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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4887 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes  Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 505 of 656 14 August 2012 at 12:46am | IP Logged |
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The twitter bot says I'm at 15% ! That's a decent pace - 13.7 books, and 16 films. The
end of August will be four months, or the 20% point. I'm expecting the reading to get easier. Books: Le hussard sur le toit, Jean Giono (1951, 498 p) - Vivid, haunting, and beautiful. The story follows Angelo, an Italian revolutionary forced into exile, who enters France just as a cholera epidemic sweeps through the countryside. There's a movie version starring Juliet Binoche, but I think the movie combines this novel with others involving the same characters. I struggled with the French. The best method I found was to read a couple pages in French as best as I could, then quickly skim the English, then go back and read the French. I probably read a lot of the book 3x! It's a fantastic novel, and well worth it. Blacksad: Quelque part entre les ombres, Juan Díaz Canales and Juanjo Guarnido, (2011, Bandes dessinées). A note-perfect homage to film noir, but it was more style over substance. The style was fantastic, but I was hoping for something deeper or more innovative. Flics: La grande séduction (Jean-François Pouliot, 2003). Québécois comedy, already discussed. Sous les toits de Paris (René Clair, 1930). This was a bridge between the silent films, the 'talkies,' and early musicals. I thought the silent parts worked better; the sound quality was a bit rough for the spoken parts. The story was set in working- class Paris, and involved two best friends and a gangster's girl. It took me awhile to warm up to the story, but by the end I was completely won over. This is one for the romantics out there. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4705 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 506 of 656 15 August 2012 at 7:47pm | IP Logged |
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Атомный Иван, some fail Russian romcom that I watched just to figure out if I could
understand the movie without subtitles. I understand words and parts of speech and the isolated sentence or exclamation, but I can't follow the plotline 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4686 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 507 of 656 16 August 2012 at 5:16am | IP Logged |
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UPDATE - Added French Book Entries 2-4
BOOKS (French) 2-4. Harry Potter à l'école des sorciers FILMS, ETC. (French) 4. ... BOOKS (Dutch) 11. ... FILMS, ETC. (Dutch) 10-14. ... I am not entered in any Super Challenge for German, but I also am still reporting for my log: BOOKS (German) 9. ... FILMS, ETC. (German) 6. ... 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4531 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 508 of 656 16 August 2012 at 10:55am | IP Logged |
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Watching a lot of TV at the moment. As my German gets better I will switch to more classic movies. I have been holding off reading a bit too, but will need to increase this over the coming weeks.
---------------- BOOKS: 0.5. Berlin: Steinerne Stadt (2003). Jason Lutes. 213pp. The first in a trilogy of graphic novels that covers the period of time in Berlin between 1928-1933; this first novel covers the period between Sept. 1928 and ends with a 1 May 1929 massacre. As a long term lover of Berlin (I am in fact writing this on holiday from Berlin) it's very nice to actually be reading about the city in German. The story itself is engaging and covers a lot of different characters/points of view in the city. One difficulty I had initially was that some of the text is written in Berlin-idiom, not High German, which for a beginner was a little confusing until I realized what was going on. This is the first text I have read for the challenge; in fact the first German text I have ever read to completion. As my TL is relatively weak compared with many of the people in the challenge I have been concentrating on watching movies/tv first. While it's a buzz to finish this; I realize reading this how far I am away from any sort of fluency. As I have re-read quite a bit of the book I am going to count this as a full-half book towards the challenge. Only 99.5 to go! MOVIES: 34-39. Breaking Bad - Season 3 - 13 Episodes (2010). 9/10. Strangely I am starting to prefer the voice of Walt in the dubbed version more than the original. 28-33. Breaking Bad - Season 2 - 13 Episodes (2009). 8/10. 27. M (1931). x2. Fritz Lang's classic hunt for a child murderer by both the police and the Berlin criminal underclass (with a criminal leader who dresses like a Nazi). Fascinating early debate about free will and guilt near the end. Found the German difficult here at times, and watched it a second time with subtitles so I could really appreciate this really fine film. Amazing how good the use of sound is here, considering this is the first German talkie. 8/10. 26. Dreiviertelmond (2011). Interesting film about the unexpected relationship between an older taxi driver in Nuremberg, and a young Turkish girl. Parts of the film stretch the imagination as a young child is apparently abandoned/forgetten by authorities after her grandmother suffers a stroke, but overall I enjoyed the performances by the central characters. Directed by Christian Zübert, who's last major film was the 2001 stoner comedy Lammbock. 6/10. 21-25. True Blood - Season 4 - 11 Episodes. Decent dubbing; fun story to watch. 7/10 20. Solino (2002). Turkish/German director Fatih Akin's story of a Italian family that move as guest workers from the small town of Solino to the industrial mining town of Duisberg in 1964, and open the first Italian restaurant in town. There are apparently two versions of this film about: the first, Italian/German, has actors switching between languages where appropriate, the second dubbed entirely in German. I watched the bi-lingual (?) one, which clearly is better, but not very useful for the challenge, as it seemed to be mostly Italian, hence my score remains at 20. It was a good topic, but I found the execution a bit heavy handed. Apparently Duisberg was picked because the film scouts found many parts of the town that had not changed since the 1960s. 6/10. 17-20. South Park - Season 2 - 18 Episodes. I have watched bits of this series before, when it first came out, but this is the first time I have watched many of them. For TV series I am counting 90 minutes as one movie, and rounding down. 6/10 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| sabotai Senior Member United States Joined 5880 days ago 391 posts - 489 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Japanese, Korean, French | Message 509 of 656 17 August 2012 at 12:22am | IP Logged |
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A quick update.
I decided to drop out of the Half Challenge for French, and registered for the Half-Challenge (100 Films) for Mandarin Chinese. My progress thus far... German Films: 43 (I have watched Lola Rennt, Der Untergang and Das Leben Der Anderen ~10 times each. I need some new movies to watch!) Japanese Films: 7 (mostly anime) Korean Films: 1 Chinese Films: 0 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| geoffw Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4686 days ago 1134 posts - 1865 votes Speaks: English*, German, Yiddish Studies: Modern Hebrew, French, Dutch, Italian, Russian | Message 510 of 656 17 August 2012 at 10:43pm | IP Logged |
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UPDATE - Added French "Film" Entries 2-4
I feel like I've had another breakthrough moment here, where I've gone from "can't read French" to "can read French." Before starting the challenge, I recall posting something saying that I wasn't sure about doing it because I really couldn't read a book in French at all, and I didn't expect to get there any time soon. Clearly I have a long way to go, but I simply can't believe that was only a couple months ago! Hooray (again) for the Super Challenge! BOOKS (French) 4. ... FILMS, ETC. (French) 5-9. Le tour du monde en 80 jours (audiobook) BOOKS (Dutch) 11. ... FILMS, ETC. (Dutch) 10-14. ... I am not entered in any Super Challenge for German, but I also am still reporting for my log: BOOKS (German) 9. ... FILMS, ETC. (German) 7-14. Star Trek--Titan: Eine Neue Ära (audiobook) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5332 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 511 of 656 18 August 2012 at 9:24am | IP Logged |
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I have not made an update in a loooong time . Family vacation is busy, and motivation for studies are low.Hoping to get back on track today though, as I saw another American film in Russian.
RUSSIAN UPDATE FILMS 1. Robin Hood (May 1st)(Russian, no subs) 2. The Jungle Book (May 1st)(Russian, no subs) 3. The Jungle Book 3 (May 5th)(Russian, no subs) 4. Love and other impossible pursuits (Russian, no subs)(May 10th) 5. Letters to Juliet (May 10th)(with Russian subtitles). 6. Water for Elephants (May 12th) (Russian, no subs) 7. The Lincoln Advocate (May 13th) Russian - no subs 8. When in Rome (May 17th) (Russian, no subs) 9. Keinohrhasen June 1st (no subs) 10. Dr. Zhivago - ep. 1-2 of the Russian series.(no subs) June 11th 11. Twilight (English subs)(June 22th) 12. New Moon (no subs)(June 23th) 13. Eclipse (no subs)(June 24th) 14. Dr. Zhivago - ep. 3-4 of the Russian series. (June 25th) 15. New Dawn - part 1. (June 26th) I can't wait for the last part - I think it is out in September CONVERSATION 1. Conversation (May 1st) 2. Conversation (May 1st). 3. Conversation (May 24th)Week end plans 4. Conversation (May 24th)Plans birthday 5. Conversation (May 26th) Travel plans 6. Conversation (May 26th) Visit from Russia 7. Conversation (May 29th) The place I live 8. Conversation (May 29th) My hobbies 9. Conversation (May 29th) Me 10.Conversation (May 29th) My family 11.Conversation (May 29th) Don't remember, but I had a fantastic time. (A really good bottle of wine and two Russians involved) 12.Conversation (May 30th)Language studies 13.Conversation (May 30th) Spain 14. Conversation (July 3rd) "Visa complications" 15. Conversation (July 3rd) "Summer holidays" 16. Conversation (July 3rd) "My languages" 17. Conversation (July 3rd) "My garden and how to make rose jelly" 18. Conversation (July 3rd) "Encounters with HTLALers this summer" 19. Conversation (July 3rd) "Arriving at the hotel" READING 1. Appointment with death (AC) May 8th) (280 pages) GERMAN UPDATE FILMS (June 15th-18th) 1-6 . Hawaii 5-0 ep. 1-12 NEWEST ITEMS - RUSSIAN FILMS 16.No strings attached. (August 18th) What a gigantic waste of a talented actress.To put Natalie Portman - who is such a great actress - in a film with Aston Kutcher - who is basically an idiot with a great body - in a film with a really stupid script, that is almost a crime. A comedy that makes you look at your watch every 5 minutes is really not the thing. Not even Kevin Kline could save this disaster. I am understanding more of the dialogue though. Not a lot, but more. CONVERSATIONS 20. "Tourist in St. Petersburg" (August 2nd) 21. "Tourist in Riga" (August 3rd) I had no idea that there would be so many people speaking Russian in Latvia.In the streets 90% of what I heard was in Russian, and the people in the shops would speak Russian, and not English in addition to Latvian (I presume). It was also a strange feeling to be somewhere outside Russia, where my language of communication was Russian. I was told that about 50% of the people in Riga were native Russians, but they must have ben really active, because I do not think I heard any Latvian at all. The 10% which was Russian was divided between other main European languages. Everything in writing was in Latvian though, the only Russian I saw was on a menue, and I was told that it was actually against the law to write in public in Russian (commercials, signs etc.) Edited by Solfrid Cristin on 18 August 2012 at 9:25am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| wv girl Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5237 days ago 174 posts - 330 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish | Message 512 of 656 18 August 2012 at 3:30pm | IP Logged |
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As it's been back-to-school time for my daughter, didn't get much done these past weeks as we try to get back
into a routine. Found that I enjoy listening to interviews on Youtube with authors and personalities that I know. It seems that I understand this level of Spanish more easily than I do movies. Maybe that's because of the amount of slang/cursing in films. Fun to listen to American actresses speaking Spanish, like Eva Mendes and Eva Longoria. Peliculas: (7/50) 7. Various interviews on youtube (95+) My goal is to get back into reading in the morning, even 15-20 minutes, before the school rush begins. It will add up. Maybe I can find a good telenovela that I can become interested in and follow it. I just have trouble finding the beginnings of series, seem to only find segments of them. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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