A quick update, to keep myself going:
First, a note about my post-Covid recovery. I'm tired after being awake for a couple of hours, despite sleeping well, but I'm at a point where watching and reading isn't too taxing for me. I had a phone consult with my doctor today who said I should continue to rest from work for now, but going for a short walk each day would be good for my physical and mental health.
GermanOn Friday I opened my DVD set of
Babylon Berlin. I didn't want to binge this because I realized a long time ago that I forget most of the story of shows I've binged. However, once I started I couldn't stop! I watched three episodes Friday and then watched the remaining five episodes in series one the next day. What can I say? I really like this series a lot: the characters are interesting, the setting is wonderful, I love the music, and I'm really enjoying an introduction to a slice of history that I know very little about. According to things I've read about the series, the setting is very realistic and the historical references are accurate, although the main characters are fictional. The author's intention was to explore the period of German history, to tease out how a democracy that could have succeeded ended up following Hitler.
Saturday night I decided to try something different, and listened to an audiobook before going to sleep, with my headphones on and the light off. It was an easy one,
Dino Lernt Deutsch: Plötzlich in Palermo, and I quite enjoyed the experience. I listened to a couple more chapters last night before bed, and also some as I took the dog on a short wallk. My intention is to listen to it twice through before reading the text, and so far I'm about 2/3 of the way through the audiobook.
FrenchFriday I watched an episode of Nota Bene (YouTube), which looks like something I could return to from time to time.
In addition I listened to the latest episode of InnerFrench about why the French are becoming afraid of vaccines. It was interesting to hear about the attitudes of differnt countries to vaccination; in short, poorer countries with a lot more disease are far more positive about vaccination than wealthy countries. This tallies with my experience of living in India, where people can see for themselves that vaccines save lives.
Yesterday I started the new Netflix series
Lupin. From watching the trailer I expected the whole thing would have more of the feel of a heist film, but the actual heist only took place in the first episode. At first I found it a bit slow, but now that I've watched three episodes I'm really enjoying it. I've been watching it in French with French subtitles, and have been pleasantly surprised that I have had almost no issues understanding the vocabulary. In a few cases I backed it up a bit and switched to English subs to rewatch a section because I understood every French word, but couldn't make sense of the sentence formed!
I finished reading
Les vacances du Petit Nicolas Saturday morening, and started
Mon ami Maigret in the evening. For the most part, Simenon's language is pretty clear to me. I've had to look up a word or two per page, but occasionally I've put a sentence into translate because, again, although I understood each word separately, the combination wasn't something I could decode fully. I was sure I was enjoying the story very much during the first two chapters, but now that the investigation is finally getting underway I'm beginning to be drawn into it.
HindiDid a bit of reading from children's books.
EDIT
For reference, I thought I should add a picture of my SC tracker dashboard.
SC progress Feb 01, 2021.png
A week ago the speedometer for my French reading was in the red (i.e. I had read less than half what I should have by now), so it's nice that it's creeped up into the yellow zone. It's unfortunate that my Hindi is in the red, but my priorities are French > German > Hindi right now.
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.