Mista's new perpetual log (currently: Russian and Japanese))

[Mista]

Registration for the 6WC is open

I don't know if I should thank you or curse for reminding me about this. These past weeks I've been with this persistent idea of restarting French, so now knowing that the 6WC will start soon will make this idea even harder to control.

Glad I could lead you into temptation!

Super Challenge update

Since we're still waiting for the bot, I'll have to do something else to check how I'm doing so far. At the same time, I'll say something about what my (loose) plans are.

One of my goals is to read at least 250 pages in all languages, or watch at least 5 movies, by the end of the year. Preaviously, I've been worried about interference from other romance languages on my French, so this year, I'm planning to do some work on those during the summer. Unlike last year, I have no travel plans outside of Norway, so I can mess up my French as much as I like. One goal I have for the summer, then, is to read one (real) book in Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Latin from mid-June to mid-August.

French
Books:
- L'Art de perdre by Alice Zeniter, 271 pages. This is a book that I have to finish for an exam next Friday, and I still have 130 pages to go. Fortunately, the book is absolutely brilliant.
- Courrier Sud by Antoine de Saint-Exypéry, 180 pages. Finished today.
- La Peste by Albert Camus, 34 pages.
- Quo Vadis ? by Henryk Sienkewicz, 109 pages. I read most of this book before Christmas, but the final part now in May.
- Notre-Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo, 73 pages. My new kindle reading after I finished Quo Vadis ?
Total: 667 pages, or a bit over 13 "books"

Films:
- 10 episodes of Le bureau, the final 6 from season 5 and the first 4 from season 1.
Total: 532 minutes, or almost 6 "films"

I have a whole mountain of French books waiting to be read, but some of my plans for the summer are:
- Meursault, contre-enquête by Kamel Daoud
- L'Amour, la fantasia by Assia Djebar
- Le passé simple by Driss Chraibi
- Les particules élémentaires by Michel Houllebecq
- Phèdre by Jean Racine
- Le Misanthrope by Molière
- Madame Bovary by Flaubert
The final four books on this lists are for a literature course I'm considering for the fall semester. I doubt I'll be reading more than one of them in the summer.

For watching, I'm planning to continue with Le Bureau from the beginning.

Danish
Listening to Kastanjemanden by Søren Sveistrup. Reached 8 hours, which equals 5 1/3 "films".

No reading yet, I'm still waiting for my reading list for the summer course.

Swedish
Reading Brott och straff by Dostoyevsky, 26 pages so far.

Icelandic
Books:
- Bróðir minn Ljónshjarta by Astrid Lindgren, 32 pages
- Veröld Soffíu by Jostein Gaarder, 6 pages
Total: 38 pages

Films:
- Trapped, first episode of season 2, 49 minutes. Unfortunately, the first season isn't available on NRK anymore.
Total: 49 minutes

Plans:
I'd like to have a go at Kláði by Fríða Ísberg, which is a collection of short stories

Sami
Books:
- Go Finddoš lei unni ja jávkkai by Sven Nordqvist, 6 pages. This is a picture book for relatively small children, so I've estimated that 3 pages equals 1 "normal" page. I got to 6 pages by reading the same thing twice.

No watching.

Arabic
Pinocchio - the Disney cartoon - 84 minutes. This turned out to be Egyptian Arabic rather than MSA, but I still watched it and I'm still counting it. I'll definitely try to get something MSA next time I'm watching a cartoon, but in the case of movies worth watching for their content, I'll accept anything that goes under the name of Arabic.

No reading. Won't be doing that anytime soon.

Russian
Started up with Russian today. I've ditched Colloquial Russian for now, and will be doing intensive reading as my daily study activity. I'm starting with a Donald Duck book, and got through 1.5 page today. I'm also planning to have a go at the book club book, The Winter Queen by Borsi Akunin, on kindle and on audio.

Spanish
I haven't seriously studied Spanish since I was in school, but I still think I sould be able to read a book and both understand it and learn something from it. The books I have are:
- Barcelona. Los Vagabundos de la Chatarra by Jorge Carrión & Sagar. This is a graphic novel that I picked up at the university book store.
- Tiempos recios by Mario Vargas Llosa. I didn't realize he was still alive and writing, but this book was published in October last year.

Portuguese
I have some books from when I visited Portugal a few years back. I think the only one I haven't read yet is O Estrangeiro by Albert Camus

Latin
There's plenty I want to read in Latin, but I have to start somewhere, and my choice is The Aeneid.

Italian
Planning to start with L'Amica geniale by Elena Ferrante. I also have it on audio. Apart from that, I'd like to read some of Italo Calvino's books.

German
Again, I have plenty to choose from here, but I think I'd like to start with:
- Donald Duck
- Philip Pullmann, The Golden Compass. I have the whole series (which I can't remember the name of right now) and have read them before, but this time, I'd like to work on vocabulary in the same way I'm doing with French now
- Ostfriesen Nacht by Klaus-Peter Wolf (Krimi)
- Babylon Berlin is still available on NRK

Ancient Greek
I haven't made up my mind yet where I want to start. I'm considering Herodotus, Homer and Sophocles.

[Mista]

Super Challenge Update

Most of the stuff I've been doing is already mentioned in the previous post, so this time, I'll keep it short and nice by just giving the numbers.

French
Books: 939 pages = 18 books
Films: 898 minutes = 10 films (almost!)

Swedish
Books: 80 pages = 1 book
Films: none yet

Arabic
Books: none
Films: 84 minutes = 1 film (almost)

English
Books: 194 pages = 4 books (almost)
Films: none yet

Icelandic
Books: 102 pages = 2 books
Films: 98 minutes = 1 film

Sami
Books: 7 pages
Films: none yet

Russian
Books: 19 pages
Films: 135 = 1 film

Danish
Books: none yet
Films: 509 minutes = 5 films

A week or two ago, I sat down with a calculator and found out that if I want to complete the SC for all my priority languages, I will need to do 41 pages and 75 minutes every day. So far, I've done 42 pages and 54 minutes per day on average, so as usual the reading is fine, but I need to spend more time on the film part.

[Mista]

This is what I wrote on March 24, 2018:

I did the dialang tests for French over the last two days. The results were:
Listening: B1
Writing: B1
Reading: B2
Grammar: B1
Vocabulary: B1

I think it's time to have a go at it again, and started today. The first results are:
- Placement test: 771
- Self-evaluation: B2
- Listening: B2

Note to self: need to practice numbers!

I will probably do the remaining tests next week.

[Mista]

Dialang tests French
I've done all the tests now, and here are the remaining results:

Writing: B2
Placement test: 609
Self-assessment: B2

There was a lot of letter writing here, something that I haven't done much at all.

Reading: C2
Placement test: 713
Self-assessment: C1

The self assessment test asked me about things I have never even tried, so that could be the reason for the descripancy.

Structures (also known as grammar): B1
Placement test: 737

I pressed the wrong back button and lost the chance to look through my wrong answers, but one thing I know I got wrong was double object pronouns, which I also keep getting wrong on Kwiziq (level B2). I also missed some prepositions. With the subjunctive, I'm pretty good with the forms now, but not always with the usage.

Vocabulary: B1
Placement test: 679

Out of 14 mistakes, 6 were spelling mistakes, 5 of which were a missing accent. This is something I know I struggle with when writing, but the good thing is that Word is good at correcting it, so practice will inevitably make me better. Almost all the mistakes were in exercises where I had to type a word (i.e. produce it actively), which explains the huge difference between the Vocabulary and Reading tests.

[Mista]

French

So I’ve done the dialang tests. What now?

One of my goals for this year is to do a DELF. Unless something unexpexted happens, my next chance here in Oslo will be in November, and I think I have settled for B2, based on what I’ve read about the tests and the results from the dialang tests. This week, I’m visiting my parents, but once I get home, I’ll start working on the B2 DELF prep book I ordered a month back.
I’m planning to take another French Literature course at the university next semester. Just like the one I just finished, this new one will also have an oral exam, so I’ll keep on doing what I have been doing. The only problem with my procedure last semester was that I didn’t get enough time at the end, so I’ve started reading already to try to prevent that this time. This is my literature procedure in full:

1. read (part of) the text, underline words I want to look up later
2. look up words in dictionary, enter them in my gold list book
3. practice reading the text out loud
4. write a summary of the text
5. after the whole book is finished, write about central themes and other analytical topics
6. prepare a 5-10 minutes presentation of the book and practice speaking

Some other things that I want to do:
- continue watching Le Bureau, with subtitles. So far, I think using the subtitles has been very useful, because when I hear something that doesn’t make any sense, the subtitles help me connect the dots. One example I’ve encountered already is that I thought I heard «J’ai pas» quite often, which didn’t make much sense, and which was translated by «I don’t know». That’s when I understood that what I was hearing was a way of pronouncing «J’sais pas». Then I noticed that one of the characters had this pronunciation with full assimilation, while another had another pronunciation, where the schwa was not pronounced but there was still a distinction between the two fricative sounds.
- The dialang results suggest that I could use some grammar work. I’m still only halfway through the Grammaire Progressive, so I’ll try to finish that this summer. After that, I’ll consider getting the Avancée, or paying for Kwiziq (or even both, maybe).
- I find spoken numbers very difficult to process, and if I managed them during the test, it was only because I was fully concentrated on the task. If anyone has any good suggestions for how to practice oral comprehension of numbers, please let me know.

Portuguese
One of my summer projects is to read 250 pages in each of my romance languages. In Portuguese, I’m reading O Estrangeiro by Albert Camus, but since I’ve hardly studied Portuguese at all, I’m supporting the reading by reading a grammar book and using Drops (the app). Also, besides reading through the book, I’m also going through the text a second time, looking up words. Without that, I think my understanding of the book would have been very limited if I hadn’t read it in French already.

[Mista]

June Super Challenge Update (total numbers)

French
Books: 1326 pages = 26.5 books
Films: 1104 minutes = 12 films

The cinemas opened 3 weeks ago, and I got the chance to see "Antigone", which was supposed to be one of the highlights at one of the cancelled film festivals. It's about an Algerian immigrant family in Montreal, and as the title suggests, inspired by Sophocles' tragedy. Highly recommended!

Portuguese
Books: 53 pages = 1 book
Films: none

Swedish
Books: 125 pages = 2.5 books
Films: 43 minutes = 0.5 films

Watched the first episode of "Fartblinda" on NRK. Then I stopped watching TV altoghether.

Arabic
Books: none
Films: 190 minutes = 2 films

Another salvaged film from a cancelled film festival: "Papicha". Algerian, based on the true story of a young woman trying to live her own life in an increasingly islamist society. Some brutal moments, but enlightening and well worth watching. One of the things I especially liked (because I love that kind of stuff) was the constant codeswitching between Arabic and French.

English
Books: 1269 pages = 25 books
Films: none

Read 3 novels:
- Circe by Madeline Miller
- The Fishermen by Chigozie Obioma
- My Name is Salma by Fadia Faqir

Icelandic
Books: 155 pages = 3 books
Films: 113 minutes = 1 film

Sami
Books: 6 pages
Films: none

Russian
Books: 23 pages = 0.5 books
Films: 230 minutes = 2.5 films

Films:
- Leviathan, by Andrej Zvjagintsev, whose films I have been recommended and have found on DVD at the library
- School of Seduction, another film festival film (they had a weekend of them, and are planning another weekend of them in august). This is a documentary about women's conditions in Russia.

Danish
Books: 404 pages = 8 books
Films: 837 minutes = 9 films

I've started reading for the summer course, so far Peter Høeg's novel "De måske egnede", a couple of short stories and some poems, and texts about modernism.


Average per day
Books: 55 pages (of 41)
Films: 41 minutes (of 75)

So I'm even more ahead on reading and behind on watching than last time

[MamaPata]

What did you think of Leviathan?

[Mista]

What did you think of Leviathan?

I thought it was both enjoyable and interesting. The main impression I have of it is how incredibly Russian it was, which could partly be because I have very little experience with Russian cinema. I have a couple of his other movies waiting to be watched as well, so it will be interesting to see how they compare.

Have you seen any of them?

[Mista]

July Super Challenge update (total numbers)

French
Books: 1520 pages = 30 books
Films: 1325 minutes = 14 films

Still progressing slowly with Meursault, contre-enquête, Notre-Dame de Paris and Phèdre. Finished La peste. Listened to a RF podcast on Notre-Dame, dating from just after the fire

Spanish
Books: 8 pages
Films: none

Started on Tiempos recios, and worked very thoroughly through the first chapter, since I haven't studied Spanish in ages. Planning to get back to it in August, and probably speed up a bit (if I can do so without getting completely lost)

Portuguese
Books: 88 pages = 1.5 books
Films: none

Read through the whole book without dictionary lookups, and the first 7 pages with.

Swedish
Books: 528 pages = 10 books
Films: 43 minutes = 0.5 film

Read Dandy by Jan Guillou, the second book of his 20th century series. I found the whole series on audio at the library, so I will probably listen to the remaining books, or at least try it out with the next one.

Arabic
Books: none
Films: 190 minutes = 2 films

nothing new here

English
Books: 1720 pages = 34 books
Films: 190 minutes = 2 films

Read Normal people, and then turned from leisure to more serious study: Introduction to American Politics, a Graphic Guide. Listened to Of Mice and Men on audio (almost finished).

Icelandic
Books: 159 pages = 3 books
Films: 205 minutes = 2.5 films

More Brothers Lionheart, both reading and listening

Sami
Books: 10 pages
Films: none

A few more pages in the same book

Russian
Books: 30 pages = 0.5 book
Films: 230 minutes = 2.5 films

Some more pages in the same books. I'm planning to focus on Russian this month for the 6WC and will hopefulle get a lot of reading done. I'm planning to read the poem Dvenadcat by Blok and the short story The Overcoat by Gogol for a class in Russian literature, in addition to what I'm already working on

Danish
Books: 451 pages = 9 books
Films: 1027 minutes = 11 books

Read De måske egnede by Peter Høeg as well as some shorter texts and some theory for my summer course (with the final exam deadline today). Also started listening to a new audiobook, Dødevaskeren by Sara Omar.

Latin
Books: 7 pages
Films: none

Read one page from the Aeneid and 6 pages from Ab urbe condita.

Italian
Books: 46 pages = 1 book
Films: none

Started on L'amica geniale. I haven't made as much progress with it as planned, mainly due to a delay in the summer course, which was supposed to be finished two weeks ago.

Average per day
Books: 51 pages (of 41)
Films: 36 minutes (of 75)

When I visited my parents in June, I forgot my earphones there, so that's the main reason why I've fallen behind on listening. Additionally, the film club is closed in July, and at the moment, I'm on vacation with my parents and find it easier to squeeze in reading than listening. I'm really falling behind on the film part, however, so I really need to try to even that out a bit in August.

[Mista]

I came home from Trondheim yesterday, and I'm leaving again tomorrow for Hardangervidda, where I'll do a four day trek around one of Norway's largest glaciers, Hardangerjøkulen. Part of my motivation for choosing that particular area is that I read about it in the books by Jan Guillou (previously mentioned here in my log), where a considerable part of the first book takes place at Finse, where I will be starting.

Since I have to carry everything I bring, my only study tool these four days will be my kindle, which can be used for reading and for studying vocabulary from the books I have read. Additionally, since I'm going alone, I'll have plenty of time to talk to myself while walking in any language that strikes my fancy, and I could even get the chance to practice some French or German at the shelters. These shelters often don't have electricity, and are almost always out of range of mobile internet, so phone-based options are probably out of the question.

In Russian, I've rediscovered a book on my kindle that I bought many years ago, for my first Super Challenge, about Greek myths. This suits me perfectly right now, because the language is uncomplicated, the vocabulary is mostly found in the kindle dictionary, and the chapters are short (just 2-3 pages), so it's easy to get in some repetition by reading a chapter, go through the vocabulary with the Vocabulary Builder flashcards, and then read the chapter again before passing on to the next one. I've been doing this for a week or so, and will continue with it next week.

In French, I'll be reading Notre-Dame de Paris, and study the vocabulary from that book too. I'm likely to spend a lot of time on the train or waiting for the train on Thursday, so I expect to make a good deal of progress with this book.