Week 15:Spring's here for sure! Spent most of the week in a park or in the Botanic garden, reading. Which implies reading books in my better languages, which I can read without a dictionary. When at home, I studied some French Assimil.
French:
Read a few pages of
Massa Makan Diabaté - Le lieutenant de Kouta and
Terry Pratchett - Timbre (
Going Postal).
Re-started Assimil's Französisch ohne Mühe
.
A few words about my French learning history:
9 or 10 years ago I took several (I think 5) one week intensive classes which were just great. Fantastic teacher, who really wanted us to learn as much as possible and students who were eager to do so. Unfortunately then there were problems with the school and the classes didn't continue. No French happened for the next few years until I somewhere heard about Duolingo (that was in 2016, I believe). Started the French tree, switched over to Esperanto (and some other languages) and got fed up with Duolingo quite soon. Found this (or was it the old?) forum and learned about Assimil (in 2017). Ordered the French one, studied eagerly one lesson per day on to lesson 31, when there came one of those dreaded telephone calls from my brother: "Mom is in intensive care; not sure whether she'll make it." I of course travelled to Germany immediately, without the Assimil book and CD's. Returning, I unfortunately didn't resume my studies. (My mom, by the way, being a tough old lady made it even that time. She died at home two years later when I was visiting her, luckily before Covid.)
I read a few childrens' books though, and then paused French for a few years. Came back to reading in French about two years ago, starting with very easy childrens' books. (I recommend the
LasseMaja books for all people starting to read a in foreign language. They are translated to many languages and belong to the best books in their area - which is books for children who just have learned to read.)
So except the classes and some Assimil I've never studied French properly, so my knowledge of its grammar is quite hazy. I'll try to change that now.
I also borrowed the first of the "Grammaire Progressive" books but haven't started it yet.
English:
Finished
Ali Smith - Summer. I absolutely love her "Seasonal quartet"! As I had read the first part,
Autumn, several years ago, and didn't remember it well, I re-read it too.
Further readings:
Robert Macfarlane - Ness, Stephen Kelman - Pigeon English and
Diana Wynne Jones - Earwig and the Witch.
Now reading
Rachel Carson - Silent Spring.
Swedish:
Read
Hiromi Kawakami - Senseis portfölj (
Strange Weather in Tokyo) and
Niki Sjölund - Vildplockat (about wild edible plants).
German:
Helen Humphreys - Der vergessene Garten (
The Lost Garden). By far the worst book I hitherto read this year!
Now reading
Herta Müller - Atemschaukel (
The Hunger Angel), which is breath-taking!