Rdearman 2016-24 You Can't Have Your Kate and Edith Too.

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rdearman
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Re: Rdearman 2016-21 [Presto e bene non marciano insieme]

Postby rdearman » Sun Jun 06, 2021 10:06 am

Stupidly I went with one of the sites I use less frequently. But I have been getting more repeat questions on the site I used the most.

https://randomquestionmaker.com/
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Le Baron
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Re: Rdearman 2016-21 [Presto e bene non marciano insieme]

Postby Le Baron » Sun Jun 06, 2021 12:37 pm

The accent thing threw me as well. I was all ready for saying you were from the west country at first! Somerset or somewhere, but then detected anomalies. Like rpg I also considered Irish.

On the matter of topics I'd question how productive it is to improvise when the topic is unfamiliar or vague or can be answered simply. In the questions from Random (many of which look like statements) most require specialist knowledge. 'Chemotherapy and drug design'? And the 'blue collar brilliance' thing?? What can you really say? My starting point would be: if I can't discuss it beyond a sentence in my native language, why would I have the ability/vocabulary in an L2? If I can discuss it, well even then I would need to have perused the topic from the perspective of and through the medium of French/Italian/German etc.
I'm guessing you have a lot of general knowledge (perhaps also diverse types of specialist knowledge), yet this is gleaned from either reading or doing over time. Which is how we encounter and accrue the words/jargon required for a topic, right?

I'm no expert, but I've done conversation partner exchanges, with people here from a variety of language backgrounds learning/improving English (voluntary and paid) and me (basic) Spanish right now. You get the most conversation when you tap into existing knowledge which has the effect of linking pieces together. I got a sheet which instructed me to ask e.g. what the person does as a job, what their school was like... then to ask relevant, related questions which they would be able to answer; with some prompting and feeding of unknown vocabulary which you then keep hammering upon to force usage. Also to describe things like: their kitchen, what is in it and why; the type of things they cook there. Which leads on to 'favourite dishes'; whether or not you like cooking; foods you like/don't like and really anything else related. It's demanding stuff when you have to be detailed and accurate, but drawing on what you know.

Obviously you've been at this for a long time, so topics can get worn out. Nevertheless I treat it like the advice for writing: write about what you know and if you don't know about it then research it. Remember that video you made about a folding stove? Why not redo that in French/Italian? The interest you have in it will spur you on.

If all this appears overly-didactic and irrelevant to you, just ignore me. :lol:
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Re: Rdearman 2016-21 [Presto e bene non marciano insieme]

Postby rdearman » Sun Jun 06, 2021 2:18 pm

I have a set of essay questions which I have accumulated with the intention of practising writing. (didn't happen)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kpT_qS96wkOQHQYfKQSb4VpqMZ37cP6l/view?usp=sharing

And another one just for conversation exchanges.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BXzkvzwctta7ZHIXzlP15-UOk0VSmrtjzpIt4wtDb9o/edit?usp=sharing

Le Baron wrote: You get the most conversation when you tap into existing knowledge which has the effect of linking pieces together. I got a sheet which instructed me to ask e.g. what the person does as a job, what their school was like... then to ask relevant, related questions which they would be able to answer; with some prompting and feeding of unknown vocabulary which you then keep hammering upon to force usage. Also to describe things like: their kitchen, what is in it and why; the type of things they cook there. Which leads on to 'favourite dishes'; whether or not you like cooking; foods you like/don't


So as you can see from the list of questions I already know most of the stuff (certainly in French) because I've used most of these questions. I have a very long term French language partner, so we've churned through most topics. Favourite foods, etc.

Le Baron wrote: My starting point would be: if I can't discuss it beyond a sentence in my native language, why would I have the ability/vocabulary in an L2?

Yeah, perhaps in my video I shouldn't have used a random noun to get a topic, but rather a noun about a topic I was familiar with. The aeroplane example I gave earlier wasn't a problem for me because I was an aircraft mechanic for 10 years working on flight control systems and hydraulics, so I could explain it in English. I think the main problem I had in the video is I just did it without a great deal of trial and error. If I'd tried a couple of random words first I would have realized that I needed to use nouns related to a topic I know.

Le Baron wrote:Remember that video you made about a folding stove? Why not redo that in French/Italian? The interest you have in it will spur you on.

I did do a couple in for my Output Challenge, one of them is making "arancini a la sicilienne" which I did in Italian. :)
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Re: Rdearman 2016-21 [Presto e bene non marciano insieme]

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Sun Jun 06, 2021 4:27 pm

rdearman wrote:I looked back tonight at my reading speed in french for my first super challenge on HTLAL and it was 1 page every 5 minutes. I was hoping back then that one day I would get to even half my reading speed in English, which is 5.5 pages per minute. Well this evening I was averaging 2.2 pages per minute, so not far off half speed. It has taken a couple of years and a couple of failed super challenges, but it is progress!
A trick I once learned for improving spead is using a notecard of the sort we used to take to the library for notes, holding it above the text you read and sliding it down the page as you go. Speeding up the rate of descent--but not too much--helps increase reading speed. I used the method enough to know that it works for my native language, but it was too much of a pain to continue. It might work for an L2 as well.
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Re: Rdearman 2016-21 [Presto e bene non marciano insieme]

Postby rdearman » Sun Jun 06, 2021 4:31 pm

MorkTheFiddle wrote:
rdearman wrote:I looked back tonight at my reading speed in french for my first super challenge on HTLAL and it was 1 page every 5 minutes. I was hoping back then that one day I would get to even half my reading speed in English, which is 5.5 pages per minute. Well this evening I was averaging 2.2 pages per minute, so not far off half speed. It has taken a couple of years and a couple of failed super challenges, but it is progress!
A trick I once learned for improving spead is using a notecard of the sort we used to take to the library for notes, holding it above the text you read and sliding it down the page as you go. Speeding up the rate of descent--but not too much--helps increase reading speed. I used the method enough to know that it works for my native language, but it was too much of a pain to continue. It might work for an L2 as well.

My problem in L2 isn't really the speed of reading, it is more because I have to pause to look up a word. So reducing the number of unknowns would speed me up a lot! :) I only look up the words that I can't figure out from context and are important for comprehension. But even then it is an anchor on the reading speed.
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Re: Rdearman 2016-21 [Presto e bene non marciano insieme]

Postby Le Baron » Sun Jun 06, 2021 4:46 pm

To get shut of that problem of looking-up words whilst reading, I now quickly scan through a chapter (or section) I'm going to read and pick out words, little phrases I don't know or recognise. I write them down, then look up the words in the dictionary and write the translations on the same paper. I then use this to read the chapter.

It works like those old easy-readers with the word-list helpers per chapter.
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Re: Rdearman 2016-21 [Presto e bene non marciano insieme]

Postby rdearman » Mon Jun 07, 2021 11:16 am

Reading update.

I am currently reading: Tours et détours de la vilaine fille



I have to say it is a long hard slog. The book only has 7 chapters, and it is very information dense. So it is 418 pages with only 6 breaks. Normally with a novel you get a 1/2 page at end of chapter and 1/2 page at the beginning. But with only 7 chapters you don't get many of those, so almost every page of the book is ~400 words per page. The author writes in huge block paragraphs with the occasional dialogue put in. There isn't a lot of clues about who is saying the dialogue either, so I spend a fair amount of time trying to figure out who is saying what on the rare occasions when it isn't just a long mental monologue by the character. I am averaging about 2.5 pages per minute, but I think I could be doing better if I didn't keep having to backtrack to figure out who is saying what and looking up the occasional word.

The book itself is OK, the plot is good, although with a few to many unbelievable coincidences. I just under halfway through this book and looking forward to moving on to the next one. Although I have to say, many of the books I have to yet read from my pile aren't really books I would have selected for myself in English. It is because I asked people to just give me books in French and didn't really care much about the content. It is fine though, good to stretch your boundaries and read something different on occasion.

I have two books by Stendhal which I'm not looking forward to slogging through, so I think I'll probably leave the "great literature" to last and try to get through the more modern stuff first. I've calculated I can probably power through this lot in about 90-100 days. Then I'm going to do the same exercise with the 20-30 English books and the 10-15 Italian books. The primary goal here is to read the books then give them away to clear up some room in my house and maybe even clear one bookshelf completely and get rid of it. (This is my wife's primary goal)

I have considered doing the English books concurrently, and to stop getting more books until I've completed what I got. :?

EDIT: In addition to the long mental monologues, I forgot to mention the big "info dumps" about Peruvian politics from 1965 onward in the guise of letters from the main characters uncle.
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Re: Rdearman 2016-21 [Presto e bene non marciano insieme]

Postby DaveAgain » Mon Jun 07, 2021 12:20 pm

rdearman wrote:I have considered ... to stop getting more books until I've completed what I got. :?
It sounds easy, but I've found this hard to do!
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Re: Rdearman 2016-21 [Presto e bene non marciano insieme]

Postby Le Baron » Mon Jun 07, 2021 12:31 pm

I've taken to selecting the books I know will be punishing and deliberately putting them in an awkward box in my storage. Otherwise they sit there taunting you because you can only make it up to page two with a well-thumbed dictionary.

Like rdearman I have people giving me books (in Spanish though) which I have no chance of reading right now. There'll come a time when I can read them, but it isn't now. Putting them out of sight means I can have a pile I can realistically get through, and with pleasure rather than pain! When I finally remember there is a pile of difficult books in the storage I'll hopefully be in the position to read them.
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Re: Rdearman 2016-21 [Presto e bene non marciano insieme]

Postby rdearman » Thu Jun 10, 2021 1:00 pm

Starting on another French book today.



The previous book ("Tours et détours de la vilaine fille") was very good to be honest, and I can see why it won a lot of prizes. I'm not big on love stories, but it is definitely worth a read. Although what all the Peruvian history was about I don't know.

Anyway, the new book "Le démon et mademoiselle Prym" I had actually started before and managed to get up to page 40, but I don't remember much of it, so I need to start again. I thought about doing a lot of intensive work, but to be honest just reading extensively and looking up words when I feel like it seems to be working better. In fact, for most of the last book I was just confirming my suspicions about what the words meant. There weren't that many which I couldn't figure out from context. This book is also half the size of the last one, so should be a bit quicker, and it has actual chapters with chapter breaks. Yay!

I seem to remember this book was a bit to "religiousy/preachy" and that was why I quit it, but this time I have to finish it to complete my goal, so we'll see. It might pick up in the second half of the book like the last one.
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