Learning by reading

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språker
Yellow Belt
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Location: Vilnius, Lithuania
Languages: Swedish (N), English (C1), German (B2), French (A2), Lithuanian (B1 -- studying)
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Re: Learning by reading

Postby språker » Mon Feb 28, 2022 10:22 pm

Nogon wrote:Listened to the firs The first chapter (Bilbo's birthday party) was quite difficult, loaded with unknown words, but the second - Gandalf and Frodo talking about the ring - was much easier.

Interestingly, this is where I am at, reading LOTR in Lithuanian. I managed to get through The Hobbit in the autumn, and started with the first book of LOTR some weeks ago. I am mainly listening though, repeating each chapter until I understand the plot, then some more. Just stated with the third chapter.
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Nogon
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Languages: German (N), Swedish (C), English (?), French (A2), Esperanto (A2). Reading Danish, Norwegian, Dutch, Afrikaans. Wanting to learn Polish, Yiddish
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=16039
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Re: Learning by reading

Postby Nogon » Sun Mar 13, 2022 8:21 am

Weeks 9 & 10:
Tried to ignore international politics and dived deep into books, mostly shallow ones (if that is possible ;) ).

French:
Read Kim Thúy - em. I read it parallel in French and Swedish. I usually appreciate her books, but this one I didn't like it as much, partly due to its main theme, the Vietnam war. I did some additional reading about the war, but had to stop due to additional atrocities I didn't know about.
Read Hergé - Les 7 boules de cristal (The Seven Cristal Ballls) and L'ile noire (The Black Island).
Now reading Selma Lagerlöf - Le violon du fou (The Tale of a Manor). Also this one I read parallel in French and Swedish. I can follow the plot just reading the French translation, but the story is much richer than just the plot. I remember this stage from learning Swedish. I thought I understood "everything" and only realised years later, when re-reading books, that there was much more to them.

Afrikaans:
Read Hergé - De stukkende oor (The Broken Ear).
Now reading André Brink - Bidsprinkaan (Praying Mantis). Quite many years ago, I read the English book (Brink wrote his books in both Afrikaans and English, so one can't say that one is the translation of the other, I believe), and liked it. Now I'm reading the books parallel for better understanding.

English:
Read P. G. Wodehouse - Service with a Smile. I love the "Uncle Fred" books, and this one didn't disappoint me :lol: . Encountered some new words and phrases ("messuage" for example), but nothing I couldn't guess through the context.
Read Edward Parker - Ash. An interesting book about ashes (the trees, not the remains of burnt matter).
Now reading Arthur Ransome - Swallowdale. I knew about Ransome being one of the "classic" English children's books writers, but had never read his books. Unfortunately the first book in the series wasn't available at the library, so I borrowed the second.

Swedish:
Read Viktor Rydberg - Vapensmeden (The Armorer), a classic historic novel written in 1891 but taking place in the 1520's. Some unknown (but not unguessable) words, mostly related to middle-age warfare, most of which probably even most born-and-bred Swedes don't know. At least I didn't find the words in any of my paper dictionaries but had to refer to Svenska Akademins Ordbok.
Read Lars-Olof Franzén - Agaton Sax och Det gamla pipskägget (Agaton Sax and the Scotland Yard Mystery). Funny children's book.
Read Jean-Yves Ferri/Didier Conrad - Asterix och gripen (Asterix and the Griffin). Okay, but no must-read.

German:
Read Amos Oz - Geschichten aus Tel Ilan (Scenes from Village Life). I love his books; this was one of his best.
Last edited by Nogon on Mon Apr 11, 2022 9:26 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Nogon
Green Belt
Posts: 305
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Languages: German (N), Swedish (C), English (?), French (A2), Esperanto (A2). Reading Danish, Norwegian, Dutch, Afrikaans. Wanting to learn Polish, Yiddish
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=16039
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Re: Learning by reading

Postby Nogon » Mon Mar 14, 2022 8:33 pm

Language learning in the book I've been reading:
She [...] had another go at the book. She had a pretty firm hold on J'ai, tu as, il a but was still muddled with avais and aviez and avaient and lost hope altogether when it came to eus, eut, eûmes, and eurent.

Luckily the Amazons' long awaited attack happened at that point and the protagonist was forced to interrupt her studies, not to resume them again until the end of the book. :D
(From Arthur Ransome - Swallowdale)
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Nogon
Green Belt
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Languages: German (N), Swedish (C), English (?), French (A2), Esperanto (A2). Reading Danish, Norwegian, Dutch, Afrikaans. Wanting to learn Polish, Yiddish
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=16039
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Re: Learning by reading

Postby Nogon » Mon Mar 21, 2022 8:14 am

Week 11:
Quite a good week. Should do some proper studying though.

French:
Finished reading Selma Lagerlöf - Le violon du fou (The Tale of a Manor). Should re-read Lagerlöf's works in the original - they are worth it.
Read the first few pages of Terry Pratchett - Timbre (Going Postal), one of my favourite Discworld books. Knowing the book very well, understanding the pages was easier than expected. I'm sure though that I'll miss Pratchett's frequent plays on words. Funny that the jailer Mr Wilkinson became monsieur Gillette in French. :D

Afrikaans:
Still reading André Brink - Bidsprinkaan (Praying Mantis). Interestingly the Afrikaans and the English texts are not identical. There are some additional words/sentences/paragraphs in the English version, which I only noticed because my reading the books parallell, first a chapter in Afrikaans and then the same in English.

Polish:
Listening/reading J. R. R. Tolkien - Władca Pierścieni: Drużyna Pierścienia (The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring). Unfortunately the YouTube channel I'm listening to only has the first 12 chapters of part 1. I like the reader's voice very much, better than that of another channel I found.
Still haven't restarted the Polish Assimil :roll: .

English:
Finished Arthur Ransome - Swallowdale. What a pity that I didn't know the Swallows & Amazons books when I was a child. I would have loved them!
Read Brian Selznick - The Marvels, a novel partly told in pictures, partly in words. Didn't like it as much as the person recommending it to me. Won't read Selznick's other works.
Reading Mo Yan - POW!. Can't say much yet as I'm only about 20 pages into the book.
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User avatar
språker
Yellow Belt
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Re: Learning by reading

Postby språker » Wed Mar 23, 2022 3:54 pm

Nogon wrote:Polish:
Listening/reading J. R. R. Tolkien - Władca Pierścieni: Drużyna Pierścienia (The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring). Unfortunately the YouTube channel I'm listening to only has the first 12 chapters of part 1. I like the reader's voice very much, better than that of another channel I found.

Maybe this: https://audioteka.com/pl/audiobook/wladca-pierscieni-druzyna-pierscienia-t1? I checked, as I got my Lithuanian narration from Audioteka.
4 x

Nogon
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Posts: 305
Joined: Sat May 13, 2017 6:21 pm
Languages: German (N), Swedish (C), English (?), French (A2), Esperanto (A2). Reading Danish, Norwegian, Dutch, Afrikaans. Wanting to learn Polish, Yiddish
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=16039
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Re: Learning by reading

Postby Nogon » Wed Mar 23, 2022 4:10 pm

Thank you, @språker!
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Cosimo
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Languages: I speak Italian.
I'm trying to learn UK English
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Re: Learning by reading

Postby Cosimo » Thu Mar 24, 2022 12:36 pm

I'm been reading a book in english lenguage and I noted that, I can understending the general speech but I don't be able to understanding the single word... I'm little confused about it :x

p.s.
I'm Italian mother tongue
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Nogon
Green Belt
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Joined: Sat May 13, 2017 6:21 pm
Languages: German (N), Swedish (C), English (?), French (A2), Esperanto (A2). Reading Danish, Norwegian, Dutch, Afrikaans. Wanting to learn Polish, Yiddish
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=16039
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Re: Learning by reading

Postby Nogon » Mon Mar 28, 2022 9:08 am

Week 12:
Spring!

French:
Read a few more pages of Terry Pratchett - Timbre (Going Postal). Understanding without dictionary or original is so-so. Some sentences/paragraphs pose no problem at all, others contain several unknown words.
Read Georges Simenon - Le pendu de Saint-Pholien (The Hanged Man of Saint-Pholien). Recently it felt like I wasn't progressing at all in French, but I indeed have! This book was much easier to read and demanded much less checks in the dictionary compared to the previous Maigret novel I read. I'm so happy! :D

Polish:
Listened/read another 3 chapters of J. R. R. Tolkien - Władca Pierścieni: Drużyna Pierścienia (The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring). I more and more like the sound of the Polish language.
Still no Assimil.

Afrikaans:
Continued reading André Brink - Bidsprinkaan (Praying Mantis). I had read it in English in 2007 - I have forgotten most of it, but one scene I still remembered very clear: The protagonist's wife making soap :D . I love descriptions of people doing their work.

English:
Read Mo Yan - Pow! Fascinating, although... I've never read a book with so many people vomiting. If you'd like to become a vegetarian but have a hard time to abstain from meat, read this book!
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Assimil French : 65 / 113
Active wave : 15 / 113

Nogon
Green Belt
Posts: 305
Joined: Sat May 13, 2017 6:21 pm
Languages: German (N), Swedish (C), English (?), French (A2), Esperanto (A2). Reading Danish, Norwegian, Dutch, Afrikaans. Wanting to learn Polish, Yiddish
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=16039
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Re: Learning by reading

Postby Nogon » Fri Apr 01, 2022 9:07 pm

First day of German lessons at a Swedish school in the early 1940's. The teacher's introduction to German:
La grammaire est la base même de cette langue, explique-t-elle. Il est impossible d'apprendre l'allemand sans maîtriser perfaitement sa grammaire. Cela signifie qu'il est pour vous indispensable de fournir un travail important. Mes course exigent de l'effort. À la fin du semestre, vous devrez être capables de réciter sans hésitation les prépositions suivies du datif ou de l'accusatif même si je vous le demande au beau milieu de la nuit, Sinon, je ne vous accorderai pas la moyenne. Me suis-je bien fait comprendre?

Happy learning!

Some weeks later:
À présent, plus personne n'ignore ce qu'est un datif et un accusatif et toutes sont capables de débiter les prépositions sans réfléchir. "An, auf, hinter, in, neben, über, unter, vor und zwischen." Elles les récitent à l'unisson pendant que Mlle Krantz tape le rythme sur la table avec sa baguette.


From Annika Thor - L'étang aux nénuphars (Lily Pond; Swedish original Näckrosdammen)
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Assimil French : 65 / 113
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Nogon
Green Belt
Posts: 305
Joined: Sat May 13, 2017 6:21 pm
Languages: German (N), Swedish (C), English (?), French (A2), Esperanto (A2). Reading Danish, Norwegian, Dutch, Afrikaans. Wanting to learn Polish, Yiddish
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=16039
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Re: Learning by reading

Postby Nogon » Mon Apr 04, 2022 8:06 am

Week 13:
Spring???

French:
Read Annika Thor - L'étang aux nénuphars (Lily Pond; Swedish original Näckrosdammen). Second part of a series of children's book about two Jewish girls from Vienna fleeing to Sweden in 1939 and their life there. The books became quite popular and were acclaimed by critics as well (the first one was awarded the "Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis"), but I think that was for the story itself, not for the books' literary merits. It was a very easy read.
Read a few more pages of Terry Pratchett - Timbre (Going Postal).
Not sure what to read next.

Afrikaans:
Finished reading André Brink - Bidsprinkaan (Praying Mantis). Interesting book.

English:
Read Ali Smith - Winter. Great book! Looking forward to reading Spring and Summer.

Swedish:
Read Nils-Olof Franzén - Agaton Sax och Byköpings gästabud (Agaton Sax and the Criminal Doubles). Hilarious! :mrgreen:
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