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German: massive input in Berlin | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4314 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes  Studies: German | Message 129 of 295 21 May 2014 at 10:23pm | IP Logged | |||||
I was given the big Oxford German dictionary as a gift, but sadly never use it. One thing I quickly realized is that I never ever need the English-German part of dictionaries, so half of the expensive Oxford dictionary is useless. And now that I am B2 I much prefer to use a smaller (because half the space is not wasted on English-German) and more comprehensive (ditto) Langscheidt monodict. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| daegga Tetraglot Senior Member Austria lang-8.com/553301 Joined 4302 days ago 1076 posts - 1792 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Swedish, Norwegian Studies: Danish, French, Finnish, Icelandic | Message 130 of 295 21 May 2014 at 10:35pm | IP Logged | |||||
Using the dictionaries works if the PDF contains text. If it is a scan, it doesn't work (obviously). I'm not sure how well it works with non US-ASCII characters because they are saved in an odd way in PDFs, but then these characters cause trouble even in MOBI files (like not distinguishing between 'a' and 'ä' when looking up words) 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Gemuse Senior Member Germany Joined 3863 days ago 818 posts - 1189 votes Speaks: English Studies: German | Message 131 of 295 21 May 2014 at 10:55pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I think I had made a thread if such dict look up was possible on a computer, using a
dict.cc database. I should read what was said in that thread. I'm also getting a "Bei Amazon.de sind keine Kindle-Titel für Ihr Land erhältlich. Kindle-Bücher finden Sie bei Amazon.com." message at amazon.de. WTF. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4314 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 132 of 295 22 May 2014 at 7:32am | IP Logged | |||||
You have to register your Kindle for Germany. I guess it's not automatic even if you are living here. At the moment it's presumably linked to Amazon.com. You'll need a German CC/bank-account. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4314 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 133 of 295 01 June 2014 at 5:01pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Monthly Progress: May 2014
In May I finally got back into the swing of things with 47 films watched and 4 books (1416 pages) read. I read three books as paperbacks, with minimal use of the dictionary, which was enjoyable. I have switched back to using an ebook for now, as I have started to read a hard-scifi series by Peter Hamilton that interesting uses a much harder/different vocabulary than one that I am used to, and without the PONS pop-up dictionary would be too painful to read. I read one German novel this month: Juli Zeh's recent book 'Nullzeit', which could be described either as a thriller or romance, but isn't really either. I enjoyed it, and it or other books by Zeh are definitely worth looking out for if you are interested in contemporary German literature. I saw two German films this month: Schwarze Schafe (2006) and Stereo (2014). The black comedy of Schwarze Scharfe manages to capture the vibe of Berlin quite well, though it's hard to know if this is cutting satire or idiocy. Not recommended for those with taste, political sensibilities etc. Stereo, just out in the cinemas, is a nice thriller with strong performances by both Jürgen Vogel and Moritz Bleibtreu. Found the 'villian' very difficult to understand with his strong Austrian accent, but definitely a film worth checking out when you get the chance. After a slow start to the year I am currently on track towards my goal of reading 25000 pages, and seeing 1000 films by 1 July 2015. 
--------- BOOKS 33. Rotkehlchen. Jo Nesbø. 452 Seiten. Ebook. 7/10. 32. Open City. Teju Cole. 325 Seiten. Pbk. Mostly enjoyable, but in the end felt a bit let down by a story that thought itself more clever than it was. 6/10. 31. Nullzeit. Juli Zeh. 250 Seiten. Pbk. First German novel - read without any great difficulty without much use of dictionary. Would like to read more of Zeh's opus. 7/10. 30. Betty Blue: 37,2° am Morgen (1985). Phillipe Djian. 389 Seiten. Pbk. More difficult read than HST, but still quite readable. Using my Langenscheidt "Deutsch las Fremdsprache" to occasionally look up words, but mostly read straight. Nice to be finally able to pick-up a book for 3 euros in a secondhand bookstore and just read. Nice to know that so many of Djian's books have been translated into German, whereas this is the only (?) one to be translated into English. Lots more to read. 8/10. --------- MOVIES 446-447. Hell's Kitchen Deutschland (2014). 2 episodes. 6/10. 445. Delicatessen (1991). Maxidome. 8/10. 444. Burn After Reading (2008). Maxidome. 7/10. 443. Memento (2000). Maxidome. 10/10. 442. L'Immortel (2010). Maxidome. 6/10. 441. The Book of Eli (2010). Maxidome. 2/10. 435-440. Homeland - Season 3 - 12 Episodes. Maxidome. 8/10. 434. The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009). Maxidome. 6/10. 429-433. Game of Thrones - Season 3. Videoladen. I tried watching GoT about six months ago and found the German too hard; I could watch it now with little difficulty. 9/10. 428. Let the Right One In (2008). Maxidome. Excellent Swedish vampire flick. 9/10. 427. Stereo (2014). Kino. Nice to see Germany making a non-comedy/non-krimi thriller. Jürgen Vogel and Moritz Bleibtreu deliver strong performances. My only real grip was the difficulty in understanding due to strong Austrian accent of the main bad guy. 8/10. 426. Los Cronocrímenes (2007). Maxidome. 8/10. 425. Renaissance (2006). Maxidome. 7/10. 424. John Dies at the End (2012). Maxidome. 2/10. 423. Year of the Gun (1991). Maxidome. 6/10. 422. Predators (2010). Maxidome (3€). 6/10. 421. Lost Highway (1997). Maxidome. Great movie, no idea what it was about. David Lynch marathon continues... 8/10. 420. Perro come Perro (2008). Mubi. Dog eat dog. So-so Colombian gangster flick set in Calli. 5/10. 419. The Fourth Protocol (1987). Maxidome. 6/10. 418. Buffalo '66 (1998). Maxidome. 8/10. 417. Mulholland Drive (2001). Maxidome. Such a shame they didn't make the TV series. 10/10. 416. Before the Devil Knows You're Dead (2007). Maxidome. 7/10. 415. Forbidden World (1982). Maxidome. B-grade Alien rip-off. 4/10. 410-414. Odysseus - Macht. Intrige. Mythos. (2013). Maxidome. B-grade TV series that does no justice to the myth of Odysseus. Poorly written, acted and directed. 3/10. 409. Showgirls (1995). Maxidome. Paul Verhoeven of Basic Instinct, Robocop, Total Recall, and Starship Troopers fame, does sleazy Vegas. Such bad acting, but somehow I like it. 6/10. 408. The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013). Videoladen. 7/10. 407. Schwarze Schafe (2006). Mubi. Very cheaply shot Berlin film with five different storylines, which I am glad I finally got around to seeing. Captures a certain sense of the city. Stand out from the satanists doing a ritual on oma and loved the Turkish Jungs looking for sex. Ranges from cutting satire to idiocy. ; Definitely not for all tastes. 6/10 406. Neulich in Belgien (2008). Mubi. 5/10. 405. The Place Beyond the Pines (2012). Maxidome (4€). 6/10. 404. Public Enemy No. 1 - Todestrieb (L'ennemi public n°1 - 2008). Mubi. Part two of the Jaques Mesrine gangster biopic. I liked the pacing in this part much better. 7/10. 403. Public Enemy No. 1 - Mordinstinkt (L'instinct de mort) (2008). Mubi. The first part of the Jaques Mesrine gangster biopic, played by a cool Vincent Cassel. A little too disjointed to be great, but this a fun watch. 6/10. 402. Twelve Monkeys (1995). Maxidome. 8/10. 401. The Mexican (2001). Maxidome. 7/10. Edited by patrickwilken on 02 June 2014 at 10:18am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| BAnna Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4403 days ago 409 posts - 616 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Turkish | Message 134 of 295 01 June 2014 at 8:36pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Thanks for the tip on Juli Zeh. I'll add her name to my outrageously long list of authors and books to check out.
It's not so easy to get current German-language movies here in the US, but I can get ARD and ZDF rebroadcasts. Any series you've heard good things about? I usually end up just watching Tatort or documentaries... 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| patrickwilken Senior Member Germany radiant-flux.net Joined 4314 days ago 1546 posts - 3200 votes Studies: German | Message 135 of 295 01 June 2014 at 9:23pm | IP Logged | |||||
I don't know if Nullzeit is her best book, but she's certainly well regarded. I found it a fairly easy and engaging read.
German TV in general is regarded as a bit of a disaster zone. Mostly it's full of trashy reality shows, trashy comedy and trashy talk shows. With the World Cup coming up Tatort is now on Summer Break, which sucks. I haven't seen any good German drama series other than Tatort (if Tatort really counts as a drama series). I have heard that the comedy/drama Türkisch für Anfänger is good, and the comedy Stromberg (an Office clone) is also OK. Also the Heute Show is meant to be a good remake of the US The Daily Show. None of these are really too my taste so I am keeping mostly to dubbed versions of US shows that are very popular here like Breaking Bad or Games of Thrones. Edited by patrickwilken on 02 June 2014 at 10:21am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| daegga Tetraglot Senior Member Austria lang-8.com/553301 Joined 4302 days ago 1076 posts - 1792 votes Speaks: German*, EnglishC2, Swedish, Norwegian Studies: Danish, French, Finnish, Icelandic | Message 136 of 295 01 June 2014 at 10:24pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I doubt these would benefit your active skills of German, but here some out of the
ordinary suggestions for TV series: - MA2412 - Ein echter Wiener geht nicht unter - Kottan ermittelt - Kaisermühlenblues These are in Austria German with some dialect (Viennese) coming up, especially in the second one. Look on youtube for those. It's certainly not everybody's taste and probably require pretty good German skills. Edited by daegga on 02 June 2014 at 3:48pm 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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