Lilly's log - French, Russian, Spanish and Italian

[blaurebell]

I had resolved to do my reading in French if possible, so when Babylon's Ashes came out in english I was a bit deflated to discover that the french publisher had only released the first three books.

Well, still better than the Spanish translation, I think only the first one is out so far! These books are long and probably somewhat complex to translate, I suppose. Judging from the series there is probably some play with accents in the original? At least waiting for a new translation of a whole book isn't quite as annoying as waiting for a new episode each week and getting stopped mid story. At the moment the series is moving at snail pace, it's driving me nuts! Watching series that invite binge-watching with week long delays is just such torture!

[blaurebell]

Spanish

As I thought I was running out of steam with El internado yesterday. I only watched one episode and couldn't bear the stereotypes anymore Besides, after 3 seasons they were really struggling to come up with new mysteries. Maybe I continue watching at a somewhat more normal speed now. I also take back what I said about Ministerio del Tiempo getting better in the second season. The last 3 episodes were somewhere between extremely silly and so super slow that I was bored to death. No idea why they make a double episode when the story could fit in half an episode. Also, whiney boy is back Only 5 more episodes to go. I won't convince my husband to watch anymore continental Spanish series with me - he was suffering too much with this one. However, I think he wouldn't mind watching Combatientes and En Tratamiento. Total Spanish hours: 4.8h

Today I've decided that I want to try to integrate Spanish into my daily schedule somehow, instead of just binge-watching stuff or reading a book every now and then. In other words, it's time to actually try to improve my Spanish rather than to just maintain it at a "good enough" level. Of course I have my Spanish to C1 year coming up next year, so I already selected some resources I want to work through then - primarily FSI and Gramática de Uso del Español B1-B2 and C1-C2. However, I think doing FSI and the grammar books at the same time will be too much torture, so I think I might just start with one lesson a day in the grammar books now and try to do levels A, B and C until the end of next year. It will probably go like this: A and B levels first, then FSI for automaticity and finally the C level book. I already ordered all levels - yellow, blue and green -, so that I don't find excuses not to do all levels. Working through one page of exercises a day looks pretty easy, especially with the A level exercises. I still have some pretty silly beginner bad habits lodged in my Spanish thanks to starting to speak too early, so doing some beginner exercises probably won't hurt at all. And this way I get at least a minimum of Spanish and work on my problem areas too. 45 of 150h continental Spanish done.

Russian

I finally finished the Duolingo Russian tree. The last stretch of the tree was fairly pointless, lots of vocabulary that doesn't really interest me at this point and barely any grammar. I haven't done any strengthening since I decided to drop Duolingo from my list of resources. I just wanted to go over all the content once to make sure that I've seen all the grammar included in it. Apart from that I haven't really done anything. I believe I will just take it easy for a couple more days and try to start up my Russian routine again on Monday. Russian hours: 0.33h.

French

Last night I finished reading Vol de nuit and I enjoyed it. It wasn't as easy as the Kundera translation, so I should probably continue with properly French stuff. I think I'll start Les Rivières Pourpres by Jean-Christophe Grangé next. It's one of the books that I wanted to read in the original because I enjoyed the movie quite a lot when it came out and it should be a page turner. French hours: 1.1h.

Total hours: 6.23h.

[blaurebell]

Spanish

I watched a couple of episodes of El internado and we watched 3 episodes of Ministerio del Tiempo. I guess with the Ministerio we want to power through the last few episodes quickly now. Only 2 more episodes to go, which means that we will finish it today! These last few episodes were a combination of truly convoluted story telling, bad pacing and worried-girl + whiney-boy getting on our nerves. I wish they had kept the new guy around, the group dynamics were much better with him around. The episode with that Argentinian guy was absolutely hilarious though! Every now and then they manage to make a really funny episode - "Monasterio del tiempo" was great too. However, most of the writing suffers from telenovela type plot excursions and holes the size of moon craters. Also extremely annoying is that the only Lesbian woman portrayed on the show is basically a skirt hunting prick. I guess they wanted to show as many girl+girl kissing scenes as possible!

Spanish hours: 6.08h.

French

I listened to a France culture production of Grand hôtel Babylon, which was mildly enjoyable. I didn't find it gripping enough, but still not bad. I also spent 2h reading Les Rivières Pourpres by Jean-Christophe Grangé which is indeed a page turner as I expected. It's quite brutal and uncomfortable though, so maybe not the best thing to read before going to bed. I'm reading the book with my kindle, so I look up more words than necessary for understanding - I could read this without a dictionary without any problems. All gaps are low frequency words where I don't really care whether they stick or not.

French hours: 3.04h

Russian

I only did what was necessary to finish Duolingo, but didn't do anything that needed any proper level of concentration. Brain fog is dissipating, but I think I also needed a break in general. I've been going full-speed with Russian for 9 weeks which means that I had to concentrate properly for 2-6h every day during that time without a break of even a single day. It was about time for a break. Russian hours: 0.33h.

Total hours: 9.35h.

Weekly Update

Rough week health-wise, but not necessarily for language learning. Since I didn't have to spend any time on tasks that require proper concentration I could clock 50h in the last 6 days while just relaxing. 42h of those happened in Spanish. In comparison a week of 35h with Russian in the mix would have been a lot heavier than these 50h with mainly Spanish. I got a well-deserved break and improved my listening comprehension for continental Spanish by logging a third of a continental Spanish SC in a week. Definitely not a bad way to work around a bout of bad health. I still hope I'll be able to return to Russian next week though.

[blaurebell]

Spanish

I watched 2 episodes of El internado and we finished the last two episodes of Ministerio del Tiempo. Second to last episode was extremely boring and the last one wasn't very logical. I had to promise my husband not to force him to watch more peninsular series It seems like he would like to re-watch some Argentinian movies with me though and watch a couple of Argentinian series. The only other Spanish yesterday was reading some Spanish subtitles in the cinema. We went to see the new Ghost in the Shell movie (in OV) and for some unfathomable reason they left one Japanese character in there. As always Spanish translations just seem weird to me, especially from Japanese. In general the only thing this movie did for me was to fuel my Japanese wanderlust and make me want to re-read the comics and re-watch the truly masterful original animes. The characters in the original just have so much more depth and they are animated! Another remake where my only reaction is "Why on earth?!"

Spanish hours: 4.68h

French

I spent some more time reading Les Rivières pourpres. More brutality and suddenly a lot of slang. One chapter would have been quite difficult without a dictionary, but my kindle translated all the rude words without complaint I think I might read a few more of these kinds of books after this one so that I get some vocabulary for watching crime series. Also: I spent some time looking for a French version of the Ghost in the Shell comics. I really enjoyed reading a translation from Japanese in French some months ago and I think I might just channel my Japanese wanderlust into French for now.

French hours: 2.11h

Total hours: 6.79h

[Fortheo]

Spanish

I watched 2 episodes of El internado and we finished the last two episodes of Ministerio del Tiempo. Second to last episode was extremely boring and the last one wasn't very logical. I had to promise my husband not to force him to watch more peninsular series It seems like he would like to re-watch some Argentinian movies with me though and watch a couple of Argentinian series. The only other Spanish yesterday was reading some Spanish subtitles in the cinema. We went to see the new Ghost in the Shell movie (in OV) and for some unfathomable reason they left one Japanese character in there. As always Spanish translations just seem weird to me, especially from Japanese. In general the only thing this movie did for me was to fuel my Japanese wanderlust and make me want to re-read the comics and re-watch the truly masterful original animes. The characters in the original just have so much more depth and they are animated! Another remake where my only reaction is "Why on earth?!"

Spanish hours: 4.68h

French

I spent some more time reading Les Rivières pourpres. More brutality and suddenly a lot of slang. One chapter would have been quite difficult without a dictionary, but my kindle translated all the rude words without complaint I think I might read a few more of these kinds of books after this one so that I get some vocabulary for watching crime series. Also: I spent some time looking for a French version of the Ghost in the Shell comics. I really enjoyed reading a translation from Japanese in French some months ago and I think I might just channel my Japanese wanderlust into French for now.

French hours: 2.11h

Total hours: 6.79h

I've been channeling my Japanese wanderlust into french for a while now, too. I enjoy reading blogs from French expats who live in Japan, for example. Also, if you're ever in need of recommendations for manga to read in french, let me know

[blaurebell]

Also, if you're ever in need of recommendations for manga to read in french, let me know

I think I'll try to find my favourites in French first since I haven't re-read them in a few years. I like different stuff in the cyberpunk / sci fi genre, like Ghost in the Shell, Akira, Chobits, Eden, that sort of thing. All of them are fairly popular, so I bet I'll find French versions of them. I also like properly French BDs, so there will be lots of comics in my future What kind of stuff do you enjoy?

[jeffers]

I spent some more time reading Les Rivières pourpres. More brutality and suddenly a lot of slang. One chapter would have been quite difficult without a dictionary, but my kindle translated all the rude words without complaint I think I might read a few more of these kinds of books after this one so that I get some vocabulary for watching crime series.

I had a similar experience two years ago when I read Les orpailleurs by Thierry Jonquet. The first page is a detailed description of the state of a partially decomposed corpse found wrapped in a carpet. Gory, and lots of unknown vocabulary. I read the book because it was the inspiration for a French policier I like, Boulevard du palais, and I thought it would be helpful with vocabulary for crime shows. I also have the sequel, Moloch, but I haven't started it yet in part because the first one was tough for me, even though I really enjoyed it. The other reason I haven't started it is because of the subject matter; it deals with a serial killer who kills children (Moloch is an ancient near eastern god to whom they would sacrifice live children).

[blaurebell]

I also have the sequel, Moloch, but I haven't started it yet in part because the first one was tough for me, even though I really enjoyed it.

I know what you mean. Some books are great, but hard to bear nonetheless. Thanks for the recommendations, I put them on my crime fiction list! I tend to get bored easily with crime fiction, so I suppose the gory bits help in a sort of twisted way.

[Fortheo]

Also, if you're ever in need of recommendations for manga to read in french, let me know

I think I'll try to find my favourites in French first since I haven't re-read them in a few years. I like different stuff in the cyberpunk / sci fi genre, like Ghost in the Shell, Akira, Chobits, Eden, that sort of thing. All of them are fairly popular, so I bet I'll find French versions of them. I also like properly French BDs, so there will be lots of comics in my future What kind of stuff do you enjoy?

I've either read or seen all of those, although I'm not sure I'd classify Chobits as very sci-fi, but I guess it is when I start to think about it. I'm hoping you're talking about this Eden:




Because that was one of my favorite mangas that I almost never see people talking about.

I enjoy a discursive array of manga, but my favorite mangaka these days has to be Naoki Urasawa. In terms of sci-fi, you can't really go wrong with his manga 20th century boys or Pluto, but my favorite by him is more of a psychological thriller called Monster. Another Mangaka that I really enjoy is Makoto Yukimura, who wrote a sci-fi manga a called Planetes, which was great, but I think only the anime of that is available in french, but the anime was also amazing, too. He has another amazing manga called Vinland saga, but it doesn't fall under the category that you seem to be looking for.

Anyways, if you find any other mangas or french comics that you like, please share them

[blaurebell]

I'm hoping you're talking about this Eden:
Because that was one of my favorite mangas that I almost never see people talking about.

That's the one! It's actually my all-time favourite and how I got into manga and anime in the first place. Picked the first one up at a train station before a long journey and kicked myself for not buying two! I love it so much, it even made its way into my Bachelor thesis

In terms of sci-fi, you can't really go wrong with his manga 20th century boys or Pluto, but my favorite by him is more of a psychological thriller called Monster.

I think I actually started watching Monster once and then for some reason didn't finish it, although I remember that I enjoyed it. May have been that we started it with my husband and he wasn't so interested. I'll definitely take a look at these recommendations, they all look excellent, thank you!

As for French BDs: I really enjoyed Le Sursis and Le Vol du Corbeau, which is historical stuff set during WW2. Also Persepolis is fantastic, but that's more of a graphic novel. I have only just started exploring French BDs, so I don't quite know what's out there yet.