Sillygoose1's Language Extraordinaire

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sillygoose1
Green Belt
Posts: 380
Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2015 6:25 pm
Location: USA
Languages: _
NA: English
C2: French
C1: German, Italian, Spanish
B2: Russian, Portuguese
A2: Japanese
A1: Mandarin
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=751
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Re: Sillygoose1's Language Extraordinaire

Postby sillygoose1 » Wed Jun 01, 2016 12:16 pm

French:

Finished Pigalle la nuit so now I'm taking it easy and watching some Hero Corp. Season 3 is composed of 7 minute episodes straying away from its past 20 minute format while season 4 is about 15 minutes. I relearned two words that I used to know then forgot - bredouille and rechigner. The fact that I recognized them and their meaning right away without having seen them in awhile just shows that my passive vocabulary is pretty large I think.

I'd love to be able to start a book but German reading has been keeping me unable to do so.


Spanish:

Reading Metafisica del amor and watching Senor Alvila - a Mexican HBO series about a family oriented hitman.


German:

Finished Dorian Gray and started a book by David Mitchell translated to "Die Knochenuhren" which is even more challenging than Wilde's novel because it has more modern words, idioms, and slang. I'm enjoying it but it's a bit difficult still. I hope after this huge novel my German will have skyrocketed.


Portuguese:

Still going strong with Amor de perdicao. Also watching a series called Chapa Quente. It's pretty funny even if I don't understand much but I'm definitely picking up a little more and more with every episode. I recently discovered some cool Brazilian series - even more so than Italian - so my motivation has come back.


Russian:

I finally feel like, after Russian with Ease and 78 lessons of without Toil, that my Russian barrier has ceased to be. The language is starting to feel more intuitive and it's beginning to enter my brain with more ease. Vocab still isn't sticking too well but we'll see after these remaining 22 lessons, active wave, then Perfectionnement. Cases are starting to make sense thanks to German but I still need to learn the endings for each case.
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sillygoose1
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Location: USA
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B2: Russian, Portuguese
A2: Japanese
A1: Mandarin
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=751
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Re: Sillygoose1's Language Extraordinaire

Postby sillygoose1 » Fri Jun 03, 2016 3:13 pm

So I put a temporary hold on Portuguese for a few reasons. First, because I want to start other languages and I won't have time to do so if I maintain it. Second, the novelty is starting to wear off a bit. Now that I'm at the point of using native materials for German + getting more familiar with Russian, that's new ground for me to explore. My eventual goal in life in regards to language learning is to speak all six UN languages with German at a C1+ level. I should probably get started on Mandarin and Arabic soon. And the third, because there aren't many more good movies or series for me to enjoy in Portuguese. Besides, when I put holds on languages and I come back to them later, it's always stronger. Like I've done with French plenty of times.


French:

Going to watch OSS 117 Rio ne repond plus tonight with Jean Dujardin. If it's just as funny as the first, I know I'll be in for a good time. I began reading a few excerpts from the book "Miracle de la rose" by a novelist named Jean Genet and by the looks of what I've read, there's some old timey argot and some unknown vocab that I never saw before so that's a plus.

Image


Spanish:

Some more Sr. Alvila and Schopenhauer's "Metafisica del amor"


German:

Watched Fack ju gothe finally. It was a good movie with lots of slang that I learned. There wasn't any point that I had to pause to understand the grammar which is great but there was way too much unknown vocab so I'm glad I got some of those in my noggin and hope to come across those words again.

Still reading Die knochenuhren by David Mitchel. After the first chapter I got used to the writing so I can pick up most words by context now, but there's still a few hurdles to cross yet.

Image


Russian:

Lesson 80.
Last edited by sillygoose1 on Tue Jun 14, 2016 2:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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sillygoose1
Green Belt
Posts: 380
Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2015 6:25 pm
Location: USA
Languages: _
NA: English
C2: French
C1: German, Italian, Spanish
B2: Russian, Portuguese
A2: Japanese
A1: Mandarin
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=751
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Re: Sillygoose1's Language Extraordinaire

Postby sillygoose1 » Tue Jun 14, 2016 2:20 pm

French:

Found a new author who is just great. Rene Fallet. I'm reading one of his books right now called Pigalle which is about a guy named Frederic who doesn't seem to know what to do in life, so he enlists in the army during WWII, goes AWOL with a friend, then lives the crime life in Pigalle. The book was written in 1949 and it has so much old timey words that when I looked up some, the native French didn't even see them before. Gouape being one, which is a word for thug or hoodlum. I also love the vocabulary utilized because it's so broad and I'm learning a lot of new words which hasn't happened to me in awhile. I downloaded the rest of his bibliography. After watching the series Pigalle la nuit, I sort of have this fascination with going to visit it now despite the fact that it's probably a filthy place.

I watched a movie called Arrete ton cinema which kept my attention, but it wasn't really written too well in my opinion.

I'm watching a series called Paris which follows the lives of characters whose lives are all connected.

Season 8 of Fais pas ci fais pas ca came out which I'm going to get on soon.


Spanish:

Finished a novel by Pio Baroja in his "La lucha por la vida" trilogy entitled La busca. Next up is Mala hierba. Written in 1904, it's a similar situation with Rene Fallet. I learned some old timey colloquial speech and some cool literary words. The story itself starts off normal, but as it gets to the middle it starts degenerating fast. By the end, it's almost heart wrenching. Almost like there's no hope. Awesome stuff.


Italian:

Reading La paga del sabato by Beppe Fenoglio about a young soldier post-war who troubles finding himself a job.

Watched most of the new videos of theShow on youtube.


German:

Reading Verheissung by Jussi Adler Olsen. I can keep up with it but there's much vocab that hasn't yet been cemented into my head yet and more that I haven't seen.

I listened to about 3 hours of German radio over the past two days with encouraging results.


Russian:

Assimil
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sillygoose1
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Posts: 380
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Location: USA
Languages: _
NA: English
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C1: German, Italian, Spanish
B2: Russian, Portuguese
A2: Japanese
A1: Mandarin
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=751
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Re: Sillygoose1's Language Extraordinaire

Postby sillygoose1 » Fri Jun 24, 2016 2:44 pm

French:

Finished the series "Paris", watched two movies - Regarde les hommes tomber and Buffet froid. The first one made by Jacques Audiard and with Mathieu Kassovitz. It was interesting to see how Audiard progressed through the years although his base style didn't really change all that much. Buffet froid was weird. I feel like I need to be acquainted with the culture of France during the late 70s to have understood it - which I'm not.

Reading Inherent Vice in French. Ever since that Fallet novel, Pigalle, I've been trying to learn more ways of speech from before the 80s. Since IV takes place in the 70s, that works well.

I'm *probably* not going to watch any movies or series in French for a little bit due to other languages pressing, but I will be reading and listening to music a lot. I'm very satisfied with my French passive skills and I still have a lot more material to get through.


Spanish:

Going to finish up Capadocia. I need to get myself into a Spanish groove again because French and German took precedence. So, I'm reading Rayuela right now. The first time I tried to read it years ago I hardly got past the first chapter so seeing that progress real time is incredible for me. After that I got some Slavoj Zizek to read who I've neglected for awhile.


Italian:

Instead of reading it in Spanish for some reason, I'm going to read I detective selvaggi in Italian! Why? Because I've picked up some really interesting psychoanalysis/philosophy of mind books and I'm not quite sure if I'm ready for them yet because I feel like my reading needs work.

Also watched some Boris - I finished season 1.


German:

Chapter 17 of Verheissung by Adler Olsen. Still bumbling through although not as slowly as once before. I'm at a point I think where I should learn from context and stop looking up every unknown word but I can't help it! Even though I know if I stop that it will go quicker. Ugh.

Watched two episodes of Tatort - didn't go so well. Mainly because it's sort of boring.

Counting on watching Fack ju gothe 2 today or tomorrow.


Portuguese:

Downloaded some Roberto Bolano books like Italian and got some series downloaded for when I come back to it. Shouldn't be much longer now.


Russian:

Finished Assimil passive wave! The first Assimil I've finished since Italian with Ease and more recently Russian with Ease which I'm not really counting.

Going to restart Perfectionnement today by doing the first 3 lessons or so, then 2-3 a day until I get to 22 where I left off.
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sillygoose1
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Posts: 380
Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2015 6:25 pm
Location: USA
Languages: _
NA: English
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C1: German, Italian, Spanish
B2: Russian, Portuguese
A2: Japanese
A1: Mandarin
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=751
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Re: Sillygoose1's Language Extraordinaire

Postby sillygoose1 » Sat Jul 09, 2016 2:26 pm

French:

Finished reading Inherent Vice aka Vice cache. It's a good thing I read some Rene Fallet before this because I came across a lot of vocabulary that I learned from Fallet's Pigalle. I'm not sure if it's due to the time period, but there were many new words I came across in Inherent Vice. And, believe it or not, I actually learned a lot of new nautical vocab from this book of all things.

I've been watching Les Marseillais South Africa where I haven't learned much but I'm getting better acquainted with the Marseillais accent which posed a bit of a problem for me when I watched La French. I like how in the area where Occitan was dominant that there are still words and grammar constructions imported from Occitan into the French from there. I saw a few examples on Wikipedia,

Usage transitif de verbes intransitifs en français standard, sur le calque du provençal :

« tu vas tomber le verre » pour « tu vas faire tomber le verre » ;

Usage, issu du provençal, du pronom relatif que à la place de dont :

« La personne que je t'ai parlé » pour « la personne dont je t'ai parlé. » ;

Usage particulier des superlatifs et comparatifs :

« Je préfère mieux » pour « je préfère encore »; « c'est plus pire » pour « c'est encore pire » ; « parler meilleur » pour « parler mieux. »




Spanish:

Watching some Amor a prueba and Senor Alvila. I still need to get better with Latin accents. Also started reading a novel by Qiu Xiaolong called Muerte de una heroina roja. Since I'm stocked on Spanish books, I decided to split that series of books between Spanish and Italian.

I watched Nosotros los nobles again and it was still kind of iffy for me. I understood enough to enjoy the film and keep up with it but not as much as I could understand a Spanish or Argentine film.

Italian:

Reading Stefano Benni's Cari mostri which is a collection of short stories of the horror genre. Stocked up on Roberto Benigni films and some 70s/80s gialli which I'm saving for a rainy weekend. Still on the hunt for films/series in romanesco which I've decided is definitely my favorite dialect.


German:

Been watching dubbed Seinfeld and my comprehension of it became crystal clear almost within the past few days. My reading has also improved significantly and I haven't even finished the book yet.


Portuguese:

After 15 episodes of Chapa Quente things are becoming more and more clear. My reading is pretty solid as expected from my Romance knowledge. Reading A historia e suas epidemias which is a great book on how bacteria and other microorganisms influenced the world as we know it.


Russian:

Lesson 15 of Perfectionnement Russe
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garyb
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Re: Sillygoose1's Language Extraordinaire

Postby garyb » Mon Jul 11, 2016 10:04 am

sillygoose1 wrote:Still on the hunt for films/series in romanesco which I've decided is definitely my favorite dialect.


I just saw "Suburra", which is a recent crime thriller set in Rome and Ostia. That might be up your street if you've not already seen it. It's mostly a mix of standard Italian and Romanesco but there's plenty of the latter. Claudio Caligari's films are also worth a watch.
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sillygoose1
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Re: Sillygoose1's Language Extraordinaire

Postby sillygoose1 » Mon Jul 18, 2016 7:44 pm

French:

Watching two series currently - Malaterra and Les Bleus. The first is a French remake of UK's Broadchurch where a child turns up dead on the beach of a tiny Corsican village. It's pretty good, enough to keep me entertained. However it does seem a little obvious to me who the killer is so I'm not holding my breath here.

Les Bleus is a comedy about five rookie police officers in Paris. This is really a funny show and I'm both surprised and relieved that it hasn't been adapted in America. This is a series that I would recommend to advanced learners where Malaterra would be fine for upper-intermediate.

Image

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Spanish:

Still reading Clara en la penombra by Jose Somoza. It's not awful per se, but it's certainly repetitive and all of the art filler gets annoying. I've thought about putting it aside but whatever.

Catching up with La que se avecina. Still funny!


German:

I've finally broken through the point where I can pick out words but cannot parse it quick enough to get the meaning from a sentence via podcasts. Watching dubbed series is fine because I get visual clues though.

Reading has seen a breakthrough. I'm able to form images in my head and remember what I read after like 5-6 novels.


Russian:

So, Lesson 22 in Perfectionnement Russe is insane. It's five pages long with a lot of new words and coupled with the grammar, I feel like I can't keep up. This lesson may take me two days to finish because of the sheer mass of information found within.
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Olekander
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Re: Sillygoose1's Language Extraordinaire

Postby Olekander » Sat Jul 23, 2016 2:29 pm

What happened to Corsican :(?
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Да нет. :roll:

: 1000 / 1000 1,000 Russian words: started 15/06/2016 :)
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sillygoose1
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Re: Sillygoose1's Language Extraordinaire

Postby sillygoose1 » Sat Jul 23, 2016 4:54 pm

Olekander wrote:What happened to Corsican :(?


Not enough native materials to use except a radio station where they used French most of the time anyway :/
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sillygoose1
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Re: Sillygoose1's Language Extraordinaire

Postby sillygoose1 » Wed Jul 27, 2016 2:02 am

French:

Read 4 chapters of La debacle by Emile Zola. I like this novel way better than Therese Raquin which I had to quit halfway through because it was boring the hell out of me. But this novel is part of a series of Zola's whose name I cannot recall at the moment...

Anyway it's a very beautifully written book so far. It has the same sort of imagery as Therese Raquin but the characters are way better and the setting as well.

Besides that, I finished season one of Les bleus and I am now working on finishing up season 1 of Mafiosa which for some reason I totally forgot about.


Spanish:

Five episodes of La que se avecina + finishing El pendulo de Foucault in Spanish instead of Italian.


German:

Finished Kein Fall fuer Wilsberg or something like that. It was some detective novel. Anyway, my reading feels fabulous. I'm going to be moving on to a bigger German book which is actually just a book by Robin Hobb translated into German. The difference between this book and Die knochenuhren by David Mitchell that I tried to read is that now I have way more German experience under my belt and I can ease into "Fitz der Weitseher" rather than just storm in head first into that Mitchell book and not understand anything for the first 100 or so pages. I feel confident so we'll see.

I finished season 8 + 9 of Seinfeld dubs which were iffy, and I'm currently going through Malcolm in the Middle and the 100 Code in German. The former is surprisingly harder than the latter.


Russian:

Lesson 31 of Perfectionnement, started Duolingo. I decided to do Duolingo in Russian because anyone who has used Assimil and Linguaphone knows that there tend to be quite a few vocab gaps with those courses. So, I need to fill them in. It's been great at that so far.

My biggest concern are these mobile vowels and spelling changes according to word endings. Two different plurals for each noun gender according to the last sound of the word seems a bit excessive to me, but whatevs. My goal is to finish Duolingo and the passive wave at around the same time so I can go through the active wave with my solidified knowledge.


I've been becoming more and more interested in Germanic languages and les and less interested in Romance (minus French). There have been quite a few flip flops in my log in regards to what languages I'm studying and I noticed there was a trend where it would be mainly Romance or mainly Germanic updates because I couldn't decide where to place my focus. But now it seems as if my brain decided for me.

Going to take up Swedish where I left off, put more focus on German, then maybe dabble in Danish/Icelandic for funsies. I'll be looking to maintain my Spanish but at this very moment, I have no plans to do much of anything else with Italian or Portuguese.



Oh, I also experimented with font colors.
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