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Lorinth’s log - 劳伦的博客 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| lorinth Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4301 days ago 443 posts - 581 votes  Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Latin Studies: Mandarin, Finnish | Message 393 of 408 08 June 2015 at 9:57am | IP Logged |
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ZH
Nothing earth-shattering to mention but, for the sake of completeness, I: - have worked on my listening comprehension 6/7 days last week, specifically with two Slow Chinese podcasts (transcription exercices with podcasts #138 最有中国味道的词语 and #139 孝) and eight lessons of ChineseLearnOnline, i.e. intensive listening with lessons 240-248 during two fairly long drives. By the way, ChineseLearnOnline used to call its levels "1" to "7". Now they've stuck an adjective behind the figures, so now I know what level should really be called: it's "lower intermediate". This after 7.5 year of studying Chinese. Sigh. - have continued reading 鬼吹灯, part 2. Now in chapter 13/36. - have studied my different vocab queues in Pleco (random vocab - but I've been more and more lazy with this routine, only adding about 5-10 words per day and even missing 2 or 3 days/week recently…), Anki (audio and classical Chinese) and Skritter (3000 most frequent characters) - have continued preparing an Anki/subs2srs deck with the first episode of 奋斗. I'm aligning the subtitles with the audio, which is taking quite a long time. But I'm not in a hurry, as I haven't finished my 白蛇传说 deck just yet. - have read two pages of a history book called "中华上下五千年. " and of... LA ... Luigi Miraglia 's Fabulae Syrae here and there. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| lorinth Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4301 days ago 443 posts - 581 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Latin Studies: Mandarin, Finnish | Message 394 of 408 11 June 2015 at 11:38am | IP Logged |
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ZH
Our three heroes of 鬼吹灯 (胡汉三, 胖子and 大金牙) have been turning and turning for hours in a labyrinthic flight of stairs (悬魂梯) resembling a Penrose structure designed to trap tomb raiders and drive them crazy. I sure hope they will soon find their way out, because it's becoming longish and claustrophobic. By the way, at the risk of sounding pedantic, back when I was studying linguistics, I had a course about Dumézil's trifunctional hypothesis among Indoeuropeans, i.e. the idea that Indoeuropeans divided individuals into three classes (priests, warriors and farmer/merchants) and that such division was and still is reflected in any number of primitive and not so primitive Indoeuropean myths and stories. It suddenly struck me that our three Chinese heroes fit rather well in this pattern, with 老胡 being the mediator with the sacred world, thanks to his deep knowledge of 风水 and the ancient Chinese myths (ok, he used to be a soldier too); 胖子 being the brutish action man; and 大金牙 being the one who buys and sells antiques. Which could mean, but I'm not in the mood to develop a doctoral thesis right now, that Dumézil's categories are so large that they could apply to many, if not all, civilizations in the world. But, hey, who am I to say such things. LA On a whim, I started reading Oerberg's edition (in his Sermones romani) of the Pseudo-Dositheus, thinking it would be mildly interesting for a 10 minute reading session. Turns out it was an unexpectedly entertaining read that provides a very vivid picture of a day in the life of a Roman patrician, using dialogues only. So I ended up reading all 20 (short) pages of the text. This kind of text announces the colloquia that were written much later by the likes of Erasmus and Commenius. By the way, many such colloquia are available as mp3 files for your listening pleasure. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| lorinth Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4301 days ago 443 posts - 581 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Latin Studies: Mandarin, Finnish | Message 395 of 408 13 June 2015 at 9:04pm | IP Logged |
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ZH
Apart from the usual stuff (vocab acquisition, transcription of/listening to podcasts, reading 鬼吹灯), I have watched several episodes of the anime 熊出没. LA I've read a lot of latin these last few days. In Oerberg's collection "Sermones Romani", I've read excerpts from Plautus, Cato (that likeable grumpy old fart), Aesopus and, above all, Phaedrus. French speakers are spoilt because one of the greatest French poet, Lafontaine, spent his life plundering Aesop and Phaedrus and very often surpassed them in the process: every French speaker knows by heart some fables written by Lafontaine and (every day, often unknowingly) uses aphorisms taken from Lafontaine's poems. However, reading Phaedrus is also a real joy: it's short, it's witty and it sounds great (the iambic senarii, the alliterations...). Apart from that, I've also read the famous letter from Seneca to Lucilius on time, reread some grammatical explanations (in Latin) in Oerberg's Familia Romana, where I felt I needed a refresher, reread a dozen lessons of Assimil's Latin sans Peine, for the heck of it, etc. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| lorinth Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4301 days ago 443 posts - 581 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Latin Studies: Mandarin, Finnish | Message 396 of 408 17 June 2015 at 10:59am | IP Logged |
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ZH
《鬼吹灯》的作家一定看了Aliens这部电影。三 个英雄（胡汉三、胖子、大金牙）在一个洞穴 迷路了。 忽然巨型 的蜘蛛攻击他们，想把它们的鲜血活生生地吸 干。不过Aliens的Ripley用高科技的火焰喷射器毁 灭外星怪物。在 这本小说里，老胡用打火机点燃大金牙的裤子 ， 成功地摧毁蜘蛛窝，还杀死所有的蜘蛛。那这 的确是一位英雄！ LA In Oerbergis librum cuius titulus Roma Aeterna est, legi capitulum de Roma clara urbe capite mundi. Et legi de destructione Troaie. Tametsi hoc capitulum Vergilii fabulam solutis versibus reddit, valde me delectavit de Teucrorum clade legere. Utinam possim hexametros latine canere, ut scripti sunt. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| lorinth Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4301 days ago 443 posts - 581 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Latin Studies: Mandarin, Finnish | Message 397 of 408 25 June 2015 at 10:56am | IP Logged |
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Again, nothing extraordinary to log, but for the sake of completeness:
ZH Still reading 《鬼吹灯》, now in chapter 21/36. Just as in the first book, vol. 2 seems to be divided in two parts, each recounting one adventure. The first part is over, our heroes are back in town, and Shirley Chang returns from the States with some very bad news. Still working on my listening comprehension. This month, I've worked intensively on 7 or 8 Slow Chinese shows (transcription) and about 10 ChineseLearnOnline podcasts (intensive listening). I'm adding new vocab to my lists (Anki, Pleco, Skritter) at a slower rate because I've had a hard time catching up with my backlog recently. LA I finally found a Latin-English dictionary in the Stardict format, so I could install it on my phone to use with ColourDict (as a dictionary) and Moon Reader (as an ereader). It could help me practice more extensive reading in Latin. I've been reading fables by Phaedrus, Oerberg's Roma Aeterna (now in chapter 39, where Aeneas meets Dido), some Caesar (third book of the De Bello Gallico). Fun is had. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| lorinth Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4301 days ago 443 posts - 581 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Latin Studies: Mandarin, Finnish | Message 398 of 408 06 July 2015 at 11:42am | IP Logged |
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ZH
My Chinese studies - and my motivation unfortunately - have reached a low point. I have been on holidays for a few days, which means that all my time has been devoted to my family, leaving next to nothing for languages. Which does not mean I haven't been doing anything: - I've managed to review my SRS queue in Pleco - but stopped adding any new word -, and have fallen behind in Anki and Skritter (though I haven't added any new word either). - I've read maybe two or three pages of 《鬼吹灯》 over the last few days and started chapter 23. - While driving, I listened to a few SlowChinese podcasts and was forced to admit (again and again…) that my listening comprehension level is *still* extremely disappointing, as there were podcasts where I could barely say what they were talking *about*. What could I do to restart my Chinese engine? LA In Oerberg's Sermones romani, I've read extracts of Tacitus (maybe my favourite Latin author, but the language is hard), the New Testament (piece of cake), the Rhetorica ad Herennium (hard: I had to read it very carefully and then compare with a translation to make sure I had understood correctly those parts I thought I'd understood, and to clarify some other parts), Horatius (even harder, I definitely needed a translation to guide me through the text). In Roma Aeterna, I've been reading to chap. XLII, ex T. Livii Ab Urbe Condita, nonnullis mutatis et praetermissis. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5036 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 399 of 408 06 July 2015 at 4:30pm | IP Logged |
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Hi, Lorinth,
I've just caught up on your log after a longer time and while I can empathise only in a limited way with your Chinese progress and struggle due to my inexperience, I am totally at awe with your Latin! You have my deep admiration for such a high level and reading the literature (and having your favourites), you are one of my temptations to get back to this beautiful pillar of our culture one day. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Expugnator Hexaglot Senior Member Brazil Joined 5193 days ago 3335 posts - 4349 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian | Message 400 of 408 06 July 2015 at 7:00pm | IP Logged |
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You're far beyond my level, but from what I can notice you need to find a resource to catch up your attention so you can stick to it till you reach 'flow'. It seems you like the resources you are using but none seems to be really fun, and when you are multi-tracking it might be wise to have at least one that you find really fun. Maybe a translated novel or non-fiction you've been willing to read for a long time? You will be motivated at how easy it will be compared to the native Chinese materials you've been dealing with, and maybe you will feel more motivated to work on these as well.
2 persons have voted this message useful |
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