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Polyliteracy - Ten Year Reading Plan

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luke
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3133 posts - 4351 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: Esperanto, French

 
 Message 33 of 77
15 August 2007 at 10:10pm | IP Logged 
rafaelrbp wrote:
Not exactly from this link, but it was the same audio. Read by Albert Camus himself.

Ahh, I didn't realize that was Camus himself. Did you find it in mp3? That would be so much more convenient.
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luke
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 7165 days ago

3133 posts - 4351 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: Esperanto, French

 
 Message 34 of 77
16 August 2007 at 10:06pm | IP Logged 
It came on me tonight that I might be having more fun if I varied my material. I have been slogging through Tour du Monde, and I understand 50-70% of it when the book isn't around, which was the target Miss Hopper mentioned. The biggest reason for me to shift material is to have more fun. I believe that was a critcial rule.

I made a parallel text of Flaubert's A Simple Soul. At first glance, the translation appears lacking. This whole parallel text thing has been quite an eye opener. Even with my relatively limited knowledge of French, I've notice that more often than not, the translations significantly change the flow of the story. One translator footprint that occurs several times in Flaubert is joining two paragraphs with the word "so".

For instance:

This happened.

She did something.

Translation:
This happened so she did something.

Which changes the rhythm and the meaning.

I would have never suspected that translators were "so creative".

I put Axel and the Professor on my mp3player to start warming for a Voyage au Centre de la Terre.

Since I have a bunch of other material prepared, I think I'll start taking a trip through it and see what tickles my fancy.

Edited by luke on 17 August 2007 at 10:23pm

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luke
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 7165 days ago

3133 posts - 4351 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: Esperanto, French

 
 Message 35 of 77
17 August 2007 at 4:16pm | IP Logged 
I made up these observations this afternoon after reading a language learning styles paper. They weren't in the paper, as the paper was just trying to validate the whole idea of learning preferences. It's the summary I was looking for:

An intuitive learns best by trusting own judgment, not necessarily following a "plan" or syllabus.
antonyms: sensing, concrete

Verbal learners prefer written and auditory (word) input. Listen-reading is an appropriate method for them.
antonym: visual

The reflective prefers to work independently and make observations about his experiences. They may like to spend some time on "the rules", more so to verify the validity of them, than to learn from their application.
antonyms: active, collaborative

The global also prefers massive input from a variety of sources.
antonym: sequential

Edited by luke on 17 August 2007 at 5:08pm

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luke
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 7165 days ago

3133 posts - 4351 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: Esperanto, French

 
 Message 36 of 77
17 August 2007 at 10:27pm | IP Logged 
Listen-read to Flaubert, 80 Jours, and Rene Descartes. Using a variety of material and listen-reading what I feel like seems like a good plan going forward.
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luke
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3133 posts - 4351 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: Esperanto, French

 
 Message 37 of 77
19 August 2007 at 3:37pm | IP Logged 
I didn't study much this weekend. I wanted to get through Tour du Monde again, but at the moment I'm only on chapter 33.

At the moment, a good solid meal seems to be in order.

Edited by luke on 19 August 2007 at 3:43pm

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luke
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 7165 days ago

3133 posts - 4351 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: Esperanto, French

 
 Message 38 of 77
29 August 2007 at 8:41pm | IP Logged 
Did the Post Reply message box just get bigger? I think it did. Yipee!

Oh wait, I was going to say something about learning French. I have been doing a little French each day. A semi-half-hearted Assimil lesson accompanies my shave. I listen to a a couple of the previous lessons in the shower.

I've said almost nothing in French. I was almost tempted to start going through Pimsleur to activate speech, but have restrained myself with total facility.

I'm currently taking a trip through Voyage au Centre de la Terre with Listen-Reading step 3.

I've almost convinced myself that for the hobbyist polyglot, finding some body of material to master is the key to maintaining and advancing skills. Certainly there are those who talk talk talk and some of that is useful. I'm thinking though in the big multi-year picture, having some old-standbys to re-ramp up, or simply stay in shape are de rigeur. I'm mentally comparing them to the katas of karate.

So as not to mislead anyone, adding new material is always good, but having some works that are so delightful that you can review them with joy would be a blessing. I'm hoping Don Quixote turns out to be such a work for Spanish. There will be others, but listening to Don Quixote once a year or seven will keep the cobwebs at bay if Spanish begins to extricate itself from my daily wanderings.

Oh wait, I'm supposed to be talking about French. I like the fact that there seems to be more gratis French literature available on the net in audio and text.

I'm undecided about how far to take French. I'm also starting to think about letting the languages I'm studying take root for the long run, rather than busting my head thinking I have to be to level N by day Z. There's little pain in listening to an Assimil lesson while shaving. Once I get a few audiobooks under my belt, well, I'll just add a few more.

At some point, I think I'll want to start talking. Then the question is, ease into it with Pimsleur, or Assimil, or my old standby audiobooks, or break out the FSI drills? That's a rhetorical question, by the way. At the moment, I'm firmly in the camp of postponing FSI drills until there is a good reason to start speaking. They are too mechanical and lifeless as an acquisition method. However, I can see them as a nice pair of training wheels to keep you on the road once you know where you're going and think the trip is worth it.

Today, I'm sold on the notion that listening is the most important skill. I like listening. Someone else might say reading is number one. Cool for them. One upside of making listening number 1 is that it may be possible to speak without a heavy American accent when the time comes to open my mouth and let forth articulated pensamientos. That is to say, I'll know what French sounds like.

I've been wondering if the French of Canada is to the French of Paris as the Spanish of Mexico is to the Spanish of Spain.

Edited by luke on 29 August 2007 at 8:55pm

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luke
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 7165 days ago

3133 posts - 4351 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: Esperanto, French

 
 Message 39 of 77
30 August 2007 at 8:26pm | IP Logged 
Listen-read a couple three chapters of Verne's Voyage.

In the car, listened to the first 2 chapters of Verne's Tour du Monde from http://www.teleramaradio.fr/.

Did the obligatory Assimil lesson too.

I haven't wanted watched an FiA video for a couple of weeks. I need to get back in the exercise groove and see Mirielle and freinds again.

On the other language fronts, I listened to lesson 5 of Jen Nia Mondo. One lesson per day seems like a good pace for that course right now. One nice thing about that course is that the dialogs are on separate CD tracks, so a lesson can be reviewed in 2-3 minutes. I think the kata method will be useful for Esperanto as well.

In Spanish, I'm on Don Quixote chapter 9 again.

In my effort to make a DQ parallel text, I've hit some murky waters in chapter 23. * Perhaps I'll try to penetrate it again this evening. An earlier chapter had to be rearranged a bit, which surprised me. For the most part, the translation at Gutenberg is fairly literal, although at times a bit archaic. He has a tendency to not be as faithful to the original as I'd like, particularly in punctuation, but most of the time the word order and selection seem apropos.

* I've discovered the 1st edition of DQ was missing this particular passage. The translation was using a later edition. Chapter 23 is now finished.



Edited by luke on 31 August 2007 at 5:57am

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luke
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 7165 days ago

3133 posts - 4351 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: Esperanto, French

 
 Message 40 of 77
02 September 2007 at 6:53am | IP Logged 
My Voyage to the Center of French continues with Jules Verne Voyage au Centre de la Terre. Right now I'm on chapter 23 of 45. The translation continues to hold up. I've only had to edit the English a tiny bit to correct typos or possibly an OCR error.

I got a new computer last week and Friday afternoon unpackaged it. I have it mostly configured now. I moved the large drive from my old one to the new one. Ubuntu rocks.

This would be a good day to watch a French in Action episode. The kaffeine movie viewer is functioning well.

Edited by luke on 02 September 2007 at 6:54am



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