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| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4830 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes  Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 73 of 133 31 August 2012 at 2:00pm | IP Logged |
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2012-08-30 Donnerstag| torsdag
Dansk CC days=18 cn=13=tretten (trettende) >10 words from unit 12(tolv) Although for the purposes of the consistency thread, my minimum will stay at 10, my realistic minimum goal is 20, probably in the range 20-30 (new words per day). Although I am using 2 distinct methods (1 of them has 2 variations), for both, I strictly limit it to groups of 5 at a time, and don't go on to another group until I know the current group, at least at some level (can write down the meaning of all 5 in both directions, for example, even if I forget some of them 10 minutes later). Both methods use repetition during the same day, and again later in the week. Modified my approach to word-lists slightly (actually going back to more like the original method, but also using my book, and also worked on "Harry/Palmer". In line with quality rather than quantity, I'm slowing down to only 5 words at a time, but really trying to do them well, instead of ploughing on regardless. I don't want to slow down too much though as I think that has its own problems. Copenhagencast "Every day a new celebration". And some text from "Emma Gad – Takt og tone - 1918". A nice lesson, and a great dialogue with Louise and Johannes, her husband. Afterwards, they explained in English some of the sarcasm they had used to each other, which of course was perfectly understandable (once translated) to an Englishman. :) And BTW, Louise has learned 6 languages! Deutsch Fontane Unwiederbringlich CD7.5, 6. Chapter 30. Oh dear oh dear oh dear. Holk returns to Copenhagen, full of hope (but also a bit worried about what he has given up at home), but when he tells Ebba what he's done, she just mocks him - he shouldn't have taken her seriously - it was a game. Holk is, to say the least, a bit put out by this, and actually doesn't quite believe her. He thinks the shock of the fire has made her change her mind, and it's possible that she has done some rethinking, but basically - and Fontane is a modern novellist in some respects - Ebba would make a good 20th century "femme fatale". She would fit the rôle of the Barbara Stanwyck character in "Double Indemnity", or Lola in "The Blue Angel" ("men swarm around me like moths around the flame; and if they burn up, well, I am not to blame..."). But it's Holk's own fault. He wants to play the great lover (he also fancied his chances with Brigitte Hansen), but is not cut out for the job, and as Ebba cruelly points out, he's not cut out for the job of a faithful husband either. In short, there's no fool like an old fool. Edited by montmorency on 01 September 2012 at 2:38pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4830 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 74 of 133 01 September 2012 at 2:22pm | IP Logged |
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2012-08-31 Freitag| fredag
Dansk CC days=19 cn=14=fjorten (fjortende) >10 words from units 12(tolv) and 13(tretten) I'm tending to do the harder words in "Harry/Palmer" and the easier ones in word-lists, and looking in unit 13 for the harder ones, although I've almost exhausted unit 12 anyway. I suppose the more difficult ones are the abstract nouns, which these units are using a bit more, trying to make the dialogues a bit more complicated and interesting(?) I suppose. Copenhagencast: "Learning a language is like falling in love." "det er så fedt!" - "that's so cool!". Deutsch Fontane "Unwiederbringlich", CD8.1,2 Chapter 31 (read in English first, then L-R in German). We have fast-forwarded a year and a half, and Holk, after a mini-grand-tour, has settled in England, where he seems to live a life not dissimilar to that which Fontane led for a time, living in the same square as Dickens. Fontane was too modest to introduce himself, but it seems that he has done it vicariously via Holk! :) While in London, he learns of the marriage of Ebba to an English aristocrat who was once a diplomat in Copenhagen. This seems to signal "closure" for Holk. He also learns from Christine's brother, that a reconciliation with Christine might be possible, so things are looking up for him, relatively speaking. ~Later: read from Ch 32 to the end in English. I'm not going to give away the ending, but in the basic facts it reflects the true life story that it was based on, although relocated. I will quote from Fontane's letter to someone about the real-life story, after I've read-listened-to the chapters in German. Edited by montmorency on 01 September 2012 at 2:37pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4830 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 75 of 133 02 September 2012 at 9:31pm | IP Logged |
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2012-09-01 Samstag|Sonnaben| Lørdag
Dansk CC days=20 cn=15=femten (femtende) >10 words from units 12(tolv) and 13(tretten) Initially with "Harry/Palmer". Will word-list later. Have got hold of a Danish Lydbog now (one I specifically want to read that is), although I don't yet have the Danish text yet, which is fairly necessary at my tender stage, so I might not do much with it yet. Deutsch I have got hold of "Der Herr der Ringe" now (audio & text), and was trying out a few chapters. Sounds quite good. So far, no luck finding "The Hobbit". The level of the language doesn't seem too difficult - only the weird names and possibly specialised magic vocabulary. It's interesting: in English, I would have thought that the register of "The Lord of The Rings" was significantly higher than in Harry Potter, but I'm not detecting that so far in the German, not that I have read much of either yet. I didn't take HP very seriously at first (in English), but after about book 5, maybe even book 4, I began to have a new respect for it, and even grew to like Harry somewhat, whom I had found a pain in the beginning. Curiously, I began to associate Dumbledore with my old headmaster at secondary school! :-) General: Bit of a slack day, if I'm honest, although I was doing plenty of activities around languages. :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4830 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 76 of 133 03 September 2012 at 12:31pm | IP Logged |
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2012-09-02 Sontag| Sondag
Dansk CC days=21 cn=16=seksten (sekstende) (pronounced "sixten", although "seks" is pronounced "seks"...). You work it out. >10 words from units 12(tolv) , 13(tretten) and 14 (fjorten). I did my word-lists last night very sleepily, but this morning plunged into my word- learning fairly enthusiastically. I notice that I prefer learning new words to reviewing old ones... I suppose that makes me a bit shallow! I'm novelty-seeking. I'm pleased to have obtained Lydbog versions of the 1st 2 Dept Q novels ( Flaskepost & Fasandraeberne), which I have already read in English. I don't yet have the Danish text. However, I think I can get hold of the German text and perhaps the audiobook. So what I am thinking of doing is reading-listening the German versions, to remind me of the stories, which will of course help consolidate my German, and then read-listen in Danish-Danish. I may not pick up many word-meanings that way, but it should be good for sound-spelling association. Just reading-listening those two alone (which are at least 400 pages in English) I will have been exposed to the sound and sight of a large number of Danish words, and should have a pretty good idea by then of how most words that I hear are spelled (and therefore can be looked up later if necessary). And while reading, I will probably recognise a lot of cognates or otherwise get clues to the meanings from spelling, which I might not detect from the sound along. I listened to a few chapters from each (with some trepidation), but was pleasantly surprised. I slighly prefer the male reader of the 1st to the female reading the 2nd, but both are good, at about the right speed, and clear. While I only recognised a small proportion of words, the ones I did recognise I did hear quite clearly. I was pleased to notice "frem og tilbage" ("forth and back") which I only learned the other day. :) So the more vocabulary I learn, the more chance I have with these. Deutsch Read chapter 32 of "Unwiederbringlich" in German, and harvested some words. Will come back and L-R it and the remaining ones in German-German. Edited by montmorency on 03 September 2012 at 1:43pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4830 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 77 of 133 04 September 2012 at 3:21pm | IP Logged |
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2012-09-03 Montag| Mandag
Dansk CC days=22 cn=17=sytten (syttende) >10 words, unit 14. Up early for airport duty (Fru M. off to Istanbul to join datteren, thence to Ephesus), so when back home, jumped straight into word-listing, with reasonable enthusiasm. :) Listening to a bit of "Kvinden i buret" just to see what it's like, Another female reader. Fairly clear. (Think I heard "og så videre" ("and so on") and it sounded like "oh so vi-er" or something like). The støds are there, but not very noticeable; not as much as with the previous reader I think. "flere gang" ... "several times". I have a slight feeling/fear that 2 of the Lydbogs I now have might be abridged versions. Although that would not be ideal, I think they will still be extremely useful. I'll still hear a large quantity of words. It seems that the 4th of them isn't a Dept Q one at all, so I am slightly confused. I need to check titles. I was trying to do some basic arithmentic on the number of words in an average novel of this type, and the number of words in the MP3 versions. Taking one of the English editions at around 480 pages, I estimated it must have at least 114,000 words. The audiobooks seem to be about 14 hours. I can't work out the number of words spoken per minute, but my guesstimates would put the whole audiobook at a lot less than the real books, so heavily adapted. But I need to see the texts to be sure. ~Later: I was getting my titles in a twist before, so this is what I think they should be: --English---(German)-------Danish------------translated Danish title) 1 "Mercy" - ("Erbarmen") "Kvinden i buret" ("Woman in the cage") 2 "Disgrace" ("Schändung") "Fasandræberne" ("The Pheasant Killers") 3 unknown ("Erlösung") "Flaskepost " ("Message in a bottle") 4 unknown ("Verachtung"?) "Journal 64" As far as I can work out, there are still only those first 2 English translations, although 4 German ones, as seen. I have nos. 1-3 in Danish. I have "Journal 64" in what turned out to be Swedish! Might be useful one day... :) And another one ("Alfabethuset") in Danish that isn't part of the Dept Q series. I hope to end up with all the Dept Qs in German in addition; I have some of them already. Deutsch Listened to chapter 32 of "Unwiederbringlich" in German. Was hoping to read/listen to some Jussi Adler-Olsen in German, but didn't get around to it. It could have been, and should have been, a more productive day. Some useful discoveries; a few frustrations; fair enough. Edited by montmorency on 04 September 2012 at 4:04pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4830 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 78 of 133 05 September 2012 at 2:17pm | IP Logged |
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2012-09-04 Dienstag| tirsdag
Dansk CC days=23 cn=18=atten (attende) >10 words, unit 14. Jumped into word-learning first thing. I seem to have discovered a new enthusiasm for it, and I like to think it's for better reasons than my tendency to go for quantity rather than quality, that I noticed a short while ago. I think I've been encouraged by a little mor exposure to comprehensible native input, and the more words I learn, the more I want to learn. But I'm still giving each word its due, and taking each small group of words slowly. I'm also reviewing more, which I had a tencendy to neglect in the past. I hope this virtuousness lasts! :-) Bit of a blow: While I'm finding plenty of lydbøger for Wallander in DK, I'm not finding any e-bøger at any of the DK online retailers. Fortunately, the JA-O Dept Q novels seem to be available in e-book form in DK. No Naiv. Super though so far (except in audiobook). Might have to try to get the Swedish or possibly Norwegian e-books for Wallander. All grist to mill, and might be vaguely helpful while listening to the DK audio; and of course I already have the English versions. Supposedly by a good translator. I emailed Saxo (in Danish, with help from G.translate :) ), and they kindly replied (in understandable Danish :) ) that, sorry, no, but keep an eye open. It might appear one day. Deutsch Listened to some of "Erbarmumg" and partly read-along. (Experimenting with various PC- Windows-basd EPUB readers. Calibre is powerful but too cumbersome for when you just want to click-and-read (as you can do a PDF, for example with Acrobat). Adobe Digital Editions ... well I suppose something with as clumsy name as that would have to also be clumsy in operation, but it's hard to see how a company that came up with a slick tool like Acrobat could come up with something quite as hideous as this. I hated it less when I realised you could get rid of the navigation pane and see more of the book. Still no full-screen mode, and I still hate what remains of the back border. Adobe! No! There are plugins for FF and Chrome and they might be ok but I don't necessarily want to open a browser to read an e-book (admittedly I currently have to for the html ones I've downloaded from Gutenberg). Well the nearest thing I can find to what I really want is FBReader, an open- source-based tool that is basically just a reader. Good. It still has the (unnecessary - to me) concept of libraries and importing books but it's more intuitive than ADE and nicer to use. But like ADE it also lacks a proper "exit" menu or hotkey (unless it's there hidden). So you just have to close the window. That just seems ...wrong. It seems that most of the development is going on Android-based versions, which is fair enough, but no good to me on a PC. If anyone knows of any other good, simple, free EPUB readers for Windows-based- PCs|laptops, please let me know. Edited by montmorency on 05 September 2012 at 2:17pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ummagumma Senior Member IrelandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5258 days ago 217 posts - 241 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German | Message 79 of 133 05 September 2012 at 2:54pm | IP Logged |
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Funny reading your posts on Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. I was never a fantasy
book reader and would have never any interest in books/films with anything got to do with magic. I also don't watch cartoons ... until I started learning German! I'm a HP & L of the Rings fan and watch loads of German dubbed Manga/Anime. It's a funny old world. How do you rate Fontane overall? He has been previously recommended to me by a native. Ich interesse mich fuer deine Erfahrung. Empfehlst du ihn? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4830 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 80 of 133 06 September 2012 at 8:18pm | IP Logged |
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2012-09-04 Mittwoch| onsdag
Dansk CC days=24 cn=19=nitten (nittende) >10 words, unit 14 & venturing into unit 15 now. Got into word-listing and HP-ing first thing, before breakfast. And has the sun was out, did some odd jobs in the garden like pulling up nettles. Gloves - good idea. Short-sleeve-shirt - bad idea! My arms are stinging as I type this. I now know what punishment to give myself if I don't to my word-learning each day... I have a Gyldendals Engelsk-Dansk Ordbog on the laptop now. It's proving pretty good so far. Good if the network is down or slow and I can't use the online one. It's intuitive to use, I'm glad to say. I think I'll add a word or two from it each day to my word- learning, in addition to the stuff in TYS. Don't want to go too mad yet, as I really want to finish TYS in a reasonable time. I think I'll choose fairly common English words to translate that aren't coming up already in the TYS. "George og Alison" (the robot and the croaker) are coming to the end of their stay in DK now. George is busy making speeches, so we're getting lots of abstract nouns ("gæstfrihed" - hospitality; "lejlighed" - opportunity (as well as "flat"). And a very important phrase: "løfte sit glas" - "raise one's glass". I'll drink to that! :-) "skål!". Deutsch Only 2 emails written, plus some word-learning. Not as productive a day as it should have been. Edited by montmorency on 06 September 2012 at 8:19pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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