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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
 songlines Pro Member Canada flickr.com/photos/cp Joined 5208 days ago 729 posts - 1056 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 89 of 243 03 April 2012 at 6:55am | IP Logged | ||
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All in all, What Is Stephen Harper Reading?
Mais que lit Stephen Harper? was well worth the three months' reading effort. Some very good writing: in turn lyrical, moving, sharp, and funny. Engaging responses to the literature; Best of all, it introduced me a number of titles which I wouldn't have otherwise considered reading, or in some cases not even have known of. Not all of the books discussed, by the way, are "High Literature" -- not by any means. The books sent at Christmas time, for example, are children's books. Martel's now discontinued their little "book club of two" as he calls it, to focus on his own writing. But happily for us, we can still read his recommendations and writing online, even if we aren't getting fortnightly deliveries of books, along with personalized reviews. Edited by songlines on 03 April 2012 at 7:05am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| songlines Pro Member Canada flickr.com/photos/cp Joined 5208 days ago 729 posts - 1056 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 90 of 243 06 April 2012 at 6:38am | IP Logged | ||
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It's Good Friday today, and in honour of the occasion, I'd like to offer a quote from one chapter of David Sedaris'
Me Talk Pretty One Day. In this essay, a group of beginning French-language students are trying, with woefully little success, to explain (in their rudimentary French), the concept of Easter to a classmate.
Joyeuses Pâques à tous / Happy Easter, everyone! May you eat well of the chocolate of the big bell or the rabbit- rabbit. Edited by songlines on 06 April 2012 at 6:44am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| songlines Pro Member Canada flickr.com/photos/cp Joined 5208 days ago 729 posts - 1056 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 91 of 243 09 April 2012 at 9:17pm | IP Logged | ||
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Summary from the past week:
16 pages read, primarily of Harry Potter et la coupe de feu. Unfortunately, Read and Think French had to be returned to the library. 26 minutes of news. 220 minutes (ie 3 hours, 40 minutes) of Assimil. Edited by songlines on 09 April 2012 at 9:17pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| songlines Pro Member Canada flickr.com/photos/cp Joined 5208 days ago 729 posts - 1056 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 92 of 243 09 April 2012 at 9:24pm | IP Logged | ||
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In other news, I'm reading Edmund de
Waal's The Hare with Amber Eyes. It's a beautifully written and fascinating work of non-fiction, in which de Waal, a well-known British potter and ceramicist, researches the provenance of a collection of 264 netsuke which he's inherited. In doing so, he retraces his family's history, from humble beginnings as grain traders in Odessa, to heads of a pan-European financial dynasty which was destroyed when the Nazis came to power. The first section of the book looks at the young Charles Ephrussi, who bought the netsuke, and was later to become one of the models for Proust's Charles Swann. Charles Ephrussi was a writer, collector, and patron of the arts. The Paris section is rich with details of Impressionist art and life. De Waal's very good at describing and evoking this and other particular milieux: of an affluent, cultured, sophisticated, circle of people equally at home in the Parc Monçeau area of Paris, or the Ringstrasse, Vienna. He's also excellent at following individual biographies and weaving them into the wider narrative threads of his book. But I thought that the polyglots and language-learners on this forum might especially like this excerpt about his youth in Vienna in the 1860s, where he's raised with his siblings and three cousins:
Edited by songlines on 09 April 2012 at 9:32pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| songlines Pro Member Canada flickr.com/photos/cp Joined 5208 days ago 729 posts - 1056 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 93 of 243 17 April 2012 at 5:14am | IP Logged | ||
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Summary from the past week:
-80 minutes of Assimil -143 minutes of various podcasts, notably of the transcripted Le Service protestant: http://www.franceculture.fr/emission-service-protestant (copy and paste, removing spaces inserted by the forum software), and also from the non-transcripted France24. -70 pages read, primarily of Harry Potter et la coupe de feu (ie #4 in the series). Total: 70 pages, and 223 minutes (ie 3 hours, 43 minutes) Edited by songlines on 17 April 2012 at 5:15am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| songlines Pro Member Canada flickr.com/photos/cp Joined 5208 days ago 729 posts - 1056 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 94 of 243 17 April 2012 at 5:50am | IP Logged | ||
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I've also started making flashcards of some of the French "conversation connectors" that were available in a
handy, multilingual spreadsheet: http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/forum/forum_posts.asp? TID=31179&PN=1 (remove any extra spaces inserted by the forum software). Thanks to all the Lingq and HtLaL members who worked on it, and also to Splog who started it all with his wonderful Connectors starter pack of Czech phrases. I've also realized that Benny (of Fluent in Three Months) offers a version of Learning with Texts which doesn't involve a somewhat daunting installation procedure. So those two (the Connectors flashcards, and LWT work) are likely to be my continuing projects for the coming week. Edited by songlines on 17 April 2012 at 5:51am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| songlines Pro Member Canada flickr.com/photos/cp Joined 5208 days ago 729 posts - 1056 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 95 of 243 18 April 2012 at 7:46am | IP Logged | ||
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On the conversation front (small as it is), I had a ten to fifteen-minute French conversation with a library patron
("customer" in management-speak; but most of us in the front ranks still use "patron"). The unusual aspect being that this patron was actually from Russia, but - so I gather - bilingual in both French and Russian. He was quite pleased to find a French-language speaker (he was generous in applying the term to me) at the library; and, for my part, I was delighted to have such an accommodating conversation partner. He noted, as a newcomer to the city, that it's difficult finding a French speaker in Toronto; I was only the second whom he'd encountered. True, Francophones are here, but not necessarily "obvious". We have - among other things - the Centre francophone, the Alliance Française, the Salon du livre de Toronto, Cinéfranco, Thêatre français de Toronto, the Toronto French School, a couple (I think) of lycées; York University's bilingual Glendon College campus, etc. But there's no geographic "nucleus" for the community, and unless you're attending a French event, you won't necessarily know if you've crossed paths with a Francophone - until they start to speak in French, or with a French accent, of course. Working at two downtown locations, I'm fortunate in that we get a fair number of French speakers using both my branches. I've established a set conversational repertoire related to getting library cards, loan periods, other branches where we have larger French collections, use of the computers, etc. Very occasionally, I may venture further slightly further afield. Generally, patrons seem to have been very receptive to my attempts at the language; I'm of course pleased, but under no illusions when they compliment me on my French. My conversational skills are still at the "it's obvious she's a learner"-level, and I'm grateful for any kindness and encouragement. We do have a number of patrons from Morocco, Tunisia, Lebanon, etc., and the former French West Africa, with whom I occasionally have short conversations (or at least exchange greetings) in French. And, naturally, there are also people who've moved to Toronto from Quebec, Francophone communities in Northern Ontario, and - less frequently - from New Brunswick. Amongst our branch's patrons, two French speakers stand out in my memory. One was an older Chinese patron from Shanghai, who had learnt it as a youth - I believe in the French Concession area; and eventually, after the Cultural Revolution, became a professor of French at a Chinese university. Reading between the lines, I thought he must have had an incredible life: just making it through the Cultural Revolution as a speaker of a foreign language, and an intellectual, for example. Yet, when he spoke of what some of us in the West refer to as "the Communist takeover", he used the phrase "après la Libération..." I may have also previously mentioned another patron, a native Japanese speaker who'd been based in Luxembourg for a number of years, and hence also spoke German, French, and some English. As he was retired and had ample leisure, he always took a few minutes to talk to me en français when he visited the branch. Both of them seemed to be incredibly nice people, with old-world manners; almost courtly in their politeness. I suspect that they were around the same age, and - although they came to the library during different periods and thus would never have actually met - I sometimes wondered what a conversation between the two, given their respective cultural and national backgrounds, would have been like. Would they have found common ground in their affinity for French? Or would historical events involving their respective "motherlands" have cast a sombre shadow? (Though both were probably old enough to have lived through the Second World War [and the Second Sino-Japanese War], neither seemed old enough to have fought during the period. ) Both seem to now have returned to their respective countries; I think of them from time to time, remembering their graciousness and hoping that, when I'm their age, I'll still be speaking French (but, one hopes, with a better accent and more skill than I now have!). Edited by songlines on 18 April 2012 at 7:56am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| songlines Pro Member Canada flickr.com/photos/cp Joined 5208 days ago 729 posts - 1056 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 96 of 243 02 May 2012 at 8:29am | IP Logged | ||
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Brief summary of my French efforts in the past fortnight, up to Monday 30th April:
32 minutes of mixed podcasts/news 120 minutes of Assimil 107 minutes of a film, Spielberg's Tintin. (Fr dialogue/ Fr captions) 240 pages of reading. Harry Potter et la coupe de feu. Total (not including reading time):259 minutes, or 4 hours, 19 minutes. Plus 240 pages read. Have also signed up for the 6WC in French. Realized, reading Emk's log, that my French is definitely still under or at the low B1 level. At least this means that it's still not too advanced to be my primary 6WC language. Edited: to correct a numeric typo. Edited by songlines on 03 May 2012 at 2:05am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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