Little by little (TUR, DUT, ITA, FRE)

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Caromarlyse
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Languages: English (N), French (C1-ish), German (B2/C1-ish), Russian (B1-ish), Portuguese (B1-ish), Welsh (complete beginner), Spanish (in hibernation)
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Re: Little by little (TUR, DUT, ITA, FRE)

Postby Caromarlyse » Tue Mar 01, 2022 9:30 am

I had exactly the same reaction to US crimes on Chroniques Criminelles! I didn't enjoy listening and won't choose to listen to another of that type of episode.
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Sonjaconjota
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Location: Barcelona
Languages: German (N) - English, Spanish, Catalan (advanced) - French, Dutch, Italian (intermediate) - Turkish (beginner)
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Re: Little by little (TUR, DUT, ITA, FRE)

Postby Sonjaconjota » Sun Mar 13, 2022 8:08 am

So, language learning (at least desk study time) is definitely taking a backseat right now.
I didn’t have as much work as usual in 2020 and 2021 and got relaxed about my working rhythm. But things seem to pick up again, which means I should concentrate on work and dedicate less time (and mental energy) to languages.
But still … some very exciting things have been happening this month!
First I had another chance encounter with a Turkish native speaker. At a birthday party I met a young lady from Turkey and exchanged a couple of sentences with her. I was less nervous than last time, which might have been due to the gin tonics that were served … It also turns out that being able to speak Turkish is a good party trick, because the moment I opened my mouth, the room fell silent and everybody stared at me. :-)
A couple of days later I had another occasion to “speak” with the friendly Turkish waiter in the café next to my dance school. His name is Emre, I’m not going to forget it this time!
Then, maybe inspired by these two encounters, I decided to go to a “Meetup” language exchange meeting here in Barcelona.
I had seen by chance that they were organising it, because it takes places at the cafeteria of the train station Estació de França, where I saw a poster when I went to a dance event. I had wanted to go since November, but had always found an excuse, because it’s a bit far from where I live. This time, I actually made it there.
The cafeteria is huge, but somehow I calculated on maybe 20 or 30 people. Actually … there were about 150 in the end! I didn’t expect anything like that at all, it was absolutely incredible.
(I was also thinking about the forum and about Iversen talking about his local language exchange, where often only one or two people show up. I have so many friends who want to go and live in the countryside, but I feel blessed to live in a big city.)
The funniest thing about the event: The young Turkish lady from the birthday party was there as well!
I managed to speak all of my target languages.
I’m an introvert and often get lost in groups, but it was all very easygoing and dynamic, with people changing group and conversation constantly, so you wouldn’t be stuck with someone awkward for a long time. I left the place very happy and giddy.
I’m definitely doing that again, and they are organising three meetings per week, so I’ll have ample occasion.
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Sonjaconjota
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Languages: German (N) - English, Spanish, Catalan (advanced) - French, Dutch, Italian (intermediate) - Turkish (beginner)
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Re: Little by little (TUR, DUT, ITA, FRE)

Postby Sonjaconjota » Wed Mar 30, 2022 4:40 pm

March 2022
So, I basically stopped studying actively a couple of weeks ago.
My social life is picking up again, there’s work, there are things around the house to do, health-related commitments … It all got a bit too much, and in order to reduce stress and pressure I was putting on myself, one day I just packed most of my language learning books into two big boxes and put them into storage.
My Turkish course is one of the few resources I’ve kept in my study, and I’ll just work on it whenever I feel like it, hoping to finally finish my review.
Next week I’m going on holiday in France for some days, and afterwards I’m going to assess how I feel and how I want to proceed with the whole language learning thing.

Things I did in March 2022:

I watched the film Conlanging on Reelhouse.

Dutch
- I finished listening to In de ban van de ring – De terugkeer van de koning.
- I read some chapters of the novel De Hindi-Bindi Club (a translation from English to Dutch).
- I watched
Kruimeltje
Meskina

the last episodes of season 1 of Smeris

French
- I listened to several episodes of Chroniques Criminelles, Histoires Vraies and Histoires vraies – Meurtres en France.
- I watched 8 Rue de l’Humanité (Meh!).
- I read Maigret – L’affaire Saint-Fiacre.

Italian
- I watched (and enjoyed every single minute of)
Guida astrologica per cuori infranti, season 2
Il filo invisibile
Fedeltà


Turkish
- I watched
Kimya (Not really my thing, but I recommend it if you are interested in filmmaking, because the camera work is quite creative.)
Sen Yaşamaya Bak
- I started the revision of part 11 of my course, but didn’t get very far.
Last edited by Sonjaconjota on Tue May 31, 2022 3:41 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Sonjaconjota
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Location: Barcelona
Languages: German (N) - English, Spanish, Catalan (advanced) - French, Dutch, Italian (intermediate) - Turkish (beginner)
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Re: Little by little (TUR, DUT, ITA, FRE)

Postby Sonjaconjota » Sun May 01, 2022 7:37 pm

April 2022
So, my short trip to the South of France was a bit weird.
It made me question some things: My passion for travelling, my way of travelling and even my love for France.
I had some nice moments as well, but just let me mention that the sad highlight of my trip was a bored kid playing in the street throwing a plank of wood in my direction.
Interestingly, my love for the French language is still strong, maybe even stronger.
I studied a lot during my trip and could keep up the motivation for it when back home.

French
- I worked through 10 grammar topics.
- I watched
L’Étoile du Nord
Épouse-moi mon pote
La famille Bélier
Forte
Mixte
(Loved it so much!)
Mission Pays Basque
Destins – Romy Schneider, Michel Berger

- I bought the childrens’ book Le manoir aux mystère by Luc Blanvillain and started reading it to work on the present tense. (The different forms of it always confuse me, but I learnt quickly that apart from être and avoir, the regular verbs ending in -er really are the most frequent ones.)
- I listened to 3 episodes of Aujourd‘hui l’histoire (a Canadian podcast), a couple of episodes of Chroniques Criminelles and Crimes – Histoires vraies. I also started to listen to Les trois mosquetaires on LibriVox.

Dutch
- I read a couple of chapters of De Hindi-Bindi Club.
- I listened to the short podcast series De moord op de duivenmelker.
- I tried out the podcast Alle geschiedenis ooit, but it was a bit too chatty for my taste. I might come back to it in the future, though.
- I watched
Fashion Chicks
Huisvrouwen bestaan niet

some episodes of season two of Smeris

Italian
- I listened to
Storie di crimini e deliti (podcast with five episodes)
- I started the audiobook Il suggeritore by Donato Carrisi.

Turkish
- I watched
UFO
A couple of episodes of Pera Palas'ta Gece Yarısı
- When I came back from France, I was actually motivated to start studying Turkish actively again, but life got in the way. This is the only goal I have for May: finally getting back into the swing of it.
Last edited by Sonjaconjota on Tue May 31, 2022 3:42 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Sonjaconjota
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Languages: German (N) - English, Spanish, Catalan (advanced) - French, Dutch, Italian (intermediate) - Turkish (beginner)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 24#p192024
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Re: Little by little (TUR, DUT, ITA, FRE)

Postby Sonjaconjota » Tue May 31, 2022 3:38 pm

May 2022
I can’t actually believe it myself, but … I finished the revision of part 11 of my Turkish course for beginners!
May was nearly over, and I was quite frustrated that I had again let so much time pass without having as much as a look at Turkish. But then I thought “Hey, the month is not yet over!”. So I put in about 10 hours of work during the last 4 days of the month, and finished it. So happy, and now I’m really motivated to review part 12, be done with it and give myself permission to finally use the shiny new Turkish resources that are waiting for me, or maybe concentrate on another language (Italian?) for a while.

Dutch
- I finished reading De Hindi-Bindi Club.
- I watched
season 2 of Smeris
Doris
De hel van ‘63 (wonderful work of the costume department, some of the most beautiful sweaters I’ve ever seen in a film)
- I took one conversation class on italki.

French
- I watched Christmas Flow.
- I finished reading Le manoir aux mystère, which was quite enjoyable.
It’s not superdifficult, but because it’s a book for children, I found it interesting that the vocabulary seems more complex to me than in my usual Maigret-books.
This, for example, threw me completely off-track: sur un raidillon jonché d’éboulis qui tordent les chevilles.
- As usual, I listened to a couple of episodes of Chroniques Criminelles and Crimes – Histoires vraies.
- I gave up on Les trois mousquetaires on LibriVox. I could swear that I’ve read this book at least once in my youth (in German), but it doesn’t really interest me a lot. Much worse though: The LibriVox-app was giving me problems and stopping the recording every five minutes or so just to restart at the beginning of the chapter when I pressed play again. I wanted to listen to it in the background while cooking or ironing, and constantly having to find the spot where it left off just spoilt the little fun I had with it.
- I took one conversation class on italki.

Italian
- I finished the audiobook Il suggeritore by Donato Carrisi. This thriller is a bit weird, because it’s written by an Italian, but set in the USA (I guess). It’s also not remotely realistic, but that’s okay. I enjoyed it enough to buy the following audiobook, L’ipotesi del male. I’ve already started to listen to it.
- I watched
Una casa nel cuore
season 3 of Summertime (A completely unnecessary season with a “same old, same old”-storyline, but in a beautiful summer setting with beautiful young people, so I’m not complaining.)

Turkish
- I finished the revision of part 11 of my course.
- I watched the rest of season 1 of Pera Palas’ta Gece Yarisi
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Lawyer&Mom
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Re: Little by little (TUR, DUT, ITA, FRE)

Postby Lawyer&Mom » Tue May 31, 2022 7:48 pm

Delighted to see another fan of Guida astrologica per cuori infranti. I watched in French dub, but I’m tempted to watch again in Italian just because!

You mentioned before reading a kid’s book in Catalan, but I’m curious, do you speak/study Spanish? Or is that language such a part of your life that you don’t study it anymore? Do you read Spanish books? How does Spanish fit into your language life?
1 x
Grammaire progressive du français -
niveau debutant
: 60 / 60

Grammaire progressive du francais -
intermédiaire
: 25 / 52

Pimsleur French 1-5
: 3 / 5

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Sonjaconjota
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Re: Little by little (TUR, DUT, ITA, FRE)

Postby Sonjaconjota » Wed Jun 01, 2022 5:21 am

Lawyer&Mom wrote:You mentioned before reading a kid’s book in Catalan, but I’m curious, do you speak/study Spanish? Or is that language such a part of your life that you don’t study it anymore? Do you read Spanish books? How does Spanish fit into your language life?

Hm, this question is a bit tricky, because it involves more than just language. My answer is quite autobiographical (and verbose!). I just hope I won’t offend anyone.
Long answer:
When I first did a two-year introductory course to Spanish in school in Germany, it was a language that felt kind of cool and “exotic”. French was a common school subject, but not many people studied Spanish at that time in my area.
Then I spent my gap year in Barcelona and learned to really speak Spanish through language classes and immersion. It was the language that I used every day during probably the most exciting year of my life, a year in which I lived in a big city for the first time, went to discos for the first time and met my boyfriend.
After that I went back to Germany to go to university. We formed a group of friends who had chosen the same study path, among them several who shared my enthusiasm for anything Spanish. So, we talked about the books we had to read for class, went to the movies together to see every new film that came out in Spanish etc.
Then I moved to Barcelona, and … gradually changed from speaking Spanish to speaking Catalan with everybody, even my boyfriend. In the beginning, it was all about being excited about a new language, and also about wanting to fit in. Being able to speak Catalan and sounding nearly native-like has opened many doors to me. Most Catalans are absolutely willing to change to Spanish, but it is always an extra step, there seems to remain a bit of emotional distance. (This is how I personally perceive it, others might see it differently.)
And then, over time, when I felt more and more part of Catalan society, language acquired a political dimension as well.
So, apart from occasional translation work, by now I only use Spanish when I speak with some foreign friends here in Barcelona, and sometimes with shopkeepers or waiters.
I don’t usually read any books in Spanish, although that’s more because I usually choose English when reading for fun.
I would probably benefit from some grammar revision, but I don’t feel the need for it.
So, that’s it, short answer: No, I never study any Spanish.
Interestingly, even though I completely neglect it, it still feels like my strongest TL when considering all aspects of the language.
My speaking is a bit more fluent in Catalan, and my spoken Spanish is heavily influenced by Catalan. But written Catalan is complex, so my written Spanish is way better.
I’d also say that I have a bigger passive vocabulary in English.
But Spanish is the only language that I concentrated on exclusively for a whole year of my life, the only one that I have both spoken in the streets and used in an academic context at university. So, yeah, still going strong.
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Sonjaconjota
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Re: Little by little (TUR, DUT, ITA, FRE)

Postby Sonjaconjota » Thu Jun 16, 2022 7:22 am

Hi! I’m posting this here because I’ve seen that the swap shop is only for physical books.
Through my work, I regularly get legal download links for books and audio books translated to German that I don’t really have any use for.
I would like to offer these to someone who could benefit from them.
This time I have the audio book to Jenny Colgan: Ein neuer Sommer in der kleinen Bäckerei, defined as light entertainment “for women”. It’s part 4 of a series, but you don’t have to know the first books to understand the story.
Please send me a private message if you are interested.
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Sonjaconjota
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Re: Little by little (TUR, DUT, ITA, FRE)

Postby Sonjaconjota » Thu Jun 30, 2022 6:07 am

June 2022
Still mainly in maintenance mode.
One thing has become obvious to me: If I want to consume a lot of content, it is nice to have a couple of go-to resources in the form of series, be it books, shows or audio books/podcasts.
For French, I have my Maigret books and crime podcasts and just start one of them when I want some extra French.
For Italian, I have often had good luck with netflix shows.
Turkish is complicated, but I’m actually not yet at a level at which I'd benefit a lot from content.
My main problem is Dutch, I just don’t find things that I get really hooked on.
At least I realized that I can listen to the rest of the Percy Jackson series in Dutch. I listened to the first book in Dutch, couldn’t find the second one in Dutch, so I changed to Italian for book two and three. Now I have noticed that Kobo Rakuten only lacked the second one and has all the rest in Dutch, so I’m going to use these books for the time being as my go-to listening resource.

Dutch
- I watched
Tuintje in mijn hart
Zaman
(which I found boring and pointless)
F*ck de liefde 2
- I started listening to Percy Jackson 4 – De strijd om het labyrint

French
- I read one Maigret book: L’ombre chinoise
- I watched
Les Goûts et les Couleurs
Un jour, un destin - Jacques Brel, une vie a mille temps
- I listened to several episodes of the podcast Histoires Vraies - Crimes

Italian
- I listened to Donato Carrisi: L’ipotesi del male
- I took one conversation class on italki.
- I started reading Tutto è ritmo, tutto è swing, a non-fiction book about the history of swing music and dancing in Italy. I do not read a lot of non-fiction, but for me as a swing dancer, this is right up my alley.
- I watched
Solo cose belle
Bar Guiseppe
(which I thought would be kind of similar, but was much darker)

Turkish
- I started the review of part 12 (the last one!) of my Turkish course.
- I watched
Çarsı pazar
Aşkın Kıyameti
Hayat Öpücügü
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Sonjaconjota
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Languages: German (N) - English, Spanish, Catalan (advanced) - French, Dutch, Italian (intermediate) - Turkish (beginner)
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Re: Little by little (TUR, DUT, ITA, FRE)

Postby Sonjaconjota » Sun Jul 31, 2022 10:08 am

July 2022

Dutch
- I finished listening to Percy Jackson 4 – De strijd om het labyrint.
- I started reading Het loon van de angst, a thriller by John Rickards, translated from English to Dutch.
- I took one conversation class on italki.

French
After not especially enjoying my last trip to France, I tried again and was very successful this time: I travelled to Lyon for a swing dance festival. I loved this clean, elegant city, and the festival was everything I had hoped for: It was a small local event, and all the other participants were French, so I spoke exclusively French from Friday to Sunday.
At the intermediate plateau, it is sometimes difficult to gauge progress, especially if you invest as little time as I do.
But on this occasion, I noticed a huge difference: I spent a week in Paris at the end of 2018 and talked with some locals at dance events there. It was sometimes difficult for me to understand them. At that point, I was able to listen to an audio book, but everyday speech at normal speed was sometimes a bit challenging.
Now I was able to follow without a problem, even in a setting where several people around a table were talking with each other. When there was a word here and there that I didn’t get, I was able to ask for this precise expression and understand the explanation.
So, Lyon was very, very satisfying. All the input and the occasional italki classes have really paid off.
- I listened to one episode of Chroniques Criminelles.
- I took one conversation class on italki.

Italian
- I watched
Sotto il sole di Amalfi
Dafne

- I finished reading Tutto è ritmo, tutto è swing. It was bit drier than I had hoped for, but I read it to the end.

Turkish
- An acquaintance brought me into contact with a lovely young lady from Istanbul who’s living in Barcelona now and needs some help with her Spanish. So I did my first one-to-one language exchange Turkish-Spanish. We both suck completely, but I think that’s precisely why it kind of worked. If we can keep it up after the summer holidays, I hope this could be the motivating factor that I need to start studying in earnest again.
- I watched
Fatma
- I worked a tiny little bit on my revision of part 12 of my Turkish course.
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