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Rdearman Super Challenge Log | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4145 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes  Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 17 of 158 05 June 2014 at 3:02pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I'm enjoying your log! It's interesting to see how you're balancing two super challenges.
2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| rdearman Senior Member United Kingdom rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5237 days ago 881 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin | Message 18 of 158 05 June 2014 at 4:01pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I'm glad your enjoying it, however "balancing" seems to be an overly generous term. I'm very conscious of French trying to overpower Italian, and Mandarin trying to muscle in. ;-) Thanks for the kind words. I see you are doing a Spanish SC, good luck! Nice website BTW. (I couldn't help but to follow all the links.) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| rdearman Senior Member United Kingdom rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5237 days ago 881 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin | Message 19 of 158 12 June 2014 at 4:15pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Weekly update
The weekend challenge in the SC thread was a big boost to my reading. I managed to complete 3 books this week, 2 French & 1 Italian, and I also completed on TV series. So a productive week. Seven weeks into the challenge I'm seeing some glimmer of progress specifically in French. Reading is becoming easier (slightly) with fewer underlined/unknown words on a page. I'm now beginning to underline words because I'm not sure of the meaning, not because they are completely unknown. When I started my vocabulary was fairly binary, I knew it or I didn't, now I encounter more and more words which I've seen before, and I'm unsure of the meaning. They still get underlined, but I can see in future they'll be well-known. I'm not clocking up as much time on languages this week as in the previous 6 weeks, but this is mostly because of life happening to me. I've seen some commentary on the SC thread about how easy it is this time around. Pfffttt... not for me! French For the weekend mini-challenge in the SC thread, we had to pick one language and concentrate on it, recording our comprehension of film/audio and the pages per minute of reading. Or in my case, the minutes per page of reading! For me this averaged about 5.4 minutes for each page in French. Film I've completed the entire series of Valèrian & Laureline (40 episodes). I've started watching the series "Mafioso - Le Clan". I've watched the first series before but abandoned it because I couldn't figure out what was going on most of the time. This time around I'm still confused about somethings, but I understand a lot of it. I tried to give a fair assessment of my comprehension levels. For Valèrian & Laureline in the last 2 episodes I watched at the weekend my comprehension was about 60% I think. A fair assessment for "Mafioso - Le Clan" would be much lower, around 30-40%. Books Still using LWT for "Histoire Du Future - Révolte en 2100" and I look up every word, etc. So it is taking a painfully long time to complete. I've calculated that "Le Fléau" by Stephen King will net me about 27 books (27*50) when I complete it. It will be on this log for a long, long time. "Le Petit Nicolas" is only 1 and 1/2 books and I'll finish that probably tomorrow. Books I am reading are: "Le Fléau" - Stephen King "Le Petit Nicolas" - René Goscinny "Histoire Du Future - Révolte en 2100" Italian Struggling a little to keep the Italian/French balance, so I might do my own personal mini-challenge for myself to bring it up to the same level as the French. Film
I was being a little too optimistic. I've still got another few to go before I complete series one. I've slowed down a lot on the Tutti this week but I threw in a couple of other films in Italian this week I found on YouTube: Documentario National Geographic - Serpenti Giganti - A documentary about giant snakes. Mio Fratello è Figlio Unico - This is the story of a boy growing up in the 50-60's in Italy. He joins a Fascist Political Movement and his brother is a Communist. He is in love with his brothers girlfriend. I think there was some dialects going here, because my comprehension rate was only about 50%. Also why do Italian film directors insist on shooting 1/2 the film at night, in the dark, with no lights, and a lens cap on? Interesting to see the guy who plays Inspector Montobano in a supporting actor role. Le Fatiche di Ercole - The labours of Hercules. This was filmed way back in the day. I think it is a dubbed B-movie from the US, but I'm not really sure. I was expecting the molded-clay stop-animation monsters to appear but they never did. It was mostly just women in togas and a bunch of muscle men. The movies seemed to spend an inordinate amount of time on the Island of the Scantily Clad women, with no Ercole in sight. Still as bad B-movies go, it was ok. Books Finally, finally, finally completed "Una torma di donne dai cappelli enormi, in marcia". I suppose, I might have enjoyed it in English, but I doubt it.
Yeah, not doing that. I've moved back down to a kids book. Horrible Histories - The Awesome Egyptians translated into Italian. It is actually interesting and full of cool facts, so I'm going to part the adult literature for awhile. Books I am reading are: "La famosa invasione degli orsi in Sicilia" "Brutta Historie" Conclusion My plan for the next week is to watch 5 films in Italian. Only 7.5 hours, so should be do-able by next Thursday/Friday. Yes, I'm star chasing! I'm only four and a bit films from a star in Italian. Wish reading were that easy! Have to say the badge I'm most proud of is the "7 week streak" badge. Better than stars I think. It means I'm getting what I wanted out of the challenge which is daily contact and use from French & Italian. But the plan other than Italian films it is read, read, read and read some more. I'll probably complete the last few pages of Le Petit Nicolas, then try to concentrate on the Italian books. Still fighting off Mandarin, although I did sneak in an hour of Micheal Thomas in the car. Sigh... must not start another language! OK! That is it from me this week. I probably should do updates more often, because I forget stuff. But anyway, good luck everyone in your challenge and your language learning!! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4910 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 20 of 158 13 June 2014 at 4:14pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I was pleased to find your log, which I'll be following with interest. I was
especially glad about your reference to the ODA, which I've never heard of. I'll try it later this afternoon. And like you, I'll retest periodically to see how I'm progressing. Does it always use the same base text? What is "Valèrian & Laureline"? I've not heard of it. You obviously enjoyed it; could you give a description? Thanks! I have one suggestion for a French TV show: Boulevard du palais. You will find a lot of similarities with Engrenages, but it is not as "cutting edge". For me, this is an advantage because if feels a bit less contrived. Each episode is about 90 minutes, and is self-contained, so it is very good for the SC. And the main character, Rovere, often speaks slowly and carefully, as if he's thinking about his words carefully, so those are good moments for easy comprehension. Finally, the autopsy guy is constantly quoting poetry, so I've been introduced to a few famous and interesting (if macabre) poems. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| rdearman Senior Member United Kingdom rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5237 days ago 881 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin | Message 21 of 158 13 June 2014 at 5:57pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
I'm not sure if it uses the same test, it was the first time I did it. however previous experience has shown me they often do use the same test, which is why I was planning on only retesting 1/2 yearly so I'd forget what I'd read before.
Oh yes, very enjoyable TV series. Valèrian & Laureline is a SciFi story about Valérian who is born in the 28th century and words for the what could best be described as the "time corps". He goes back on his first mission into the middle ages and is thrown in a dungeon with Laureline who refused to marry the king (because he was old enough to be her grandfather). They escape using future technology, and Valérian is forced to take her back to the future with him. But when they get back (in the spaceship) to the 28th century Earth has disappeared. (This is episode 1) So the remaining 39 episodes are about them becoming freelance trouble-shooters travelling space and time. They also look for clues to the disappearance of earth.
Cool! I will look for that one! Sounds really good. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| rdearman Senior Member United Kingdom rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5237 days ago 881 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin | Message 22 of 158 19 June 2014 at 3:36pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Weekly update
I did some star chasing this week to get another star in Italian Films. Super Challenge statistics as of this writing. French : 9.5 books : 34.7 films Italian : 2 books : 26.4 films Reading is still a problem for me mostly because of my reading rates. I'm still running about 5 minutes per page, which is very frustrating since most people would consider me a "speed-reader" in English. Using the LWT program is painfully slow, but is helping my reading comprehension in other areas. I've been on a mission to get easier (but not too easy) books. I've snapped up every Ronald Dahl translation I can find as well as other childrens authors. Many an hour spent googling for "Famous Childrens Authors". My new plan is to read 4-5 of these types of books and try to get my reading speed up into the 2-3 minutes per page in the next few months. Amazon FR & Amazon IT must love me. At some point this weekend I plan to read a book in English in order to time myself, since I don't really have a time for comparison at the moment. Ideally if I could get a reading speed of 1/2 my English rate in French and Italian I'd be a very happy man. French My listening comprehension in French is on the rise. Probably because I spend all my time watching TV series. I've bought a Raspberry PI and turned the TV in my bedroom into a "smart TV" so that I can watch french/italian films without disturbing the rest of the family. I can also get on YouTube and I got some cool plugins to start watching some current Italian/French TV. Film I've started watching the series "Mafioso - Le Clan". I've watched the first series again, and I understand a LOT more of what is going on this time. I'm now halfway through the second season. There are only 8 episodes per season, so I'll burn through this fairly quickly I think. I found a list of French TV which a French friend created for me and I've pasted it below incase anyone else wants to have a look at them. I'm going to try to find some more of them. — French series : 1/ Comedies : H (Canal+, 1998-2002) : 4 seasons, 71 episodes. Kaamelott (M6, 2005-2009) : 6 seasons, '417' episodes (s1-4 : 400x4min ; s5-6 : 17x52min). Fais pas ci, fais pas ça (France 2, 2007 - ?) : 5 seasons, 42 episodes. Hero Corp (Comédie, 2008-2010 ; France 4, 2013 - ?) : 2 seasons, 30 episodes. Hard (Canal+, 2008 - ?) : 2 seasons, 18 episodes. Bref (Canal+, 2011-2012) : 1 season, 82 episodes (2 minutes each). Platane (Canal+, 2011 - ?) : 1 season, 12 episodes. Kaboul Kitchen (Canal+, 2012 - ?) : 1 season, 12 episodes. 2/ Dramas : Le coeur a ses raisons. La Galère (Radio-Canada). Minuit, le soir (Radio-Canada, 2005-2007) : 3 seasons, 37 episodes. Engrenages (Canal+, 2006 - ?) : 4 seasons, 40 episodes. Les Bleus (M6, 2006-2010) : 4 seasons, 36 episodes. Mafiosa (Canal+, 2007 - ?) : 4 seasons, 32 episodes. La Commune (Canal+, 2007) : 1 season, 8 épisodes. Reporters (Canal+, 2007-2009) : 2 seasons, 18 episodes. Flics (TF1, 2008-2011) : 2 seasons, 8 episodes. Scalp (Canal+, 2008) : 1 season, 8 episodes. Les oubliées (France 3, 2008) : miniseries, 6 episodes. Pigalle, la nuit (Canal+, 2009) : 1 season, 8 épisodes. Sweet Dream (Canal+, 2009 - ?) : 1 season, 3 episodes. Un village français (France 3, 2009 - ?) : 5 seasons, 48 episodes. Profilage (TF1, 2009 - ?) : 3 seasons, 30 episodes. Braquo (Canal+, 2009 - ?) : 2 seasons, 16 episodes. La commanderie (France 3, 2010) : 1 season, 8 episodes. Maison Close (Canal+, 2010 - ?) : 1 season, 8 episodes. Les beaux mecs (France 2, 2011) : 1 season, 8 episodes. Signature (France 2, 2011) : 1 season, 6 episodes. Xanadu (Arte, 2011) : 1 season, 8 episodes. Clash (France 2, 2012) : 1 season, 6 épisodes. Inquisitio (France 2, 2012) : 1 season, 8 episodes. Les hommes de l'ombre (France 2, 2012 - ?) : 1 season, 6 episodes. Ainsi soient-ils (Arte, 2012 - ?) : 1 saison, 8 episodes. Les revenants (Canal+, 2012 - ?) : 1 season, 8 episodes. Books Still using LWT for "Histoire Du Future - Révolte en 2100" and I look up every word, etc. So it is taking a painfully long time to complete. I've completed "Le Petit Nicolas" but I'm going to carry an Italian book for lunchtimes and I'll leave the other two Petit Nicolas books until I've pushed the Italian up to the same level as the French book count. Still dipping into Le Fléau for a couple of pages each night. Books I am reading are: "Le Fléau" - Stephen King "Histoire Du Future - Révolte en 2100" Italian Still struggling with the Italian/French balance. I did my own personal mini-challenge in Italian at the weekend, but still haven't managed to get the two books I'm working on over the line. Film Ahhh... "Tutti Pazzi Per Amore" season 2. I've just watched my favourite episode. (spoiler alert) Paolo & Michele (the grooms) are getting married in a double wedding, but they oversleep and the panic they are in trying to get dressed and get to the church is hilarious. I won't say more, but the comedy is good, if a little slapstick and always makes me laugh. It is also a very sad episode at the end, when a favourite character dies. (end spoiler alert) Because "Tutti Pazzi Per Amore" has 26 episodes per season I'll be watching this for awhile longer, but I need to find something to watch next, and I don't want to watch Carabinieri again (watched it twice all 7 seasons already). So if anyone knows of some good Italian TV shows I'd be happy to get a list! Books Horrible Histories - The Awesome Egyptians translated into Italian. Still reading this, but it is much quicker than the other stuff I've been reading. This is about 3.5 SC books, and I've lined up a couple of Ronald Dahl books in Italian for afterward. Struggling through the "La famosa invasione degli orsi in Sicilia" which has a lot of poetry and other stuff which makes it a little of an uphill climb for me. But I might do another mini-challenge to get through one of these two books this weekend. (I mean the entire physical book as opposed to a SC 50 page book) Books I am reading are: "La famosa invasione degli orsi in Sicilia" "Brutta Historie" Conclusion I believe if I can find the TV shows to watch I can watch 200 films in French & 200 in Italian at the rate I'm going. But this is week 8 of the SC and my reading is BAD, BAD, BAD! Averages are: French: 1.1875 books per week. Italian: 0.25 books per week. Given there are only 79 weeks left of the challenge it means I will have: French: 103.3 books, including the ones I've already done. Italian: 21.75 books. So I will FAIL at the rate I'm reading in Italian. :( Films aren't a problem at this rate I'll have 377.36 French films and 287.1 Italian films. So my takeaway for this week is that I need to up my game in Italian if I want to complete the challenge, and scale back on the TV. Good Luck to everyone taking the SC! Thanks to all of you who've taken the time to read my ramblings. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| rdearman Senior Member United Kingdom rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5237 days ago 881 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin | Message 23 of 158 26 June 2014 at 2:31pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Weekly Update
Super Challenge statistics as of this writing (26 June 2014). French : 10.5 books : 38.7 films Italian : 5.2 books : 30.4 films After hitting the Italian hard this week my book numbers in Italian have jumped up a little but a long way from where they should be. I've been trying to focus on reading but because of work commitments couldn't make it out at lunchtimes to read. Otherwise I believe I could've had at least one more book added to the Italian. *sigh* As mentioned in the last update I decided to do a reading rate analysis in English. I've estimated in English I can read on average 5.5 pages per minute at a leisurely pace. In French & Italian the same 5.5 pages would take around 27 minutes. So to give some idea for comparison, to read a 50 page book: English: 9 minutes. French/Italian: 4 hours and 15 minutes. I can only assume everyone who has already done 20-40 books in the SC rankings must be reading at something close to my English reading rate. Of course it takes them the same 90 minutes it takes me to watch a film, but I suspect they are getting more out of it! I'm near 50% of the way through the SC in films because I watch them (or listen for audiobooks) during my commute to and from home. I should manage to complete the 100 films by September, so I might switch to listening to Pimsleur Mandarin at that point with the odd one or two audio books in other languages thrown in. (Is it sad I'm considering doing a 1/2 challenge in Mandarin? Should I see a doctor?) French Oddly enough I've slowed down on French because of French people! I have colleagues over from France, which is preventing me from getting away to read/watch/listen/study languages at lunchtime. Also I've concentrated on Italian more this last week. FILMS Still watching the series "Mafioso - Le Clan" and I've completed the 2nd season and starting on the 3rd today. I've also discovered they're filming a 5th series this year which should be released near the end of 2014. Very cool! I've been watching (but not yet reported) Les visiteurs with Jean Reno, Christian Clavier, and I've only got another 15 minutes left to watch. My language exchange partner has said there is 3-4 of these movies so I'm on the lookout for the others. BOOKS I've dropped "Histoire Du Future - Révolte en 2100" on LWT after I finished the block of pages I was reading and flipped to an Italian book. I'll restart as soon as I've evened up the Italian & French books. Meanwhile I'm still reading a few pages per day of my Stephen King book. Books I am reading are: "Le Fléau" - Stephen King Italian Just leveling up the Italian with the French and so I spent the week concentrating on Italian. FILMS "Tutti Pazzi Per Amore" season 2 episode 10 next. Almost halfway through the second series. BOOKS Did a lot of work last weekend to try and complete the physical books I'm reading. I managed to get to the last couple of pages of "Gli Spaventevoli Egizi", (Horrible Histories - The Awesome Egyptians translated into Italian) then I'm moving on to another book for lunchtimes, probably a Roald Dahl book called "Gli Sporcelli". Working through the last few pages of a block of 50 in "La famosa invasione degli orsi in Sicilia". I also read using LWT on occasion and in order to move my Italian books forward I've changed over to reading "Io Sono Leggenda" (i am legend) from French books. I really find LWT tedious and painful, mostly because of all the time it takes for the mouse-clicking, lookups, more clicking, etc. etc. BUT like they say in the Tesco advertisements; Every little helps. :-) Books I am reading are: "La famosa invasione degli orsi in Sicilia" "Brutta Historie - Gli Spaventevoli Egizi" "Io Sono Leggenda" Conclusion Reading Averages have changed from: French: 1.1875 books per week --> 1.3125 books per week Italian: 0.25 books per week --> 0.65 books per week Target is: 1.1628 per week. I still continue with my French tutor sessions each week as well as language exchanges in French & Italian but I've added back in flashcards into my life. I've determined that I have an extra 10 minutes each morning & night when I take the dog for a short walk that I can flip through an ANKI deck. The deck is a pre-built one of 1000 most common French words. I try to report every-time I complete 50 pages of a book in order to make sure my tracking is ok. It allows me to do various analysis like all the above. I have been looking at all the people streaking ahead of me on the Super Challenge Rankings Page and I'm taking some comfort in the fact most of the people rocketing ahead are either doing the challenge in a single language or they've a more "unbalanced" ratio in their efforts. My goal is to hit the 100/100 in both languages at more or less the same rate. I'm still really proud of the consistency badges. I want to end the challenge with 86 weeks of consistent effort under my belt. Good luck to everyone in the super challenge, and anyone learning a language. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Radioclare Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom timeofftakeoff.com Joined 4584 days ago 689 posts - 1119 votes Speaks: English*, German, Esperanto Studies: Croatian, Serbian, Macedonian | Message 24 of 158 26 June 2014 at 8:13pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
For the past fortnight I have been reading a proper adult book about Julius Caesar in Croatian (rather than young adult fiction as I was doing before) and my speed seems to be 30-35 pages per hour, so I am probably reading 50 pages in about 90 minutes. That's just going with the flow and not stopping to look up the words I don't know though. It does feel frustratingly slow to me compared to reading in other languages and I am so heartily sick of Caesar now that I could happily stab him myself. I am a prime example of someone with an unbalanced ratio, but I agree that the dream would be to complete both parts of the challenge at the same rate! 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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