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Amerykanka’s TAC 2013, Teams Żubr & Nebun

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Mooby
Senior Member
Scotland
Joined 6106 days ago

707 posts - 1220 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Polish

 
 Message 73 of 176
02 March 2013 at 5:37pm | IP Logged 
Great going Amerykanka - that's an impressive study week.

Amerykanka wrote:
EDIT: I almost forgot. I downloaded an awesome Polish app onto my iPad. It's called "Polskie Książki" and it
contains hundreds of Polish classics - 20 or so books by Henryk Sienkiewicz, for example. And it only cost
$0.99! I was thrilled to discover this, because I'll want to read a lot of these classics eventually and a lot of
them aren't easy to buy if you live in the US.


I have been thinking about getting a Kindle as they are quite cheap, although as far as I'm aware they only allow translation from English to Polish. However, the ability to instantly check a word's meaning without juggling with a dictionary, seems really attractive. I often read online blogs using Google translate and find it a great help in understanding syntax. I'll look into the alternatives including iPads, and make my mind up.
I was teaching some my Polish friends today, and we discussed favourite films. One of them was 'Znachor' which I've no doubt you've seen already, but it's new to me. I'll probably watch the film rather than read the book.

No, powodzenia!
1 person has voted this message useful



Serpent
Octoglot
Senior Member
Russian Federation
serpent-849.livejour
Joined 6598 days ago

9753 posts - 15779 votes 
4 sounds
Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese
Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish

 
 Message 74 of 176
02 March 2013 at 7:33pm | IP Logged 
Amerykanka wrote:
HARRY POTTER CHALLENGE
I have no idea where my sudden desire to do a Harry Potter Challenge came from - probably a mixture of my
desires to reread the series and to read as much as possible in all my target languages this year. As the
challenge currently stands, I will be reading the books in order, switching between languages. I own books 1,
2, and 5 in Polish, so those three will be in Polish. I can get all of the books in Spanish at my library, so I'll fill
in the gaps with Spanish books. I also want to read at least one of them in Italian. I chose 7, because it's the
last and I won't mess up my other languages by taking absolutely forever on it. (My Italian is in disgraceful
shape right now!) So anyway, this is the official list:

1. Harry Potter i kamień filozoficzny
2. Harry Potter i Komnata Tajemnic
3. Harry Potter y el prisionero de Azkaban
4. Harry Potter y el Cáliz de Fuego
5. Harry Potter i Zakon Feniksa
6. Harry Potter y el Príncipe Mestizo
7. Harry Potter e i Doni della Morte

As I mentioned in my last post, so far I have only finished one chapter of Book 1. I have a feeling my Polish
books are going to take longer than my Spanish books, just because I don't have as much time to read in
Polish as I do in Spanish.
shiny!!!
you could also join pottermore and use it in Spanish and Italian :) it has gorgeous artworks for the first 2 1/3 books.

also funny how i own HP books in each of these languages, and the only one where we match is the 6th one. and even it is called 'y el misterio del principe' in my edition.

Edited by Serpent on 02 March 2013 at 7:35pm

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Amerykanka
Hexaglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5172 days ago

657 posts - 890 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, Polish, Latin, Ancient Greek, Russian

 
 Message 75 of 176
03 March 2013 at 4:33pm | IP Logged 
Mooby wrote:
I was teaching some my Polish friends today, and we discussed favourite films. One of
them was 'Znachor' which I've no doubt you've seen already, but
it's new to me. I'll probably watch the film
rather than read the book.


To tell the truth, I've only watched 5 or 6 films in Polish, mainly because I've focused on reading and then
also because I have had trouble finding films in Polish. I probably need to make more of an effort to find
movies to watch, since I'm sure there are plenty of them online! I hope you enjoy Znachor!

And good luck finding some sort of device. My iPad has proved very useful to me in my language studies -
there are lots of neat apps and podcasts to take advantage of - but I am fairly clueless when it comes to
technology so I really don't know what the best choice would be.

Edited by Amerykanka on 03 March 2013 at 4:34pm

1 person has voted this message useful



Amerykanka
Hexaglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5172 days ago

657 posts - 890 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, Polish, Latin, Ancient Greek, Russian

 
 Message 76 of 176
03 March 2013 at 4:39pm | IP Logged 
Serpent wrote:
you could also join pottermore and use it in Spanish and Italian :) it has gorgeous
artworks for the first 2 1/3 books.


Thanks, I'll check it out!

Serpent wrote:
also funny how i own HP books in each of these languages, and the only one where we
match is the 6th one. and even it is called 'y el misterio del principe' in my edition.


Yeah, that is funny! But as far as the 6th book, I just double-checked and my version is also called Harry
Potter y el misterio del Príncipe
. I don't actually own the book (I'm going to get it from my library) so I
couldn't remember the Spanish title and I looked it up quickly online, and in my haste I apparently got the
wrong name. : ) Oh, well, I changed it on my official list!

Edited by Amerykanka on 03 March 2013 at 4:40pm

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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 77 of 176
03 March 2013 at 7:08pm | IP Logged 
I love the Harry Potter challenge. It's a brilliant idea!

Hey, do you know if there are Harry Potter books in Arabic, I might steal the idea later!
1 person has voted this message useful



Julie
Heptaglot
Senior Member
PolandRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 6904 days ago

1251 posts - 1733 votes 
5 sounds
Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, GermanC2, SpanishB2, Dutch, Swedish, French

 
 Message 78 of 176
03 March 2013 at 7:17pm | IP Logged 
Zireael wrote:
Hey, do you know if there are Harry Potter books in Arabic, I might steal the idea later!

There are.

See also here - all 7 volumes were translated into Arabic (as well as into MANY other languages).


Edited by Julie on 03 March 2013 at 7:20pm

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Amerykanka
Hexaglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5172 days ago

657 posts - 890 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, Polish, Latin, Ancient Greek, Russian

 
 Message 79 of 176
04 March 2013 at 8:20pm | IP Logged 
Zireael wrote:
I love the Harry Potter challenge. It's a brilliant idea!


I'm glad you like the idea! Feel free to steal it!
1 person has voted this message useful



Amerykanka
Hexaglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5172 days ago

657 posts - 890 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, Polish, Latin, Ancient Greek, Russian

 
 Message 80 of 176
09 March 2013 at 3:32am | IP Logged 
Time for an update! I am tired of my usual format, so I've decided to experiment with something else.
Hopefully it will be a little more interesting!

ITALIAN: 0 hours
I feel bad about this, but I always knew that I might not get much done until a little later this year. I have a
genuine desire to learn Italian, and it's kind of necessary for me to do it, too, but my schedule is
extremely busy right now. I will buckle down and clock some study time in May at the latest.

LATIN: 6 hours 18 minutes
VOCABULARY (2 hours 18 minutes)
I spent most of this time reviewing flashcards in Anki, but I also learned some new vocabulary from the
passages I translated/read this week and added it to Anki. I still have 5 different Latin decks, but I am steadily
moving towards complete consolidation, which will leave me with just 2 decks. That way everything will be
much easier to keep track of!

GRAMMAR STUDY & REVIEW (3 hours 15 minutes)
I studied Unit 29 in Collins and learned one new thing: the dative of purpose. Collins did a terrible job of
explaining it, but I turned to my friend Allen and Greenough's and then it made sense. I also reviewed some
old concepts and did a lot of practice tests which give a passage and then require you to answer questions
on the vocabulary, grammar, and figures of speech (metaphor, chiasmus, litotes, synchysys, anaphora, etc.)
employed by the author. I answered 99% of the questions correctly, which is good since I have a test coming
up next week. I have also included 1 hour of discussion of grammar and St. Augustine under this category,

TRANSLATION (45 minutes)
I translated another passage from St. Augustine's Dē Doctrīnā Chrīstiānā. I really think St. Augustine is
the hardest author I've ever had to translate! Cicero is easy in comparison. Of course, I haven't been exposed
to that much Cicero yet. :)

POLISH: 3 hours 23 minutes
VOCABULARY (1 hour 58 minutes)
This time was divided fairly evenly between reviewing cards in Anki and learning new vocabulary.

LISTENING COMPREHENSION (40 minutes)
I listened to 30 minutes of Drużyna pierścienia and 10 minutes of "Co w mowie piszczy", which is some
sort of Polish podcast.

READING (45 minutes)
I finished Chapter 2 and started Chapter 3 of Harry Potter 1. I didn't have a very good Polish week - I was just
feeling general lack of motivation, I guess. I was also busy, so I didn't have very much time to spare. But
some progress is better than no progress! :)

SPANISH: 10 hours 2 minutes
VOCABULARY (3 hours 42 minutes)
Half of this time was spent reviewing flashcards in Anki and half learning new vocabulary. My primary Anki
deck - the vocabulary one - is now at 4,990 cards, and my sentence/phrase/idiom deck is growing quickly as
well. I am very pleased with my progress in this area.

WRITING (40 minutes)
I am writing an "essay" about Las Dos Marías, the teen novel I finished a few weeks ago. I include the
quotation marks because it is really just a collection of my experiences with and opinions of different aspects
of the novel. I am including a brief synopsis of the book and a discussion of the Argentinian slang which it
contains, among other things. It will probably be REALLY long and hopefully will be finished some time next
week. I have decided to force myself to write at least a few paragraphs in Spanish each week, and I figured
that since I am reading so many books, I might as well write about them.

GRAMMAR (20 minutes)
I know, 20 minutes, impressive. I feel like I've learned pretty much all I can from my grammar books, though. I
don't mean to imply that I fully understand everything in them, or that my grasp of Spanish
grammar is as good as it could be, but I think I've reached the point where constant exposure to the language
through reading and listening will help me more than drills. That said, I am going to finish all the parts of
my exercise books that are remotely helpful, since I do think that the exercises are useful. And as I come
across grammatical structures that I am not familiar with, I will definitely look them up and study them. But
don't expect to see hours upon hours of grammar review in the near future!

LISTENING COMPREHENSION (2 hours 20 minutes)
I listened to 30 minutes of Canal 15, my favorite Nicaraguan news channel, but then I decided to mix things
up a bit. I want to make sure that I expose myself to lots of different accents and types of speech, so I found
the Spanish audiobook version of The Hunger Games on YouTube and listened to the first 6 chapters. I
was VERY pleased at how easily I could understand things! There were sentences here and there that I didn't
catch, of course, but on the whole I didn't have much trouble at all. I simply enjoyed listening to the story, and
of course I cracked up every now and then just because Katniss and Peeta can be pretty funny (especially
when you've already read the whole series and like both characters a lot). However, I think my foray into
Los Juegos del Hambre has ended, at least for a while. I do like the characters, and I like the first two
books in the trilogy (with the exception of certain scenes that I don't approve of), but Mockingjay ruined
the series for me. I didn't like the ending - too gloomy. I wasn't expecting a fairytale ending, but seriously . . . it
could have been just a tad more uplifting! Anyway, I'll end my rant, which doesn't have anything to do with
languages, and just say that I was excited to be finally able to enjoy laudiobooks in Spanish.

READING (3 hours)
Most of this time was spent reading around 125 pages of El Valle de los Lobos. I'm on page 226 and
I have enjoyed the book so far. It has certainly proved a very useful learning tool, and I am reading it fairly
effortlessly now. My "Author of the Week" was Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer. I read a brief biography of him on the
Spanish Wikipedia and then I read two of his poems - Rima XIII ("Volverán las oscuras golondrinas . . .") and
Rima XXI ("¿Qué es poesía? . . ."). I wanted to read a few more, but I didn't have time. Maybe
next week.


Wow, that was a really long update! I hope that it didn't exhaust you all! :)

Edited by Amerykanka on 09 March 2013 at 3:39am



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