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

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blaurebell
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Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=3235
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Re: Lilly's log - French, Russian and reluctant Spanish

Postby blaurebell » Wed Mar 15, 2017 12:42 pm

Russian

: 45 / 100 Assimil Le Russe
: 67 / 79 Duolingo Russian
: 42 / 100 Дэвид Эддингс - Обретение чуда
: 4421 / 35000 LWT Known

done:
Pronunciation trainer
Russian World 1
Red Kalinka - Stories in Russian A1
Red Kalinka - Stories in Russian A2.1
Red Kalinka - Stories in Russian A2.2

My progress with Russian this last week was a bit slower than before because I had doctor's appointments and a lot of other work to do. Nevertheless I gained some 900 known words in LWT while reading 36 pages of my David Eddings translation and didn't miss a day of Duolingo or Assimil. I'm now almost done with Duolingo and I should finish it just after my next weekly update. After Duolingo I will get started with Modern Russian 1. All in all not bad and I'm happy with my progress so far. My reading comprehension is still scraping along at the lower end of the spectrum, but I don't really have to refer to the French translation anymore, even with very long and complicated sentences. By now I get the occasional page below 20% new words and only few pages with over 30%. Also, I'm now up to almost 49% known vs unknown ratio in the LWT database which started off at about 45%. Still feels tough, but it's getting a tad easier to read with every day. I'm also not so far away from reaching the halfway point of my first book in Russian. Very cool! And during the 6WC I actually managed to log 136h of Russian in total which is not bad at all, averaging at pretty exactly 3h a day! In total I'm up to 260h of Russian now, roughly 1/4 of what I have planned.

French

I've done quite a lot of French last week because it was much easier to fit bits of procrastination and relaxing into my schedule rather than proper study time. I listened to France culture while on the bus or cooking dinner, watched Angel French dubs while eating lunch and read comics before going to bed. This last week I have finished Le Sursis and Le Vol du Corbeau by Gibrat, both in two volumes of 55 pages. Beautiful drawings and very interesting! I'd definitely recommend these! I think I might make comic reading a habit. Only problem is that they're a tad too expensive to keep going with one a day :lol: Maybe I check the second hand bookshop later today for more French comics. They do carry a lot of French novels here at the French border, but so far I've only seen Spanish comics. Maybe I get lucky though!
46h of French during the 6WC. Also not bad at all, roughly an hour a day! It's likely that I'll do more once I'm done with my initial Russian stretch, especially since I found a whole bunch of books in French that are relevant for my PhD.

Spanish

We managed just one more episode of El Ministerio del Tiempo. However, it seems I will get a whole month of Spanish in October when we will be travelling around Spain and France with my in-laws. And depending how my Russian intensive reading Super Challenge and French audiobook SC go, I will try to get started on a Spanish intensive reading SC as well. Also, I want to do this: DE VIAJE (LITERARIO) POR ESPAÑA only for Argentina. After lots of searching I think I actually found the first book for this journey: Niñez en Catamarca by Gustavo Gabriel Levene. Argentinian books are really hard to find in Spain, so it always needs a bit of luck. So, I will continue this project probably at snail's pace while I hunt for books. And yeah, it would be totally too easy to just do the Spanish journey while living in Spain, right? :roll:
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: 17 / 55 FSI Spanish Basic
: 100 / 116 GdUdE B
: 8 / 72 Duolingo reverse Spanish -> German

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

Postby DaveBee » Thu Mar 16, 2017 9:48 am

blaurebell wrote:
French
This last week I have finished Le Sursis and Le Vol du Corbeau by Gibrat, both in two volumes of 55 pages. Beautiful drawings and very interesting! I'd definitely recommend these! I think I might make comic reading a habit. Only problem is that they're a tad too expensive to keep going with one a day :lol: Maybe I check the second hand bookshop later today for more French comics. They do carry a lot of French novels here at the French border, but so far I've only seen Spanish comics. Maybe I get lucky though!
Culturethèque give online access to some french comics. The one time I tried this though, I had network/server trubble!
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blaurebell
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Re: Lilly's log - French, Russian and reluctant Spanish

Postby blaurebell » Thu Mar 16, 2017 12:15 pm

DaveBee wrote:Culturethèque give online access to some french comics. The one time I tried this though, I had network/server trubble!


Thank you for the recommendation! So far I didn't particularly like reading comics on the screen, but maybe I should give it another try! The site is somewhat hard to navigate. Some comics start with tome 34 and I can't find the earlier volumes. I'll explore a bit more!
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: 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

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

Postby blaurebell » Thu Mar 16, 2017 1:23 pm

So, I decided to take it easy yesterday and relax a little after the 6WC. I only did my minimum Russian - Assimil, Duolingo, Clozemaster and 10min audiobook. I watched an episode of Angel French dubs and also went to the second hand bookshop to check for comics. As expected I didn't find anything. Even the comics in Spanish were mostly rubbish. I did however find a French translation of a Milan Kundera novel I haven't read before. I really like Kundera and since that's coming from a language I don't understand and am unlikely to ever learn, I might as well read it in French! I already read 40 pages of it before bed and I think I had a grand total of 2 words I didn't understand! 8-) It's a translation, but that's still pretty good! By the way, finding even one book worth reading in French in that shop is lucky, since there is just one shelf of French stuff, mostly with stuff left behind by tourists or not very advanced language learners - usually not a sign of quality. The only other book I found remotely interesting was a book that is apparently "deadly boring" according to Goodreads. I'm glad I decided against taking it in the end! Speaking of books: Today I received the workbook of Modern Russian 1. It only had 3 or 4 pencil markings from someone who apparently reached the end of it - a good sign. Looks useful! So, I'm all set for my Modern Russian journey after I finish Duolingo next week.

And then there was also a big Spanish surprise: The Argentinian book I ordered yesterday morning arrived today! I wasn't expecting it so fast at all and it looks like a nice old Argentinian edition from the 1960s - the book was originally published in 1946. And so my literary journey through Argentina begins! There are 23 provinces, 22 when not counting Buenos Aires Province, so I'll read 22 books along this literary road trip. My husband already had suggestions for the next book and we will also ask his mum for more local Argentinian literature suggestions, since she reads a lot as well. I will probably try to pick geographically connected provinces, but with the difficulties in finding Argentinian books over here, I might have to skip around a little. A shame that we're not travelling to Argentina this year, I'm sure I'd have a lot of fun asking for suggestions in one of the gazillion bookshops in Buenos Aires!

You wonder why I love Argentina so much? Well, the main reason is probably that you can dance tango in a different place each day for a month in BsAs and will have no repeats! Some of these places are over 100 years old, and you get polite 80+yr old gentlemen who walk with a stick but still dance tango! You can also find the whole range of places, high skill places where the best dancers of the world practice at 3am or little neighbourhood milongas with a friendly inclusive atmosphere where you don't have to worry about dancing badly or just having fun without showing off. Bookshops have an equally rich tradition and Buenos Aires apparently is the city with the most bookshops per inhabitants in the world. While over there we spend most of our time going from bookshop to bookshop while I take pictures out on the street. On our first trip we came back with 53 books!!! I love it! If it wasn't for all the humidity that makes summers and winters equally unbearable - neither 5 nor 35°C are much fun with all that humidity - it would be the perfect place to live for me. We had some insanely hot days during our trips there and it was like breathing syrup. My husband got lightheaded from the air even as a child and he was born there! Nevertheless, I still hope that one day I'll get to move there at least for a few years.
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Re: Lilly's log - French, Russian and reluctant Spanish

Postby Tomás » Thu Mar 16, 2017 3:49 pm

I recommend "El Tunel" by Ernesto Sabato. It is not difficult to read, and was quite engaging for me. Sabato was Argentinian, but I don't know how this book would fit into your travel game.
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blaurebell
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Re: Lilly's log - French, Russian and reluctant Spanish

Postby blaurebell » Thu Mar 16, 2017 4:58 pm

Tomás wrote:I recommend "El Tunel" by Ernesto Sabato. It is not difficult to read, and was quite engaging for me. Sabato was Argentinian, but I don't know how this book would fit into your travel game.


Perfect, thank you! I noted it down as an option for Buenos Aires! My husband has read it, so it must be already in the house somewhere - the question is where?! Always hard to tell when you live in a library :lol: Bs As is of course the easiest province to cover because of the rather centralised way the country is organised. That's why the regional aspect of this is so interesting! Somehow 90% of what I've read in Argentinian so far was set in Buenos Aires.
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Re: Lilly's log - French, Russian and reluctant Spanish

Postby Tomás » Thu Mar 16, 2017 10:11 pm

blaurebell wrote:
Tomás wrote:I recommend "El Tunel" by Ernesto Sabato. It is not difficult to read, and was quite engaging for me. Sabato was Argentinian, but I don't know how this book would fit into your travel game.


Perfect, thank you! I noted it down as an option for Buenos Aires! My husband has read it, so it must be already in the house somewhere - the question is where?! Always hard to tell when you live in a library :lol: Bs As is of course the easiest province to cover because of the rather centralised way the country is organised. That's why the regional aspect of this is so interesting! Somehow 90% of what I've read in Argentinian so far was set in Buenos Aires.


It is indeed a Bs As book, but key parts of the story take place in a ranch house out in the countryside. I don't remember if he said exactly where. He probably did but it would not have meant anything to me.
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Re: Lilly's log - French, Russian and reluctant Spanish

Postby blaurebell » Fri Mar 17, 2017 9:56 am

Tomás wrote:It is indeed a Bs As book, but key parts of the story take place in a ranch house out in the countryside. I don't remember if he said exactly where. He probably did but it would not have meant anything to me.


With the distances involved in Argentina I would guess somewhere in Buenos Aires Province. Even Córdoba city is an overnight bus journey away from BsAs and that's in one of the provinces bordering Buenos Aires Province. Going down to Bariloche in the far south is 24h on a bus at least! BsAs City or Province are really where most Argentinian books seem to be set. My husband couldn't even think of a single book set in Córdoba or Rosario. Even the regional books from the interior are often set in some nameless countryside village, nowhere specific apart from "not in the city". I guess this lack of interest of the educated city dwellers for the countryside is precisely why people from the interior generally find porteños arrogant. In fact it's even implied that "city" will generally mean Buenos Aires, even though there are other big enough cities in Argentina. This centralism also explains why there are hardly any train lines connecting the other cities between each other. All roads lead to Rome - or Buenos Aires in this case. The reason of course lies in the added importance of the port during colonial times. The former government has attempted to reduce this centralism - partly because Bs As city was governed by the opposition -, but I don't think they had much success with that. The only other country where I've seen similarly strong centralism is France, but the French have still much more regional pride than the Argentinians.
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Re: Lilly's log - French, Russian and reluctant Spanish

Postby blaurebell » Fri Mar 17, 2017 4:54 pm

Spanish

Last night I read the first few pages of my Catamarca book and there is definitely quite a difference between my French and my Spanish reading comprehension. In the French translation of the Kundera book the other day I read 40 pages with about 2 unknown words in total. With the Catamarca book I had at least 2 unknown words on every single page. It's some fairly flowery 1940s prose, but still! I checked also a more recent book by Manuel Puig and immediately had 5 unknown words in the first paragraph. Ouch! I can infer most of these from context somehow, but I basically have no precision whatsoever.

So, I finally went back and checked how many pages I have so far read in Spanish: 4493, and about 2500 of those were with the kindle, only 175 with LWT, the rest extensive reading with physical books. With the kindle I looked up only words I couldn't guess from the context, because my kindle has a monolingual dictionary only that isn't very helpful anyway. With LWT I always look up every unknown word and type them into the database. So, almost 4450 pages read fairly extensively in Spanish vs 5000 pages of intensive reading in French and we have a clear winner: intensive reading is much more effective for picking up vocabulary. I don't think I've noticed any improvement in my precision with Spanish since the first 1000 pages. I basically just ignore all lower frequency vocabulary and understand 99% anyway. It wasn't a waste of time, since I understand what I read in context and I simply had fun reading, but with some very literary books I just always feel a little "off" and audiobooks feel too hazy to me.

Frankly, I find it a bit embarrassing that my Spanish reading comprehension is now worse than my French comprehension although I've been living in Spain for more than two years and only started learning French last summer. That's what happens when you figure out more efficient learning methods with TL number 4 :oops:

So, before I read any paper books for my Argentinian literary road trip I will first finish an Argentinian intensive reading SC, trying to find the books for my road trip digitally too if I can, and otherwise leaving the road trip for after the intensive reading SC. First I'll continue with an older intensive reading list I already prepared a while back, starting off with another book by Juan José Saer, then Puig, Piglia, that sort of thing. The only book I've read with LWT was Saer's La Pesquisa, which I really enjoyed. The one I picked now El entenado is supposed to be even better and very strange. Definitely looks like my kind of book. I'm looking forward to it!

So reading goals for this year: 5000 pages Russian intensive reading, 5000 pages Spanish intensive reading, 5000 pages French extensive, and whatever my husband and I read out loud in English. With all that slow Russian I probably won't even manage 20,000 pages this year.
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Re: Lilly's log - French, Russian and reluctant Spanish

Postby outcast » Sat Mar 18, 2017 11:55 am

blaurebell wrote:
outcast wrote:What I mean is, there are tons of channels and most are private, and one of the few things that has remained mostly stable over the last 20-30 years of crazy governments. Now I do know in the last elections the conservatives got back in and so I am not surprised if they are slashing budgets for the public television, and that obviously hurts if people had plans to try to venture into that. But as for actual tv shows just to practice listening, the private channels should not be affected at all, at least in the past the private networks never seemed affected by the change in government, either from the right or the left.


You're of course totally right with the typical TV shows and series, but the problem is that I'm actually way beyond teen dramas and stuff like that in Argentinian. I can profit from watching the continental Spanish series only because I'm unfamiliar with the slang and find that they mumble a lot. In Argentinian I can half listen to tv shows while the dog is barking or my in-laws are talking over each other and still get 99%. Or at least that was the case about 2 year ago, maybe I'm a little more rusty now. In any case I was watching mostly educational TV, documentaries, literary programs, that sort of thing, more high brow programs with a wider vocabulary. And those of course got axed by the new government. Haven't been watching much Argentinian tv since that disaster happened :cry:


Ah bueno, entiendo tu desazón y cierta frustración, y en realidad, no estaba al tanto de que esta situación había alcanzado tal nivel de austeridad. Sería una política un tanto despistada de continuar a largo plazo, más aún cuando el mismo Macri ha en cuantiosas entrevistas puesto énfasis en mejorar el nivel educativo de la población. Indudablemente la televisión es una manera super económica de producir contenido educativo y edificante con un alcance masivo a millones, un retorno al costo claramente beneficioso. Ojalá que estos recortes sean una maniobra política (¡me sorprende decir esto!), y no una filosofía endurecida. Digo porque sé que el gobierno actual aducía que la TV pública estaba sobre representada por personal de ideología izquierdista dura (los detractores afirmaban que había relación muy estrecha con Venezuela), y quizás de ser así estarían tratando de "barrer la casa". Espero que en el futuro cercano el gobierno decida volver a invertir en contenido.

Te escribo en español porque necesito practicar, estoy mal mal. Me acordaba en mi cabeza del verbo "to claim", "behaupten", pero ni por casualidad asomaba el término en castellano... lo he tenido que buscar y en alemán porque "claim" en inglés tiene varios significados. Grave situación. :oops:
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