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Super Challenge Update thread 2014-15 | ||
Tags: Super Challenge | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4891 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes  Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 121 of 198 25 August 2014 at 11:56pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I was hoping for so bad it's good, but it's flat and dull, with an insipid light rock soundtrack ... it's too boring to be awesomely bad.
I've read the first two. I loved and hated them. So far they're not among my personal favorites, though I still think they're a worthwhile read. One day I'll read the whole series and then I can tell you if it's the greatest novel of all time. There were many points in both books where I said: I am going to finish this book and never read Proust again. And there were passages - a lot of passages - that were absolutely beautiful, and where you get caught up in the narrator's dreams and memories. And amazingly, by the end of each book I was actually looking forward to the next. I followed the discussions on Goodread's The Year of Reading Proust: here after each section, and that really helped in understanding some of the themes. He talks a lot about art and music, and the forums helped me catch a lot of the references I missed. The hardest part for me was finding time to read them. I like to read on my lunch hour, but for Proust I found I needed long quiet times at home on the sofa to immerse myself in the story. Edited by kanewai on 26 August 2014 at 12:02am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4891 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 122 of 198 26 August 2014 at 5:14am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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@sctroyenne - here's one of the passages I highlighted in À l'ombre des jeunes
filles en fleurs. It took me a couple tries to tease out the meaning, but this is typical of Proust at his best (to me): C’est pourquoi la meilleure part de notre mémoire est hors de nous, dans un souffle pluvieux, dans l’odeur de renfermé d’une chambre ou dans l’odeur d’une première flambée, partout où nous retrouvons de nous-même ce que notre intelligence, n’en ayant pas l’emploi, avait dédaigné, la dernière réserve du passé, la meilleure, celle qui quand toutes nos larmes semblent taries, sait nous faire pleurer encore. Hors de nous? En nous pour mieux dire, mais dérobée à nos propres regards, dans un oubli plus ou moins prolongé. C’est grâce à cet oubli seul que nous pouvons de temps à autre retrouver l’être que nous fûmes, nous placer vis-à-vis des choses comme cet être l’était, souffrir à nouveau, parce que nous ne sommes plus nous, mais lui, et qu’il aimait ce qui nous est maintenant indifférent. --------------------------------------- My simplified interpretation (not a translation; it sounds awful with a literal translation): This is why the greater part of our memories exist outside of ourselves, in the whisper of the rain, in the smell of a closed room or in the smell of an early fire - wherever we rediscover that part of ourselves that our conscious mind, not having any use for it, had rejected. It's the last reserve of the past, and the best; when all of our tears have dried it can make us cry once again. Outside of ourselves? Better to say inside ourselves, but hidden from our vision, forgotten for however long. But it's thanks to this forgetting that we can, from time to time, become the person who we once were, to relive the events that that person once did, to suffer again - because we are no longer ourselves, but him, he who once loved those things that now leave us cold. --------------------------------------- If this style appeals to you at all then pick up the book and dive in! Edited by kanewai on 26 August 2014 at 5:15am 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Emme Triglot Senior Member Italy Joined 5349 days ago 980 posts - 1594 votes Speaks: Italian*, English, German Studies: Russian, Swedish, French | Message 123 of 198 31 August 2014 at 3:34pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I’m happy to report that earlier today I tweeted my 100th ‘film unit’ and my 100th ‘book unit’ so officially I completed the Super Challenge in English.
Don’t worry, I’m not abandoning you: first of all, my German challenge is still very far from being over. And secondly, I’ll now try to work my way towards a Double Super Challenge in English. Back in May when I registered only for the full Super Challenge, I was simply following Cristina’s advice about waiting to complete the Super Challenge before committing to the Double Super Challenge. But now the time has come to follow many of you advance leaners and set my aim higher. 9 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6599 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 124 of 198 31 August 2014 at 4:51pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Congratulations!!!
1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| VivianJ5 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4264 days ago 81 posts - 133 votes Speaks: English*, French | Message 125 of 198 31 August 2014 at 9:44pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Yay, Emme! I've been watching the numbers inch up on the Super Challenge twitter board, and was just waiting for when you'd finish...Congratulations! Time to get watching more films; I think I'm "booked" out :-) ! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4253 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 126 of 198 01 September 2014 at 7:00am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I guess since it's the end of the month, I should copy down my grammar challenge... I actually copied down over 70 sentences, but I'll only put some down here. I didn't translate all of them either, but they are easier for me now that I'm more aware of them:
1. En la arena, Al le da un buen puñetazo a Will en la mandíbula. In the arena, Al gave a good punch to will in the jaw. 2. Se le ponen en blanco y su cuerpo se relaja, cayendo al suelo como un peso muerto. You will go blank and your body will relax, falling to the ground like a dead weight. 3. Christina se mete el pelo detrás de las orejas. Christina plays with her hair behind her ears. 4. Me limpio el sudor de las manos en los pantalones. I wipe the sweat from my hands on my pants. 5. La sangre que le cae de la nariz es espesa y oscura, y le cubre los dedos en segundos. The blood that falls from her nose is thick and dark, and covers her fingers in seconds. 6. Cuando cierro los ojos, me la imagino cayendo sobre las rocas puntiagudas del fondo y me estremezco. When I close my eyes, I imaging falling over the jagged rocks to the bottom, and I shudder. 7. Si la ayudo, Eric me condenaría al mismo destino. If I help her, Eric will condemn me to the same fate. 8. Una de las gotitas me da en la mejilla. One of the droplets hits me on the cheek. 9. Christina se queda colgada de cuatro dedos. Christina remains hanging by her four fingers. 10. Si se resbala de nuevo, la ayudaré. If she slips again, I will help her. 11. Ha hecho lo que le has pedido. I have what you have asked. 12. Soy más amable de lo que parezco en el entrenamiento, te lo prometo. I am more kind than I seemed in training, I promise you. 13. ¿Me lo enseñas? Will you teach me? 14. ¿Esto te da miedo, Tris? Are you afraid of me, Tris? 15. Me mira a los ojos y no los mueve de ahí. I look into his eyes and do not move them from there. In the past few weeks, I have been able to pick up the pace and do more than before. I am now up to six "movies" (mostly Notes in Spanish Intermediate podcasts) and fifteen book-segments. I finished reading Divergente, and plan on watching the movie this evening. I don't think that the movie was that great, compared to the book, but I'm mostly going to watch it for the Spanish experience... at least I will be familiar with what is going on. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| wv girl Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5241 days ago 174 posts - 330 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish | Message 127 of 198 01 September 2014 at 2:42pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I discovered El Gran Hotel on Netflix & have watched 20 episodes since last week! What can I say, I'm hooked &
took advantage of my daughter visiting her father over the long weekend. My only complaint is that subtitles come up in English ... I'd rather have Spanish for when I didn't get what was said. I had been listening to some Veinte Minutos & various things on youtube, but this is more enjoyable. Haven't read any more recently, as school started & had to deal with car accident & house issues, but things seem more normal now, so I'm going to get Eclipse in English as a bilateral text & move through the 3rd book of the Twilight series. I skipped the second, as it wasn't available at the book store, but I think I get the idea ... he's a vampire, they're in love, there are issues. Peliculas: 20% El Gran Hotel (20 capitulos) 10 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Emme Triglot Senior Member Italy Joined 5349 days ago 980 posts - 1594 votes Speaks: Italian*, English, German Studies: Russian, Swedish, French | Message 128 of 198 02 September 2014 at 10:18am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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@Serpent
Thank you!
Thank you! I’ve been watching your book count grow amazingly fast too: it looks like we are both hooked on books! But I also love movies, and that’s where I’m lucky when it comes to the Super Challenge. --- For those struggling with the challenge, here are few tips on what's worked for me so far: 1 - err on the easy side when you choose your materials. Opt for things you can read or watch without too much difficulty. Quick easy reads or brainless TV-movies are perfectly ok when you binge on native materials. 2 - choose things you enjoy whenever possible. If you’re bored silly by what you’re reading/watching you’re not likely to ever get to the end of your book or of your movie and even less likely to come back for more tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. And consistency is actually the most important aspect of the challenge, I think. 3 - be realistic. I know this contradicts what I wrote above, but bear with me. If you don’t want to break the bank by importing all the materials you need for the challenge, you will have to compromise sometimes and make do with what you find for free at your local library or online, even if that doesn’t always spark much enthusiasm. 4 - never leave home without a book: you never know when you may have five minutes of spare time. I personally prefer long immersive reading sessions, but apart from at the week end I don’t usually have that much free time. That’s why I do my best to capitalize on any spare moment I can find: queuing at the post office, during lunch break, while commuting (if you're not driving, of course!). And that’s why I always have a pocket book with me (I suppose an e-reader would work just as fine) and many of the books I’ve read so far are of the short or shortish variety. 5 - apart from reading a paragraph or two at any spare moment you find, another way to optimize your time is to cut down on mindless internet browsing. I didn’t realize how much time I wasted online until I forced myself to keep my computer (or at least my ADSL) off. Even this forum can be a time-guzzler. Try to remember this and divert at least some of the time you spend online towards something more productive. 6 - above all, try to have fun! Edited by Emme on 02 September 2014 at 10:47am 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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