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Super Challenge Update thread 2014-15 | ||
Tags: Super Challenge | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| noriyuki_nomura Bilingual Octoglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 5342 days ago 304 posts - 465 votes  Speaks: English*, Mandarin*, Japanese, FrenchC2, GermanC2, ItalianC1, SpanishB2, DutchB1 Studies: TurkishA1, Korean | Message 129 of 198 03 September 2014 at 10:05am | IP Logged | ||
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After a retreat of 3 or maybe even 4 years from the forum, I am very happy to 'rejoin' the forum! In the meanwhile, I am approaching the end of my firstyear PhD in modern languages, learning Dutch, taking the DFP Affaires C2 exam from the Paris Chamber of Commerce etc.
I hope that I will be able to reach the C2 level for my Italian this coming December (or latest May next year), and C1 for Dutch in May next year. I definitely have to listen to as many podcasts and radio/TV programmes in these languages as much as possible. 1 person has 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 130 of 198 23 September 2014 at 5:26am | IP Logged | ||
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Update and 5-month Reflections
This is my second super challenge, and I haven't noticed the same incredible leap with Italian that I had with French back in September 2012. With French I was already working on some serious literature - Madame Bovary, Les Misérables, Balzac, etc. With Italian I'm still struggling to make the leap to native fiction. I find that I'm spending so much time with the dictionary that I'm not enjoying the book, or that I am far too reliant on English translations. For me it's time to asses and regroup. Now, with French I had done a lot more prep work before the challenge - all of Assimil French, and half of Using French, on top of the first 12 chapters of FSI Basic. I was also much more focused: I only had one language, and for a brief period two, on the side. This round I've been attempting five (two for the challenge, three others). This really dilutes my time for everything. But I also think the intensity of the 2012 Challenge really helped. I had to make a serious commitment to finish 100 pages per week on average, and that commitment paid off. So I'm going to back off for a bit: I'll finish Assimil, and work through the last book of Living Language. After this I'll be in a stronger position for tackling Italian literature. It will also mean that I'll need to ratchet up my reading intensity when I get back to it! On the other hand, the listening part has been going far better for me this round. Before I focused only on movies, and I never realized how many awful French movies there were. Now I've found some tv series that I really enjoy for both French (Un village français) and Italian (Montalbano and La piovra), on top of some great podcasts people on HTLAL have recommended. On to the updates ... French Books: 34.6 I finished La peste (Albert Camus, 1947) last night. This was one of my favorite books in college, and I wasn't sure how I would feel revisiting it. And I'm happy to report that it is just as powerful now. It's a good story overall, but the last thirty or so pages are riveting. It's far more accessible and direct than L'étranger, and it's nice to have a book with real heroes who face evil (the plague) and live up to their ideals. French Movies and Audio: 32.8 I'm on season 2 of Un village français, and am continuing to listen to the Polars et SF podcasts put out by French Culture and to Au coeur de l'histoire. I'm slowly getting better at following the full conversation, though I still get lost in some of the stories. Italian Books: 23.1 Le avventure di Pinocchio (Carlo Collodi, 1883) must have traumatized kids when it first came out. The basic story is: if you are bad then horrible, horrible things are going to happen to you. It's not a hard read, but it was originally published in serial form, and it shows ... it's very episodic, and feels a bit repetitive at times. On the plus side, there are a lot of recordings in the public domain, so it's a good choice for listening/reading types exercises. 
Sei personaggi in cerca d'autore (Luigi Pirandello, 1921) was harder. It's an absurdist tale of five "characters" who crash the rehearsals for another play, and demand that the director tell their story first. It's fun, but the formatting in the kindle version is off - it's hard to tell when the characters are speaking, and when the narrator is just describing the action. I really depended on an English translation to help me through this. But it was Il gattopardo (Giuseppe Tomas di Lampedusa, 1958), about the last days of the Italian aristocracy, where I stumbled & decided to go back to Assimil. I really liked the book in English, and loved the movie, and was looking forward to reading this in Italian as my first 'real' book. And I could make sense of the first chapter, but then I went back to the English to check my comprehension and realized just how much of the imagery and poetry I was missing. So I'll put this back on my shelf, and it will be the first book I come back to when I've finished Assimil. 
Italian Films: 23.9 I mentioned Montalbano and La piovra already. If anyone missed the earlier post, they are currently streaming free (and with no registration required) at MHz Networks. ***Italophiles - don't miss this!*** They are both excellent. The new episodes air Thursday night, so there's time to catch up. I've also started listening to Lezioni di musica on RaiRadio3. These are great: they're only about 26 minutes each, the Italian isn't too hard, and it's a nice introduction to classical music. There's a certain irony here for me ... I'm pretty musically ignorant, so there are times where I can understand the Italian but still not have any idea what it means (e.g., when they say that the tonal chromatic progression in Strauss's Also spracht Zarathrustra is used to reflect the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche) http://www.radio3.rai.it/dl/radio3/programmi/PublishingBlock -4e02a2ec-4046-486f- b7b2- 54b8a5ab86ab.html Edited by kanewai on 23 September 2014 at 5:30am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5209 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 131 of 198 23 September 2014 at 11:49am | IP Logged | ||
This sounds great, especially as I've been getting more into classical music recently, I'll check it out soon. Radio 3 has some good stuff, I like their science show for example. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| rdearman Senior Member United Kingdom rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5238 days ago 881 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin | Message 132 of 198 23 September 2014 at 4:15pm | IP Logged | ||
RSS Feeds for Lezioni di musica on RaiRadio3 Website URL Edited by rdearman on 23 September 2014 at 4:18pm 1 person has 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 133 of 198 26 September 2014 at 3:12am | IP Logged | ||
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I'll have to check out more of the RaiRadio podcasts! The Lezioni are great for
my level - they follow a predictable format, and the musical breaks offer nice anchor points for when I get lost. Otherwise, every tv show I watch seems to be about detectives in Sicily. It's nice to balance that out with some proper, classical Italian! Edited by kanewai on 26 September 2014 at 5:05am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| g-bod Diglot Senior Member United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5984 days ago 1485 posts - 2002 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: French, German | Message 134 of 198 01 October 2014 at 7:54pm | IP Logged | ||
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There is a more detailed explanation in my log, so I will keep things brief here.
I signed up to do a Super Challenge in 3 languages, because I could not choose between them by the start of May. At the beginning of August, I quietly dropped out of my German challenge. My German is still very much in the A1+ zone, and I finally admitted to myself that any German time I have is better spent on other activities. Now, at the beginning of October, I have realised that there is not enough time in the day for me to complete even 2 Super Challenges. So I have dropped out of my French challenge, as I am quite happy just maintaining my French with newspaper articles and listening to the radio. So, the good news is that I now plan to really go for it with the Japanese Super Challenge! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Mohave Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Mohave1 Joined 4009 days ago 291 posts - 444 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 135 of 198 06 October 2014 at 9:58am | IP Logged | ||
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The end of September marked 25% of the time elapsed for the Super Challenge (5 of 20 months completed).
I updated my log for my impressions of the Super Challenge and my improvement to-date. Link below. Please see post 96. My Adventures in French 1 person has 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 136 of 198 15 October 2014 at 3:13am | IP Logged | ||
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So many stars, so few updates ... I think less than ten people are updating here or on their logs. Where is everybody??? Part of the fun of the challenge, at least for me, is seeing what great and horrible movies and books people have watched and read.
Moi, I've got some good recommendations this round. __________________________________________________________ This is one everyone can enjoy: a 3 1/2 minute clip from Kaamelott Season 2 - Le dialogue de paix (YouTube clip), in which King Arthur sits down with the King of Burgundy for peace negotiations ... without a translator. It's a fun enough sketch even if you miss half the dialogue (they speak fast); the full script is here for those who want to learn all the French slang. Prologue: Lancelot urges Arthur to clear out the Burgundy camp, because les burgondes, ils sont dégueulasses. (lousy, rotten, filthy, disgusting) Act I: Arthur learns there is no translator available. Lancelot says this won't be a problem, as the King has taken night classes in French. All Arthur has to do is use simple words, and flatter him ... Lancelot: Ca vous donne une occasion de le flatter! Vous le félicitez pour ses progrès, vous utilisez un vocabulaire très simple... Arthur: Décare tes troupes de chez moi ou j'crame ton pays! C'est assez simple comme vocabulaire ça? Lancelot: It gives you the chance to flatter him! You complement him on his progress, you use a very simple vocabulary... Arthur: Remove your troops from my land or I'll torch your country! Is that simple enough vocabulary? Act II: The negotiations are off to a rough start. The King knows the word for "spoon" (cuillère!), and a few random phrases (La fleur en bouquet faaaaanne, et jamais ne renaît!). Arthur: Alors, à propos du traité de paix...(Le roi Burgonde le regarde avec un air d'incompréhension totale.) Le traité de paix... (Son hôte prend une cuisse de poulet.) Bon ok, on va demander un interprète... Arthur: Now, regarding the peace treaty ... (The Burgundian King regards him with an air of total incomprehension.) The peace treaty ... (His guest picks up a chicken thigh). Good, ok, we are going to demand an interpreter ... 
Act III: Arthur's interpreter is his mother. She was a prisoner of the Picts, and thinks that ... maybe ... she might remember some Burgundian words if she hears them first (Si il parle un peu votre pote, y'a peut-être quelques mots qui vont m'revenir). I'm sure we can all relate to that. _______________________________________________________ Cesare deve Morire (Paolo Taviani, Vittorio Taviani, 2012) Inmates at a high security prison in Rome stage a production of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. As rehearsals progress they start to internalize the characters, and practice their scenes in the hallways and courtyards of the prison. Beautifully shot, and the prison setting makes the original play even more powerful. Based on real events. *** Highly recommended*** 
_______________________________________________________ Two films by Alain Robbe-Grillet. His films are very stylish and avant-garde, and were considered "too difficult" for Americans and not widely released here. There is also a lot of bondage and domination - people are always getting tied up - so this might have been part of the reason. They became available on DVD in the US and UK for the first time this summer. In Trans-Europ-Express (1967) a drug runner gets caught up in some twisted mind games, and in L'immortelle (1963) a professor in Istanbul becomes enchanted by a mysterious woman who insists that the whole city is nothing but a dream, and who draws him slowly into the underworld. 
____________________________________________________________ __ In Les plages d'Agnès (2008) Agnes Varda looks back on her life. I find that she puts more heart and soul into her work than all the other New Wave directors combined, and this is a fun retrospective. She uses people from the neighborhood to recreate scenes with famous people, she acts out parts of her life on the beach, she protests against injustice, visits Cuba, and dresses like a potato at an art exhibit. This is a wonderful look into the mind of an artist who was "amused by everything." 
____________________________________________________________ __ Caveat emptor: Don't trust my recommendations. Sometimes I end up hating the things that everyone else loves. This month it was Cinema Paradiso (1988) - which I had read was rapturous, delightful and affecting, a tear-jerker, and utterly irresistible, et cetera and ad nauseam. I over-dosed on the loveable quirkiness after thirty minutes. I'll stick with my twisted avant-garde artistes.  Edited by kanewai on 15 October 2014 at 4:11am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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