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Super Challenge Update thread 2014-15

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rdearman
Senior Member
United Kingdom
rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name
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881 posts - 1812 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin

 
 Message 41 of 198
29 May 2014 at 6:21pm | IP Logged 
Anyone know how to update the wiki resources for the Super Challenge? I have a list of TV series I'd like to add in French & Italian, but I'm to lazy to read through all the SC threads to find the URL & instructions for updating the wiki. Anyone know any of the above off the top of their heads and feels like adding some of these to French & Italian?

Italian TV:
Butta la luna | Casa Vianello |   Diabolik | Huntik | Il_Maresciallo_Rocca |    Tutti pazzi per amore | Carabinieri | Delitti Imperfetti | Don Matteo | Il Giudice Mastrangelo | Il Tredicesimo Apostolo

French TV:
Astérix et Obélix | Cowboy_Bebop | Ils Ainsi Soient | Mafiosa - Le Clan | Pigalle | Un Village Français | Braquo | Inquisito | Masion_Close | Engrenage

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Jeffers
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 Message 42 of 198
29 May 2014 at 6:45pm | IP Logged 
Rdearman, do you have anything to say about these shows? Comments about how enjoyable they are? How difficult they are? How useful for learning? Etc, etc? Just write your reviews here, I'm sure someone will be able to put them in.

I've been recording Un Village Français and Inquisito off TV5 monde, but I haven't watched them yet. What do you think of them?
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rdearman
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Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin

 
 Message 43 of 198
29 May 2014 at 9:22pm | IP Logged 

Sure, I'll update what I know. These are all recommendations from French or Italian friends. I haven't watched all of them yet, but I'll comment about the ones I've seen (* beside the name if I've seen it), and try to find links to the appropriate descriptions.

Italian TV:
Butta la luna - Two Nigerian girls move to Italy.
Casa Vianello - an Italian situation comedy
* Diabolik - Italian Cartoon (and a movie I think). Diabolik is a ruthless master thief. He typically steals from criminals. The cartoon is quite good and 30 minutes long. I've only managed to find a handful of them.
* Huntik - A cartoon about a kid who finds his fathers amulet (in which lives a magical beasty) and him and his friends go hunting for more amulets and fight bad guys. It seems really good, haven't watched many yet. This was in English in the USA.
Il Maresciallo Rocca
* Tutti pazzi per amore - Story about two people who fall in love, divorced woman and widower and their extended family. It is VERY good! And VERY funny.
* Carabinieri - Police soap opera. It is a very good show and interesting. But it a soap opera.
* Delitti Imperfetti - Police crime scene drama show. Sort of a CIS investigation show.
* Don Matteo - Priest turned detective.
Il Giudice Mastrangelo - Don't know anything about this one.
Il Tredicesimo Apostolo - This is a really good show about a priest who investigates paranormal activities.

I'll do the French later.


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sfuqua
Triglot
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 Message 44 of 198
29 May 2014 at 10:26pm | IP Logged 
One thing that is really sticking in my head from this challenge is that short sentences and short words do not equal easy comprehensibility.
I've been fooling around with a translation of Hemingway's _The Sun also Rises_, which a simple, mechanical test of comprehensibility says is just slightly more complex than Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. Sometimes Hemingway, translated into Spanish, can be very hard to follow. Hemingway was famous for his simple language. To quote Wikipedia, "Hemingway's sparse writing style, combined with his restrained use of description to convey characterizations and action, became known as demonstrating the Iceberg Theory."
I think that Hemingway's restrained use of description can leave a poor reader of Spanish, like me, lost sometimes, even if he or she understands every word. I don't remember the same problem reading Hemingway in English, so it is probably the added cognitive load of reading in Spanish.
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Komma
Diglot
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 Message 45 of 198
30 May 2014 at 1:13pm | IP Logged 
Yeah I finally read 50 pages in Spanish. However, these were from different books. My
first book only had 25 pages ^^ and one I started but didn't like the way it was written
(never knew who was speaking etc.).
Now I bought "Charlie y la fábrica de chocolate". Thanks to Stelle for recommending.
I find it quite easy to follow. I only watched the film, but it's a children's book, so
it's not too difficult to understand. There are still many words I do not know. And I
might have to do the past tenses (most of the times I just put the word as such in my
anki system and just know it's some past tense, but I haven't learned the tenses yet, so
I actually kind of ignore it.. for understanding this is mostly irrelevant, but it might
be a good thing to do some grammar besides only reading the book... :D)
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rdearman
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881 posts - 1812 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin

 
 Message 46 of 198
30 May 2014 at 2:17pm | IP Logged 
Doing the french update now.

French TV
* Astérix et Obélix - Very good and based on a popular comic book. Also movies.
* Cowboy_Bebop - Someone told me this is Japanese, but I saw it in French. Good anime cartoon.
Ils Ainsi Soient - About a bunch of men who go into a seminary.
Mafiosa - Le Clan - Very good story about a Mafia family in France.
Pigalle - Police drama
Un Village Français - a French television drama series that centers on the people of Villeneuve, a fictional subprefecture, in the Jura, in German–occupied France during the Second World War.
Braquo - Police Drama
Inquisito - In France during the Middle Ages, as religious beliefs compete with political greed.
Masion_Close - the lives of the three fallen women who now manage the opulent Parisian brothel.
Engrenage - Also called spirals, police drama.
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BAnna
Triglot
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 Message 47 of 198
30 May 2014 at 4:27pm | IP Logged 
Here's the link to the wikia page giving basic instructions on how to update the recommendations. It's not hard. Kanewai has done a fantastic job improving on the pages, but adding pictures, etc. is definitely not required.

Kanewai, if you read this, perhaps you could add to the "how to"? Your changes are fabulous.

How to update SC wikia pages
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kanewai
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 Message 48 of 198
31 May 2014 at 4:06am | IP Logged 
Thanks - hopefully in a week or two my work will slow down enough that I can do more on
the wikia.

Meanwhile ... I'm amazed at the rapid progress people are making. There are so many
stars already. Next time I'm totally going to advocate for a return to 100 pages per
book! I was going to try to make a master list with links to everyone's logs, but
there are far more people than I was anticipating. Since I love reading about what
others are reading, I'm hoping more of the Super Challenged start posting here.

One month update.

My goal was to be at 10 books in French, and 5 for everything else (as the first month
is 5% of the challenge). I'm pretty much on target.

Italian Books: 3.3

I noticed a huge jump already after about 100 pages of Harry Potter e l'ordine della
fenice
. It's now easier for me to actually read rather than needing to
decipher and translate each sentence. My pace is about ten pages in a half hour, but I
think that might be artificially high. I read half the book last year in Spanish, so
I'm covering familiar territory. We'll see how I do once I reach the new sections.

Italian Films: 6.3

I watched one episode of Il commissario Montalbano (episode 17, la pista di
sabbia
). Even with the subtitles I was hopelessly lost with all the plot twists and
Sicilian accents, but it was still enjoyable.

French Books: 9.1

Still on Zola. The Bohemian artists are all adults now, and have either sold out to
the establishment or are suffering. And because it's Zola, they really suffer. There
was an incredible chapter set during the 1863 Salon des Refusés that was based
on the real life incident where Édouard Manet scandalized Paris with Le déjeuner sur
l'herbe
. As with other Zola books, the pace alternates between fascinating and
tedious.



French Audio: 10

agatha christie: les dix petits nègres (the less racist American title: And Then
There Were None) was surprisingly hard to follow, even though I understood most of the
dialogue. I think it was a recording of a stage play, which probably made it more
challenging than if it were recorded specifically for radio.

au coeur de l'histoire: la marseillaise was interesting.

I just started Elvis Presley, une histoire américaine, and so far it's
excellent. And with great musical interludes! There is a lot of English with French
voice-overs, so that helps with comprehension. And it's been really interesting to
listen to a French take on the color barriers and segregation of Memphis then. I never
realized how controversial Elvis was, or how much hatred he encountered in Memphis for
crossing the lines.

Bonus: Turkish Film

It's not a super challenge language for me, but Mubi is
showing Üç maymun (Three Monkeys) this month, a family drama by Nuri Bilge
Ceylan. Worth checking out if Turkish is one of your languages - native language films
can be hard to find.


Edited by kanewai on 31 May 2014 at 4:14am



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