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German: massive input in Berlin | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| misskj Newbie United States Joined 4349 days ago 28 posts - 38 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Korean | Message 257 of 295 04 May 2015 at 4:25pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Congratulations on your new baby!!
Also just stopping by to say I love reading your blog and all of your progress in German. Definitely inspiring me to take up German as my next language to start studying seriously. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4531 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes  Studies: German | Message 258 of 295 04 May 2015 at 6:10pm | IP Logged | |||||
Thanks. Reading your blog is definitely inspiring too! After Japanese and Korean I think you'd find German quite relaxing. ;) Let me know if you need any resources in the future. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4531 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 259 of 295 16 May 2015 at 1:03pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Yay! Just passed the 900th film mark... Only 100 more to go to the big 1000!
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| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4531 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 260 of 295 01 June 2015 at 11:39am | IP Logged | |||||
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May 2015
In May I read 0 pages and watched 39 films. My daughter, Lucy, is now eight weeks and two days old. It's amazing being able to spend time with her, but there is no question that she's taking a lot of energy away from German. I am able to watch a couple of TV shows in the evening once she sleeps, but beyond that I am only able to read in bits and pieces here and there. It's a little bit crazy. I wake up at 7am and then suddenly it's 4pm and I finally have a chance to do something, and by then I am usually too tired to read. Lucy seems to have mild colic, and cries inconsolably between about 6pm and 9pm (when she finally falls asleep). This should clear up in the next month or two, at which point things will get a lot easier. It's amazing watching her attempts at speaking; though it will obviously be many months before she says her first word. Last week I was in Leipzig for a half hour "get to know you" sit down in the dean of research at Leipzig University to talk in general about possible work at the university (where my wife is starting work in the philosophy department in October). I had expected to be speaking predominantly English with him, as he had spent many years working as a professor in America, and knew that my German was only at an intermediate level, but interestingly he refused to do so, and so I was forced to talk in a somewhat stumbling fashion about my career in German. It was a bit annoying, but also underlined to me that I have to work on the fluency of my speaking. I am told by people that my speech is actually not bad. I make grammatical mistakes, but I am (mostly) quite understandable now and talk about pretty much anything at this point. However, I lack (in part) a certain confidence that causes to stumble over words, which probably makes my level seem lower than it is. Unfortunately, talking with my Kristina (my wife) doesn't seem to help too much, as she's (understandably) too forgiving of mistakes. So I am now looking for a tutor to really push my speaking up a level in the next few months. It will be interesting to see how well this pans out. On June 10 I have been studying German for three years, and so do an up date summary of my overall progress to date. 
Books No books read in May. Movies 919. Elysium (2013). Amazon Prime. 6/10. 911-918. Agents of Shield - Season 1 - 20 Episodes. Amazon Prime. 6/10. 910. Banshee - Season 2 - 2 Episodes. Amazon Prime (5€). 8/10. 909. R.I.P.D. (2014). Amazon Prime. 3/10. 908. Iron Man 3 (2013). Amazon Prime. 3/10. 907. Only God forgives (2013). Netflix. Great film. Really enjoyed the second viewing a couple of years after seeing it in the cinema. 8/10. 901-906. Fringe - Season 5 - 13 Episodes (2012). 6/10. 896-900. Penny Dreadful - Season 1 - 8+2 Episodes. 8/10. 886-895. Fringe Season 4 - 22 Episodes (2011). Netflix. 6/10. 885. Gisela (2005). Film seminar. 6/10. 884. Lone Ranger (2013). Netflix. 8/10. 883. Last Samurai (2003). Netflix. 6/10. 882. Le temps qui reste (2005). Mubi. 5/10. 881. Pusher III: I'm the Angel of Death (2005). Mubi. 8/10. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5007 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 261 of 295 01 June 2015 at 2:48pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I wish you and your wife lots of courage and energy during the months to come. Lucy is surely gonna require that from you :-) I always admire learners who are parents, I am sure you'll get through the hard times.
I think the htlal public might start betting whether Lucy's first real word will be in German or English :-) Agents of Shield and Banshee, are those difficult in German? 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| daegga Tetraglot Senior Member Austria lang-8.com/553301 Joined 4519 days ago 1076 posts - 1792 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Swedish, Norwegian Studies: Danish, French, Finnish, Icelandic | Message 262 of 295 01 June 2015 at 3:26pm | IP Logged | |||||
There's a high chance of it being translingual (thinking about "mama" and "papa") ;) 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4531 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 263 of 295 01 June 2015 at 3:39pm | IP Logged | |||||
It's really not that hard; it's just very time consuming. And so far it has been getting ever easier. Now I do have time to do a bit reading and slowly catching a breath. It will be great when her colic finally passes as it's obviously distressing for her, but at the same time it shouldn't last too much longer. It's amazingly sweet seeing her try to make sense of the world. I sing/talk to her and she's will respond when I make sounds. I don't think physically she can make all the proper sounds for some months, but she's already trying to imitate what we are saying. My guess is she'll speak some mishmash of English/German at first. She loves to hear language sung to her. The way her face breaks into an amazing smile when I sing her name "Luuu---Ceeee" makes me think that perhaps this will be her first word, but who knows. We are steadily buying books at fleamarkets for her, so she should have quite a library by the time we start reading to her in a few months.
I getting to a point where it's hard to say what is difficult as I understand these sorts of shows at about +99%. I think Agents of Shield is probably slightly easier, but I am not really sure. I much prefer Banshee, but there's a lot of violence/sex so be warned. I find it quite humourful, but it's definitely a pulp noir style of TV that would not be to everyone's taste. I think you might like the Netflix series Penny Dreadful (a Penny Dreadful was a pulp horror/murder story that cost a penny in Victorian England). It's an interesting mix of all various different Victorian (penny dreadful) stories (Frankenstein, Dorian Grey, Dracula, Black Magic etc) that works surprisingly well. Edited by patrickwilken on 01 June 2015 at 3:42pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4531 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 264 of 295 04 June 2015 at 12:09pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I bought what looks like a very comprehensive grammar book yesterday: Hammer's German Grammar and Usage.
The plan at the moment is to try to read a chapter a day (23 in total) to get an overview of the grammar and then start to write regular short pieces of text that Kristina can correct. Edited by patrickwilken on 04 June 2015 at 12:09pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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