Bookworm's adventures in the exile

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Cavesa
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Bookworm's adventures in the exile

Postby Cavesa » Mon Jul 20, 2015 12:27 pm

Loss of my log is a blow to my day to day motivation, which is a bad thing in combination with tons of unexpected duties and troubles during this summer. However, I've recently gotten a lesson in not holding too tight on owning things and this is another one, this time related to the digital world. The Drunk Snail survived the exile last year, the Bookworm is gonna chew through this one!

No need to prolong the first post, no need to reintroduce myself as most people around here are htlalers anyways.

My plan for this week:
Books! I need to relax, I need to move some of my challenges forward.
What am I reading:
JRRT: Lord of the Rings 1 (in English)
JRRT: Contes et Legendes inacheves (in French)
R.Jordan:The Shadow Rising (in English)
T.Pratchett: Papa Puerco (Hogfather in Spanish)
Boileau-Narcejac:Arsene Lupin-Le secret d'eunerville (French)

Apart from that, perhaps some Memrise. Perhaps.

I'm not gonna have internet connection for the next few days, so there is not much time to catch up. I hope you are all more than great! Take care. Special regards to all my TAC teammates!
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Elenia
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Re: Bookworm's adventures in the exile

Postby Elenia » Mon Jul 20, 2015 12:35 pm

Good to see you here. Hope you have an incredibly relaxing time sinking into some books (the list looks like a quality one, I may have to take some cues from you, if I ever have time. Speaking of... do you have a goodreads account? If you do, can I be your friend there? Of course, only if you feel comfortable letting me that close to your booklists!)

At any rate, you deserve a break and some good quality time with your languages.
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Cavesa
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Re: Bookworm's adventures in the exile

Postby Cavesa » Thu Jul 23, 2015 11:21 pm

Thanks, Elenia. Truth be told, I finally feel welcome to the new forum after reading your post. It suddenly feels like a less new and hostile place, reading a message from a familiar htlaler ;-)
I am not on goodreads, I have an old account on thelibrarything, however I haven't tended to it for a few years. I should probably go to goodreads. Even though it is a bit of a Big Brotherish feeling. I tell everyone the full list of what I've read and they're gonna know everything about the way I think :-D

I'm seriously considering continuing my log here from now on. It is a bit heartbreaking to decide (heh, my heart might be a little bit too easy to break lately). But it is probably necessary. So, a very brief and updated overview of my goals:

English: just use it. And I should finish the damn Advanced Super Challenge from 2012 already. With the Fellowship of the Ring finished, I need 7750 pages to go, as I don't count in the tons of internet reading I've been spending time with.

French:
TAC advanced team: my goals were completed, I passed the exam. However, maintanance is a necessary bread and butter of a language learner. And one does not simply stop learning a langauge. So:
I should finally finish the damn Advanced Super Challenge from 2012. Better late than never. 23 movies to go (right now, I am watching Kaamelott) and 6370 pages to read left.
And I need to refresh the grammar and writing regularily. I am making a Memrise course on the French conjugation tables as some pieces of that stuff tend to get fogged as months and years pass. Why am I wasting time on making my own? None of the already made is good enough (unlike the Spanish conjugation course trio by edthird, which I wholeheartedly recommend). They are incomplete, include English and so on. I need to find some place to write.

Spanish:
TAC team: are we gonna find each other on the new forum as well? We don't use the team thread that much but we are still a good team, in my opinion. I hope to follow you all wherever you happen to be (and now I sound like a stalker, great, sorry about that, you know what I mean)
goals:
-complete the Super Challenge: http://www.languagechallenge.surrealix. ... me=Cavesa2
I am not far. I am having much more mood for books than for tv series and movies these days. I blame the weather. You can take a book with you outside while movies are better with a cup of hot coffee during the rains and snow.
-complete some courses, grammars and such things. No need to list that for now.
-memrise the verbs and some good wordlists to cover the gaps

German:
TAC team: where are you? I'll need to dive deeper into the new forums.
I've recently got some new passion for German, I should use it to the fullest while it lasts :-D
goals:
-start (and preferably complete) the Super Challenge. First step: read Eragon
-get through some of the courses, grammars and the rest of the stuff.
-memrise the frequency dictionary. German verb lists appear to be even worse than the French ones, I might need to make my own as well.

Russian:
It's a nice, shiny toy, easy to understand lots of things (but still not enough to read a book by far). Memrise is a sufficient resource, my coursebook will be opened when I have a bit of time and mood.

I wish I could switch the forum layout to another colour. It may seem childish but I'm beginning to seriously dislike the light blue shades. Facebook, Twitter, Memrise, this forum... I'm beginning to worry my food and face will be turning light blue soon as well. :-D
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Elenia
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Re: Bookworm's adventures in the exile

Postby Elenia » Fri Jul 24, 2015 12:15 am

Yes, I know the feeling! I was anxiously waiting for you, Expug and garyb to show up because I feel like I've interacted with you all the most. I'm making no decisions about which site I'll keep on using, but I am posting log updates here first so that I don't accidentally run into any copyright issues - although I am sure FX doesn't really want to be associated with my often-inane posts. I hope you had a restful time, by the way :) I also know how you feel about letting others see the books you've read. I like to pretend I am a somewhat mature and reasonable human, but my taste in books does not reflect this at all!

What kind of writing are you looking to do in French? I can't recommend anything to you, sadly, but I guess I can keep an eye out for a suitable space, as I seem to have buckets more internet time than is reasonable. I'm going to try and write on my personal blog in French (and my other TLs), and thinking of perhaps doing multilingual posts. This is fine, as I don't actually have any kind of readership to feel alienated or offended :D
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Re: Bookworm's adventures in the exile

Postby Stelle » Fri Jul 24, 2015 1:22 am

Nice to see you here, team leader!
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Cavesa
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Re: Bookworm's adventures in the exile

Postby Cavesa » Fri Jul 24, 2015 11:36 pm

Thanks a lot for your welcome! I plan to track all the team members across both forums, create an addressbook and in general look whether we have survived as a team :-)

I like to pretend I am a somewhat mature and reasonable human, but my taste in books does not reflect this at all!

:-D I understand too well!!! Imagine me in a larger lecture room, people are either focused on the lullaby produced by the "teacher" or studying another subject from a textbook (a kind of multitasking I am incapable of), while I'm reading my Spanish version of Terry Pratchett, trying not to laugh out loud, or holding my breath during thrilling parts of some other awesome adventure. Imagine people could find out the full extent of my irresponsibility and madness! :-D

My renewed passion for German holds, I am working my way through a 4000 frequency list on Memrise.
http://www.memrise.com/course/198332/40 ... ith-audio/
I like the course, there is audio for everything, some of the phrases are a bit hard, some words don't stick that much, but I just need time. There is both multiple choice and typing. I like typing more, it really helps, but I suppose all typing course might be too "heavy" for me.

I could do with a course on the Partizip II though. Any ideas? This is one of my long term major roadblocks. Ah, found one, I'll let you know whether it is of good quality, just in case anyone is interested.

Today, I experienced a bit of language jealousy. A shop assistant was talking in a really awesome way with the german customers. I admired her and mentally scolded myself for not having been more dilligent. I could have been at her level as well, had I not taken that many breaks!

I watched a few more miniepisodes of Kaamelott today.

In French, I am now reading Tolkien: Contes et Légendes inachevés. I've been reading that for a really long time, I am still in Le Premier Âge (and loving the virtual keyboard of this forum right now. You just got me!). I suppose most readers have noticed Tolkien's works to be of various "density". The Hobbit is basically still a great book for children, the LotR is still very adventure book like. The Silmarillion and these books are very dense, writen in the myth style, a slow read even in my native langauge. I love the highly literal, even archaic French! It's something I haven't explored before.

And just today, I had been wondering whether I'd get the follow ups, Le Second Âge and Le Troisième Âge. And I accidentally found them in a bookshop a few hours later! I just had to buy them! They weren't expensive, the books are relatively short and in paperback. I am excited! I don't mind reading these slowly.

Spanish: today nothing. But a fun fact: sometimes, when I try to think in German and put together a sentence, I automatically think it in Spanish.
Russian: asleep, just some cyrillics review.
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Elenia
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Re: Bookworm's adventures in the exile

Postby Elenia » Sun Jul 26, 2015 3:12 pm

I can assure you that reading Terry Pratchett is me when I am being a mature and sensible human! Also: thanks for the link to the memrise course, I might just try it out (my German is in as serious need of love and attention as it ever was!)
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Cavesa
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Re: Bookworm's adventures in the exile

Postby Cavesa » Sun Jul 26, 2015 7:05 pm

A few thoughts:

1.Shame on me. A welcomed a german exchange student to Prague to day, got her to the dormitory etc ,and all in English. My German simply isn't up to the task and I feel ashamed. I didn't use the bits I could because I don't want her to feel used as a practice target when it is me who is here to assist her, not the other way around.

2.Today, I realized I am unlikely to become a true polyglot not just because of the time needed but as well my brain may not be up to such a task. Sure, I am still interested in learning eight european languages and dreaming about some others, but I am not sure anymore whether I can ever get there. My French does suffer slightly from neglect already.

3.Memrise. Finally, I got to the information about the normal old leaderboard being still alive, just not that visibly accessible from the dashboard.
http://www.memrise.com/top-secret-global-leaderboard/ if anyone is interested.

Today, I've moved from 65447th place to 62750th, which is not bad. My memrise goal, to keep me going, is getting among the first 50000 for now. As the ranks go higher, there will be larger and larger gaps and more points needed for each step of the ladder.

What I hate about Memrise: I cannot override "wrong" answer. I answer correctly. My huge review pack includes an awesome verblist. But for exemple, there are like five verbs "to meet" and even the other translations mentioned do not exactly help to tell them apart. I answer correctly but I have quite no chance to write all the "rencontrer, se rencontrer, se joindre, joindre, se retrouver" and perhaps others right. And there are many such confusions when it comes to verbs and their reflexive forms. They are good to practice and learn but sometimes it doesn't feel fair to have to go over that again and again.

Another problem are the attributes. They are good, you can write there whether it is a noun or a verb etc. But you cannot see them earlier than you type in the answer. And how the hell can I tell sometimes whether they want the noun or the verb?

Third need for wrong override is this: articles. Some courses have them, some don't, it is impossible to remember. Fourth is a typo.

What I love about memrise: somehow, I keep going, which is exceptional.

I am making the best French conjugation course ever, btw!

4.I had time and mood to start my Russian course and learn the pronunciation with it. I couldn't. Why? There is a faulty version of the windows media player that doesn't have the rip cd button. And the cd isn't pirated anywhere, all the "how to" count with that button being there. Either Fromat Factory (recommended by a friend of mine) will work or I am angry again. An hour of my life wasted on trying to make a damn microsoft spawn work!

5.I am still reading that Tolkien in French. It is a slower read than I am used to but I am already getting faster. It is really dense and awesome!

6: viewtopic.php?f=18&t=835
I wrote in French after a long time, it is tragic. If anyone else has interesting ideas for French writing practice (pen pal sites, fan fiction sites, courses like those on coursera about style etc), please let me know!
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Re: Bookworm's adventures in the exile

Postby Radioclare » Sun Jul 26, 2015 7:24 pm

Cavesa wrote:3.Memrise. Finally, I got to the information about the normal old leaderboard being still alive, just not that visibly accessible from the dashboard.
http://www.memrise.com/top-secret-global-leaderboard/ if anyone is interested.

Today, I've moved from 65447th place to 62750th, which is not bad. My memrise goal, to keep me going, is getting among the first 50000 for now. As the ranks go higher, there will be larger and larger gaps and more points needed for each step of the ladder.


Wow, thanks for the link to the leaderboard - I think that will definitely give me some extra Memrise motivation :)
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Re: Bookworm's adventures in the exile

Postby arthaey » Sun Jul 26, 2015 8:31 pm

Cavesa wrote:2.Today, I realized I am unlikely to become a true polyglot not just because of the time needed but as well my brain may not be up to such a task. Sure, I am still interested in learning eight european languages and dreaming about some others, but I am not sure anymore whether I can ever get there.

I know these feels. :( I don't have any words of wisdom, just commiseration.

OTOH, I enjoy the process of learning languages almost as much (maybe even more-so!) than the result of being fluent/conversational/what-have-you. So... I mostly try not to dwell on what my eventual "end-state" will be I just enjoy the journey. (Hey look! Words of wisdom after all! ;))
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