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Super Challenge Update thread 2014-15

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Stelle
Bilingual Triglot
Senior Member
Canada
tobefluent.com
Joined 3903 days ago

949 posts - 1686 votes 
Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish
Studies: Tagalog

 
 Message 137 of 198
15 October 2014 at 3:25am | IP Logged 
I've been updating in my log. But honestly...there's not much to report. I'm watching TV series and reading series of
novels. I'm pretty much doing the exact same thing every week! It's fun and enjoyable and relatively unstressful and
DEFINITELY having a positive impact on my Spanish. But it's not very exciting to read about!
1 person has voted this message useful



Radioclare
Triglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
timeofftakeoff.com
Joined 4342 days ago

689 posts - 1119 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Esperanto
Studies: Croatian, Serbian, Macedonian

 
 Message 138 of 198
15 October 2014 at 9:27am | IP Logged 
kanewai wrote:
So many stars, so few updates ... I think less than ten people are updating here or on their logs. Where is everybody??? Part of the fun of the challenge, at least for me, is seeing what great and horrible movies and books people have watched and read.


Like Stelle, I've just been updating on my log. In summary I have mainly been reading trashy translations from English so far, although I do have a couple of original books in Croatian that I'm hoping to move onto later in the challenge.

I started with Agatha Christie's 'Murder on the Orient Express', which was a good first book for me because I knew the story very well in English. I moved onto four books from Conn Iggulden's 'Emperor' series, which in all honesty were far too hard for me at the level I was at and used a lot of specialist vocabulary relating to Romans that I didn't really stand a chance with.

After that I read the four books in the 'Twilight' saga, which I know many people have strong views about but were really the turning point for me between struggling through a book and actually being able to *read* one.

The intellectual level of my challenge went from bad to worse, as I followed up 'Twilight' with the 'Fifty Shades of Grey' trilogy. This was actually educational for me (honestly!) because it was the first book I had read in Serbian, and so I had to get used to some spellings and vocabulary which differ from Croatian.

I read a short non-fiction book celebrating 100 years of Croatian literature being translated into Esperanto which I found fascinating but I'm guessing even on this forum I'm probably the only person who that will interest :D

I read the first three books in the Narnia series, which were really easy and so I definitely recommend them to anyone who is struggling with 'adult' books and who doesn't want to stoop to the level of 'Twilight'. I was going to read the entire series but I realised I was missing the fourth book, so I stopped.

Since then I have been reading some translations of Ken Follett novels which I picked up while I was in Serbia. So far I've read 'Eye of the Needle' and 'Lie Down with Lions' and I've just started 'The Hammer of Eden' this week. I recommend all of those because they're really exciting. Also you might be able to get hold of them cheaply; I think Ken Follett has a new book out at the moment and when I was in Italy last week his existing books were on sale in every bookshop I saw to try and promote it.

In total I've read 17 physical books now.

Filmwise I am not doing so well. What I have understood from the films I have watched so far has ranged between "as good as nothing" and "only the swear words". I am working my way through five series of a Croatian sit-com which for some reason is a hundred times easier to understand than Croatian films, although I still don't get all the jokes. I definitely recommend it if anyone is looking for a Croatian sit-com recommendation, although I only chose it in the first place because the lead singer of my favourite Croatian band has a minor acting role in it :)

Thanks to the advice of rdearman I have listened to a few audiobooks now and for some reason I have also found those a lot easier to understand than films. The main problem I have is just finding a time to listen to them when I'm not going to get distracted by something else.

I am in awe of the amount of films some people have managed so far!
4 persons have voted this message useful



VivianJ5
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4021 days ago

81 posts - 133 votes 
Speaks: English*, French

 
 Message 139 of 198
15 October 2014 at 10:34pm | IP Logged 
I've been missing-in-action on the Super Challenge for a couple of months...But I have good excuses, I swear!

I blame it mainly on my move from the Netherlands back to the U.S., and being in transit for about six weeks. And
then, once I was just started to feel settled in, my parents decide to come for a visit ("She must be ready for guests
now, it's been two weeks already!!"). I do love my parents, but it would be nice to be at least consulted before they
book their flights...anyway, they've left, and two of my three children are coming for a long weekend. So I'm hoping,
sometime next week, to get back into some kind of routine.

Of course, still need to get back into an exercise routine (nothing like an international move to gain a few pounds :-)
!), and maybe make a couple of friends while I'm at it, but I am hoping to at least finish watching the 100 films
sometime in the next six months. The only real reading I've been doing is Twilight Fanfiction: ah, yes, some of us
are so enamored of this juvenile story (!) that we can't get enough, and need to read alternate versions of the
Twilight saga from fans who write their own take on Ms. Meyers original. I've found a lovely, LONG, fanfiction in
French, which has kept me occupied for the last week...this "novel" ("Les yeux de la lune" in case anyone wants to
look it up) is massive, over 1600 pages, so will add a bit to my total, even though I wasn't planning to read any
further books in French...I'm actually amazed at how much vocabulary I'm picking up, and some if the words are
typically Quebecois, so interesting from that point of view as well.

I finished watching all the available seasons of "Les engrenages" - Spiral in English - a while ago, and watched some
parts of films and TV series when I was in France in August. Since then, only one film, "Alceste a bicyclette," which
was a fun duel of a film between two rival French acteurs who are "frenemies." The repartee was enjoyable...

I'm at the point where I really only want to read or watch things which I think would be interesting in themselves, not
because they are in French...and sometimes those things are hard to find...
3 persons have voted this message useful



Expugnator
Hexaglot
Senior Member
Brazil
Joined 4925 days ago

3335 posts - 4349 votes 
Speaks: Portuguese*, Norwegian, French, English, Italian, Papiamento
Studies: Mandarin, Georgian, Russian

 
 Message 140 of 198
15 October 2014 at 10:58pm | IP Logged 
I don't report much on what I read or watch. I usually spend weeks with a film and a book, as I'm doing 8 languages. Usually 10 minutes and 10 pages at each language, but much less for my weaker ones. I'm not even considered as a participant of the Super Challenge as I haven't registered at the bot =) I do end up mentioning most of my resources en passant, and more than once. So, just like Stelle, there's not much to report on a daily basis, and I tend to report when I notice an improvement in comprehension. I do so by mentioning the resource as well.
1 person has voted this message useful



iguanamon
Pentaglot
Senior Member
Virgin Islands
Speaks: Ladino
Joined 5021 days ago

2237 posts - 6731 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French)

 
 Message 141 of 198
16 October 2014 at 1:37am | IP Logged 
I am not participating in the super challenge officially either. But here's some of what I've been up to lately in Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole and Ladino. I am sure I will be leaving a lot out. I don't keep track like most of the rest of you do.

Spanish: I watch Caso Cerrado on Telemundo, over the air, most evenings. I listen to an episode of "La tremenda corte" a couple of times a week and the daily news from Democracy Now and Telemundo. I am currently reading a 900+ page novel called "Dispara, yo ya estoy muerto" by Julia Navarro which I highly recommend. It's a tale of the 19th and 20th century history of Palestine/Israel told from the perspective of the Jewish community and the Palestinian Arab community, replete with the pogroms of pre-revolutionary Russia and 19th century Paris. In this story, the characters polyglottery is a necessity, not a luxury.

I've also watched all the episodes of "La Impostora"- a Mexican telenovela (co-produced by Telemundo).

Portuguese: I am hitting it hot and heavy. Building upon "Gabriela" from last year. This year, I've watched all 150 or so of the episodes of "Flor do Caribe"- a novela also set in the Northeast; four HBO series of about 13 to 15, 1 hour long, episodes each: "Mandrake" probably the coolest lawyer on the planet- a character of author Rubem Fonseca (You got to love a show with an Opening Theme from Charles Mingus; Alice- a 20 something girl finds herself in São Paulo; Filhos do Carnaval- a family of three brothers each with a different mother and the same, mafioso type, father. I learned a lot about the "Jogo do bicho and how dreams influence the numbers played and also the year-round preparations for Carnaval. All 3 of these HBO Box Sets of DVD's set me back a total of $15 from Amazon! I've watched half of "Toma lá da cá" a situation comedy set in a Rio Condo complex.

I am almost finished with HBO's "Preamar" (another cool opening theme)- a high-powered banker gets canned from his job at a major international bank in Rio, lies to his family about it: "Estou fazendo um ano sabático" and precedes to go into a new line of business across from his luxury, high-rise beachfront condo at Ipanema. He notices how much informal business is taking place on the beach and decides he wants a piece of the action for himself, adding his own business acumen to the mix. Of course there's a boss who controls it all The main character's family is a mess. The series shows the beach life of Rio. It's a good drama, only 5 more episodes to go.

I've also partaken of a couple of dubbed shows- "The Walking Dead" (65 40 min eps, I'm up to episode 85 of the comic book series) and "Duas Garotas em Apuros" (Seasons 1 & 2 48 20 min eps) or "Two Broke Girls". Hey, cut me some slack, after all those zombies you need a little comic relief. I have seen all of the TWD eps to date in dub. I can only find 2BG in dub for the first two seasons and have just 4 more eps to go before I finish this week. I have heard them in English, and their voices are a little grating to my ears.

Thanks to Luso, I am loving the "Gato Fedorento" videos- think "Saturday Night Live" meets "Monty Python" in Portugal. Muito engraçado!

Reading: a lot- some of the highlights are the novels of Brazilian author Rubem Fonseca- what a good writer. I've read so far "O Caso Morel", "A Grande Arte", "Mandrake: A Bíblia e a Bengala" and currently reading "Bufo & Spallanzani". These are gritty urban crime/mystery novels with loads of literary references. To balance these I've also read Carina Rissi's Brazilian "chick-lit" novels "Perdida"- a 20 something modern girl from São Paulo who is hopeless at love and her job, somehow gets transported back in time to 19th century Brazil, has lots of achronistic adventures, meets the man of her dreams- loses him on return to the 21st century and gets him back by somehow returning to the past. Also, "Procura-se um Marido": Spoiled jet-set rich girl's grandfather dies leaving a will that only passes on the fortune if she gets married and stays married for a year. Of course, the will was a forgery, she is madly in love with the guy she chooses and she exposes skullduggery and criminality in the family business. I would have never thought I would enjoy such a genre? I initially got into it because of the conversational, colloquial, dialog heavy nature of the books and found that I really enjoyed them. That lead me to Sophie Kinsella's books in translation- Hip, hopeless, "Gen Y" girls find themselves and love along the way.

Arnold Schwarzenegger's, 600 and some odd page, autobiography in Portuguese translation was something I enjoyed and probably wouldn't have read in English.

I've watched a bunch of films too this year- two of my favorites are: "Homem do futuro" a Brazilian rom-com with a cool time travel plot- and: "O testamento do Sr. Napumoceno", a swet film based on a novel by Cape Verdean author Germano Almeida. The actors are mostly Brazilian and faking the, more Iberian, Cabo Verdiano accents. Finally got around to watching "Capitães de Abril" in honor of the 40th anniversary of the Revolução dos Cravos (Carnation Revolution) in Portugal.

Haitian Creole- reading: "Woben Lakwa" a translation of "Robinson Crusoe" into HC and "Exodus" from the Bible- "Bib-la". I also found a high quality half hour daily newscast video, Jounal Kreyòl on youtube. In Kreyòl, you take what you can get.

Ladino- "Ladinokuminita" forum and reading "Djoha" a trickster and jester of the Sephardim in the Ottoman Empire. Each tale is 2 or three pages at most. Progress is slow but it's just for fun and Djoha provides a window on a bygone world through Ladino.

kanewai wrote:
... Where is everybody??? Part of the fun of the challenge, at least for me, is seeing what great and horrible movies and books people have watched and read.

So there you go, kanewai, I've enjoyed reading your updates so much- and everyone else as well, so, I'm paying it forward. Thanks everyone for your updates. I just can't seem to participate in the challenges (or keep a log going for very long), but I do enjoy doing them unofficially anyway :).

Edited by iguanamon on 19 October 2014 at 1:21am

3 persons have voted this message useful



kujichagulia
Senior Member
Japan
Joined 4606 days ago

1031 posts - 1571 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Japanese, Portuguese

 
 Message 142 of 198
16 October 2014 at 2:35am | IP Logged 
@iguanamon - How do you find out which novelas to watch or which novels to read in your languages? So far you are my only source for finding out what to read and watch. I wouldn't even know where to begin on my own.
1 person has voted this message useful



iguanamon
Pentaglot
Senior Member
Virgin Islands
Speaks: Ladino
Joined 5021 days ago

2237 posts - 6731 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French)

 
 Message 143 of 198
16 October 2014 at 3:45am | IP Logged 
kujichagulia wrote:
...How do you find out which novelas to watch or which novels to read in your languages?...

Years ago, before mp3's and youtube, before "listening stations" at the CD section of Best Buy, I would go to the racks and look at the covers of the CD's, reading about the instruments of the band and members, looking at song titles, etc. If it looked good, I'd buy it. Nine times out of ten, I made a good choice. I considered the other 10% the cost of enjoyment. Occasionally, I also found something I didn't know I liked until I tried it. In today's world, so much is lost to serendipity with narrow-casting.

Nowadays, its all at the tips of your fingers but you have to know how to search, and here's the catch- in the TL. Don't search in English. It isn't always successful. One exception is wikipedia entries for a TL's literature and authors, then look to the left and click the TL. I also follow a couple of Brazilian book stores on twitter, authors, literary blogs and vlogs. When I go to acquire books, there's always a synopsis. Then it's a relatively easy matter to check TL wikipedia, google, goodreads, TL vlogs and youtube for a review. I also do something incredible, I ask people.

My Portuguese tutor turned me onto Toma Lá da Cá and the novela, Gabriela. I found Flor do Caribe on my own by searching a site that reviews novelas in Brasil, watched a couple of episodes and bought it on "Mercado Livre" from Brasil. The Walking Dead, I was already into and then I thought- "why not watch it in Portuguese?". Rubem Fonseca came to me from the Mandrake television series. Carina Rissi came to me via twitter and a vlog.

In short, search in the TL. Look at book store sites, good reads, youtube literary/book vlogs, newspapers, magazines like "Veja" etc. for books. For novelas, there are plenty of novela sites, Globo TV international has a few of their shows up with two or three episodes- even with English subtitles. Forget it though when you start watching it for real, there are no subs- English or Portuguese. One thing tends to lead to another. Seek and ye shall find, in the TL.

Edited by iguanamon on 16 October 2014 at 4:23am

6 persons have voted this message useful



Kerrie
Senior Member
United States
justpaste.it/Kerrie2
Joined 5154 days ago

1232 posts - 1740 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish

 
 Message 144 of 198
19 October 2014 at 11:10pm | IP Logged 
kanewai wrote:
So many stars, so few updates ... I think less than ten people are updating here or on their logs. Where is everybody??? Part of the fun of the challenge, at least for me, is seeing what great and horrible movies and books people have watched and read.


I agree about seeing what others are reading and watching. :) I have seen a lot of good ideas and reviews in people's logs, just not so much here.

I have been mostly working on Spanish. I've read 8 books so far, all of them translations. A Gillian Flynn novel (Dark Places, I think is the English title), The Historian (by Elizabeth Kostova), The Fault in Our Stars, The Divergent Trilogy, Pillars of the Earth, and the first of The Hunger Games.

Certainly nothing earth-shattering, although it adds up to a lot of pages. Most of them are books people have heard of. I have reviews of all of them in my log.

As far as films and TV goes, El Tiempo Entre Costuras (on DramaFever) was an excellent show. I've seen on a number of (Spanish) logs that other people are watching it as well.

The most recent gem I found is The Magnificent Century (Suleiman el Gran Sultán in Spanish), which is actually a Turkish drama dubbed into Spanish. Unfortunately for some of you, I haven't seen more than an episode or two with English dubs or subs. It's about the life of Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, the longest reigning Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, and the slave girl who becomes his concubine and eventually his wife. She's a conniving, manipulative bitch who will stop at nothing to get what she wants. With the exception of the main actress, the rest of the cast and acting is excellent, and I like the historical aspect of it. Some of the episodes are on the MundoFox website, and the beginning of the series is available elsewhere online. There are about 140 episodes, so it will keep me busy for awhile. :)

I recently stumbled upon Joseph of Egypt / José de Egipto, which is a (38 episode?!?) Brazilian mini-series about the Biblical Joseph who got sold off by his brothers. The first episode was interesting, and I think the series has promise. I haven't seen this one dubbed/subbed into English either, but the Spanish-dubbed version is available online on MundoFox.

I've posted more detailed stuff in my log, for anyone who is interested in more about any of my SC adventures. I'll be updating with a bunch more stuff (books, shows, etc) soon - I've just been super busy with work and other stuff, and haven't been able to update as much as I'd like.

Edited by Kerrie on 19 October 2014 at 11:12pm



2 persons have voted this message useful



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