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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4829 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes  Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 1 of 133 14 June 2012 at 11:38pm | IP Logged |
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Intro:
I previously posted somewhere that I wasn't the kind of person to post a public journal. However, I've been somewhat inspired by all the brave challengers (challengees?) out there doing all sorts of extreme (to my delicate ears) challenges of the various varieties (hey you could get sponsorship from Heinz...there must be at least 57 varieties by now). Well, I don't have the stamina or dedication to do one of the official challenges, but I thought, surrounded by all this effort on all sides, I should at least try to raise my own game a bit. So, a kind of personal challenge I suppose. Despite what it says in my profile, French and Spanish are definitely "on hold" for the time being. I'm sure I will go back to them at some time, and at some level, but until recently, I was trying to put all my effort (such as it was) into really trying to get my German up to a good level. I've been studying it on and off for probably 15 years, but in some ways, have never really felt totally confident at it. When I discovered the L-R method on here, I thought that (short of going to live in Germany), it was potentially the best way (and a way that appealed to me) for me to get exposure to a lot of native language input. As I quite like the classics, there is a lot of PD material that I can easily get hold of, although I sometimes feel I should make an effort to get up to speed with some more modern authors. At the same time, I've been intrigued by the Scandinavian languages as a group for some time, and this has been stimulated by the excellent TV series we've been treated to on BBC4 in recent years, plus of course the Stieg Larsson books and spinoff films. I tried Norwegian for a while (because of a trip there, but also because I thought it was supposed to be a "3-for-1" passport. I know now that it is not as simple as that). I had been put off Danish because of the evident pronunciation issues, which was a shame, because I'd become aware that there were, for example, a lot of interesting Danish films out there, and I knew that it was an attractive tourist destination. What finally triggered me curiously enough was hearing about another Brit (and his wife) who had grasped the nettle of learning Danish in a big way - they had gone for the total immersion approach). While the latter wasn't really open to me, I thought that, well, maybe a concentrated amount of L-R could be a relatively easy way of getting something like immersion. It would also be an interesting test of the L-R method when applied to a language at which one is an almost total beginner. I don't regard myself as in any way a polyglot, like many of the talented and hard- working people here, and I'm not even sure if my ambitions lie in that direction. I would like to improve and possibly perfect the languages I'm already familiar with, and maybe learn one or two other ones reasonably well, if possible. At least that's as far as I'm looking at the moment. As far as other languages go, I learned Latin formally at school for 5 years, and over the years, have attempted to teach myself Dutch, Welsh, Italian, Biblical Hebrew, and New Testament Greek. Apart from the other Scandinavian languages, I think the most likely "next" language for me might be Portuguese; but that's a long way off, if it ever happens. Edited by montmorency on 21 June 2012 at 10:32pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4829 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 2 of 133 15 June 2012 at 12:01am | IP Logged |
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The "Challenge"
Not a formal challenge, as I've mentioned, but I think I'm going to try to "do" the equivalent of 1 Danish or 1 German book per week. This will be more like 2 books per fortnight, rather than 1 per week. In addition I'll try to watch as many DVDs of either language as I can get hold of, but this might not be all that many, plus the odd visit to the local "arthouse" cinema. As L-R can take quite a time, and as I tend to work slowly, I'm not really sure I can match this pace, but we'll see how it goes. A lot of the "classic" German books are fairly long, which is good for getting your teeth into, but does of course eat up the time. I'm intrigued by the idea of "reverse L-R", i.e. listening to your L1, while reading L2, if necessary recording yourself reading in L1 first, but that would also eat up a lot of time. It might well be worth it though. In the past I've taken a rather purist approach of only using books that were originally written in the TL. However, in the case of Scandinavian, it seems a bit silly to ignore books written in Swedish or Norwegian, especially as my longer term goal would be to get familar with those languages as well. But also I have to be pragmatic, and if there are "classics" like Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings easily available in German and Danish, then I'd be silly to ignore those too. But also, there are plenty of DVDs around of both films and TV series in Swedish, and some in Norwegian, and I'm going to consider those grist to the mill also. If they have subtitles in Danish (or I can find them online), so much the better. As I've mentioned elsewhere, I had a sort of Eureka moment when I realised that a lot of Scandinavian stuff (especially "Krimis") were popular in Germany, and there would be German translations around, so where possible, I'll try to read them in both Danish and German (with the appropriate audiobooks where available). 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4829 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 3 of 133 15 June 2012 at 1:11am | IP Logged |
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Deutsch:I've been listening to an audiobook of Thomas Mann's "Buddenbrooks"
, and reading the text from Pr. Gutenberg. I don't currently have an English translation, but it's not proving too much of a problem. I saw a DVD of it last year. I've also got the audiobook for "Der Tod in Venedig", so that might be next. I read this some years ago, and found it quite tricky, but we'll see how it goes with the audiobook (and of course, any progress I have hopefuly made since then). Other than possible Scando-translations, I'm considering "Tintenherz", and/or "The Lord of The Rings", for which I have found an audiobook. (And it somehow seems fitting to read the work of a scholar of (among other things) Germanic languages and legend). Dansk As mentioned elsewhere, I've been working through TYS Complete Danish, which I have found to be good (better than I had expected). I've concentrated on the dialogues which are on the 2 CDs, but have been going back and filling in some grammar and vocabulary. I've listened to some of the podcasts from Copenhagencast.com, but not bought the transcripts yet, although I plan to. I've also listened and watched some of the audio/video podcasts from Danish radio, but there aren't any transcripts. Hopefully they will come more into their own when I can separate out the individual words better. L-R A forum member kindly suggested the book "Naiv.Super" by Erland Loe (originally written in Norwegian, but that's ok). I've identified Danish translations in audiobook and e-book form, but haven't forked out for them yet (that's the painful bit!). I'll look around for a German translation as well, and possibly the Norwegian original (what the heck... :-) ). However, I have today finished the English translation (it's a short book). Quite charming, as everyone says. I've just started to read the English translation of "Mercy" by Jussi Adler- Olsen, which is the 1st of the "Department Q" krimi novels. Apparently he's Denmark's best selling author of that genre, although I must admit I'd never heard of him until recently. It seems to be a page-turner, and shouldn't take long to finish...in English :-) I will also be looking for works by the authors that other forum members have kindly suggested. There are some Danish works on both Project Gutenberg and Librivox, but unfortunately, there is very little correspondence between them, so no easy path to L-R there, although I did find the text of some short stories online for which there are Librivox recordings (mostly H.C.Andersen I think, and I enjoyed listening to and reading those). Film/TV/DVD I borrowed "After the Wedding" (Mads Mikkelsen, Rolf Lassgård, and Sidse Babett Knudsen) from the library (they seem to have about 6 Danish DVDs there). A really excellent film I thought. I'll watch it again with my wife (who likes anything Scandinavian, and was a Scandophile before I was). Only English s/t on the DVD, but I'll see what there is online. I wondered if Lassgård would be playing a Dane or a Swede, but his character is definitely Swedish. There were one or two little "digs" at the Swedes in there :-) I recently received the DVD set for the Rolf Lassgård versions of "Wallander" that the BBC have shown, and have watched 2 episodes, listening as carefully as I could (English-only s/t). I was pleased to pick up a few words from their similarity with Danish (which I would not have got the 1st time around, on TV). The remaining RL Wallanders are not readily available in this country but I've found some of them at Swedish and Danish online DVD shops. Not cheap, but with a good range of subtitles (usually all the Nordic Languages). So they are on the wish list. At some point, I guess I will get the DVDs for "Forbrydelsen", "The Bridge|Bron|Broen", and "Den Som Dræber", oh, and "Borgen". Subtitles are always going to be an issue though. Do I get the UK versions, and depend on getting s/t online, or do I get the Scandinavian editions (usually paying more, and possibly no English s/t?). As I'd like to watch these with my wife sometimes, and she isn't studying any Scandinavian language seriously, I guess I have to opt for versions with English (that we can watch on TV, not just on a computer). :-) Edited by montmorency on 15 June 2012 at 1:18am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4829 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 4 of 133 16 June 2012 at 3:50am | IP Logged |
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2012-06-15 Freitag|Fredag
Dansk Read a bit over half of English translation of "Mercy" by Jussi Adler-Olsen, in preparation for L-R. Glad to see he puts in a few jokes. More than Henning Mankell (although as I heard Håkon Nesser saying in a podcast of a discussion, it would be hard not to have more humour than Henning Mankell :-) ). But I realised this wasn't doing any actual Danish, so.... ...I did some wordlists based on my TYS book, 6 groups of 7 words. I ignored any ones that were too obvious from English or German, but did include any that I've already picked up since I started the book. This means that this process will probably get harder, but, well if it isn't hurting, it isn't working, as someone once said :-) Also listened to some of the dialogues on the CDs. I know my ears play tricks, but I'm wondering if some of the pronunciation on these CDs is inconsistent. Well, it's early days yet, and I need to hear many many more hours of Danish before it will begin to make sense. At least I am picking out from the audio words that I now know (hilarious deviations from the spelling notwithstanding!). What my daughter would probably call comedy spelling. :-) Deutsch Didn't do any actual German at all today, I'm afraid, although I did try to put the computer files with my audiobooks in into some sort of order. A favourite tutor of mine used to say "Jeden Tag etwas Deutsch". Good motto; I should put it into practice. I want to continue with "Buddenbrooks", and then "Der Tod in Venedig". Hopefully my conversation group will start again soon (teacher has been busy elsewhere), although we'll only meet 3 or 4 times during the summer. Still, it helps to "keep it real". Sort of :-) Edited by montmorency on 16 June 2012 at 3:54am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4829 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 5 of 133 18 June 2012 at 5:39am | IP Logged |
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2012-06-16-17 Samstag-Sonntag|Lørdag-Søndag
Dansk Tried to do as many words from TYS Danish in wordlists as I could, but it was not as many as I would have liked. Still, at least it's some each day. Studied some grammar points in TYSD: plurals; past tenses. Up to now, I've really been letting the grammar "wash over me". Not that I'm naive or arrogant enough to think I'll pick it all up like a child acquiring its first language, but knowing its simpler than German, and in some respects simpler than English. However, I know I'll have to get to grips with it properly, but I will try to make that a gradual (painless?) process. And I do actually find grammar interesting anyway. e.g. I assume that "skulle" is a residual subjunctive form of "skal", used only now in set phrases by shop assistants and waiters perhaps. Now read about 2/3 of "Mercy" in English; I think I can see the way it's shaping up, but we'll see if he throws in some surprises. Will Assad turn out to have been a detective in Syria....? He seems pretty good for a cleaner. Watched "After the Wedding" again with my wife. Was pleased to pick out a few more words, and also notice some differences in pronunciation by the Swede, Rolf Lassgård, from the way the Danes were pronouncing certain words, e.g. "Jacob", and "Hansson". Similar, I guess to the difference in the way that Saga Norén's first name was pronounced in "Bron|Broen|The Bridge". Deutsch Hardly any, I'm afraid, except read and replied to a short email. Edited by montmorency on 18 June 2012 at 5:55am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4829 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 6 of 133 21 June 2012 at 1:29am | IP Logged |
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2012-06-18-20 Montag-bis-Mittwoch|Mandag-Onsdag
Where does the time go?! Goodness... Dansk Listened to a lot of podcasts from Danish Radio, including some with transcripts (only "Kanten" :-( ). Most of the time, I can keep up ok, but occasionally will lose my place, and have to hunt around to get back in. It helps that they have short paragraphs which are good places to get back in. I wordlisted Unit 5 of TYSCD and worked through the dialogues. Not so many cognates with English or German in this unit, so a bit harder, but some words are sticking. "gammel"=old sounds like a nice word, for some reason :-) "måske"=perhaps .... reminds me a bit of Dutch "mischien"[sp?], but nothing like German or English, as far as I can see, unless there is some old dialect word, or some word I've forgotten. "hav(-et,-e)"=sea - on first sight, couldn't see any connections, then thought, of course, of "havn", as in København, and we have the English word "haven", which nowadays means something like a shelter or resting place, but must have also meant "harbour" at one time, cf. place names like "Newhaven". So, I assume there is a connection between "hav" and "havn", but I could be wrong of course. (Of course, the pronunciation of words like "hav", "havn", not to mention things like "give" and "have", are going to have me banging my head against a wall for quite some time I think. Perhaps with sufficient Tuborgs it comes more easily...). Today I noticed Danish Radio were offering a free audiobook and Jeff Lindqvist pointed out that there was one a week and last week's was still available, so I downloaded both, and listened to a few chapters from each, just for fun, although I haven't got the Danish text or a translation. This week's was about Lars Elstrup, a footballer. FB isn't my cup of tea, but it might be interesting on a human level. Last week's was a Krimi by Swedish Writer Leif GW Persson. I was afraid it might have been the Swedish version at first, because the language sounded a bit different to what I've heard so far. However, eventually, I think I convinced myself it was in Danish :-) Later on I did actually listen to some Swedish, as I distracted myself by looking for podcasts on Swedish Radio and other places. Quite interesting, and quite hard to follow, to be honest. I did manage to pick out a few words, but it wasn't easy. I'd better not spend too much time getting distracted by Swedish I suppose. It's easier reading Swedish text than listening to audio. I can usually pick out words similar to Danish, allowing for slight differences in spelling. Deutsch Apart from continuing to sort out my audiobook computer files, almost nothing. Must get down to some concentrated L-R-ing soon. Edited by montmorency on 21 June 2012 at 1:36am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4829 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 7 of 133 21 June 2012 at 10:42pm | IP Logged |
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2012-06-21 Donnerstag|Torsdag
Dansk Listened to some of CD1 of TYSCD again, without the book, and was pleased to be able to pick out most of the words, and understand most of the meaning (some just through context). Downloaded "Borgen" episode 2/10 from BBC iPlayer (will only work for up to 30 days; only English s/t of course), and watched it. Was pleased to pick up a lot more words than the first time around. Listening on headphones probably helped there. Pleased that I already knew what Folketing and Dronningen meant :-) Noticed a few not quite literal, or even mistranslations in the s/t's! :-) Best line of the episode (in the subtitles...I didn't catch it in Danish): Birgitte is waiting to be summoned by the queen, hopefully to form a new government, but it's still uncertain. Without realising that a royal flunky is behind her, Birgitte comes out with "Can't the b***h count?!" :-) Deutsch The only German I did was to watch 2 of Fasulye's videos in German, one on vegetarian cookery, and the other on "Sprachkrimis". Sehr interessant! Edited by montmorency on 22 June 2012 at 1:27am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4829 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 8 of 133 23 June 2012 at 2:47pm | IP Logged |
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2012-06-22 Freitag|Fredag
Deutsch For a change of mood, listened to several chapters of "Tintenherz" by Cornelia Funke. I'd been keeping this back, giving preference to some of the heavier stuff, but I think now it might be better to mix it in for a bit of light relief. Dansk My wife and I went out to see "En Kongelig Affære"("A Royal Affair"), which was excellent. Mads Mikkelsen was very strong as Dr Struensee, Alicia Vikander was ravishing as Queen Caroline. (We saw her practising Danish while still in England. By the time she got to Denmark, she was fluent. I'd love to know her secret! :-) ). Several familiar faces, including Søren Malling, and Bent Mejding (who was the standing mayor in Forbrydelsen I), and some whom I couldn't place. Picked up a few new words, including "Kong" for "King" (so would "King Kong" become "Kong Kong"? :-) ). My wife informs me that they took a few liberties with history, but I suppose that is par for the course. She drools a bit over Mads Mikkelsen and his brother Lars (who was Troels Hartman in Forbrydelsen I) - that's right: she drools over Troels. :-) Edited by montmorency on 23 June 2012 at 2:49pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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