Astonished, Bewitched, Captivated, Delighted, Enchanted, Fascinated

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SomnolentMe
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Astonished, Bewitched, Captivated, Delighted, Enchanted, Fascinated

Postby SomnolentMe » Sat Jul 22, 2017 1:18 pm

... and Mesmerised by languages.
I truly am.
Is that enough for an introduction?

Anyway, the languages I am learning in 2017 (and that I will never ever stop learning) are:


ENGLISH
GERMAN
I feel quite comfortable with English and German. I can read and listen to almost anything and I am able to understand around 90 – 95 %.

I am not used to writing (this applies to all my languages). I haven't been writing anything "serious" for months maybe even years? Except, of course, for some insignificant short comments around the internet. This HAS TO CHANGE! Maybe that was also a reason why I started my language log here. The very first step of mine.

I am not used to speaking (this also applies to all my languages:) I sometimes speak to myself. This MAYBE should change!
For example, my literature debate would look like this right now:
"Whaat? This book? Yeah, I read it. It is good, like really, really good. Bye."
You know, the message I am trying to convey is clear but still, I would rather not sound that primitive when having an imaginary conversation.
Bombastic words, grandiloquence and sophistication – that is my dream!

But I adore pronounciation and reading aloud (in all my foreign languages). So hopefully, my pronunciation is not as backward as my speaking. I read aloud until my throat is sore, my voice hoarse and I start croaking.

My ultimate goal in these two languages is to pass C2 exams in the remote future, namely CPE and Goethe-Zertifikat C2.

What I will do:
write and speak (with people)
read grammar books (those daunting tomes that have around 1000 pages, I more or less enjoy them only it takes quite a long time to peruse them)
work on my vocabulary (a never-ending story)

What I really want to do: movies and TV shows


RUSSIAN
What a powerful and beautiful language. Probably my favourite in terms of pronunciation. I love how it sounds and when I hear a Russian song – I am swooning with pleasure. By the bye, the Russian anthem is the best anthem in the whole wide world. Always my number one.

I started with Russian let's say 5 years ago? I am not sure at all. And I remember that I had a really slow and painful start with the Russian alphabet. Misreading and mispronouncing letters and words all the time. Moreover, when I tried to form a sentence I just borrowed Czech grammar rules and tried to inconspicuously apply them to Russian vocabulary. (Which is, of course, incorrect:) but I do that sometimes even now:(

Luckily, because Czech is my mother tongue, Russian seems very logical and very natural to me or us (if only we put some effort into other Slavic languages, right?).

There is one thing that I find immensely problematic - Russian word stress (the same applies to Swedish – among other things). This is not even funny because it directly influences the pronunciation of all vowels in the word. And on top of that, it can change depending on the inflexion. Trying to guess the proper word stress of an unknown word and all those once known words that my brain forgot is akin to predicting the future. Tricky, tricky, treacherous...

But I am definitely starting to feel more and more comfortable with Russian because especially this year I have been spending plenty of time with this language. And just a few days ago I finished my first book in Russian reading it intensively.


SWEDISH
Pippi Långstrump and Madicken were my role models when I was a child. I got these books for Christmas from my parents and my grandparents used to read them aloud to me. The nostalgia is overwhelming. So when I had the opportunity to take a Swedish course, I couldn't possibly ignore it. I had acquired the basics there and afterwards I continued on my own. Fell in love with Swedish, needless to say.
But because I have been prioritising other languages recently I am not satisfied with my current level of Swedish at all. Apart from Swedish music that I am enjoying nonstop, the last time I systematically occupied myself with Swedish was around Christmas last year. Julkalender, yaaay:) I resumed my Swedish only in June and I am trying to remember what I forgot.


CHECHEN
I did not plan this language at all. It was not even on my language list. Youtube is to blame here.
It recommended me a video last year around Christmas. A song. A Chechen song. The song influenced me a lot. It changed me. It broke my heart. It made me sad. I started to be interested in the song, in the lyrics, in the language, in the country, in the people. (I knew next to nothing about Chechnya before, I didn't even know about the Chechen wars. I am that ignorant.) The more information I had the more sad I felt. I simply wanted to know more and more and I didn't realise that I was learning the language. Unfortunatelly, the materials for the Chechen language are quite limited. The vast majority is only in Russian – so I can learn Chechen and improve my Russian at the same time. It would be foolish to assume that I will ever be advanced let alone proficient in this language but I will go as far as I can get.


ARABIC
Arabic, on the other hand, was always on my language list. But again, I did not expect to start this year. (I actually wanted an easier language namely Spanish or French in 2017 but it was impossible for me to decide between these two, I love them both.) So one day in April I felt a sudden desire to understand Arabic. BUT! Have you heard about the Arabic dialects? When I said that I couldn't choose between Spanish and French how was I supposed to choose from like 10 dialects. MSA – Modern Standard Arabic is a must. And I am also mainly focusing on it. But you cannot go without a dialect. (Or well, you could.) I was able to narrow down my options. And I was left with Levantine Arabic and Gulf Arabic. Now, both of these dialects are not that far away from MSA and also, they are not that different from each other. But still. I like Levantine slightly more but I believe I have better learning materials for Gulf Arabic (audio is essential). I would also like to point out (because I am learning Arabic actively and whether I want it or not, I am also exploring the Arab world, culture etc.) that the present situation in the Middle East makes me quite uneasy and uncomfortable sometimes. But it doesn't change the fact that I find Arabic extremely enjoyable.



And at this point I am exhausted from writing.
I don't know why this first post of mine is so long (and I didn't even mention everything I wanted). I have been writing this for several hours, though. But I took some productive breaks - sleeping and watching on Youtube a toucan falling in the sink!!!

I am aware of the fact that there are mistakes in this post and that my punctuation is inconsistent. (Every single time I reread this post I find mistakes. I just give up. Better not reread anything.)
Feel free to correct whatever you want.
Naturally, I will be infuriated, disheartened, depressed and apathetic.
Respectively.
And dumbfounded to boot that somebody might actually read it.
But eventually, I will be only grateful to you.
26 x

DaveBee
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Re: Astonished, Bewitched, Captivated, Delighted, Enchanted, Fascinated

Postby DaveBee » Sat Jul 22, 2017 3:12 pm

SomnolentMe wrote:ENGLISH
What I will do:
write and speak (with people)
read grammar books (those daunting tomes that have around 1000 pages, I more or less enjoy them only it takes quite a long time to peruse them)
work on my vocabulary (a never-ending story)

What I really want to do: movies and TV shows
You might want to consider plays, specifically editions intended for school-children.

I've just started (two whole scenes in!) a french play, using a Larousse's "petits classiques" edition, supported by videos from YouTube.

After every scene in the Larousse there is one page discussing the scene, language used etc. This forces you to read a little more closely, and consider the language used.

Examples of english language plays that are studied at UK schools might be 'An Inspector Calls' by JB Priestly, or 'The Crucible' by Arthur Miller. But I don't know which, if any, english language publishers use a similar format to Larousse, with a recap and questions after each scene.
2 x

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Re: Astonished, Bewitched, Captivated, Delighted, Enchanted, Fascinated

Postby SomnolentMe » Sat Jul 22, 2017 7:15 pm

LesRonces wrote:Your English is fantastic.

Welcome to the forum !


Thank you so much, your comment made me happy:-)


And also that some people really read that post and liked it... I am in raptures and I mean it.
1 x

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Re: Astonished, Bewitched, Captivated, Delighted, Enchanted, Fascinated

Postby DaveBee » Sat Jul 22, 2017 8:38 pm

LesRonces wrote:
DaveBee wrote:Examples of english language plays that are studied at UK schools might be 'An Inspector Calls' by JB Priestly, or 'The Crucible' by Arthur Miller. But I don't know which, if any, english language publishers use a similar format to Larousse, with a recap and questions after each scene.

At school we had to read those two, plus Of Mice and Men, Othello, 1984, Romeo and Juliet, The Withered Arm and other stories, and a load of stuff by Ben Elton.
I'm surprised Ben Elton found his way onto a syllabus! Of those I think I did 1984 and Of Mice and Men. There was a french language radio adaption of Romeo and Juliette on France Culture a while back.
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Re: Astonished, Bewitched, Captivated, Delighted, Enchanted, Fascinated

Postby zenmonkey » Sat Jul 22, 2017 9:07 pm

Great intro post, welcome to the forum!
That a nice language set. A few of us are on the path to German C1 or C2, so best of luck on this common endeavor!
2 x
I am a leaf on the wind, watch how I soar

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SomnolentMe
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Re: Astonished, Bewitched, Captivated, Delighted, Enchanted, Fascinated

Postby SomnolentMe » Sat Jul 22, 2017 9:28 pm

DaveBee wrote:
SomnolentMe wrote:ENGLISH
What I will do:
write and speak (with people)
read grammar books (those daunting tomes that have around 1000 pages, I more or less enjoy them only it takes quite a long time to peruse them)
work on my vocabulary (a never-ending story)

What I really want to do: movies and TV shows
You might want to consider plays, specifically editions intended for school-children.

I've just started (two whole scenes in!) a french play, using a Larousse's "petits classiques" edition, supported by videos from YouTube.

After every scene in the Larousse there is one page discussing the scene, language used etc. This forces you to read a little more closely, and consider the language used.

Examples of english language plays that are studied at UK schools might be 'An Inspector Calls' by JB Priestly, or 'The Crucible' by Arthur Miller. But I don't know which, if any, english language publishers use a similar format to Larousse, with a recap and questions after each scene.





I definitely agree with you that plays are amazing and extremely useful and practical because of the direct speech. We don't have to read 10 pages about a blade of grass swaying in the wind. Plays are very short and you just read what people really say in real life. Except Shakespeare. He is still awaiting me. I am not exactly rushing to him. I got stuck in the English channel.

I think that editions for school-children in English would be too easy for me. But it is an excellent idea for other languages I am learning.

Yes, Youtube is the best for language learning. You can even listen to dramatised books, radio dramas or how is it called. I like them more than ordinary audiobooks with one voice.

Never heard of Larousse or Priestly. Shame.
Heard of Miller but never read anything by him. Shame.
I am already googling those plays.

I personally have some experience with teacher's guides by Penguin: http://www.penguin.com/services-shared/teachersguides/
These are not intended for beginners, though. On the contrary, they are comprehensive, offer interpretations, profound questions, themes, extension projects, movies and literature concerning similar topics etc. More eye-opening than the book itself sometimes:-)
0 x

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Re: Astonished, Bewitched, Captivated, Delighted, Enchanted, Fascinated

Postby DaveBee » Sun Jul 23, 2017 12:17 am

SomnolentMe wrote:I definitely agree with you that plays are amazing and extremely useful and practical because of the direct speech. We don't have to read 10 pages about a blade of grass swaying in the wind. Plays are very short and you just read what people really say in real life. Except Shakespeare. He is still awaiting me. I am not exactly rushing to him. I got stuck in the English channel.

I think that editions for school-children in English would be too easy for me. But it is an excellent idea for other languages I am learning.
The play texts would be the same as an ordinary edition, the attraction of a student edition is that it would ideally also have question prompts that force you to look again at the text and read more closely.

Yes, Youtube is the best for language learning. You can even listen to dramatised books, radio dramas or how is it called. I like them more than ordinary audiobooks with one voice.
Archive.org have some old radio dramas. Two I liked are a Sherlock Holmes series, and a Saint series. There may be country IP blocking problems, but if you can listen to it, BBC Radio 4 extra has a lot of radio dramas too.
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Re: Astonished, Bewitched, Captivated, Delighted, Enchanted, Fascinated

Postby tarvos » Sun Jul 23, 2017 12:03 pm

Nice language set you've got there. I went the other route, from Russian to Czech, and for me Czech was very hard in the beginning because I had to weed out the Russianisms and words that didn't make sense in Czech. I love Czech word stress though, Russian stress still trips me up. Even though I speak much better Russian than I do Czech, haha.

(English and German are par for the course for Czechs, so that seems to be ok).

As for English, perfection and elegance will come, but you've got to practice with elegant writers and fancy literature. Not my cup of Ceylon tea, but you'll manage.
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Re: Astonished, Bewitched, Captivated, Delighted, Enchanted, Fascinated

Postby Elenia » Wed Jul 26, 2017 5:05 pm

To go a bit further, why not start looking at university course reading lists? I studied comparative literature in university, so the oldest thing I 'read' was Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe. I do not recommend it, by the way, there is a reason 'read' is in quote marks. You might also gain from reading critical theory.

Welcome to the forum, and good luck!
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Re: Astonished, Bewitched, Captivated, Delighted, Enchanted, Fascinated

Postby Systematiker » Wed Jul 26, 2017 5:47 pm

Welcome to the forum - I missed your introductory post, I'm usually on here more. Quite a neat mix of languages!

I second the recommendation for reading lists, either from university courses or A-level literature courses (or for US lists, AP Literature) (wait, can you do A-level Lit? Someone from the UK help me here). Even for the folks who don't like that sort of thing, cultural references pop up one way or another, and erudite usage tends to come from exposure to erudite usage.
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