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Kanewai 2015: Team Caesar | ||
Tags: Super Challenge | Catalan | Ancient Greek | Turkish | Polyglot | Arabic | Total Annihilation Challenge (TAC) | Italian | Japanese | French | Spanish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| microsnout TAC 2010 Winner Senior Member Canada microsnout.wordpress Joined 5261 days ago 277 posts - 553 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: French | Message 81 of 331 16 May 2012 at 5:56am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Interesting. In 5 years I have never come across the "Plus-que-parfait du subjonctif". I had not even noticed that it
was there in the drop down list of tenses in my dictionary app - but it is. Guess I don't read enough (any ?) literature, hopefully the Super Challenge will fix that.
There are 3 verbs conjugated in a simple tense in that phrase since L'imparfait is a simple tense (i.e. not a compound tense). Edited by microsnout on 16 May 2012 at 6:00am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5124 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 82 of 331 16 May 2012 at 6:53am | IP Logged | ||||||||
You just reminded me of why I have started on Mme. Bovary a number of times, but never got beyond page 50 :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4679 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 83 of 331 16 May 2012 at 7:16am | IP Logged | ||||||||
There's a parallel text on Amazon that alternates English / French each paragraph. The English is pretty clunky, but it helps a lot - I don't think I'd be able to read at this level without it as a reference. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Solfrid Cristin Heptaglot Winner TAC 2011 & 2012 Senior Member Norway Joined 5124 days ago 4143 posts - 8864 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, Spanish, Swedish, French, English, German, Italian Studies: Russian | Message 84 of 331 16 May 2012 at 8:21am | IP Logged | ||||||||
It's not the language I am worried about. It's the content. I find it difficult to feel any sympathy for the heroine. Of course if I had read on I might like her better. Edited by Solfrid Cristin on 16 May 2012 at 8:22am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4679 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 85 of 331 21 May 2012 at 10:25pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
That was sloppy English on my part. I meant 'simple' as in sentences with one easy clause, as opposes to 'simple' vs. 'compound.'
Maybe not. I can fully understand her as the farm girl dreaming of a more exciting life in Paris - but by the end of Book 1 she was turning nasty, spending all her time reading fashion magazines and taking out her frustrations on her husband. There are no characters yet who I "like" per se, but I'm still finding it a compelling read. There's actually a bit of comic relief in the second book, when starts off in a hotel full of eccentric characters. ------------------------------- I finished one more section of Assimil this weekend. The readings focused on the passé antérieur, which the course insists is the last grammar point that they will be teaching. I hope so. I usually can do a set of seven lessons per week with Assimil. This last set took me almost two weeks! ------------------------------- And I broke down and started Japanese also this weekend. It is a completely irrational move. I don't have the time to commit to it, but now that I've started strong (two Pimsleur lessons and eight Michel Thomas lessons) I'd hate to stop. I'm telling myself I'll keep it slow and steady, and just plod along until I have time to dedicate to it. This didn't work for me for Arabic, so I'm not sure why I think it will for Japanese. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Kerrie Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Kerrie2 Joined 5185 days ago 1232 posts - 1740 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 86 of 331 21 May 2012 at 10:37pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Go for it! I can't find enough time for all my own languages, so I am going to live vicariously through you. :D 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4679 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 87 of 331 22 May 2012 at 10:44pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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The more I learn, the more I realize just how far I have to go.
I thought that I'd be able to put my French books aside in December 2011 and just cruise: I could listen to podcasts and radio shows, and read native language books, and watch movies, and learn that way. Five months on, and I think: maybe I can reach that point by the end of this Summer. Maybe. I started listening to RFI Journal en français facile again, and I finally understand enough for it to be a useful. I'll try (once more) to make it part of my morning routine. My Challenge movie this week has been La cage aux folles. I've been alternating between using English and French subtitles, and watching a lot of scenes twice. It's a great movie for this - the two leads are great actors, and the dialogue is fun. It's enjoyable to re-watch the scenes. This is the first movie of the Challenge where I felt this. I have ambiguous feelings about the movie itself. I watched it in the late 1980's, and it already felt like an artifact from a lost world. My world was Act Up and Queer Nation and defying authority; I could not relate to Laurent (the spineless son), much less to two aging queens in St. Tropez and their sassy black houseboy. Twenty years on, and I still think that the son needed a good slap, and should have been sent to his room and had his allowance cut off for even suggesting that his fathers act straight for a night. But then there wouldn't have been a movie, and my politics have mellowed enough that I can enjoy the great acting and rapport between the two leads & mostly ignore the nonsense. Meanwhile ... in literature land ... the Bovaries have moved to Yonville (which seems like a French version of Green Acres), Madame Bovary just got knocked up, and she has met a flirty clerk who also dreams of Paris. The plot is finally picking up some speed. On deck, I ordered French Grammar in Context for when I finish Assimil. And I'm moving quickly on the Japanese - I'll be doing a lot of commuting this week, and it's nice to have an audio course to do for the drive. It'll be a challenge keeping it up once my schedule settles down and I go back to biking ... hopefully I'll be over the first language-learning hump by then. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4679 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 88 of 331 29 May 2012 at 10:22pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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French
I'm up to Lesson 54 of Using French, and Assimil has finally gotten real. As in: the lessons are now interesting in their own right, as opposed to just being interesting for a language book. The highlight this last week was the selection from Les Misérables of Gavroche at the barricade. Too bad there's only 14 lessons to go; I would be willing to continue with an Assimil 3! I'm about 1/3 of the way through Madame Bovary for the Challenge. She's not very sympa at this point of the novel - she knocks her crying baby away from her, and then marvels at how ugly the kid is. C'est une chose étranbe, pensait Emma, comme c'est enfant est laide! I can see why the book was scandalous in it's day. And I can't imagine this scene will make it into the coming movie - Hollywood doesn't like such things. I also imported some Anki decks. I've tried Anki before, but felt that I was spending more time getting creating my decks than actually studying, and I always fetl behind. But the main thing slowing down my reading is vocabulary, so it's time to work on that. I imported three: 1000 Most Common French Words, 5700 Common French Words, and Intermediate French. The first two have been too simple so far: I keep getting real basic words, like tu and vous and qui. The third has a lot of words with similar definitions (two words in a row for "to resign," two for "to annoy," and four or five versions of "to carry" or "to bring back." (rapporter, apporter, emporter, amener, and ramener all showed up at once, and I couldn't keep any of 'em straight). Kindle Touch My Kindle Touch also arrived this weekend, and it's such a pleasure to use - it's a big jump up from the previous kindle I had. I like that I can adjust the fonts more freely, I like that it's lighter, and it is much easier to look up words by touch than by toggling. Other positives: It seems to handle the French/English dictionary better (it doesn't get as confused by contrations), and it's easier to organize your books into 'collections'. I haven't used the x-ray feature yet, or the "share" feature where you can highlight text and send it over the net. The only real con is that the dictionary feature gives you definitions in a big box that blocks out whole paragraphs. The old kindle would give a brief definition at the bottom of the page, so you could still see how the word looked in context. Overall, my reading speed has definitely increased - mostly from not having to toggle, and being able to manipulate the text so that I can get more paragraphs on one page. This comes with a free month of Amazon Prime. From what I can tell, it's not worth the price. You can 'borrow' one book a month, but most of the books I found were kinda trashy serial-killer mysteries, bodice-ripping romances, teen-vampire dramas, and other genre novels. The few books I found that I would want to borrow were selling for $1.99. I can't figure why I'd pay $79 a year to get 12 free $2 books. Except ... Harry Potter in translation is coming out mid-June on Prime. That might make it worthwhile! I'll hold out. Japanese I ended up carpooling a lot this weekend, so I had less alone-time in my car to listen to my recordings. Still, I'm past the point of no-return: I've invested enough hours into Japanese that I'd hate to drop it. Not that I'm that far along: 8 lessons of Pimsleur and the first two hours of Michel Thomas (I listen to the MT lessons multiple times). Pimsleur is definitley the more frustating of the two; at times I feel like I'm just mimicing sounds and syllables without any real understanding of why. So for example, I know when to say ikagasamade without really knowing why I'm saying it. The MT teacher (Helen Gilhooly?) has a pleasant voice and manner, so it's been more enjoyable. I'm also making more connections with the MT tapes. Some of the grammar constructions remind me of Hawaiian "pidgen," and I've seen similar word order and counting methods in Micronesian. I am secretly hoping that I'll have an easier time with Japanese than mainland Americans, and that I might even be able to read manga ... but we'll see. For now, I'll finish the courses that I have, and then maybe move on to Assimil. Edited by kanewai on 29 May 2012 at 10:35pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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