37. Boy by Roald Dahl, 200 pages. Running total: (2 x 200) + 7,645 = 8,045 pages.
I read each chapter first in German, then in English, then again in German. I read the book twice.
I bought a copy of the
German text (ISBN: 3499235412), and I borrowed the English text (title: Boy) from my local library.
While Mr Dahl was born and raised in Britain, both his parents were Norwegian, and he spent his summer holidays in Norway from the ages of 4 to 17. An island in Oslo fjord called Tjönne seems to have been their regular destination.
38. "Taran und das Zauberschwein" or "Das buch der drei" by Lloyd Alexander, 192 pages. Running total: (2 x 192) + 8,045 =
8,429 pagesI read and listened to each chapter first in German, then read it in English, then read and listened in German again. I read the book twice.
This is the first book in a five book series called the Chronicles of Prydain. I bought an omnibus edition of the first three books called Taran: die dunkle seite der macht (ISBN: 3570131963). There is amateur audio for all the books in the series on YouTube.
There's a nice video on YouTube called "a visit with Lloyd Alexander" where you can learn a little about Mr Alexander and his writing.
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TV
I've watched episodes of a 30 minute documentary series called
Die Nordreportage, 50 minute comedy-drama called
Rentnercops (mentioned by Brun Ugle), a 30 minute pop-science series called
Xenius, and a 50 minute comedy-drama called
Um Himmels Willen.
I learned a German expression from episode 198 of Um Himmels Willen (Maja will ins Kloster) - "unter vier augen" which is a private conversation between two people. The same phrase cropped up again a few days later in the Lloyd Alexander book mentioned above.
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Sprachkalender
https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 8&p=117143I bought a Harenberg calendar for
German speakers learning French. From that I learned that New Years Eve is called Silvester in Germany, the révellion de la Saint Sylvestre in France. This then cropped up in a Nordreportage episode set in a bakery, they were making a special batch of cakes for the event called Berliners, these are apparantly a New Years tradition in Germany, I may try this!
A Berliner is a jam donut covered in icing, in England jam donuts are typically covered in sugar, so there's clearly an export opportunity for British bakers to introduce this taste sensation to Germans!
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French
I've watched several episodes of
C dans l'air, but not done a lot with French. I've been reading some English books that were Christmas gifts (Charles Moore's third volume of his
Thatcher bio is pretty good so far) and that takes time I would ordinarily have spent reading French.
