patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4536 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German
| Message 97 of 199 16 July 2013 at 9:29am | IP Logged |
I am going to try to finish it, though it's going to be close unless my German reading speed picks up a bit. At the moment I am about 3500 pages into the Challenge and need to read about 40 pages a day to get there, which should be possible unless I get much busier.
I finished the Super Challenge for movies ages ago - I'm aiming to hit 200 movies this month.
This challenge has been amazingly useful for my German learning. I've gone from about A1 to low B2, mostly from reading and watching movies. :)
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wv girl Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5242 days ago 174 posts - 330 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish
| Message 98 of 199 19 July 2013 at 3:35pm | IP Logged |
Finally finished Retrato en Sepia, by Allende. Not that it was so difficult, but when summer came, I started
preparing for my trip to Italy and reading really slowed down. Now back home, I finished the last hundred pages
pretty easily. There are still words on every page that I don't know, others that I've learned, but I don't read with the
ease of my native language. I want to KNOW more words, not passively recognize them! The adjectives get me. I
guess writing would help, but maybe the next challenge ... I've already read 80 pages of Malinche, so I'll return to
that.
Libros: (1889/5000) 37.78%
7. Retrato en Sepia (344 paginas)
I'm trying to finish my 1/2 challenge. Movies are already done. I don't want to know how many pages I'll have to
read per day to finish it. Just want to read for pleasure and to continue improving.
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Anya Pentaglot Senior Member France Joined 5796 days ago 636 posts - 708 votes Speaks: Russian*, FrenchC1, English, Italian, Spanish Studies: German, Japanese, Hungarian, Sanskrit, Portuguese, Turkish, Mandarin Studies: Ancient Greek, Hindi
| Message 99 of 199 20 July 2013 at 5:16pm | IP Logged |
Update: Spanish
Half Super Challenge 50%
Read 22.1/50 books
Watched 27.4/50 films
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kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4892 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish
| Message 100 of 199 02 August 2013 at 10:12pm | IP Logged |
July Update - And we're at the 75% point! I've noticed a huge
improvement in my French reading, but I still can't tell if my movie comprehension is
improving or not.
French Books
Du côte de chez Swann, Marcel Proust - Parts were beautiful, parts were painful,
but overall I thought this was a powerful work. French students read one section, Un
amour de Swann, in school. Poor kids. In this section Swann falls in love with an
uncultured and dull woman from 'the lower rungs of society,' and it examines his
obsession in microscopic detail. I would hate Proust if this were the only thing I had
read. As part of the whole, though, it was brilliant.
Bandes dessinées
I read the second books of Persepolis and Le chat du rabbin. Both were
even better than the first volumes.
French movies
I started a whole lot of "classics" that bored me. The only ones I liked and finished
were:
Diva (Jean-Jacques Beineix, 1981) - I thought this was the coolest movie, ever,
when I was in college. I wanted to ride a vespa in Paris, smoke gitanes, and have
adventures with gangsters and opera divas. Thirty years on (holy crap) Diva doesn't
seem as wildly cool, but it was still fun to watch.
Trois couleurs: Rouge (Krzysztof Kieslowski, 1994) - This is part of a trilogy,
and I think I started it in the wrong order. I wasn't always sure what the film was
about, and yet I was riveted.
Spanish Shows
Un paso adelante (2002, Spain). Life at what is supposed to be the best school
for the performance arts in Madrid. Everybody was real pretty, but I couldn't get past
the bad acting, stupid plot holes, and bad dancing (seriously, I thought at least the
show would have good dance numbers!). I only watched 3 1/2 episodes.
Mujeres asesinas (2005, Argentina). Each episode deals with a woman who is
driven to murder. It's kind of pulpy and trashy (think killer nuns and psycho
lesbians), but I'm enjoying it so far.
Current count:
French Super Challenge: 75% (73 books, 75 films)
Spanish Half Super Challenge: 33% (7.4 books, 25.5 films)
Edited by kanewai on 02 August 2013 at 10:14pm
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eggcluck Senior Member China Joined 4704 days ago 168 posts - 278 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, Japanese
| Message 101 of 199 03 August 2013 at 1:46am | IP Logged |
Currently stand at:
40/100 movies
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Kerrie Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Kerrie2 Joined 5398 days ago 1232 posts - 1740 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish
| Message 102 of 199 09 August 2013 at 4:52am | IP Logged |
Has anyone given any thought to the "next" round of Super Challenges?
Edited by Kerrie on 09 August 2013 at 4:57am
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kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4892 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish
| Message 103 of 199 09 August 2013 at 5:29am | IP Logged |
Why, yes I have!
For round two, I definitely think it would be easier to simply have it broken up into
topics (i.e., super challenge: movies, super challenge: writing, etc). All
the variations with half super duper mega challenges got confusing!
I like the '100 things in 20 months' ... it made it a real challenge ... but I can see
'50 things in 12 months' working also.
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patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4536 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German
| Message 104 of 199 09 August 2013 at 8:48am | IP Logged |
I found the Super Challenge very helpful, and I would certainly like to continue after the current round finishes.
Perhaps it would make sense to shorten it a little? So it runs on 1 January - 31 December each year? Perhaps with the possibility to join in July? So you could either do a full year challenge, or a half-year challenge, and join at either time?
I agree that the movies/writing/reading should be decoupled.
For reading it should be renamed a 10000 page (or more accurately a 2.5 Million word) challenge, which would make it easier to equate different text from graphic novels and so on.
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