AroAro's log (languages, books, certificates)

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Re: AroAro's log Pусский and עברית

Postby DaveAgain » Sun Aug 15, 2021 11:52 am

AroAro wrote: I'm now reading a book in French - "Un léopard sur le garrot" by my favourite French writer Jean-Christophe Rufin. The problem is that I don't really know what the title means - I have never encountered the word "garrot" before and its definitions in online dictionaries are not clear to me. I guess it's going to be explained somehow later in the book.
It seems to be a quotation:
« J'errais, cavale du Zambèze,
courant et ruant aux étoiles
Rongée d'un mal sans nom,
Comme un léopard sur le garrot. »


https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Un_l%C3%A ... _le_garrot

In that context 'garrot' might be "Région du corps des grands quadrupèdes surmontant les épaules et..."
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AroAro
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Re: AroAro's log Pусский and עברית

Postby AroAro » Sun Aug 15, 2021 7:08 pm

cjareck wrote:
AroAro wrote:The problem is that I don't really know what the title means - I have never encountered the word "garrot" before, and its definitions in online dictionaries are not clear to me. I guess it's going to be explained somehow later in the book.

My French is poor, but the sounding of the word, as well as the 3rd definition from the link, are pointing towards [garota


Oh my, this is gruesome!
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AroAro
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Re: AroAro's log Pусский and עברית

Postby AroAro » Sun Aug 15, 2021 7:19 pm

DaveAgain wrote:
AroAro wrote: I'm now reading a book in French - "Un léopard sur le garrot" by my favourite French writer Jean-Christophe Rufin. The problem is that I don't really know what the title means - I have never encountered the word "garrot" before and its definitions in online dictionaries are not clear to me. I guess it's going to be explained somehow later in the book.
It seems to be a quotation:
« J'errais, cavale du Zambèze,
courant et ruant aux étoiles
Rongée d'un mal sans nom,
Comme un léopard sur le garrot. »


https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Un_l%C3%A ... _le_garrot

In that context 'garrot' might be "Région du corps des grands quadrupèdes surmontant les épaules et..."


Yes, you're right - I've just read the text on the back cover that says "Jean-Christophe Rufin mène sa vie au grand galop. Comme un cheval qu'un léopard aurait saisi au garrot." so it makes sense in this context. I'll make sure to read the cover first before starting a book!
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Re: AroAro's log Pусский and עברית

Postby AroAro » Fri Aug 20, 2021 8:18 pm

WEEKLY UPDATE

Another quick update. I'm still staying with my in-laws in the countryside and I don't want to go back to the city. I even extented my holiday by two additional days to enjoy more time with my family (I'm really thankful to my manager, she's awesome when it comes to people management). And my company has officially decided to keep the homeworking available to all the employees which means we don't have to return to the office. In theory, I could even work on a tropical island - if only they paid me that much :) Unfortunately, my wife's company is not flexible at all so leaving the city and settling in a remote village is not an option at this moment.

Russian - I did the section on verbs from my exercise book. I think I can finally see the difference between the first and the second conjugation, it was not really obvious before and I relied too heavily on my intuition and similarities with Polish. I listened to 6 episodes from russianpodcast.eu

Hebrew - I'm doing the lesson 12 from my course book. I've mastered 615 words from Memrise - the reviews are becoming more challenging with each session!

Other - I'm reading "Un léopard sur le garrot", one third of the book still left. I also started doing exercises (I mean "fitness exercices" - I'll need to review the vocabulary related to trainings in English!) and I usually watch then "In căutarea adevărului", my favourite Romanian "pseudo-docu-soap", but today I was so tired in the evening that I just watched it without exercising. I hope to do better tomorrow.
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AroAro
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Re: AroAro's log Pусский and עברית

Postby AroAro » Fri Aug 27, 2021 6:38 am

WEEKLY UPDATE

I came back to work after my holiday this week and there were only exactly 300 mails in my mailbox, most of them quite trivial so that was a relief.

Russian - I'm finishing my exercise book. There are some mock exams at the end of the book and that's what I'll be doing during the weekend. I listened to 6 episodes of russianpodcast.eu. In one of the episodes, the host talked about famous Russian writers and she made it clear that Dostoevsky, very popular abroad, is not so highly esteemed in Russia because the number one of Russian literature is Pushkin, then comes Tolstoy and Lermontov (if I remember correctly). In high school, we didn't read anything by Pushkin but Dostoevsky's "Crime and punishment" was indeed an obligatory read (wondering if it's still the case, I guess no).

I had to go to a shopping mall last Saturday and of course I used this opportunity to visit a bookstore there. In the magazines department, I saw a whole section of language magazines aimed at Polish people learning English, German, Spanish and so on (all printed by the same publisher). Actually, I remember having bought their Italian magazine around 10 years ago when I was preparing for CELI3 exam but didn't like it all - the articles were quite simple and totally dull and uninspiring so I ditched it and never gave it a second thought. However, this time I had a look at their Russian magazine "ОСТАНОВКА: РΟССИЯ!" and was pleasantly surprised. There are 10 articles ranging from "impact of homeworking on the way we dress" through "the new TV series about Catherine the Great with Helen Mirren" to "online translators and comparison between Google and DeepL". The articles are written by native speakers and it's not so easy for me to read them because there are a lot of unknown words (which probably just proves that my level in Russian is still very low). Fortunately, a translation is provided to all the supposedly difficult words. I decided to buy the issue (it's quite cheap, only 3.5 eur) and I'll see how to add it to my learning routine. The new issues are published quarterly so 3 months' time should be enough to read through it and listen to the recordings on top of that (because each article has an audio version that can be listened to online).

Hebrew - doing the lesson 14 from my course book, learned 649 words from Memrise. I think I got past the inital stage in Memrise where most of the new words were words I had actually learned from other sources and now most of the words I'm learning are totally new to me so the progress is slow but steady.

Other - I read "Un léopard sur le garrot" and loved it, just like any other book by Jean-Christophe Rufin. I'm definitely going to read one of his books when it's time for another French book in my rotation system. Two days ago, I started reading Svetlana Alexievich's "Время секонд хэнд" - but in Polish translation. I must have bought this book 6 or 7 years ago but got around to read it only now. I'm happy I'm clearing my pile of unread books, even though new books are constantly being downloaded to my Kindle... Anyway, "Время секонд хэнд" is quite thick, more than 500 pages but I read more than 100 pages in just two days because as always, Alexievich books are very compelling and it's hard to put them down, no matter how much emotionally draining they are. I would love to reread them in Russian but that's not gonna happen any time soon, my Russian is still too bad.

Other than that, still exercising to "În căutarea adevărului".
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Re: AroAro's log Pусский and עברית

Postby AroAro » Fri Sep 03, 2021 6:50 am

WEEKLY UPDATE

Russian - so I finished the exercise book and started working with a graded reader for lower intermediate learners - it's a collection of 64 texts in Russian about school, family, free time and so on. The translation of difficult words is provided in Polish below each text. This graded reader is available in a few other languages as well (and there are even readers for more advanced students in the same series) and I used the German version a few years ago. I remember I found it hard to go through the texts because of the German syntax that seems very weird to Slavic speakers, and not to mention the German vocabulary that is so foreign. However with Russian, it seems so easy and I can read the texts quite quickly, that's why I'm already at the page 20 out of 110.

I also started listening to the radio Вести ФМ while working just to get some idea of spoken Russian, its sounds and intonation but I can already understand more or less what they are talking about, especially when they talk about current news from around the world with which I'm already acquainted through my other languages.

And I listened to 8 episodes from russianpodcast.eu wich means I've listened to 100 episodes in total. Now, I will work on the 50 episodes from the series "Interviews, songs and speeches".

Hebrew - I'm doing the lesson 17 from the "Samouczek języka hebrajskiego". I mastered 706 words from Memrise. I think I need to spend more time on reviews - each day, I review only 25 words and with more than 700 words learned I can already see by myself that it's not sufficient, so every other day I will only review at least 100-150 words I've learned and won't learn any new words on these particular days.

Other - I've read so far two thirds of "Время секонд хэнд". I noticed a funny/interesting thing while watching "În căutarea adevărului" - some characters use a lot the word "mama" in an affectionate way, I believe it's also some kind of punctuation mark in speech? The funny thing is that they use it even when speaking to males! So I can hear "Ce mai faci, mama?" directed at the guy named Teodor who a few minutes later is called "Teodor-mama" in a conversation.
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AroAro
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Re: AroAro's log Pусский and עברית

Postby AroAro » Fri Sep 10, 2021 6:47 am

WEEKLY UPDATE

Russian - I'm halfway through my graded reader and I like working with it a lot. I listened to 7 episodes from russianpodcast.eu and these episodes are getting more and more challenging, which is a good thing.

Hebrew - doing the lesson 20 from the coursebook, mastered 756 words from Memrise. I also listen to the radio Kol Reshet Bet and my listening comprehension is still pretty much non-existant at this point. I understand some lone words or simple phrases but can never really deduct what they are saying. There is still a long road ahead of me! An interesting thing I noticed - some internationalisms usually ending in English in -tion, are pronounced in Hebrew as "צְיָה" just like in Polish, for example "regulation"="רֶגוּלַצְיָה"="regulacja". But I think these loan words are not really widespread because as far as I can see Hebrew possesses a lot of native words for such concepts.

Other - I finished "Время секонд хэнд" and now I'm reading another non-fiction book in Polish but this one is quite boring. I also revived my habit of listening to podcasts in my maintenance languages while working, so each day of the week is assigned to one of the five languages.
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AroAro
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Re: AroAro's log Pусский and עברית

Postby AroAro » Fri Sep 17, 2021 7:22 am

WEEKLY UPDATE

Russian - I'm still going through my graded reader and I think my vocabulary is slowly expanding - this week I encountered some of the new words in the podcasts I listen to. I tried to listen to "Что это было?" based on the recommendation by Radioclare but it's still above my level so I'll stick to russianpodcast.eu. The episodes I've been listening to are in fact interviews with people coming from or visiting different parts of Russia or Russian-speaking countries, so they're quite exciting and there is a lot to learn from them.

Hebrew - I'm doing the lesson 23. I had a nice moment of "epiphany" when I listened to the lesson 20 and I could actually understand most of it - the text was about the revival of Hebrew by Eliezer Ben-Yehuda. I was already acquainted with the topic so that definitely helped a lot to understand what they were saying. I think I also finally internalized the conjugation of the past tense, at least for the most common verbs that you come across in the course books. And overall, I have to admit that learning Hebrew brings me joy again, after a few hard months when it felt like a chore. And Memrise - 797 words learnt.

Other - so now it's time to read a book in Italian, honestly I didn't know which one to choose - not because there are so many books I'd like to read in Italian but rather because I was slightly deceived with the few books in Italian I've read so far. I intended to read Elena Ferrante's "L'Amica Geniale" - so many people adored it so there must be something about it. The problem is that the Kindle version on Amazon is currently unavailable which is strange because I can buy the translations of the book into French, Spanish or Dutch but not the original Italian version. Maybe it has something to do with copyrights? I'm always puzzled that it's actually easier to buy a paper book anywhere in the world and have it shipped to your location than buying an ebook. In the end, I'm going to read Tiziano Terzani "La porta proibita", I like non-fiction literature so I will probably like this one as well.

Yiddish - I'm vaguely intrested in this language so I listened to some episodes from yiddish24.com mentioned in guyome's log and I thought my knowledge of German would allow me to understand something but in all honesty, I could only make out some German sounding words here and there and that's it. The script however is easy to decipher because in Yiddish the vowels are consistently marked at all times, contrary to Hebrew. I wanted to check what learning materials are out there but it turns out there is only one book for Polish speakers published in 1995 by Jagiellonian University and of course it is out of print (but I downloaded a pdf version). I'm not so naive and I understand that people don't learn massively Yiddish nowadays but still, I expected to discover more resources for this language given the fact that there were millions of Yiddish speakers before WWII and Poland was an important cradle of Yiddish culture with booming Yiddish cinema, not to mention the fact that most of Isaac B.Singer's books are set in Poland. Alas, it simply is not the case. There are online courses provided by the Jewish Theater in Warsaw (which happens to be one of the two theaters in Europe that hold a permanent repertoire in Yiddish) but they use their own materials created by their lecturers. By the way, these courses are partially funded by the Ministry of Interior, probably because Yiddish is a recognized minority language since 2009 (I didn't even know that!).

Ending on a positive note, there is some interest in Yiddish culture today, you can listen here to a beautiful Yiddish love song interpreted by a young Polish singer.
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guyome
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Re: AroAro's log Pусский and עברית

Postby guyome » Mon Sep 20, 2021 8:36 am

Like you, I am a bit surprised that no other Polish textbook for Yiddish exists. The Soviet period was of course not very conductive to this sort of things but I would have expected for at least a few textbooks to have been published since the 90s.
I'm vaguely intrested in this language so I listened to some episodes from yiddish24.com mentioned in guyome's log and I thought my knowledge of German would allow me to understand something but in all honesty, I could only make out some German sounding words here and there and that's it.
I guess you'd get a lot more after getting even a little bit acquainted with the regular sound changes between Yiddish and Modern Standard German. Knowing a few common words and grammatical differences would also carry you a long way.

Nevertheless, I think it is true that Hasidic Yiddish (which is what you hear on Yiddish24) is on average slightly more challenging than Yiddish coming from other sources. I can think of a couple of reasons (just my gut feeling here, others may disagree):
- all male speakers are familiar with loshn-koydesh (Hebrew/Aramaic), which means you can get a lot more of it in their speech
- Hasidic Yiddish is a living tongue, spoken by all kinds of native speakers in all kinds of contexts, while Yiddish in secular contexts now often tends to assume the status of a Holy Tongue, i.e. something to be revered, preserved, and spoken with a due sense of respect. When you add to the mix that nowadays secular speakers can be non-native speakers and that secular Yiddish is often limited to "ceremonial" contexts (talks, conferences,...), you get a Yiddish that may be spoken more slowly and clearly, adhering more closely to standard spelling and grammar.

All this is, of course, just in broad strokes. It does justice neither to Hasidic nor to Yiddish spoken in secular contexts.

If you want to listen to more of Yiddish24, podcasts by Pinchas Glauber (such as גוט-געפרעגט and על רגל אחת) are maybe somewhat easier to follow than others.
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AroAro
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Re: AroAro's log Pусский and עברית

Postby AroAro » Thu Sep 23, 2021 11:23 am

Thank you guyome for your thourough analysis!

guyome wrote:If you want to listen to more of Yiddish24, podcasts by Pinchas Glauber (such as גוט-געפרעגט and על רגל אחת) are maybe somewhat easier to follow than others.


I finally had time to listen to the podcasts by Pinchas Glauber you recommended and indeed, it seems he speaks slower and more distinctly and as such these podcasts were "easier", which means I recognized more lone words than previously and I even understood the gist of one episode - it was about spaceflights if I'm not mistaken. He used some English terminology and I heard the name of Elon Musk so that was a no-brainer ;) but all in all, I'm realizing now that Yiddish is a distinct language and one doesn't get it for free just by knowing German. But I'm definitely adding these podcasts to my list of rerources for Yiddish and will use them when I finally start learning the language.
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