Lilly's log - French, Russian, Spanish and Italian

Continue or start your personal language log here, including logs for challenge participants
User avatar
blaurebell
Blue Belt
Posts: 840
Joined: Thu Jul 28, 2016 1:24 pm
Location: Spain
Languages: German (N), English (C2), Spanish (B2-C1), French (B2+ passive), Italian (A2), Russian (Beginner)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=3235
x 2240

Re: Lilly's log - French, Russian and reluctant Spanish

Postby blaurebell » Sat Mar 25, 2017 11:31 am

Russian

With yesterday's Modern Russian lesson I was definitely feeling the strain of the drilling. It wasn't hard, which is what made it boring. Is this your pen? Yes, this is my pen. Where is my pencil? Your pencil is there. Boooooooring. Made me feel a bit as if I was in Siberian grammar boot camp. But well, this is FSI after all, it was almost surprising that I was having fun up to now :D I told my husband about the style of the drills and he was like: "Is your pen a camera?" "No, my pen is just a pen". :lol: Maybe pretending to be in Siberian spy boot camp will help. Other than the usual daily routine of Duolingo - finally finished the Science skill - and clozemaster, I also continued reading for almost 2.5h. I still think that reading is the most valuable part of my routine, but it's still not fun. I think the number of new words to enter into the database has to fall below 15% for intensive reading to be classified as "fun". I still get pages with more than 25%. Russian hours: 3.65h

French

An episode of Angel French dubs and another France culture documentary, this time about the role of intellectuals in the Weimar republic. Very interesting. Of course nothing new for me, but it's interesting to hear the perspective of French intellectuals on this period. The most surprising thing: At the end of the program they recommended a series of 3 comics La Guerre des Amants! Imagining that Deutschlandradio Kultur or a similar channel would recommend comics makes me laugh! I so love French culture! Since these comics looked super interesting we actually ordered them already. The tome that is the most relevant to the program I was listening to was the second one, which seems to be out of stock right now. However, in a few weeks I'll have a new series of comics to enjoy! Yay! French hours: 1.5h

Total hours: 5.15h

Although it doesn't really count as language learning since we watched it with English subtitles, we also watched Gozilla Resurgence in Japanese last night. Definitely one of the weirdest movies I've watched to date and I've seen some really weird stuff :D It was like watching a really really weird freak accident - utterly fascinating, more hilarious than cringeworthy and really totally weird. Recommended for anyone who has the urge to see real people act like anime characters :lol: I'm not really someone who gets language wanderlust normally, but Japanese is one of these old friends who always tries to crash on my couch. This movie was definitely one big fat reminder why I just have to learn Japanese one day! Learning about Japanese culture is really the closest thing to studying alien life :D Must resist the urge to buy Assimil Japanese! I won't have time for it for the next 2 years, so I guess I pretend nobody is home whenever my Japanese friend rings the doorbell :D
4 x
: 20 / 100 Дэвид Эддингс - В поисках камня
: 14325 / 35000 LWT Known

: 17 / 55 FSI Spanish Basic
: 100 / 116 GdUdE B
: 8 / 72 Duolingo reverse Spanish -> German

User avatar
Jar-Ptitsa
Brown Belt
Posts: 1000
Joined: Sun Jul 19, 2015 1:13 pm
Location: London
Languages: Belgian French (N)

I can speak: Dutch, German, English, Spanish and understand Italian, Portuguese, Wallonian, Afrikaans, but not always correctly.
x 652

Re: Lilly's log - French, Russian and reluctant Spanish

Postby Jar-Ptitsa » Sat Mar 25, 2017 11:54 am

Why "reluctant Spanish"? I know that you live in Spain.
1 x
-w- I am Jar-ptitsa and my Hawaiian name is ʻā ʻaia. Please correct my mistakes in all the languages. Thank you very much.
: 1 / 50 Spanish grammar
: 5 / 50 Spanish vocabulary

DaveBee
Blue Belt
Posts: 952
Joined: Wed Nov 02, 2016 8:49 pm
Location: UK
Languages: English (native). French (studying).
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=7466
x 1386

Re: Lilly's log - French, Russian and reluctant Spanish

Postby DaveBee » Sat Mar 25, 2017 12:43 pm

blaurebell wrote: Learning about Japanese culture is really the closest thing to studying alien life :D
I read Kató Lomb's PDF book the other day, from her description Japanese seems to be several languages merged into one. Women speak one language, then the vocabulary used varies depending on the perceived status of the conversation participants. It sounds horrifically complicated. :shock:
2 x

User avatar
blaurebell
Blue Belt
Posts: 840
Joined: Thu Jul 28, 2016 1:24 pm
Location: Spain
Languages: German (N), English (C2), Spanish (B2-C1), French (B2+ passive), Italian (A2), Russian (Beginner)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=3235
x 2240

Re: Lilly's log - French, Russian and reluctant Spanish

Postby blaurebell » Sat Mar 25, 2017 2:51 pm

vogeltje wrote:Why "reluctant Spanish"? I know that you live in Spain.


Oh, that's fairly straight forward: I like Argentinian Spanish, but due to circumstances that are outside of my control I somehow ended up in Spain. And two thirds of the things I have left to do with my Spanish are now fairly unpleasant things - FSI to get rid of some fossilised mistakes from speaking too early and lots of TV series with Spanish from Spain. I don't particularly like continental Spanish and the series are just so horrifically bad! Can't be avoided though because I'll probably be stuck here for a while longer. :roll: I'm very much looking forward to my full on Argentinian year I've planned for 2018 though. That's going to be fun!

DaveBee wrote:I read Kató Lomb's PDF book the other day, from her description Japanese seems to be several languages merged into one. Women speak one language, then the vocabulary used varies depending on the perceived status of the conversation participants. It sounds horrifically complicated.


I read that book too, very interesting! And indeed, Japanese seems to be horribly complicated to speak well, mainly because there seems to be all sorts of cultural knowledge needed so as not commit all sorts of terrible blunders and embarrass yourself and others. Many of my friends who studied Japanese at university level were terrified by certain social situations because of all the complicated perceived status issues. I can't really tell how difficult it really is, since I've never studied it myself. My husband says that the grammar is actually very easy, it just has strange sentence structure. One day I'll find out for myself!
2 x
: 20 / 100 Дэвид Эддингс - В поисках камня
: 14325 / 35000 LWT Known

: 17 / 55 FSI Spanish Basic
: 100 / 116 GdUdE B
: 8 / 72 Duolingo reverse Spanish -> German

User avatar
blaurebell
Blue Belt
Posts: 840
Joined: Thu Jul 28, 2016 1:24 pm
Location: Spain
Languages: German (N), English (C2), Spanish (B2-C1), French (B2+ passive), Italian (A2), Russian (Beginner)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=3235
x 2240

Re: Lilly's log - French, Russian and reluctant Spanish

Postby blaurebell » Sun Mar 26, 2017 3:17 pm

Weekly update:

Russian

: 8 / 45 Modern Russian 1
: 49 / 100 Дэвид Эддингс - Обретение чуда
: 4929 / 35000 LWT Known

done
Russian World 1 on Youtube
Duolingo :twisted:
Assimil :twisted:
a bunch of Red Kalinka graded readers

:twisted: resources have been abandoned because doing more of them would be a waste of time at this point.

I've done a whole week of Modern Russian and finished the first 6 chapters. The written exercises are very useful and somewhat challenging, so I'm learning a lot. The audio drills range from a little annoying to super boring, depending on difficulty. The easier drills are the boring ones. I do think it's a good workout though and I think I'm gaining a lot by doing this. I'm going at a decent speed, one audio file a day and if I can keep this speed up I'll finish Modern Russian 1 in about a month - that said, we will be traveling in a couple of weeks, so I will have to take a break from it probably.

I abandoned Assimil, because at this point I seem to be learning more relevant vocabulary from intensive reading and can't say that the grammar explanations do much for me at all after I finished most of Duolingo. The shadowing was of course useful, but right now I'm getting enough speaking practice out of Modern Russian, especially since the question answer drills are closer to actually producing Russian rather than just parroting sentences. I will come back to shadowing once I'm done with Modern Russian, but at that point I will probably use Glossika sentences rather than Assimil, since the sentences seem a little more useful. I'm actually continuing with Duolingo at 5min a day and have about 4 not too long skills left. Shouldn't be long now. I also started reading again after taking a break from it for a week, gained about 500 known word forms on LWT and read about 21 more pages. Reading will be my main focus now, since this is the skill that I need most urgently. It seems this will be difficult though and one Super Challenge might not be enough to get away from the dictionary. If that is the case my PhD related reading this year will be tough, but I'll do my best!

French

Last week I finished the France culture documentary programs about the Bauhaus school, very enjoyable. I also downloaded a whole bunch more episodes about different topics that will keep me happy for a while. We watched La Vénus a la fourrure, which was a good challenge due to constantly shifting registers, and 8 femmes, which starts out like a silly 50s mystery musical and then turns into a really wild movie. Some great acting in there, songs, beautiful women, murder mystery, what's not to love? More Angel French dubs and I'm now almost done with my Kundera translation Risibles amours - only need to read the essay at the end.

Spanish

Miserable progress, just one hour of reading and one episode of Ministerio del tiempo. I find it difficult to push even more intensive reading into my schedule, since I already spend 1-3h with intensive reading in Russian and 1h with extensive reading in French. Another hour of reading would be a bit too much for me, I don't normally read more than 3h a day. I'll slowly finish the Saer book, but will probably try to delay the bulk of my intensive reading until later. First I need to finish the Russian intensive reading SC! As for watching stuff: I have been trying to find some nice native continental Spanish series to watch, but every single one I tried was simply unbearable. Something pretending to be a comedy about some ship - the jokes were just cringeworthy and bad. Something real estate with a housing community, so stupid I can't even say what annoyed me most! I don't know why there only seems to be self-deprecating humour in Spain. Unbearable, unbearable, unbearable. After 5min of each I gave up and watched a movie in French. I think there is only one way to get through this: I have to rewatch the bad but at least bearable El internado. A lot of kids in there who can't act at all, but at least it has binge-watch potential and it doesn't try to be funny most of the time. Ministerio del tiempo is not too unbearable, but I started it with my husband and he has even less tolerance for bad TV. No idea how I'm ever going to reach 150h of continental spanish series at this rate. I'll keep trying.

Goals

I already have the next few years covered with language learning goals: 2017 - Russian to B2, 2018 - Spanish to C1 next year while ramping up exposure in Russian and French, 2019 - Russian, Spanish and French maintenance during my final year of the PhD - I might try for C1 in Russian too if I find the time. What happens after the PhD depends very much whether I feel like going back to uni for another 1-2 year degree program here in Spain, which is actually quite likely. If yes, then I will probably get Spanish to C2 at that point, especially if it's going to be a theoretical rather than a practical Masters. If I don't feel like more degree programs I will probably aim for C1 in Russian and French too, so that I have 5 languages at a high level - German, English, Spanish, Russian and French. Once I've reached that goal I'll probably try to reactivate my Italian and finally embark on Japanese. So, the next 3-6 years are already pretty full. It's going to be lots of fun!
5 x
: 20 / 100 Дэвид Эддингс - В поисках камня
: 14325 / 35000 LWT Known

: 17 / 55 FSI Spanish Basic
: 100 / 116 GdUdE B
: 8 / 72 Duolingo reverse Spanish -> German

User avatar
blaurebell
Blue Belt
Posts: 840
Joined: Thu Jul 28, 2016 1:24 pm
Location: Spain
Languages: German (N), English (C2), Spanish (B2-C1), French (B2+ passive), Italian (A2), Russian (Beginner)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=3235
x 2240

Re: Lilly's log - French, Russian and reluctant Spanish

Postby blaurebell » Sun Mar 26, 2017 9:11 pm

Spanish

I made an effort and forced my husband to watch another two episodes of Ministerio del tiempo with me. He has spent the last 10 minutes railing against the Spanish expression "Te quiero un huevo". We both thought we misheard, so we went back to verify. Jeez, what a vulgar turn of phrase, yikes! :shock: The way they speak here ...! 10h down, 140h of continental Spanish series to go. :roll: Also, whoever wrote the season ending of season 1 belongs in the science fiction hall of shame for using that tired old time travel stereotype! Clear sign that the writers have never seen a single sci fi series before :roll:
1 x
: 20 / 100 Дэвид Эддингс - В поисках камня
: 14325 / 35000 LWT Known

: 17 / 55 FSI Spanish Basic
: 100 / 116 GdUdE B
: 8 / 72 Duolingo reverse Spanish -> German

Tomás
Blue Belt
Posts: 554
Joined: Sat Oct 10, 2015 9:48 pm
Languages: English (N). Currently studying Spanish (intermediate), French (false beginner).
x 661

Re: Lilly's log - French, Russian and reluctant Spanish

Postby Tomás » Mon Mar 27, 2017 1:05 am

I love you an egg? Is an egg a lot or a little?
0 x

User avatar
blaurebell
Blue Belt
Posts: 840
Joined: Thu Jul 28, 2016 1:24 pm
Location: Spain
Languages: German (N), English (C2), Spanish (B2-C1), French (B2+ passive), Italian (A2), Russian (Beginner)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=3235
x 2240

Re: Lilly's log - French, Russian and reluctant Spanish

Postby blaurebell » Mon Mar 27, 2017 6:15 am

Tomás wrote:I love you an egg? Is an egg a lot or a little?


A lot apparently! Although I question the sanity of alluding to testicles when telling someone that you like them :roll:
2 x
: 20 / 100 Дэвид Эддингс - В поисках камня
: 14325 / 35000 LWT Known

: 17 / 55 FSI Spanish Basic
: 100 / 116 GdUdE B
: 8 / 72 Duolingo reverse Spanish -> German

jeffers
Blue Belt
Posts: 848
Joined: Sat Aug 22, 2015 4:12 pm
Location: UK
Languages: Speaks: English (N), Hindi (A2-B1)

Learning: The above, plus French (A2-B1), German (A1), Ancient Greek (?), Sanskrit (beginner)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=19785
x 2774
Contact:

Re: Lilly's log - French, Russian and reluctant Spanish

Postby jeffers » Mon Mar 27, 2017 7:55 am

blaurebell wrote:
Tomás wrote:I love you an egg? Is an egg a lot or a little?


A lot apparently! Although I question the sanity of alluding to testicles when telling someone that you like them :roll:


The problem, of course, is that huevo can also be a quite innocent word, a lot depends on the context (and the listener). I'm reminded of a story my friend told me about his German teacher. He was acting out different animals while describing them in German, and the students were supposed to guess what animal he was. When he said that he had large ears and he swings his "schwanz" back and forth there was quite a gasp from the students, because they all knew the word but none of them knew it also had quite an innocent meaning. It didn't help that the teacher was swinging his hand in front rather than behind! :lol:
4 x
Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien (roughly, the perfect is the enemy of the good)

French SC Books: 0 / 5000 (0/5000 pp)
French SC Films: 0 / 9000 (0/9000 mins)

User avatar
reineke
Black Belt - 3rd Dan
Posts: 3570
Joined: Wed Jan 06, 2016 7:34 pm
Languages: Fox (C4)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=6979
x 6554

Re: Lilly's log - French, Russian and reluctant Spanish

Postby reineke » Mon Mar 27, 2017 1:10 pm

Cuando me acerco al mercado y compro huevos, media docena de ellos grandes me cuestan noventa centimos,luego el precio de uno sale a quince centimos, los hay mas pequeños y por lo tanto mas baratos pero como no quiero minimizar el cariño que el bigotes siente por Camps o Camps por el bigotes, prefiero que sean grandes.


Hay que ver la fuerza que tiene la palabra huevo, si oimos en una conversacion a dos personas que una le dice a la otra, "te quiero un huevo" normalmente pensamos que le quiere mucho...... Pero ¿y si oimos decir a esta misma persona "te quiero quince centimos", pues la verdad es que yo no sabria que pensar.....¿Que hubieramos pensado si le hubiera dicho "te quiero un cojon",esto por muy mucho o muy poco que se quiera, nadie se lo dice a nadie, que soez ¿no?.

En cambio si le hubira dicho "te quiero un testiculo", ay amigo eso ya es diferente, querer un testiculo ya es mucho querer, (pues no nos cuidamos los tios nuestros testiculos)..... Tenemos que reconocer que eso ya es mucho querer........Por eso creo que lo primero que tendra que averiguar el juez es con que intencion dijo aquello del huevo y cuanto valor le ponia al huevo en aquel momento.

http://sisco-mediterraneo.blogspot.com/ ... e.html?m=1
2 x


Return to “Language logs”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 2 guests