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Small Expectations | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| TixhiiDon Tetraglot Senior Member Japan Joined 5251 days ago 772 posts - 1474 votes  Speaks: English*, Japanese, German, Russian Studies: Georgian | Message 305 of 431 09 February 2012 at 2:57pm | IP Logged | ||
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Time for a general update.
All is well in Georgian world here in Japan. I'm plodding on with my two lessons a week and a bit extra here and there at home. If the bit extra at home would somehow miraculously turn into one or two hours a day of proper, systematic study with no effort from myself, I would be delighted, but since that is beyond the realms of possibility, I have no choice but to be happy with my rather scrappy, haphazard, irregular study habits. On the literature front, I polished off Kartvelishvili's slender new tome in no time, and was determined to challenge myself with something a little more difficult, but once again I found that nothing even slightly compares to Kartvelishvili in terms of easiness. I finally settled on a big thick novel called კარიკატურისტი (The Caricaturist) by a bloke called ლაშა ბუღაძე, and have managed to get through the first 20 pages relatively painlessly. At the moment I'm reading without a dictionary on the train, and then going back and looking everything up at home. This seems to be the best way to catch the meaning while still enjoying the book, so hopefully I can keep it up for at least a few more chapters. I pulled out my Gold List book the other day for the first time in ages and did a few distillations. Funny how I was so obsessed with this method for quite a while back there in 2010/2011. I had of course remembered absolutely nothing from the lists I'd made several months ago, but still I find it a good way to gather together all my new vocabulary and have a few goes at letting at least some of it sink in. I've been on a bit of an online shopping spree, and having been swindled out of some hard-earned cash on two or three separate occasions by dodgy online retailers, I'm a bit concerned... I've just this second placed a big order with Parnassus, one of the main bookstore chains in Georgia, for a big pile of Georgian literature to add to my already considerably large pile of (mostly unread) Georgian literature. Having visited several branches, I know for a fact that Parnassus is not in the least a dodgy bookstore, but I'm hoping it will be able to handle an order from a Brit living in Tokyo who doesn't understand much Georgian... Also, to satisfy a little wanderlust, I ordered an audiobook of Solzhenitsyn's Cancer Ward, in Russian of course, to hopefully do a little L-R with on perhaps my favourite novel in the world ever bar none. The website I ordered from is another unknown quantity, so it's just a case of crossing my fingers until the goods arrive, or not... And some exciting news unrelated to my Georgian study: my friend's dog is having pups in a few days and one of them is coming to live with me. Of course I want Georgian names for the new addition to my family, so at the moment I'm thinking ლუკა for a dog and ტინა for a bitch. Medea, my Georgian teacher, thinks it's hilarious and a bit weird to give normal Georgian human names to a dog, so I guess there isn't such a custom in Georgia, but hey, who's going to know that in Tokyo? Edited by TixhiiDon on 09 February 2012 at 3:00pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5343 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona | Message 306 of 431 09 February 2012 at 5:10pm | IP Logged | ||
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As you've probably realised by now, I always gain wonderful vicarious pleasure from following your journey through the Georgian language whilst living in Japan, TixhiiDon! What level would you say you're at now? I'm also a huge fan of Solzhenitsyn but am saving "Cancer Ward" until I can read it in the original (I look forward to hearing how you get on with it). Edited by Teango on 09 February 2012 at 5:10pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| TixhiiDon Tetraglot Senior Member Japan Joined 5251 days ago 772 posts - 1474 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese, German, Russian Studies: Georgian | Message 307 of 431 09 February 2012 at 11:17pm | IP Logged | ||
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Ta for the message Teango. I was eagerly following your journey through Russia on the
Siberian Express, until you got fed up and disembarked somewhere around the Urals! I have often considered doing the actual physical train ride from Moscow to Vladivostok or Beijing, but something in the back of my mind tells me that far from being a romantic, contemplative experience, I would just be bored out of my skull and desperate for Wi-Fi to catch up on the crap Reality TV that is my guilty pleasure. As for my Georgian, I suppose I'm at a solid B1, comfortably beyond A2 but quite far from B2. Having just reacquainted myself with the CEFR levels on Wikipedia, I would say that B2 is a distant dream. They could do with a couple more levels, I reckon. A1.5, B33 and a third... I'm looking forward to getting cracking with Раковый Корпус, as I really do adore that novel. Last time I attempted L-R, though, I only ever managed about 20 minutes before falling asleep, and it wasn't that the material was boring, I just find something incredibly soporific about the whole process. So you might be waiting a while for my impressions. Edited by TixhiiDon on 10 February 2012 at 1:45am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| TixhiiDon Tetraglot Senior Member Japan Joined 5251 days ago 772 posts - 1474 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese, German, Russian Studies: Georgian | Message 308 of 431 10 February 2012 at 2:37pm | IP Logged | ||
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I've just discovered that a Georgian writer ლაშა ბუღაძე, who also happens to be the
writer of the novel I have just started reading, won a BBC World Drama prize at the end of last year for a radio play called The Navigator. Part of the prize was to have the play performed on BBC Radio, in English. This all happened around New Year, and two months later it appears there is no longer any possibility of hearing this play. It can't be listened to on the BBC website, there are no plans to re-broadcast it, it's not on iTunes or YouTube, and there are no plans, as far as I can tell, to record it on CD. So that's that. How incredibly annoying! Bloody BBC. On the other hand, I got a nice email in Georgian from the nice people at Parnassus telling me that they expect to have all the books I ordered in stock by Monday, after which they will send them to me as soon as possible. Georgia 1 UK 0 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| TixhiiDon Tetraglot Senior Member Japan Joined 5251 days ago 772 posts - 1474 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese, German, Russian Studies: Georgian | Message 309 of 431 12 March 2012 at 6:50am | IP Logged | ||
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To my great relief, the books from Georgia finally arrived. I was beginning to lose my
faith in Parnassus, but after one or two politely prodding emails I finally got confirmation that my purchases had been sent, followed by the books themselves today. Nicest of all was that, together with the books I had ordered, there was a collection of humorous short stories by Nodar Dumbadze which I had not ordered, with a business card inside saying "A Present from Parnassus" (საჩუქრად პარნასისაგან, in case you're wondering). A lovely personal touch which you're never gonna get from Amazon and its ilk. The reasons I haven't updated in such a long time are (1) I was waiting for the books to arrive so I would have something at least vaguely interesting to write about, and (2) I haven't really been doing a great deal of Georgian. I'm getting pretty fed up with my two lessons a week, truth be told. The conversation exchange with Medea is really nice, but as I mentioned before, it tends to drag on for 3 or 4 hours, after a 9 hour workday, followed by a train and a bus back home. The Wednesday group class, meanwhile, has become just like the Saturday class used to be, i.e. slow as molasses and filled with silence. How the other students have been able to go at this pace for 5 years while still convincing themselves they are actually learning Georgian, I do not know. But I risk sounding condescending now so I will stop. Anyway, this is all going to be moot in just a couple of weeks, as my life is about to be turned completely upside down, first by the arrival of my mum, who is coming to Japan for 2 weeks to visit at the beginning of April, and then by the arrival of our new puppy, who is coming to live with us in the middle of April. After much discussion, we ended up deciding to call her Juno, which has nothing to do with Georgia whatsoever, so I'm a bit disappointed, but life is full of such compromises (not least the need to choose a name with no l's, no r's, no v's, no si's, and no final consonants so that Japanese people can actually pronounce it). So the plan is to take a few weeks to settle little Juno into her new home, during which time I will be taking a sabbatical from the group class and either rearranging or taking a break from the conversation exchange. Even if my Georgian suffers as a result, I will be too glad of the break to care. And besides, I now have enough Georgian books to start up a little Georgian mobile library, so I will never be short of reading practice. Edited by TixhiiDon on 12 March 2012 at 6:54am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| zecchino1991 Senior Member United States facebook.com/amyybur Joined 5045 days ago 778 posts - 885 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, Modern Hebrew, Russian, Arabic (Written), Romanian, Icelandic, Georgian | Message 310 of 431 12 March 2012 at 6:55am | IP Logged | ||
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Sounds great! Someday I want to have that many Georgian books. If everything goes well, I will have a grand
total of 2 very soon! ;) Not in time for the 6wc unfortunately, but that's ok. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| TixhiiDon Tetraglot Senior Member Japan Joined 5251 days ago 772 posts - 1474 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese, German, Russian Studies: Georgian | Message 311 of 431 12 March 2012 at 7:01am | IP Logged | ||
Ooh, now I'm curious! Did you order something from FromRussia.com? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| zecchino1991 Senior Member United States facebook.com/amyybur Joined 5045 days ago 778 posts - 885 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, Modern Hebrew, Russian, Arabic (Written), Romanian, Icelandic, Georgian | Message 312 of 431 12 March 2012 at 7:21am | IP Logged | ||
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Yeah! I got a voicemail from them last week but it was in Russian so I didn't understand that much. All I knew
was that it sounded bad. Then the next day they called again but I couldn't answer it. So I was planning to call/email them the next day, but then I got an email saying my order was shipped. So hopefully everything will be fine! I feel like I should still email them anyway and ask them what on earth that voicemail said. Or maybe I'll just ask someone in my Russian class. ;) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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