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

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

Postby jeffers » Sun Apr 09, 2017 8:16 am

blaurebell wrote:We also watched Le dîner de Cons, which is a comedy that is funny in a really uncomfortable way. It's like laughing at funny video shows where you know that the people in the clips probably broke bones or worse.

I've watched Le dîner de Cons many times, and it makes me laugh more with each watching. Initially it is a bit sad that Pignon is treated so badly, but what makes the film great is the superb comic acting by Jacques Villeret. He is the fool, but he plays it with real genius. His timing, his reactions, his innocent delight when he screws everything up.
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Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien (roughly, the perfect is the enemy of the good)

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

Postby blaurebell » Sun Apr 09, 2017 9:13 am

jeffers wrote:I've watched Le dîner de Cons many times, and it makes me laugh more with each watching. Initially it is a bit sad that Pignon is treated so badly, but what makes the film great is the superb comic acting by Jacques Villeret. He is the fool, but he plays it with real genius. His timing, his reactions, his innocent delight when he screws everything up.


I can imagine how this can become more enjoyable with every time you watch it. The acting really is superb! On the other hand I found that there were several moments where the other guy behaves illogically. The story basically hinges on irrational behaviour and I found that a bit annoying to be honest.
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Tillumadoguenirurm
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Re: Lilly's log - French, Russian and reluctant Spanish

Postby Tillumadoguenirurm » Sun Apr 09, 2017 6:25 pm

Hiya, I like reading your log (although I have to say that I don't always agree with your opinions ;) ). May I ask what elements of Iberian Spanish are difficult to you , as someone that is more used to Sout-American Spanish, appart from the vocabulary?
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blaurebell
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Re: Lilly's log - French, Russian and reluctant Spanish

Postby blaurebell » Sun Apr 09, 2017 8:15 pm

I'm glad you like reading my log! As for opinions: Of course we all have our personal preferences :)

Tillumadoguenirurm wrote:May I ask what elements of Iberian Spanish are difficult to you , as someone that is more used to Sout-American Spanish, appart from the vocabulary?


It's not really that it's difficult, it's more of a "discomfort". It's hard on the ears, people speak too loudly with more of a harsh accent, there also seems to be more swearing and the swearwords sound silly to me. Difficulties: Of course I sometimes may use the "vos" form by accident instead of tu, or ustedes instead of vosotros, and people obstinately correct me in Spain when I use indefinido instead of perfecto the latin american way. The latter is just too automatic for me to switch it up on the fly, but I try to use tu around here, because people really get confused when I use vos. When we visit the in-laws I might just have the opposite problem - tu instead of vos (especially "contigo" vs "con vos", it takes me about a week to switch it around). Also, pronunciation can be an issue - when taking the taxi I always use the pronunciation from here or otherwise I might end up in a nearby village instead of the street where I want to go, happened to my husband once :D Otherwise it's Argentinian pronunciation for me although I haven't really worked on that a lot. It's really just y and ll that are different and I don't have that horrid Iberian lisp. I don't normally use the reduced st sound of Argentinian though because I seem to get more blank stares when I do. Generally I do get blank stares a lot though simply because I don't repeat everything I say 3 times. I don't like to repeat myself, but here it's just part of the culture. I just can't get used to it, because it seems to me that they're simply not listening to each other at all. Basically it's more of a cultural problem than a language problem.
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: 100 / 116 GdUdE B
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blaurebell
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Re: Lilly's log - French, Russian and reluctant Spanish

Postby blaurebell » Mon Apr 10, 2017 8:01 am

Russian

Yesterday I felt that I was finally progressing a little: I read intensively for a while, did an audio file of Modern Russian and Clozemaster. It seems like there is finally something happening in the book I'm reading and maybe I'll have more of a wish to continue with it. So far it's been pretty boring and I certainly don't remember that it was so slow going at the beginning! I hope it picks up a little now.

Russian hours: 2.66h

Spanish

I watched one episode of El internado. Booooooring, but I'll struggle through it a while longer. I'll be so happy when I finish my Iberian Spanish listening SC, such torture! 70 of 150h done, almost halfway there! GdUdE A, again flawless, and I also did some intensive reading with LWT. I better continue with my Saer book, since that's the only really enjoyable Spanish activity right now. We also listened to some tangos, but I'm not sure whether that counts since I was thinking more about dancing than about the lyrics.

Spanish hours: 2.39h

French

I mainly spent my time reading Les Rivières pourpres and I listened to one episode of Transfert. It was the first time that I listened to this podcast and it was rather enjoyable! French is definitely my fun language at the moment.

French hours: 2.12h

Total: 7.17h

General

Last night we watched Only lovers left alive, a thoroughly enjoyable vampire film by Jim Jarmusch. The film resonated with me in a sort of ironic way. 2 vampires who are lovers meet again after a while of living apart. He is a musician and collects records, she is a voracious reader and can't travel without her books - that's like me split into two people! What's the irony? Well, at some point the question comes up whether one can take blood in the carry-on luggage. Since I have special nutritional requirements I always have to think about food too when I'm flying :D And how on earth is this relevant to language learning?! Well, one of the vampires reads in like 5 or 6 languages in one scene! Imagine having an eternity for language learning, or at least several centuries! That would certainly sort out some of my problems :D
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: 20 / 100 Дэвид Эддингс - В поисках камня
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: 17 / 55 FSI Spanish Basic
: 100 / 116 GdUdE B
: 8 / 72 Duolingo reverse Spanish -> German

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

Postby Fortheo » Mon Apr 10, 2017 11:19 am

blaurebell wrote:General

Last night we watched Only lovers left alive, a thoroughly enjoyable vampire film by Jim Jarmusch. The film resonated with me in a sort of ironic way. 2 vampires who are lovers meet again after a while of living apart. He is a musician and collects records, she is a voracious reader and can't travel without her books - that's like me split into two people! What's the irony? Well, at some point the question comes up whether one can take blood in the carry-on luggage. Since I have special nutritional requirements I always have to think about food too when I'm flying :D And how on earth is this relevant to language learning?! Well, one of the vampires reads in like 5 or 6 languages in one scene! Imagine having an eternity for language learning, or at least several centuries! That would certainly sort out some of my problems :D


Says the person who picked up french in like three months haha, but yeah it would be amazing. Music and books? I'm sold. I'll be watching that movie shortly.
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Tillumadoguenirurm
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Re: Lilly's log - French, Russian and reluctant Spanish

Postby Tillumadoguenirurm » Mon Apr 10, 2017 11:42 am

I see what you mean by harsh. It's part of why I like it though. :D And if it makes you feel any better you're not the only one that mixes up the vos at times.

Good luck with your learning plans. (I wish I had your discipline ;) )
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blaurebell
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Re: Lilly's log - French, Russian and reluctant Spanish

Postby blaurebell » Mon Apr 10, 2017 12:50 pm

Fortheo wrote:Says the person who picked up french in like three months haha, but yeah it would be amazing. Music and books? I'm sold. I'll be watching that movie shortly.


Well, French went so quickly for me just because of the cognate bonus from Spanish and English! I'm struggling just as much as anyone else with Russian, although I supposedly have prior knowledge, and I still have Japanese on the list too! And there is photography, painting, music, reading, writing, dancing ...! So many things to do, so little time! And yeah, check out that movie, it's the best I've seen in a long time!

Tillumadoguenirurm wrote:I see what you mean by harsh. It's part of why I like it though. And if it makes you feel any better you're not the only one that mixes up the vos at times.

Good luck with your learning plans. (I wish I had your discipline )


Thanks! Discipline is like a muscle that needs training. I think I mainly developed this level of discipline because my health forced me to make some rather difficult changes over time. In comparison to cutting out gluten, dairy, starch, sugar, caffeine, alcohol and cigarettes, doing language learning chores is actually super easy! Sounds tough? Well, I didn't cut all that stuff out from one day to the next. I started small and then worked my way up with baby steps! Caffeine took me a year to kick and that was probably the hardest thing I ever had to do! Grammar exercises are a piece of cake in comparison.

That said, a good motivator helps. I'm actually really stubborn and if someone tells me that something is impossible I get an irresistible urge to prove them wrong, especially when those are "authority figures" who are supposed to decide about my future. I was told that doing a PhD on a topic for which I need 4 languages is undoable if I need to learn the hardest one - Russian - from scratch. Well, I'll actually use 5 languages now because I learned French by accident too :lol: I don't like it when other people try to tell me what I can and can't do! I don't even know anymore how many people I've proved wrong over the years. It's kinda become a bad habit :D
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blaurebell
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Re: Lilly's log - French, Russian and reluctant Spanish

Postby blaurebell » Tue Apr 11, 2017 10:14 am

French

Yesterday I finished a couple of things: A France culture documentary that I started last week and Les Rivières pourpres by Jean-Christophe Grangé. The latter was very good and even had quite a lot of vocabulary I didn't know. It definitely has a rather literary writing style for a policier and combines that with a lot of slang. It was really perfect for learning and I read it half intensively with the kindle - no typing, but looking up all unknown words. The only issue is that it's super brutal and I have a lively imagination - not exactly the right book before going to sleep! I'm now at 6838 pages read in French. I also listened to an episode of Transfert, which is simply fascinating! Before going to bed I also started reading one of the Bilal comics I got in the mail yesterday: Mémoires d'outre-espace. Well weird and hallucinatory. I like! Again, maybe not the right thing before going to sleep :D

French hours: 3.91h

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Spanish

I watched one episode of El internado and I'm longing for the end of this extended torture. I could obviously start watching something else, but this is the only peninsular series I've looked at recently that I find bearable at all! Oh well. To make up for it I spent a bit more than an hour reading El entenado by Saer. I really like Saer, although I have to say that he has a twisted sort of imagination! The story of el entenado is absolutely fascinating but in a really creepy way. And it's at least somewhat relevant for my PhD too. Stupidly it's stuff that is only scheduled for next year, so not really such a good idea. I also did another flawless lesson of GdUdE A. I calculated that I will need at least 60-150h for all the GdUdE books and I think it will be an excellent investment. In light of the 1000+h I already spent on Spanish and the 150h peninsular Spanish challenge this is actually not a huge commitment and I hope it will do its bit to improve my production a little. Ironically I'm actually enjoying this way more than El internado and have already spent 47h on the latter. When a series becomes worse torture than grammar drills, you can just imagine how bad it is!

Spanish hours: 2.65h

Russian

I was super tired yesterday because I woke up after only 4h of sleep. Despite this I struggled through a Modern Russian audio file, Clozemaster and I even managed an hour of intensive reading. I have to say that Modern Russian is super difficult when I'm not 100% concentrated. Especially the successive replacement drills totally do my head in when I'm half asleep. I did surprisingly well though and got through it all with about 90% accuracy. And that although the file was 50min long and I was totally swimming! I guess all the previous grammar torture with Duolingo and Russian World had some effect at least. I have to say that I'm currently a bit torn between my two requirements: I need to be able to read rather extensively as fast a possible, but I also need to be able to speak at maybe A2-B1 level by November. These two goals aren't really that compatible with the limited time available. The time I spend on Modern Russian for my speaking requirement would really come in handy for intensive reading to push to my extensive reading goal faster. At the same time I can't really skip Modern Russian now, because I probably won't have time to get through it before November if I focus only intensive reading now. So, I can't really postpone Modern Russian, but at the same time I feel that I simply need to read more in Russian.

Russian hours: 2.47h

Total: 9.03h

General

I also desperately need to restart my PhD reading. It's my Russian year and I should really push to get to reading relevant stuff in Russian, but even with a huge push I doubt I can get there before July, because we're talking about really high brow literature here. And I can already hear what my supervisor has to say about another few months without any real content work! The alternative is to push for more relevant reading in Spanish and French, but I need to be careful not to distract myself from Russian any further. I think I'm now naturally leaning towards more reading in Spanish and French - otherwise I wouldn't feel tempted to read Saer - but I'm not sure it's the right choice. It feels like there are simply not enough hours in the day! But then, I don't think moving to Mars, Mercury or Venus would really solve my problem. My supervisor would just start complaining that I haven't done any content work for a whole Venusian day (116d) :lol: By the way, did anyone ever notice that the length of Assimil New French with Ease (113d) is suspiciously close to the length of a Venusian day? ;)
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: 20 / 100 Дэвид Эддингс - В поисках камня
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: 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 » Wed Apr 12, 2017 12:03 pm

Spanish study plan

I'm actually starting to put together a proper plan to tackle my gaps in Spanish now to finally get to C1. Since I think this plan might be helpful for some I decided to share it here.

Grammar

Gramática de Uso del Español A & B
FSI Spanish Basic
Gramática de Uso del Español C

I really need to get rid of many fossilised mistakes from speaking way too early, so I will drill drill drill. This will take a while, but it will probably make a huge difference in the long run. I've done plenty of grammar and a lot of Duolingo before, but never managed to go over all of Spanish grammar systematically. This plan will do just that and hopefully grind out all the horrible beginner mistakes that a speak from day 1 approach leaves.

Listening

This is actually my strongest skill in general, since I already spent like 500h+ on it. It's probably my only C1 skill. I now primarily need to work on accents and local slang.

Iberian audio SC - I live in Spain, so I can't get around Spanish from here. I don't like this accent much and series from here are horrifically bad, so this is pretty much torture. I'm already almost halfway through this though and know quite a bit of slang from here already from listening to people on the street.
Argentinian audio SC - I love Argentinian movies and most of the time I speak to Argentinians, so this is already pretty strong. I mainly include this just for fun, apart from picking up a lot more street slang. My goal is to be able to watch Nueve Reinas and understand virtually everything. Even my husband doesn't know half the slang in this one! This will definitely include: Learning lunfardo with tango lyrics.
Mexican audio SC - we're preparing for a proper trip or longer stay in Mexico City because we have friends there. I already understand this accent quite well since I watched lots of Mexican dubs, but I need to catch up on street slang. Not sure whether this will be fun or not, since Mexican content is usually way over the top stereotypical. On the other hand, the trip will be a huge motivator for me!

Reading

I've read about 4500 pages extensively so far and my reading understanding is still very imprecise and there are lots of vocabulary gaps. I do understand all of what I read in context, but with a certain level of imprecision. Part of the problem was that I didn't focus on one particular region but skipped around a lot between translations, Iberian Spanish, Argentinian, Cuban and Mexican. I probably learned the basic regional vocabulary 4-5 times over which means that I was too busy with that kind of vocabulary to focus on lower frequency words. I also never did much intensive reading in Spanish, so I always feel like I'm swimming a little. The goal is to be able to listen to audiobooks without feeling lost. Right now I'm maybe at 70-85% comprehension with those, because my literary vocabulary is super imprecise.

Argentinian Spanish intensive reading SC - this will be so much fun!
Literary road-trip through Argentina - one book for every province of Argentina. Since the country is very centralised, Argentinian literature is often set in Buenos Aires city or province. I want to get to know more regional literature and do a little literary road trip through the different provinces. I still dream of a proper road trip, but this is a good substitute for now.
De viaje (literario) por España - I actually got the idea for my Argentinian literary road trip from this list and might as well follow the original list, when I'm through my Argentinian literature reading list.

Writing

My writing skills in Spanish are dismal and probably my worst skill, probably only at B1, since I learned Spanish in interaction courses and through immersion. This will need a lot of work!

El cronómetro B2
Preparacion DELE B2
El cronómetro C1
Preparacion DELE C1
Essay writing on Argentinian literature
= output challenge 50,000 words

I actually don't want to take the DELE, I just find that the writing skills required for such tests are a solid basis. I might have to take the DELE at some point for enrolling at the university here, but it's still unclear whether it's a requirement for the course I have in mind or not. In any case, I will probably work with a tutor for this one, especially for the essay writing part, since any longer writing is unlikely to get reasonable corrections on lang8. The goal is a rather lofty one: Be able to collaborate with researchers on writing academic articles in Spanish. If I make good progress on this I might also start interviewing photographers in Spanish.

Speaking

At the moment I do speak with an awful lot of mistakes, especially when the sentences become more complex, but people don't switch to English and I can make myself understood with Argentinians 99% of the time. With Spanish people I occasionally get blank stares, because I use too many expressions that are uncommon here and I generally don't repeat myself as often as the locals. I also tend to work my way around subjunctives, because I get them wrong half the time. My goal is to be able to speak *correctly* about complex issues without avoiding subjunctives. Part of it will be grammar training, as already listed above, and the other part will be to actually speak a lot about complex topics, ideally literature. I will only tackle this part of the schedule *after* I do GdUdE A&B and FSI. Also, I want to work on my accent a little more, since so far I only have an Argentinian tinge, but would like to get a nice sounding Argentinian accent going.

Shadowing 3000 sentences from Argentinian movies - This will basically be a home-made Glossika, very likely sourced from Inés Efron movies. I love the way she speaks and I would love to have a similar accent.
50 italki sessions

Ideally I would like to find an Argentinian tutor who studied literature, since I would mainly like to talk about Argentinian literature. My dad has been using a similar approach for his Spanish and he has been speaking about literature from different regions with a Chilean woman for the last 10 years. It's a bit funny, since he totally fails at everyday conversations in Spanish - living in Germany he doesn't need to talk about those sort of things ever -, but he can discuss the intricacies of certain passages written by some obscure Spanish writers. I'm the opposite case - anything more complex than a bit of photography shop talk and discussions about food become a terrible accumulation of grammar mistakes, because I rarely speak about such topics.

Goals

My ultimate goals for Spanish are:

Reading: 20,000 pages, 5000 of which are supposed to be intensive reading. 4500 extensive done so far.
Listening: 1500h of audio with different accents, including dubs, native series, native movies, audiobooks, lectures and radio. 580h done so far of dubs, native series + more hours of native movies that would be hard to quantify.
Writing: 50,000 words of B2+ level writing in increasing difficulty up to academic writing.
Speaking: 50 italki sessions about complex topics - I've done a single one about a year ago with a widely interested guy from Costa Rica.

Until the end of 2018 I would like to get to at least 15,000 pages, 1000h of audio, reach my writing output goal and half of the Speaking goal.
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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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