these should be also readily available in English. It occurs to me that one could also use this as a strategy for finding more texts: see what online translations there are of great speeches (political or otherwise). Additionally, Naked Translation itself seems to have quite a few articles available in both languages. You do have to click on the little "flag" icons to get them, though; the "Perfect English" and "Perfect French" links along the site's banner (at the top) don't work. Edited by songlines on 10 January 2012 at 6:31am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| songlines Pro Member Canada flickr.com/photos/cp Joined 5207 days ago 729 posts - 1056 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 59 of 243 07 January 2012 at 7:36am | IP Logged | |||||
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Re. my TadokuBot Challenge Twitter feed: I'm having trouble with the Bot; it seems to have stopped updating my
page count. I've tried a couple of strategies suggested by "Lord Silent", but so far none have worked. Will keep track manually, and try tweeting again once the problem is (one hopes!) resolved. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| songlines Pro Member Canada flickr.com/photos/cp Joined 5207 days ago 729 posts - 1056 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 60 of 243 10 January 2012 at 5:42am | IP Logged | |||||
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What a difference captioning makes! As mentioned back in August (page 3 of this thread), I'd watched - and
enjoyed - Arnaud Desplechin's A Christmas Tale/Un conte de Noël, in a Criterion edition. It recently turned up, in a regular, non-Criterion edition, at my local second-hand/remainders bookstore. For $7, I was happy to buy it without the Criterion "extras" which I'd already seen in the library copy. But, as is my wont, I checked for captioning and subtitling, and it had both: French closed captions, and English subtitles. Playing it with the captions, I was amazed at all the multitude of little details and vocab of which I'd hitherto been unaware, or had glossed over. And having both the captions and subtitles on simultaneously was like having access to a super-turbo-charged parallel text. - Vraiment formidable! Edited by songlines on 11 January 2012 at 5:58am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| songlines Pro Member Canada flickr.com/photos/cp Joined 5207 days ago 729 posts - 1056 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 61 of 243 10 January 2012 at 6:18am | IP Logged | |||||
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And for a post-week summary:
- Managed to get my TadokuBot problem sorted out. Am currently at 68th place (out of 92 active participants), with 39.5 pages read so far. The leading French learner has 313 pages to her credit, so I've some work ahead of me. - Watched the Desplechin film, as mentioned above. (Didn't count the captions for the Tadoku Challenge.) - Read bits and pieces of news, as well as doing L-R (French/French) with the Service Protestant , also described earlier on page 6 of this log. It must take the station some time to get the transcripts done and posted on the site: when I first saw it, the most recent service, "L’agriculteur maladroit: la parabole du semeur" had no transcript, and I was worried that they might have discontinued the transcriptions. (I used earlier sermons instead.) But I'm relieved to see my fears were for naught. - A few years ago, my niece gave me a copy of Le Petit Nicolas, but my French wasn't then strong enough to tackle it. Having now finished over a thousand pages of Harry Potter, I retrieved petit Nicolas from the bookcase where he'd been biding his time. Well worth the wait; so charming and droll. - And not a broomstick in sight! - Flashcards: perhaps, umm, 2 hours' worth? Approx. 20 minutes each day during my commute or lunch breadk. - And a return to the Assimil fold. Did a quick ("passive") refresher of the first 49 lessons. Am now starting - gulp - the "active" wave, which I've been putting off for a bit. Procrastination, get thee behind me! Edited by songlines on 10 January 2012 at 6:30am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| songlines Pro Member Canada flickr.com/photos/cp Joined 5207 days ago 729 posts - 1056 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 62 of 243 16 January 2012 at 8:39pm | IP Logged | |||||
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New and interesting vocab and phrases, mostly from (the book by) Yann Martel
Mais que lit Stephen Harper? -la flétrissure: entropy -terre à terre: down to earth -en grandissant: growing up (a fairly simple phrase, which I realized, upon reading, that I hadn't known) -le casier postal: post office box (that is, one which you rent, and from which you pick up your post) -le judas: peephole (puzzling over the possible etymology of this word.) -l'angoisse existentielle: angst -mesquin/e (adj): mean minded, petty minded, stingy -une capsule-témoin: a time capsule -un simple rouage de la machine: a simple cog in the machine -cauchemardesque: nightmarish, but see next entry -Kafkaïenne: Kafkaesque. Why is this word "-ïenne", and not "-esque?" -Fifi Brindacier(??): Pippi Longstocking (!) -l'apanage: the prerogative, the privilege (masc noun) -un tirage d'essai: the dictionary says "proof", but in context it seems to also mean "advance reading/proof copy" -faire les manchettes: to make the headlines -l'amoncellement: clutter, pile-up, piling up (masc noun) -dilapidateur/dilapidatrice: spendthrift -inépuisable: endless -le chapeau melon: bowler hat (very logical, this one) -le seuil: doorway, threshold, sill (ah, of course, a sill!) -"La vie est une pièce qui n'a pas de sens, alors qu'une pièce est une vie qui en a un": Life is a play that doesn't make sense, while a play is life that does. -"Que chacun, que chacune suive son propre chemin": to each his or her own path. Updated to add: Both quotes above from Martel, print edition of his book, but also readable online on his website. (But I'm assuming the second is, as in English, a phrase in common use.) As mentioned earlier in a previous post, there are both English and French versions of both the book and the website. For the latter, click on the link on the upper right (of his website) to read it in Canada's other official language. Also corrected mistakes in the French. (Thanks, Patriciaa!) Quick summary for the week: Flashcards: approx 60 minutes only. Reading: 56 pages, Yann Martel as mentioned above. Page count adjusted to exclude half-empty pages. News: 40 minutes only. Tadoku bot ranking: currently at 60, with 95.5 pages. Edited by songlines on 17 January 2012 at 6:40am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Tournesol Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 5359 days ago 119 posts - 132 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchC1 Studies: German | Message 63 of 243 16 January 2012 at 9:55pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Hi Songlines,
Je ne connaissais pas l'expression "faire la manchette"/"faire les manchettes". Voici l'étymologie. Bonne Continuation! Tournesol 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| songlines Pro Member Canada flickr.com/photos/cp Joined 5207 days ago 729 posts - 1056 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 64 of 243 16 January 2012 at 11:15pm | IP Logged | |||||
Merci, Tournesol! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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