Mork the Fiddle's 2019 Log

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MorkTheFiddle
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2109
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 8:59 pm
Location: North Texas USA
Languages: English (N). Read (only) French and Spanish. Studying Ancient Greek. Studying a bit of Latin. Once studied Old Norse. Dabbled in Catalan, Provençal and Italian.
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 11#p133911
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Re: Mork the Fiddle's 2019 Log

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Mon Jul 08, 2019 11:56 pm

an onyme wrote:Ah, La Mante! Would be interested in your opinion on it after you're done since I certainly have some. Though I did enjoy how sad and expressionless the main character was throughout. He was so sad!

I also do love the Bojack Horseman dub, but that may be a distortion due to how much I love the original. I even started saying "Ouais" in that exaggerated way thanks to Todd.

Until I read this comment of yours, whether I finish La Mante was in doubt. I sort of like it, sort of don't. I am through episode 3, so I'm going to give ep. 4 a shot and see what happens. You are right, the main character is super sad. I wonder how many serial killers have had children. As for Bojack, I have not gone back to it yet. I have a number of serials as well as other things that I am looking at, so it can take me a while to circle back.
Anyway, thanks for stopping by.
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Many things which are false are transmitted from book to book, and gain credit in the world. -- attributed to Samuel Johnson

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MorkTheFiddle
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2109
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 8:59 pm
Location: North Texas USA
Languages: English (N). Read (only) French and Spanish. Studying Ancient Greek. Studying a bit of Latin. Once studied Old Norse. Dabbled in Catalan, Provençal and Italian.
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 11#p133911
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Re: Mork the Fiddle's 2019 Log

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Fri Jul 19, 2019 12:58 am

French
Listening practice since June 30

+Leon
Divines: energetic, overwrought, overlong
+Les brûlures de l'Histoire
A very secret service (0101-02)
Le chat de Rabin (part only)
+La grand guerre 1914-1918: Un paix difficile
Marseilles (0103)
+L'Ombre d'un doute: Zola a-t-il été assasiné?
Transfers (0101)
+Dix pour cent 0104
La guerre en couleurs: la bataille d'Okinawa
+Secrets d'histoire: Ramsès II etc (cc)
+Histoire interdite: Seconde guerre mondiale: la face cachée de la liberation
+Hitler, la folie d'un homme
Osmosis (0102)
La Mante (0104)
+Kill Hitler
+Wedding Unplanned Funny comedy.
Two Alone in Paris (Seuls Two) Buddy Comedy
Carbon (5 minutes was enough)
xTrepalium (0101) from Arte: 20 minutes only, a dud
Le rayon vert (w/o subs or cc)
+Louis la Brocante 0101: Louis et les mômes
Le monde et à toi (cc) The world is yours
xDeep (c c) Immersion 0101
Le Dessous des cartes 32 min only
+Aux origines de l'humanité: Le Premier Pas
+Aux origines de l'humanité: La naissance de l'homme
Black Spot (0101)
+Histoire interdict: L'enfer du Pacific etc
+19 Septembre 1931 Le Japon attaque la Chine
+Women at War 1939-1945 (subs)
+Blind Date (Un peu, beaucoup, Aveuglément!) funny odd-couple kind of comedy
+Dix pour cent (0105)
+L'Amour l'après-midi (6th of Moral Tales by Rohmer)
+Le conte d'hiver (4th of tales of 4 seasons by Rohmer)
+La femme infidèle (1969)
+Pauline à la plage
+Belle de Jour
+Le temps retrouvé (audiobook lu par Daniel Mesguich) 15 minutes only
+Les biches
La ligne de débarcation Overlong by half
Les rois maudits (1972): Part 1, Le Roi de Fer. Stagey, uninvolving, some acting good, some hammy
Les rois maudits (2005): Part 2, la reine étranglée. Not stagy, but still uninvolving. One of the leads eats a lot of chicken.

[x in front of a title means NOT recommended. + means recommended. The rest vary, neither good nor awful. Titles in italics are movies']
Total time: 150 hours, 2 minutes, so I reached my goal and am finished.

General Reflections: My listening ability improved a lot, but I still don't understand "street French" or contemporary dialog. Often even French subs or closed captioning did not help either.
Movies and documentaries appealed to me much more than TV series. Of the TV series that appealed to me, none appealed enough to me to make me want to binge watch them.
Netflix does not produce a fountain of interesting content. My next project like this if and when I get to it will be Spanish, and I know there are a few series on Netflix I will like, but I am not going to search it for more.

Ancient Greek is on hiatus while I reflect on what I have read so far and what I want to do in the future.
5 x
Many things which are false are transmitted from book to book, and gain credit in the world. -- attributed to Samuel Johnson

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MorkTheFiddle
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2109
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 8:59 pm
Location: North Texas USA
Languages: English (N). Read (only) French and Spanish. Studying Ancient Greek. Studying a bit of Latin. Once studied Old Norse. Dabbled in Catalan, Provençal and Italian.
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 11#p133911
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Re: Mork the Fiddle's 2019 Log

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Fri Jul 19, 2019 1:04 am

an onyme wrote:Ah, La Mante! Would be interested in your opinion on it after you're done since I certainly have some. Though I did enjoy how sad and expressionless the main character was throughout. He was so sad!
I finished the fourth episode, but could do no more. The main character was indeed sad, and I thought the serial killer was well acted. On the whole, however, the atmosphere of the series is too overwrought for me.

I would though be curious to hear your take.
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Many things which are false are transmitted from book to book, and gain credit in the world. -- attributed to Samuel Johnson

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Carmody
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Re: Mork the Fiddle's 2019 Log

Postby Carmody » Fri Jul 19, 2019 7:39 pm

Many thanks for:
+Histoire interdite: Seconde guerre mondiale: la face cachée de la liberation

Really interesting and learned material I never read about.
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MorkTheFiddle
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2109
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 8:59 pm
Location: North Texas USA
Languages: English (N). Read (only) French and Spanish. Studying Ancient Greek. Studying a bit of Latin. Once studied Old Norse. Dabbled in Catalan, Provençal and Italian.
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 11#p133911
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Re: Mork the Fiddle's 2019 Log

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Mon Jul 29, 2019 4:47 pm

Recuperated from French listening bootcamp, grateful for its boost to my listening ability in Spanish, knowing now that if the content is of little or no interest to me there is just no point, and looking forward to some Spanish by way of at least Cable Girls and Money Heist, I can move on. In retrospect, I should have simply rewatched the films I did like, those by Rohmer, for example, and ignored the others. Lesson learned.

In a jaunt yesterday to B&N, I bought a copy of La niña alemana, based on real events during the holocaust in WW2, by
Armando Lucas Correa (who is originally from Cuba). In something of a fling, I also bought Avem Occidere Mimicam, a translation by Andrew Wilson, the former classics professor who translated Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone into Ancient Greek. Although I never read the book (I mean Harper Lee's novel) in English, I can report that I understand the first sentence of the Latin. I can also say I made the day of the young lad at the cash register, who was dumbstruck in a good way by a customer who not only bought a book in a language other than English, but in fact bought two such books, and one of them was in Latin. Usually book store clerks act as if they are benumbed by an especially high grade of pot (and perhaps necessary for the job, I just don't know :? ).
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Many things which are false are transmitted from book to book, and gain credit in the world. -- attributed to Samuel Johnson

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MorkTheFiddle
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2109
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 8:59 pm
Location: North Texas USA
Languages: English (N). Read (only) French and Spanish. Studying Ancient Greek. Studying a bit of Latin. Once studied Old Norse. Dabbled in Catalan, Provençal and Italian.
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 11#p133911
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Re: Mork the Fiddle's 2019 Log

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Fri Aug 02, 2019 11:59 pm

Yesterday or the day before Level 0 Vol. 1 of Japanese Graded Readers arrived in the mail. Very prompt.
It will make a pretty decoration for my book shelf, and occasionally I will take it out and have a look for a good laugh.
Page 1 confronts me with a glossy drawing of a young woman wearing a warm coat, carrying a purse and holding a dog on a leash. She is looking at a branch of a tree which has buds on it. She, or maybe the dog, speaks two sentences, the first ending with an exclamation mark.
She could be saying, "Hi there, this is my dog Toto." She could also be saying, what a pretty tree!, or do you like my dog, or any number of possibly a thousand things.
Pages 2-3 are a bit better. Stretched across the two pages is an outline map of Japan. The four biggest islands have two characters printed on them, the names of the islands, I suppose. A couple of islands have characters in common with a third island.
Also on the pages are people watching it snow, a girl ice skating, and a family sitting at a kitchen (?) table eating either apples or tomatoes. They are being watched from the outside by a forlorn snowman. I get the idea. It's winter.
A disk accompanies the booklets. In Japanese, I suppose.
The whole layout of the book is confusing. Obviously I could look up all the words in a dictionary, but I thought the whole point of this format is to not need a dictionary. I think they mean well, but I don't recommend this approach.
To be fair, I was warned, and this was mostly just to dip my toe into the water. No harm done.

I am looking for good examples of Japanese spoken at real speed, to get my ears tuned, a snippet at t time.
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Many things which are false are transmitted from book to book, and gain credit in the world. -- attributed to Samuel Johnson

Ezra
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Languages: Russian (N), English (C1),
In use: French, Spanish, Latin, Classical Hebrew
Studying: Classical Chinese, Italian, German, Japanese, Ancient Greek
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Re: Mork the Fiddle's 2019 Log

Postby Ezra » Sat Aug 03, 2019 6:03 am

Japanese is, language learning-wise, a multitude of traps. Unlike Chinese that outright presents its difficulties like tones and characters, Japanese lures gullible language learner with its seemingly easy phonetics and syllabaries that, language learner is being persuaded, could be used to help him with kanji problem. Lately, learner learns that poorer phonetics means much more homonyms, and pitch accent is nowhere to be found in dictionaries. As for kanjis, well, he still has to learn them -- plus the syllabaries. And unlike Chinese, in Japanese characters are not fixed to certain sound reading but can have multiple ones.
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MorkTheFiddle
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2109
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 8:59 pm
Location: North Texas USA
Languages: English (N). Read (only) French and Spanish. Studying Ancient Greek. Studying a bit of Latin. Once studied Old Norse. Dabbled in Catalan, Provençal and Italian.
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 11#p133911
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Re: Mork the Fiddle's 2019 Log

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Sat Aug 03, 2019 5:36 pm

ロータス wrote:Are you saying you tried to read this book with no experience with Japanese? No words or grammar besides learning the kana? Now looking at the sample pages, you really need some knowledge of the basics before starting to read these books if you aren't going to use a dictionary.

>I am looking for good examples of Japanese spoken at real speed, to get my ears tuned, a snippet at t time.
Japanesepod101 and Youtube Vlogs



Ezra wrote:Japanese is, language learning-wise, a multitude of traps. Unlike Chinese that outright presents its difficulties like tones and characters, Japanese lures gullible language learner with its seemingly easy phonetics and syllabaries that, language learner is being persuaded, could be used to help him with kanji problem. Lately, learner learns that poorer phonetics means much more homonyms, and pitch accent is nowhere to be found in dictionaries. As for kanjis, well, he still has to learn them -- plus the syllabaries. And unlike Chinese, in Japanese characters are not fixed to certain sound reading but can have multiple ones.

I appreciate the visits and the time you took to read over my lament and provide positive feedbvack. So thanks to both of you for your good advice and comments. Thanks, too, for the leads for Japanese spoken at real speed.

I am at a bottleneck or crossroads in my language learning. First of all, I am not a language-learner per se. I pursued Spanish, French, Old Norse (briefly), Latin and Ancient Greek because I love and want to read their literatures. Knowing the language is especially valuable for the best poetry. As for prose, well, I'll leave it at that. I debated between Mandarin and Japanese. Japanese won out because tones shied me off of Mandarin, and, far, far more important, Japanese literature seems to offer more to my taste than Chinese literature (though I confess to a lot of ignorance about both). Haiku alone, coupled with other Japanese poetry, attracts me more to Japanese.
The other root of my bottle neck is deciding which is the best way to learn a language for me. And for me, a number of threads. One is hearing the real language from the beginning. I don't want to spend two years learning a language like I did French only to be sucker-punched by the real language in the streets of Montreal (and it not even being a case of a problem with the dialect). I do like the process of proceeding with a story, listening and learning the grammar as I go along as necessary.
On the other hand, learning Japanese through haiku would be my ideal course of study. Someone has even made a start:

I have more thoughts on this, but lest my connection be severed, I'll submit now and come back later.
But thanks again to ロータス and Exra. :!:
6 x
Many things which are false are transmitted from book to book, and gain credit in the world. -- attributed to Samuel Johnson

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devilyoudont
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Re: Mork the Fiddle's 2019 Log

Postby devilyoudont » Sat Aug 03, 2019 6:29 pm

I found a new podcast recently called JLPT stories

They produce episodes at levels designed for each level of the JLPT, including N5 which may be useful for you in your studies.

There's not much there yet, but hoping they will add more.

https://jlptstories.com/

Shirokuma Cafe/Polar Bear Cafe is a pretty good anime for beginners, in my experience. It is available at animelon, which allows a lot of subtitle options, including English/Japanese simultaneously or hiragana only.
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moonlyrics
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Re: Mork the Fiddle's 2019 Log

Postby moonlyrics » Wed Aug 07, 2019 10:06 pm

MorkTheFiddle wrote:
I am at a bottleneck or crossroads in my language learning. First of all, I am not a language-learner per se. I pursued Spanish, French, Old Norse (briefly), Latin and Ancient Greek because I love and want to read their literatures. Knowing the language is especially valuable for the best poetry. As for prose, well, I'll leave it at that. I debated between Mandarin and Japanese. Japanese won out because tones shied me off of Mandarin, and, far, far more important, Japanese literature seems to offer more to my taste than Chinese literature (though I confess to a lot of ignorance about both). Haiku alone, coupled with other Japanese poetry, attracts me more to Japanese.


if language focus would be japanese for poetry and literature, perhaps it would help to focus on a specific genre or era with multiple authors in that range? that way you get synergy from the different perspectives.

for example, dōgen zenji was a japanese priest who founded the sōtō school of zen buddhism in the 1200s. he was a prolific writer including poetry. then you could read comments about his work (positive or negative) from others. several students wrote about dōgen's teachings after his death. seen from different perspectives the language study might be more intriguing.
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