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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| ScottScheule Diglot Senior Member United States scheule.blogspot.com Joined 5032 days ago 645 posts - 1176 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Latin, Hungarian, Biblical Hebrew, Old English, Russian, Swedish, German, Italian, French | Message 1 of 5 26 March 2014 at 3:21pm | IP Logged |
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The title is a Latin allusion.
My taste for languages is, like many here, omnivorous, and I'm unfortunately likely to bite off more than I can chew. There are grammar books for at least a dozen languages on my shelves at home, none of which I plan to throw away, and all of which warm my heart as I imagine opening and working through them. But recently I've tried to concentrate as best I can on one language at a time. This is usuallly my best second language, Spanish. My Spanish vocabulary is vast, created by going through countless books and newspapers and recording every unknown word I've found. I have tens of thousands of Anki cards, which have all in all been wonderful tools and have given me a sound footing whenever I approach a text. But my speaking and listening are still lacking. This is a result of a lack of practice with both. So I've started to use LingQ, trying to comprehend spoken Spanish first without and then with the accompanying texts. I've also been listening to Spanish music, going through every album I can find of the singers listed at the end of this Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_of_Spain. I use Spotify for this--very useful. Lyrics are a rather difficult thing to grasp, but they're becoming easier to piece together as my listening continues. Meanwhile, I've started reading children's books in Spanish. Some of these have been delightful. I'm currently going through the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe--which is written at a level I have little trouble understanding. (Alas, I find that now that I've passed second grade, I don't much care for Lewis's rather condescending writing.) I look forward to one day being able to move on to the masterpieces of Spanish literature. Cervantes and Marquez and Borges. But I know my Spanish simply isn't at an appropriate level at present, so I must continue trudging step by step up the incline. Edited by ScottScheule on 26 March 2014 at 3:38pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| chokofingrz Pentaglot Senior Member England Joined 4993 days ago 241 posts - 430 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, German, Italian Studies: Russian, Japanese, Catalan, Luxembourgish | Message 2 of 5 26 March 2014 at 4:27pm | IP Logged |
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I've enjoyed reading the light historical thrillers of Arturo Perez-Reverte in Spanish. I think you'd get on fine with the level of writing. It's not the classics but some might call him a modern day Dumas. It's another step on the ladder.
Cast an eye over his latest column, which is historically and linguistically interesting but perhaps a bit more challenging than his novels. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| ScottScheule Diglot Senior Member United States scheule.blogspot.com Joined 5032 days ago 645 posts - 1176 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Latin, Hungarian, Biblical Hebrew, Old English, Russian, Swedish, German, Italian, French | Message 3 of 5 26 March 2014 at 4:54pm | IP Logged |
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choko,
Thank you, I'm much obliged. I have little problem reading that column--and what's more, I like history, so this guy sounds perfecto. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ScottScheule Diglot Senior Member United States scheule.blogspot.com Joined 5032 days ago 645 posts - 1176 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Latin, Hungarian, Biblical Hebrew, Old English, Russian, Swedish, German, Italian, French | Message 4 of 5 01 April 2014 at 11:23pm | IP Logged |
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I've finished C. S. Lewis's first Narnian book (Digression: Prefer C.S. or C. S.? The former looks better to me, but I can't think of a principled justification). What to make of a book where the author chooses to kill a main character only to completely vitiate the import of this by bringing him back to life on the next page? I suppose the same thing one makes of the New Testament. Interestingly enough, this is the first book I remember reading (in English, natch) in my life. I was in second grade, and I was, of course, completely oblivious as to any allegory in the story.
Regardless, I find I could understand nearly all of the story. What few words I didn't know could be filled in with context. I'm also becoming better at identifying certain pitfalls and being ready for them. For example, the Spanish subjunctive has an identical form in both the first and third person singular, meaning once you hit a subjunctive clause without a subject pronoun (which happens quite often), you may find yourself confused. But now, when I find myself thus, I know what the reason might be. Knowing that lets me figure out where I'm going awry with more and more celerity. Also finished Beverly Cleary's El ratoncito de la moto with much the same experience (that is linguistically--on a plot level, the similarities are few: there's no clear Christ-figure in Cleary's work). Not a great kid's book in my opinion, and I'm not being prejudicial--I've already read several children's books in Spanish I hold to be quite charming. My temptation is to move on to harder books, but I think I should resist the urge. Attacking a book of too high a difficulty may well slow me down to the point that I have to crawl through with a dictionary close at hand. This becomes less and less like reading and more and more like deciphering. Useful to be sure, but hardly a means of appreciating a work of literature. Listening to Enrique Inglesias currently, who is just not terribly memorable, aside from a few songs. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| ScottScheule Diglot Senior Member United States scheule.blogspot.com Joined 5032 days ago 645 posts - 1176 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Latin, Hungarian, Biblical Hebrew, Old English, Russian, Swedish, German, Italian, French | Message 5 of 5 05 December 2014 at 9:39pm | IP Logged |
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Look at that, I managed to get distracted. I also managed to get married since my last post. Languagewise, I continue to concentrate on Spanish and Latin.
My now wife has told me that I can raise any progeny we manage to produce in Latin if I wish, which gives me an incentive to train my focus on that particular tongue. To that end, I've finished turning Wheelock's 7th Edition textbook, Scribblers, Sculptors and Scribes, as well as the accompanying workbook into Anki cards, and these are all in active review. I produce a recording for each of my Anki cards in Latin (usually I go to native speakers to get recordings--as this isn't an option with Latin, I do the recordings myself), so this has been time intensive. The next resource I'm tackling in this fashion is Traupman's Conversational Latin. I've finished making flash cards for the book, but I still have some recording left to do. I'm tackling approximately 100 new cards a day, and my Neo-Latin, everyday 21st century vocabulary is accordingly increasing at a good clip. I'm trying to concentrate on this project rather than constantly get distracted by going to another book, as is my wont. Next stop after this is tackling another one of my Latin books, probably one from the Lingua Latina series. That's probably a few months off. With regards to other languages, I'm keeping these in review mode for the time being (just keeping up with the Anki load), although I do learn some Spanish from time to time. Incidentally, if anybody wants a massive set of Latin flashcards from the aforementioned texts, pronounced by a handsome baritone, let me know. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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