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Rdearman Super Challenge Log | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| rdearman Senior Member United Kingdom rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5024 days ago 881 posts - 1812 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin | Message 9 of 158 29 May 2014 at 4:19pm | IP Logged | ||
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Weekly Update
Still plugging away on the Super Challenge! As predicted I'm finding that movies are much easier for me to fit into my schedule than books. In addition books are taking me much longer than I anticipated. On the brightside I'm seeing a lot of crossover between my French lessons, the TV/Films which I have watched and the books I'm reading. A lot of words (which are obviously common) have been popping up and sinking into my brain. Italian is the same, but to a lesser extent mostly because I have a larger vocabulary in Italian I think. I have been considering posting in this log in French and Italian, but I don't have a lot of time. Still a very good post to one of my questions in the advice centre included the recommendation that I should make sure I'm being "synergistic", e.g. that I should listen/read/speak/write. I'm doing all of those except writing. I don't really have an reason to write, or anyone to write. So I've decided for a little while at least to try and summarize the films & books I'm using in the language in which they are done. Corrections happily taken. {{NOTE: Writing is really hard! I've discovered I cannot spell in 3 languages.}} I put a little more effort into Italian this week in order to bring it up near the effort in French. I'm toying with the idea of starting in Mandarin or Japanese (Still looking for advice in this thread) for an hour a day. I flip between starting or not starting depending on how busy the SC makes me on any particular day. French OK, this week a lot of French was done. Still reading "Le Fléau" by Stephen King (English title; "The Stand") and Le Petit Nicolas at lunch time. At the time of this writing I'm still a couple of pages away from logging another 'book' aka 50 pages of "Le Fléau" and I've only done 15 pages of Le Petit Nicolas. I've watched up to episode 27 of Valérian & Laureline and Taxi 4 and Taxi 4. "Le Fléau" c'est un roman à peu près le fin de le monde et civilisation apres le outbreak de Le Fléau. A cette moment je suis dans le début de le livre, où les characters sont introduit. Le Petit Nicolas c'est un roman pour les enfants à peu près Nicolas et ses amis. je suis dans le début de cet livre aussi. J'ai lit jusqu'à 15 page cette apres midi dans mon voiture. Valérian & Laureline c'est un anime pour television et est basé sur une bande dessinée de la meme title. Je suis sur episode 27 du 40. Taxi 3 c'est un autre film par Luc Besson à peu près la chauffeur de taxi qui aide la police capturer les criminals appelé "Père Noël Gang". Taxi 4 c'est la dernière film par Luc Besson dans le serie Taxi. Pour moi c'est très mal. Italian Working a little more on Italian this week in order for it not to slip behind the French. I'm still reading "La famosa invasione degli orsi in Sicilia" and "Una torma di donne dai cappelli enormi, in marcia". I've continued to watch Tutti Pazzi per Amore and I'm at episode 12 so almost halfway through series one. There are 26 episodes in each of the three series. "La famosa invasione degli orsi in Sicilia" è circa "La famosa invasione degli orsi in Sicilia" naturalmente! Dopo una fame in le montagne, le orsi invadere e prendere il sopravvento Sicilia. E le re della orsi cerche per la sua figlio che è stato preso da esseri umani. "Una torma di donne dai cappelli enormi, in marcia" è una libro difficile circa la marcia per la liberazione della donna in Inghilterra. Conclusion Good luck to everyone doing the Super Challenge! "You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take." –Wayne Gretzky 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4995 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 10 of 158 29 May 2014 at 5:32pm | IP Logged | ||
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I've just discovered your log. Good luck with the Super Challenge! I've not heard of a lot of the stuff you're watching and reading, so it's given me ideas for things to check out. I hadn't heard of "Tutti pazzi per l'amore" until now so I'll definitely give it a try! In terms of TV fiction I've been watching I Cesaroni which can be fun but it's not exactly captivating and I'm losing interest, so maybe Tutti pazzi is a more enjoyable replacement.
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| rdearman Senior Member United Kingdom rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5024 days ago 881 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin | Message 11 of 158 29 May 2014 at 6:15pm | IP Logged | ||
Yay! I'm glad people are reading and finding it useful. Here are a couple of other TV series in Italian which my Italian friends have recommended, but I haven't watched all or even most of them yet. But given I still have 95+ films to go in the challenge for Italian, I'm sure I'll be watching them. Butta la luna | Casa Vianello | Diabolik | Huntik Il_Mar esciallo_Rocca | Tutti pazzi per amore Carabinieri | Delitti Imperfetti | Don Matteo | Il Giudice Mastrangelo | Il Tredicesimo Apostolo Il Tredicesimo Apostolo is good, I've watched one or two episodes. It is about a Catholic priest (investigating paranormal activities for la Congregazione della Verità) and a psychologist/reporter. Worth a look if you are into a sort of "X-Files" type thing. http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Il_tredicesimo_apostolo Don Matteo is another priest turned detective show. Solves mysteries and helps the police. You didn't say if you were looking for French stuff, but here are some recommendations I got from French friends. Although one just told me "French TV is rubbish, don't bother", but I have to disagree! I especially like Engrenage and Mafiosa - Le Clan. Astérix et Obélix | Cowboy_Bebop | Ils Ainsi Soient Mafiosa - Le Clan | Pigalle Un Village Français | Braquo | Inquisito | Masion_Close Engrenage And if anyone has other recommendations I'd love to hear them... Although really I should post these on the wiki for the SC... 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4995 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 12 of 158 29 May 2014 at 6:35pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks for the lists of series, some of them sound interesting! Now I just need the time to watch some of them. Again most of them are new to me. Another couple of series I'd add are Boris, a comedy that makes fun of soap operas, and Commissario Montalbano in case you haven't already heard of it, a detective show set in Sicily that was broadcast in the UK a while ago.
For French, I've watched and enjoyed Engrenages; I've heard of Mafiosa - Le clan and a few of the others you mentioned but not seen them. I recently posted a list of Italian films and books in the super challenge thread. If I can think of any more recommendations I'll mention them! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Radioclare Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom timeofftakeoff.com Joined 4371 days ago 689 posts - 1119 votes Speaks: English*, German, Esperanto Studies: Croatian, Serbian, Macedonian | Message 13 of 158 29 May 2014 at 10:56pm | IP Logged | ||
I am also reading and enjoying your log :) I wondered, do you have any tips on how you're succeeding in fitting movies into your schedule? I am having the exact opposite problem and really struggling to fit any films in at all! Reading seems so much easier for me because I can do it almost anywhere, even for 5 minutes at a time, whereas films feel like they involve a big commitment of time that I don't have. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| rdearman Senior Member United Kingdom rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5024 days ago 881 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin | Message 14 of 158 30 May 2014 at 12:01am | IP Logged | ||
Well the real reason I can fit in so many films is I've converted them all to .avi files and loaded them on to my Samsung Galaxy Note. Using the VLC app (which remembers where I stopped watching) I can do the same thing with films (more TV actually) that you are doing with your books. I do 10-15 minutes, or a 1/2 hour at lunch and 1/2 hour reading. VLC Desktop (http://www.videolan.org/vlc/) will convert DVD's to avi files. It is free (opensource) and you can find instructions on the web for converting your DVD's. So I recommend a TV series if you can find one, cartoons are great because they are normally only 30 minutes and so they WAY easier to fit into an evening than a 90 minute feature film. If you can't find shorter videos, try to get some .avi files so you can just go in and out of them. Or if you're using YouTube, I think it remembers where you were. There is always the old "Netflix Binge-watching" method of isolating yourself for 6 hours and watch 4 films back-to-back. :) And don't forget for the purpose of the SC, audiobooks count as films, so you could listen to an audiobook in your car, or on an iPod / smartphone while standing in a queue. I haven't done this yet myself, but I did get an App for my android phone called LibriVox which will let me stream public domain audio books to my phone for listening. I've lined up Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in French for sometime in the future when I just want to relax and listen to a book in a nice dark room. Hope that helps! Edited by rdearman on 30 May 2014 at 12:02am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Radioclare Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom timeofftakeoff.com Joined 4371 days ago 689 posts - 1119 votes Speaks: English*, German, Esperanto Studies: Croatian, Serbian, Macedonian | Message 15 of 158 30 May 2014 at 12:13pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thank you rdearman, that is all really useful advice :)
It hadn't occurred to me that I could watch films on the go, so I will definitely investigate those apps. Also I had somehow missed the fact that audiobooks count as films! I am not a big film person so perhaps I would get on better with those. Thanks again, and good luck with your challenge. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| rdearman Senior Member United Kingdom rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5024 days ago 881 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin | Message 16 of 158 05 June 2014 at 12:17pm | IP Logged | ||
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Weekly update
This week I've given over most of my time to reading whenever possible. So if I've a choice between reading and watching I pick reading. This has had ZERO effect on my reading stats other than adding one book. I'm still very slow at reading, although at the time I'm writing this I'm at the halfway point of four books and 1/4 of the way through another. For the sake of the challenge I've tried to make sure that I have something to read anywhere I have spare time. So, I have two books in the car (for lunch times) 1 FR and 1 IT. I have two books at home on the bedside, 1 FR and 1 IT. and finally I've got one (new this week) french book in LWT on my server, so I can read when I have time & Internet access. On one hand I'm very upbeat about the fact I've done a combined 41 films in FR & IT, which means in a month, I'm almost 1/4 of the way through the challenge. On the other hand, there is only 574 days until Thursday December 31 2015. (A day counter I use). Since I've only read 6 books in total I have another 9700 pages to read! So I need to be averaging 16.89 pages per day! Everyday for the next 574 days. So my reading skills need to ramp up a lot quicker than it has been if I am to complete the challenge. I haven't managed to record my page count per day properly, but I seem to be averaging about 16 pages per day. Basically I'm 3 pages ahead of schedule, but it will be a close run thing if I can't get a larger buffer built up. French Film I'm only a couple of episodes from the end of Valèrian & Laureline. I haven't yet decided what I'll watch instead. I have narrowed it down to either "Engrenages" or "Mafioso - Le Clan". Having said that, I have boxed sets for "Band of Brothers" and "Pacific" both of which have French dubbing... I'm really torn here! But since the boxed sets are DVD's and not converted to .avi's I might skip that and do all of those on a "Movie Binge" weekend. Books This week I've added a new book to my reading plans, I'm using LWT for this one so it is "intensive" reading, I look up every word, etc. Books I am reading are: "Le Fléau" - Stephen King "Le Petit Nicolas" - René Goscinny "Histoire Du Future - Révolte en 2100" - Robert Anson Heinlein: C'est un roman du la science-fiction. C'est l'histoire des le États-Unis apres le revolution de religion. C'est le histore du amour a deux gens dans cette grand monde. Italian Film I've continued to watch Tutti Pazzi per Amore and I'm at episode 19 so I'll complete series one this coming week. I'm still enjoying this, I'm picking up much more than I did the first time around. They change the main actress in the second series, and I don't like her so much as the actress in the episodes I'm watching now. Books Still churning out the pages, slowly, ever so slowly. I have to admit I really don't like the story "Una torma di donne dai cappelli enormi, in marcia", which is an English story translated into Italian. But it is only 50 pages, so I'll complete it. I have a more "contemporary" adult book which I think I'll start next, hopefully it will be more interesting. And therein lies the problem, my friend, with reading books just because they are in your target language, and not because you're interested in the subject. Books I am reading are: "La famosa invasione degli orsi in Sicilia" "Una torma di donne dai cappelli enormi, in marcia" I have a copy of "IO SONO LEGGENDA" (I Am Legend, 1954) in Italian lined up for LWT, but will complete the French book first. Conclusion In this coming week I'm going to try and do a big push on the reading in order to build a 2-3 book buffer. I'm also going to try to focus more on reading in Italian, since I'm already ahead 5/1 FR/IT. I'm really fighting off Mandarin. It keeps sneaking up on me! This week I've had a used books store send me a book on Mandarin. Then I've found a book on learning traditional Chinese script in a charity shop for 50 pence. Then a friend in Taiwan has offered to tutor me a couple of times a week! I'm fighting it, but this Mandarin might kickbox me into starting. :( OK! That is it from me this week, good luck everyone in your challenge and your language learning!! EDIT: Hey this was my 100th post! Yay Me! Edited by rdearman on 05 June 2014 at 12:51pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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