Russian by audiobooks with matching texts

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Eafonte
Orange Belt
Posts: 108
Joined: Fri Sep 29, 2017 11:28 am
Location: Brazil
Languages: Portuguese (N), english (B2-ish), german (B1), russian (intermediate), spanish (reading and listening).
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=17202
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Re: Russian by audiobooks with matching texts

Postby Eafonte » Mon Sep 20, 2021 12:17 am

September 19:

Read and listened the third and last part of "Северная повесть" (28 pages: 284-311). Book finished. My review:
I. Style wise: First and second part compelling and engrossing, third part so-so. Book contains mild apology of the 1917 revolution and the ensuing regime, but that doesn't harm the plot. If the book finished in the second part I would give it 4 stars (out of a 1-5 scale), so let it have 3 stars. The tale deserves some praise also because makes one acquainted with a curious place (Aland Islands), reachable by foot (!) in the winter from Finland, and whose population speaks swedish, an exotic archipelago which hardly appears in the Western Literature.
II. Difficulty: Moderate. Specific vocabulary (naval, military) abounds in the first two parts. so that these are harder than the last. Few idioms, some colloquialisms. Simple phrases (few subordinate clauses). The prose flows beautifully. The author loves describing the snow, ice, winds, the sun, clouds, the sea, night and day, poetical at times. The weather is practically one of the characters in this work, a mirror against which the events are played out.

Today I also managed to start the reading and listening of a new book: "Учитель фехтования", the translation to Russian from the novel "Le Maître d'armes" by Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870), first published in 1840-1842. This small size romance (223 pages) is set in Russia, in the time immediately preceding the Dekabrist Revolt of 1825. Read and listened the preface and first chapter (18 pages).

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Books read: 4.
Pages read: 1,145.
Last edited by Eafonte on Fri Sep 24, 2021 3:08 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Eafonte
Orange Belt
Posts: 108
Joined: Fri Sep 29, 2017 11:28 am
Location: Brazil
Languages: Portuguese (N), english (B2-ish), german (B1), russian (intermediate), spanish (reading and listening).
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Re: Russian by audiobooks with matching texts

Postby Eafonte » Tue Sep 21, 2021 12:58 am

September 20:

Read and listened chapters 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 of "Учитель фехтования" (61 pages: 19-79).
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Eafonte
Orange Belt
Posts: 108
Joined: Fri Sep 29, 2017 11:28 am
Location: Brazil
Languages: Portuguese (N), english (B2-ish), german (B1), russian (intermediate), spanish (reading and listening).
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=17202
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Re: Russian by audiobooks with matching texts

Postby Eafonte » Wed Sep 22, 2021 1:18 am

September 21:

Read and listened chapters 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 of "Учитель фехтования" (102 pages: 80-181).
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Eafonte
Orange Belt
Posts: 108
Joined: Fri Sep 29, 2017 11:28 am
Location: Brazil
Languages: Portuguese (N), english (B2-ish), german (B1), russian (intermediate), spanish (reading and listening).
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=17202
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Re: Russian by audiobooks with matching texts

Postby Eafonte » Wed Sep 22, 2021 9:50 pm

September 22:

Read and listened chapters 19, 20, 21 of "Учитель фехтования" (26 pages: 182-207). Book finished.
This book is no swashbuckling romance by any means. It´s kind of an early XIX century travelogue of a frenchman in Russia describing the sightseeings of Saint Petersburg and Moscow, with historical snapshots of the life of the then incumbent Tsar and his two predecessors and an account of the Dekabrist 1825 uprising. I found the language simple and the reading easy.

So today I could start reading and listening a new book: "Аэлита" by Aleksey Tolstoy (1883-1945). It's a russian sci-fi novel, first published in 1923: soviet expedition goes to planet Mars and encounters there a civilization on the verge of a revolution. Read and listened the first chapter (4 pages).

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Books read: 5.
Pages read: 1,352.
4 x

Eafonte
Orange Belt
Posts: 108
Joined: Fri Sep 29, 2017 11:28 am
Location: Brazil
Languages: Portuguese (N), english (B2-ish), german (B1), russian (intermediate), spanish (reading and listening).
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=17202
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Re: Russian by audiobooks with matching texts

Postby Eafonte » Sat Sep 25, 2021 10:39 pm

September 25:

Today I managed to finish reading and listening "Аэлита". Fantastic and imaginative, wild and crazy story , told in a richly descriptive language, very hard to understand, with gadgets, scenes, aliens, buildings and martian landscapes difficult to visualize. Many unknown words. I wish I had a translation to my native language by my side to help me out of the entanglements and profuse imagery of this commie space opera.

From Mars down to Earth I started to read and listen the book "Солнечный удар (сборник)", a selection of short stories by russian Ivan Bunin (1870-1953), awarded Nobel prize for Literature in 1933.

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Books read: 6.
Pages read: 1,538.
2 x

Just_a_visitor
White Belt
Posts: 37
Joined: Thu May 14, 2020 3:20 pm
Languages: Russian (N)
English
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Re: Russian by audiobooks with matching texts

Postby Just_a_visitor » Sun Sep 26, 2021 4:37 pm

BTW, there's a classical 1924 film based on the book, directed by Jacob Protazanov:
https://www.google.com/search?gs_ssp=eJ ... e&ie=UTF-8
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Eafonte
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Posts: 108
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Re: Russian by audiobooks with matching texts

Postby Eafonte » Mon Sep 27, 2021 1:05 pm

Today I've taken two russian vocabulary tests, arealme and lingq.

Results:

arealme 26607
lingq 35550

Has anyone native russian speaker tried any one of these?
0 x

Eafonte
Orange Belt
Posts: 108
Joined: Fri Sep 29, 2017 11:28 am
Location: Brazil
Languages: Portuguese (N), english (B2-ish), german (B1), russian (intermediate), spanish (reading and listening).
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=17202
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Re: Russian by audiobooks with matching texts

Postby Eafonte » Thu Sep 30, 2021 5:46 am

I gave up reading Bunin. Too much descriptions, too much flowery for my taste...
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Eafonte
Orange Belt
Posts: 108
Joined: Fri Sep 29, 2017 11:28 am
Location: Brazil
Languages: Portuguese (N), english (B2-ish), german (B1), russian (intermediate), spanish (reading and listening).
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=17202
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Re: Russian by audiobooks with matching texts

Postby Eafonte » Fri Oct 01, 2021 1:01 am

Eafonte wrote:I gave up reading Bunin. Too much descriptions, too much flowery for my taste...


I wrongly conceded defeat...

After that rant I discovered a cheap copy of a translation into portuguese of some of Bunin's works in a second-hand bookseller. So I ordered it. As soon as it arrives, I will be able to resume the reading of Bunin assisted by a translation. I also found a way to create a interlinear translated text. I hope this tool will help me with difficult texts in Russian even in the absence of a published translation:

https://www.lucalampariello.com/create-interlinear-texts/


And today I started reading and listening a new book: "Королева Ортруда" by Fyodor Sologub (1863-1927).

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Eafonte
Orange Belt
Posts: 108
Joined: Fri Sep 29, 2017 11:28 am
Location: Brazil
Languages: Portuguese (N), english (B2-ish), german (B1), russian (intermediate), spanish (reading and listening).
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=17202
x 245

Re: Russian by audiobooks with matching texts

Postby Eafonte » Fri Oct 08, 2021 8:32 pm

October 8:

Today I finished reading and listening the novel "Королева Ортруда". This book is the second novel of the trilogy "Творимая Легенда". This queen Ortruda is a fictional character of a fictional country, the Kingdom of the United Islands, somewhere in the western mediterranean and/or macaronesian Atlantic Islands (Balearic Islands and/or Canary Islands plus others). The story takes place in the very beginning of the twentieth century. In order to understand the plot you don't need to read the first book of the trilogy before, but the last book (the third one) is a continuation of the second and the main character of the first book reappears in the last novel. I didn't found the text difficult, neither easy. Somewhere in between.

Books read: 7.
Pages read: 1,855.
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