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Super Challenge/Adv, Cha. Reg, Upd, 2013

 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log Post Reply
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Tamise
Triglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
jllrr.wordpress.com/
Joined 5041 days ago

115 posts - 161 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Dutch
Studies: French, Japanese, Spanish

 
 Message 169 of 199
02 November 2013 at 11:17am | IP Logged 
Months ago I wrote:
I'll definitely finish with French, and should with Dutch. Japanese: yes for the films, but possibly not for the books - I'm still going to try and it's definitely getting easier. For Spanish, I should finish the films, but probably not the books as I'm at about 5 now - given I started from practically no Spanish in January, I think getting to 10 or 15 would be a more realistic goal. I am going to Spain in September though, so that might give me the impetus to do more.


Where am I now with only two months to go?

Well, my French has been put on hold so I can catch up with other things. I'd have to read 24 pages of French a day to finish the books and watch just under 2 films a week. Both are reasonable targets on their own, but I'm not sure I'll make it without a push on the reading.

For Dutch I'd have to read 104 pages a day and watch just over 2 films a week. The films will be fine - in fact I've been holding off with Dutch films so I didn't finish ages ago. I can read that much Dutch in a day if I have the time (well, other than the current historical non-fiction...), but again really need to break the back of it by reading a lot in a short time. I'm currently reading the first of the Farseer trilogy by Robin Hobb, which is just starting to draw me in, so if I get the time this should work.

For Japanese I'd have to read 68 pages a day and watch just under 2 films a week. Again, the films shouldn't be a problem. The reading here is a problem, as my Japanese reading speed is still pretty slow. If I read easy manga, I can get about 40 (book equivalent) pages done a day without much trouble and I'm also reading an Agatha Christie where I'm reading the Japanese and then the English - I'm picking up speed on this, but it's still pretty daunting. Overall, I don't think I'll get past, say, 80 books. Even with that, the change in my reading ability is huge - I wouldn't have been able to get past page 1 of the Agatha Christie when I started.

For Spanish, I scaled the reading goal down to 15 books, and would need to read 17 pages a day to hit this and watch just over a film and a half a week to finish 50 films. Films is doable, but reading is more of a problem. I'm not really sure what my Spanish reading speed is, but my comprehension isn't great, so I find I can't read for very long at once. I've been reading adapted short stories and that's much easier, but when I go back to the kids' book I'm reading things will get more difficult again.

Overall, I'm less optimistic about finishing anything than I was, but I've not yet given up. Regardless of where I get to in numbers, I'll still have made huge progress in all the languages and I'll have had a lot of fun in the progress. I'm already starting to think what I'd like to do for the next one!
1 person has voted this message useful



kanewai
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
justpaste.it/kanewai
Joined 4687 days ago

1386 posts - 3054 votes 
Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese
Studies: Italian, Spanish

 
 Message 170 of 199
13 November 2013 at 2:07am | IP Logged 
I finally finished the movie section of the challenge! My final tally: 81 films
finished, 21 abandoned, and the first season of two tv shows.

It turns out the French cinema is not my favorite cinema, after all. I've been wrong
all these years! I hated a lot of the "great" French movies I saw, and loved
ones that never make any 'best-of' lists.

All this, and it's still hard for me to understand French movies without subtitles. I'm
sure my comprehension has improved, but it's hard to tell. I've listened to the radio
and to podcasts without much trouble; French movies still escape me.

Moving forward, I like the idea of a 'star' system, with a star for every 25 until you
reach 100.

I'll post all the films on my log, but wanted to post my favorites here:

1.     Les misérables (Raymond Bernard, 1934)
2.     La règle du jeu (The Rules of the Game; Jean Renoir, 1939)
3.     Les enfants du paradis (Marcel Carné, 1945)
4.     Orphée (Jean Cocteau, 1949)
5.     Jeux interdits (Forbidden Games; René Clément, 1952)
6.     French Cancan (Jean Renoir, 1954)
7.     Nuit et brouillard (Alain Resnais, 1955)
8.     Ascenseur pour l'échafaud (Louis Malle, 1958)
9.     Les cousins / Le beau serge (Claude Chabrol,1958 / 1959)
10.     À bout de souffle (Breathless; Jean-Luc Godard, 1960)
11.     Plein soleil (Purple Noon; René Clement, 1960)
12.     Le bonheur (Agnès Varda, 1965)
13.     Les demoiselles de Rochefort (Jacques Demy, 1967)
14.     Z (Costa-Gavras,1969)
15.     La cage aux folles (Edouard Molinaro, 1978)
16.     Le dîner de cons (Francis Veber, 1998)
17.     8 femmes (François Ozon, 2002)
18.     L'enfant (Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Luc Dardenne, 2005)
19.     Incendies (Denis Villeneuve, 2010)
20.     Carlos (Olivier Assayas, 2010)
21.     Polisse (Maïwenn Le Besco, 2011)
22.     Le Havre (Aki Kaurismaki, 2011)
23.     Les adieux à la reine (Benoît Jacquot, 2012)
24.     Dans la maison (François Ozon, 2012)
25.     Gainsbourg (Vie héroïque) (Joann Sfarr, 2012)

TV Shows: Kaamelott, Season 1

Not a Truffaut in the bunch, and not many nouvelle vague flics either.

Edited by kanewai on 13 November 2013 at 11:20pm

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patrickwilken
Senior Member
Germany
radiant-flux.net
Joined 4331 days ago

1546 posts - 3200 votes 
Studies: German

 
 Message 171 of 199
13 November 2013 at 12:15pm | IP Logged 
kanewai wrote:

All this, and it's still hard for me to understand French movies without subtitles. I'm
sure my comprehension has improved, but it's hard to tell. I've listened to the radio
and to podcasts without much trouble; French movies still escape me.


Have you forced yourself to watch much without subtitles? I'm now at 259 German films for the Challenge, and I still have trouble with understanding certain films without subtitles. I actually find dubbed film easier. Perhaps because the actors speak more clearly or less idiomatically.
1 person has voted this message useful





emk
Diglot
Moderator
United States
Joined 5330 days ago

2615 posts - 8806 votes 
Speaks: English*, FrenchB2
Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian
Personal Language Map

 
 Message 172 of 199
13 November 2013 at 1:20pm | IP Logged 
patrickwilken wrote:
kanewai wrote:

All this, and it's still hard for me to understand French movies without subtitles. I'm
sure my comprehension has improved, but it's hard to tell. I've listened to the radio
and to podcasts without much trouble; French movies still escape me.

Have you forced yourself to watch much without subtitles? I'm now at 259 German films for the Challenge, and I still have trouble with understanding certain films without subtitles. I actually find dubbed film easier. Perhaps because the actors speak more clearly or less idiomatically.

Hi, patrickwilken! Good to see you around again. :-)

I agree with Kanewai that there's something especially hard about many French films. I can watch TV all day long, and once my listening is fully activated, I can follow 90% or better of almost everything that comes across the screen: native series, dubbed series, fast panel discussions on the news, parliamentary debates. But stick me in front of a stereotypical French film, and I'll often miss half of it. A small handful of native TV series, including Engrenages, are much the same. In a lot of ways, I find these materials harder than listening to two natives talk to each other.

As far as I can tell, many French film directors like high-speed, naturalistic speech, and they tend to preserve regional dialects and class distinctions in a way that's rare in French TV. Some of the incomprehensible bits of Amélie, for example, are genuinely hard, even if you have an exact transcript and you leave the audio on loop play. For example, the first man that Amélie helps, when he comes into the bar and talks about what he just found, slurs his speech in a really remarkable way. I stuck a clip in my log and just about everybody struggled with it.

I would probably find it easier to get used to French films if (a) I had enough time to watch full-length movies, and (b) I actually liked French films. And it's been a while since I tried in earnest.
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tastyonions
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
goo.gl/UIdChYRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 4463 days ago

1044 posts - 1823 votes 
Speaks: English*, French, Spanish
Studies: Italian

 
 Message 173 of 199
13 November 2013 at 2:00pm | IP Logged 
French films truly are the beast of learning the language. I can often understand every single word in a radio broadcast and nearly everything in a TV talk show but still have trouble with many movies. I think what you said about high-speed, naturalistic speech is exactly right.

I happen to like them, but lately I don't have the time to sit down for 90 to 120 minutes.

Edited by tastyonions on 13 November 2013 at 2:01pm

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patrickwilken
Senior Member
Germany
radiant-flux.net
Joined 4331 days ago

1546 posts - 3200 votes 
Studies: German

 
 Message 174 of 199
13 November 2013 at 7:17pm | IP Logged 
emk wrote:

Hi, patrickwilken! Good to see you around again. :-)


Thanks! Good to be back!

emk wrote:


As far as I can tell, many French film directors like high-speed, naturalistic speech, and they tend to preserve regional dialects and class distinctions in a way that's rare in French TV.


I guess high-speed, naturalistic is always going to be the ultimate goal of the language learner.

In Germany, there is a very crime show, called Tatort, that's so popular that more than 50 bars in Berlin alone show it live. It's unusual as it's filmed by different TV stations in many different cities in Germany (and Vienna and Zürich?), each with their own detectives. You would think that would be the perfect learning experience, but actually I hate Tatort. The plots are difficult to follow (even for Germans) and the regional accents (and regional use of words) can be quite difficult.

I think I have just been very lucky that I have had access to lots of dubbed films and TV shows to learn from.
1 person has voted this message useful



Hekje
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4501 days ago

842 posts - 1330 votes 
Speaks: English*, Dutch
Studies: French, Indonesian

 
 Message 175 of 199
13 November 2013 at 10:45pm | IP Logged 
Dutch Super Challenge Update

I finished the film section of the challenge! I'll write more in my log when
I get home from work, but I was just so psyched that I had to update here right away.

My last entry, which I just watched, was an episode of Je Zal Het Maar Zijn - "Veelbelovend".
A full record of what I've watched for the Super Challenge can also be found in my log.

Books are not doing so hot; I'm currently at ~2,450 pages out of 10,000. Finishing
by December 31 is obviously out of the question. However, I may continue in 2014 as a personal
challenge.

Anyway, yaay! I feel pretty accomplished right now. :-)

Edited by Hekje on 13 November 2013 at 11:06pm

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Tsopivo
Diglot
Senior Member
Canada
Joined 4269 days ago

258 posts - 411 votes 
Speaks: French*, English
Studies: Esperanto

 
 Message 176 of 199
07 December 2013 at 4:37am | IP Logged 
I have finished my challenge today and my boyfriend finished his this week.

Cristina, is there going to be a new Super Challenge next year? Pretty please.


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