Learning by reading

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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 May 16, 2022 8:06 am

Week 19:
Business as usual...

French:
Still going strong with Assimil. Finished lesson 54 and lesson 5 of the active wave. The latter one goes so-so. This morning I woke up remembering a dream where I spoke French fluently. If only...
Listened to an audiobook: Arnaldur Indriðason - La muraille de lave (Black Skies) while reading the Swedish translation - Svart himmel. The book was okay but I strongly disliked the main character, Sigurður Óli. It was read by Jean-Marc Delhausse, who did a good job but his pronunciation of Icelandic names was hilarious! He pronounced them "in French", which sounded very funny, but it probably better than trying (and failing) a proper Icelandic pronunciation.
As usual I read a few more pages of Terry Pratchett - Timbre (Going Postal).

English:
Finished reading Robin Wall Kimmerer - Braiding Sweetgrass. Fascinating book!
Reading Helen Macdonald - Vesper Flights.
4 x
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 May 20, 2022 10:54 am

Oh my goodness! :shock:
I just tried to do lesson 10 of Assimil's second wave. Quel désastre! Lessons 8 and 9 went quite well, but this one...
2 x
Assimil French : 65 / 113
Active wave : 15 / 113

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Le Baron
Black Belt - 3rd Dan
Posts: 3510
Joined: Mon Jan 18, 2021 5:14 pm
Location: Koude kikkerland
Languages: English (N), fr, nl, de, eo, Sranantongo,
Maintaining: es, swahili.
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=18796
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Re: Learning by reading

Postby Le Baron » Fri May 20, 2022 2:01 pm

Nogon wrote:Oh my goodness! :shock:
I just tried to do lesson 10 of Assimil's second wave. Quel désastre! Lessons 8 and 9 went quite well, but this one...

What went wrong?
0 x

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 May 20, 2022 8:55 pm

Oh, I just couldn't remember lots of words. Some - like dishwasher - I don't mind, but there also were (or better weren't, in my brain, that is ;) ) some very basic verbs that just had disappeared. So frustrating!
1 x
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 » Mon May 23, 2022 9:19 am

Week 20:
Assimil takes most of my "foreign language time", so I mostly read in my best languages, mostly nature writing.

French:
Progressed to lessons 61/12 in Assimil. Spending at least 2 hours, more likely 3, each day on Assimil. Is that really worth it?
As usual, I read a few pages of Terry Pratchett - Timbre (Going Postal). I'm now more than half way through it, but there are still 240 pages left, so that will take another few months.

English:
Finished reading Helen Macdonald - Vesper Flights. Liked it.

Swedish:
Read Dave Goulson - Tyst jord. Insekternas framtid är också vår (Silent Earth - Averting the Insect Apocalypse). A great book about environmental destruction, but so depressing. I knew that nature is in bad shape, but it's much worse than I was aware of.
Read Anna-Clara Tidholm - Skogens historia. An illustrated book for adults. Fascinating.

German:
Read Peter Matthiessen - Der Schneeleopard (The Snow Leopard). The description of Nepal's nature was just gorgeous.
8 x
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 » Mon May 30, 2022 5:36 am

Week 21:
Totally lost momentum in language learning. :shock: :(

French:
Haven't done any Assimil these last 3 or 4 days.
No reading in French either, except a few pages of Terry Pratchett - Timbre (Going Postal).

English:
Read Barassa - Teta. A very short novel of little literary merit by an author from Rwanda.
Read Alexander McCall Smith - How to Raise an Elephant. Perfect feel-good literature and exactly what I needed.
Read James Rebanks - A Shepherd's Life. Fascinating book about a sheep farmer in the Lake District in Northern England.

Swedish:
Read Pepetela - Sköldpaddans historia. Not translated into English, I think. Really good novel about life in little village in Angola, far off from the capital or even any slightly larger town. Nevertheless war, that is soldiers, come to the village from time to time, sometimes "our's" sometimes "their's". No matter who, the result is always the same: Women raped, young people forced to join the army, huts burned down, some villagers killed and of course their barns and larders emptied.
Now reading Tomas Bannerhed/Brutus Östling - I starens tid. A bird watcher's diary with gorgeous bird photographies.
6 x
Assimil French : 65 / 113
Active wave : 15 / 113

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MorkTheFiddle
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2114
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 8:59 pm
Location: North Texas USA
Languages: English (N). Read (only) French and Spanish. Studying Ancient Greek. Studying a bit of Latin. Once studied Old Norse. Dabbled in Catalan, Provençal and Italian.
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 11#p133911
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Re: Learning by reading

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Mon May 30, 2022 5:07 pm

Nogon wrote:Week 21:
Read Alexander McCall Smith - How to Raise an Elephant. Perfect feel-good literature and exactly what I needed.
I have read and enjoyed his No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. :)
4 x
Many things which are false are transmitted from book to book, and gain credit in the world. -- attributed to Samuel Johnson

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 May 30, 2022 6:04 pm

MorkTheFiddle wrote:I have read and enjoyed his No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency. :)

I've read most of the books in that series - they are lovely and heart-warming.
3 x
Assimil French : 65 / 113
Active wave : 15 / 113

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jeff_lindqvist
Black Belt - 3rd Dan
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Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=2773
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Re: Learning by reading

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Mon May 30, 2022 8:06 pm

I think the first one or two books in that series were my first LR projects - long before siomettekiru appeared on HTLAL. I came across the books (in Swedish) and got hold of the audiobooks as well (also in Swedish), so it just happened that I chose to listen and read at the same time. For a few years, that was a series I followed with great interest.
4 x
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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
x 1068

Re: Learning by reading

Postby Nogon » Mon Jun 06, 2022 8:01 am

Week 22:
Another week gone by...

French:
No Assimil.
As usual, I read a few pages of a few pages of Terry Pratchett - Timbre (Going Postal). Slooow and steady, I've made it more than two thirds through the book. Another 150 pages to read. I'd be lost without the help of the original though.
Reading Zabus & Hippolyte - Incroyable ! (Incredible!). It's a quite enjoyable graphic novel.

Afrikaans:
Reading Willem D. Koetzé - Voetspoere in die Kalahari. Fascinating tale about the author's childhood in the Kalahari.

Estonian:
"Reading" Martin Widmark - Kirikumõistatus (Kyrkomysteriet).
I just wanted to know how much I would be able to understand of a book translated to Estonian with just the help of a tiny dictionary and lots of time. (A grammar would be helpful, but the library only had one, a very old one written in German. I started to read it, but gave up soon, as it wasn't giving me the overview I had hoped for. Instead it went down every rabbithole it could find - and there seem to be many in Estonian. Thouroughness sometimes isn't what one needs.) So I take each word and try to find the headword in the dictionary, which isn't easy all the time, but I'm getting better. Still sometimes it's impossible to understand a sentence even after checking (or trying to check) all its words as there might be too many I can't identify. Luckily I have borrowed the original as well to help me where help is needed (which is, almost all the time).

English:
Read Aesop - The Complete Fables.

Swedish:
Finished reading Tomas Bannerhed/Brutus Östling - I starens tid. Those photographies! Gorgeous!!!
Read Marie Dacke - Taggad att leva. Igelkottens liv, historiska resa och hotade framtid. An interesting book about hedgehogs.
Read Johan Eklöf/Jens Rydell - Fladdermöss. I en värld av ekon (Bats. In a World of echoes). About, well, bats. Fascinating!

German:
Read Peter Wohlleben - Das geheime Leben der Bäume (The Hidden Life of the Trees).
5 x
Assimil French : 65 / 113
Active wave : 15 / 113


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