Team Me: Foxing Around

Continue or start your personal language log here, including logs for challenge participants
User avatar
reineke
Black Belt - 3rd Dan
Posts: 3570
Joined: Wed Jan 06, 2016 7:34 pm
Languages: Fox (C4)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=6979
x 6554

Re: Team Me: Foxing Around

Postby reineke » Sun Jan 16, 2022 9:50 pm

Thank you. You're right of course. You can try that Italian test I linked to on the previous page. There's also the "arealme" test which is less sciency but which I found useful. I wrote about it earlier in my log. I noted a huge boost in my score after some listening to music and children's audiobooks. Basically Polish/Croatian are a bit like French/Romanian. Probably a little worse. Many words including basic function words look like comparing grandma vs her teenage pictures vs grandma after a train crash. Sometimes it takes a while 'till you get to that d'oh! moment. But yeah, if you've studied French all those cognates come handy and they're often spelled identically (which poses other problems).
2 x

Lawyer&Mom
Blue Belt
Posts: 980
Joined: Sun Mar 04, 2018 6:08 am
Languages: English (N), German (B2), French (B1)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=7786
x 3767

Re: Team Me: Foxing Around

Postby Lawyer&Mom » Mon Jan 17, 2022 12:27 am

I got 30% on Italian and 38% on Dutch. I would have done much better if there was any sort of context for the word, even the minimalistic definitions in the French vocabulary matching test. Lots of fun either way!
2 x
Grammaire progressive du français -
niveau debutant
: 60 / 60

Grammaire progressive du francais -
intermédiaire
: 25 / 52

Pimsleur French 1-5
: 3 / 5

User avatar
reineke
Black Belt - 3rd Dan
Posts: 3570
Joined: Wed Jan 06, 2016 7:34 pm
Languages: Fox (C4)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=6979
x 6554

Re: Team Me: Foxing Around

Postby reineke » Mon Jan 17, 2022 3:39 am

I'll credit mom, Mauger and Arte for my score in French. It would be nice to have easily accessible, user friendly software programs that could help us "do stuff" and hopefully make giant strides in language learning. As far as classics are concerned there are plenty of dual language books and some books with vocabulary glosses and vocabulary indexes. Steve K's site looked nice, we have popup dictionaries and even some sites where it's possible to upload texts and get a raw list of most common words. What that preceding paper has revealed, I think, is that with a very small tweak one can gain access to a wide range of original children's literature with a small initial vocabulary. This makes logical sense of course but sometimes after rigorous examination and analysis we can come to an opposite and counterintuitive conclusion like those researchers who concluded that children's literature is equally inaccessible with a 2K vocabulary as adult literature. Only they apparently did not conduct a rigorous examination of the problem at hand. What apparently escaped their pedagogical investigation is that a short list drawn predominantly from a mixture of adult fiction and nonfiction will not cover most words that are in the core children's vocabulary and that it's hard to read stories and fables if you can't recognize words relating for foxes, wolves, witches, balloons, yelling, scratching and jumping. It's the same type of list that prefers 30000 other words to "mocoso". Here they concluded that a handful words that are adopted early by native speakers can provide a significant vocabulary boost to anyone wishing to read children's literature. That's good but not exactly brilliant. Seriously, "vulpes et uva" was one of the first stories in my Latin textbook and the author did not have a computer at his disposal. I'm wondering about children's and pre-teens' frequency lists. Also a list that is drawn from a variety of children's literature. The 250 words they came up with was drawn from a very slim corpus of children's stories that appeared in a New Zealand journal. That's how fox, wolf and crocodile got fewer than 10 occurrences and some Maori words got picked up. I suspect that the Peppa Pig corpus and SUBTLEX/us/fr etc. come closest to a core fiction vocabulary. Better yet let's watch some cartoons, read a boxful of children's literature and move on to other things. Language instruction and related research is a lot closer to nutrition and fitness advice than say, medicine.
3 x

User avatar
reineke
Black Belt - 3rd Dan
Posts: 3570
Joined: Wed Jan 06, 2016 7:34 pm
Languages: Fox (C4)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=6979
x 6554

Re: Team Me: Foxing Around

Postby reineke » Sun Jan 23, 2022 2:47 am

2 x

User avatar
reineke
Black Belt - 3rd Dan
Posts: 3570
Joined: Wed Jan 06, 2016 7:34 pm
Languages: Fox (C4)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=6979
x 6554

Re: Team Me: Foxing Around

Postby reineke » Mon Jan 24, 2022 6:54 pm



Le bon petit Henri - Conte audio complet - Comtesse de Ségur

"This story appears in the Nouveaux contes de fées (1856), which launched the glorious not-quite-twenty-year career of Sophie Rostopchine, Comtesse de Ségur, as a writer of children’s literature.

Before starting in on reading, PLEASE study the first few pages, in which I provide you with very useful information about some recurring constructions.

I provide a version in DOCX and a version in PDF. The advantage of the docx version is two-fold:

You can reformat it to your heart’s delight;
You can easily access the contents of the endnotes, by placing your cursor over the note number.
The PDF version, for its part, has bookmarks.

What I do not include from the Wikisource site in either version is a few delightful images by none other than Gustave Doré. For your convenience, I am placing them below. They and their captions may give you an idea of whether this is the sort of story for you.

Assiduous readers of C.S. Lewis’s Narnia tales will note a similarity between this story and The Magician’s Nephew.""

https://www.madbeppo.com/text/le-bon-petit-henri/


The DOC file includes useful vocabulary notes. A quick copy paste since this ties in nicely with my previous posts about children's literature.

bêcher = “to turn over earth with a spade (= une bêche)”
raccommoder = “to mend, patch, repair”
le soulier = another word for “shoe”
avaler = “to swallow”
sangloter = “to sob.” un sanglot = “a sob”
le genou, les genoux = “knee”
s’écrier = “to cry out, to call out, to exclaim”
d’un air attendri = “pityingly.” From attendrir = “to make tender”
se pencher = “to bend (over), to lean (over)”
souffler = “to blow” (speaking of breath or wind). le souffle = “breath”
indiquer = “to point out” (using the index finger)
exprimer = here, “to squeeze out”
soigner = “to care for (a sick person).” Noun le soin = “care”
subir = “to undergo.” A regular –ir verb.
remettre = here, “to give, to hand over”
une tige = “a stem”
prendre congé = “to take leave.” le congé = “leave, time off”
gravir = “to climb” (e.g., a mountain). A regular –ir verb.
qui se trouva être = “which turned out to be.” se trouver can have this sense. Used impersonally: il se trouve que… = “It (just so) happens that”
Au tiers du chemin = “A third of the way along the road”
qui s’était pris la patte = “who had gotten his/its foot caught”
un piège = “a trap” (whereas une trappe, although it can mean a trap for animals, much more often means “a trap-door”).
tendre is what you do with a piège. (That is, if you are méchant.)
à tire-d’aile = “(flying) as fast as it could go.” une aile = “a wing.”
revaudrai. valoir = “to be worth.” Je te le revaudrai = “I’ll do as much for you some day.”
The en here means something like “for all that.” il n’en continua pas moins sa route = “he nonetheless (for all that) continued on his path.”
un buisson = “a bush.” (Dans le livre de l’Exode il y en a un célèbre qui est ardent.)
qu’ = pendant que
inouïs. inouï is the negative of ouï, past participle of the mostly vanished verb ouïr, which has been mostly replaced by entendre.
sans que le Renard eût pu le voir = “without the Fox’s having been able to see it”
la gueule = “maw”
béant(e) = “hanging wide open”
s’éloigna en sautant – This is how the French are obliged to say “hopped away”: “went away hopping.” Isn’t that terrible?
un gué = “a ford”
À quoi me sert = “What does it serve me = What good does it do me”
foi de Coq – It’s a kind of a joke, meaning “My word of honor as a Rooster.” La Fontaine started this kind of thing off in his fable “La Cigale et la fourmi,” in which the improvident one of the pair begs for food, promising: “Je vous paierai … / Avant l’août, foi d’animal / Intérêt et principal.” Cf. the more modern form of the construction, as in: parole de scout = “scout’s honor.”
s’attendre à = “to expect”
se cramponner = “to cling (to), hang on (to). hold tight (to).” Un crampon is something that helps you to do those things.
avoir beau = review; you need to know it.
One would expect serait here, since retourner is, in this usage, a House-of-Being verb.
See what I say in the opening pages of this document about the concessive use of the imperfect subjunctive of the verb devoir.
malin = sly. fem. maligne. A bit weaker than English “malignant,” but still implying an attitude that is not altogether friendly.
hocher la tête = “to nod” (affirmative), but also to “shake one’s head” (negative). !!
récolter; noun la récolte. Harvest specifically of a grain crop.
moudre = “to grind” (as in a mill).
cuire = “to cook”
le fossé = “ditch, trench.” It is long, which makes a sub-species of une fosse, which is any artificially made hole in the earth. A fossé can surround something and be filled with water, which makes it a “moat” (also called douves [fem. pl.]). Figuratively un fossé is used for “gap”: un fossé culturel, le fossé entre les générations.
ôter is a fancier substitute for enlever.
une faucille = “a sickle.” Diminutive of une faux = “a scythe.”
un fléau = here, “a flail” (with which to thresh wheat); also, as an instrument of torture, “a scourge,” and metaphorically “a scourge = a plague.” From Latin flagellum. A less metaphorical word for “plague” is une peste.
pétrir = “to knead” (bread)
À mesure que = “as soon as” (the one action is in step with the other)
un rayon = here, “a shelf.” This word is identically similar, but unrelated, to un rayon = “a drop of golden sun.”
craquer = here, “cracked OR tore off”
la malice – can mean “malice,” but can also be weaker, e.g., “mischief.” une pointe de malice = “a touch/pinch of malice/mischief”. But what does the have to be mischievous or malicious about here?
témoigner here means not “to witness” but “to give a sign of, to show.”
éclater = “to burst, to explode; to burst out.” la guerre, une épidémie ont éclaté. éclater de rire = “to burst out laughing”
la vendange = “harvest of grapes”
s’apercevoir (de, que) = “to realize, to become aware (of, that).” apercevoir = “to perceive”
faire le tour de = “to go all the way around (something you can go around)”; “to visit a place completely (faire le tour de la ville).
s’écrouler = “to collapse”
cueillir – An irregular verb you want to learn. See MadBeppo.
le raisin – usually a collective noun. “grapes.”
écraser = “to crush”
un tonneau = “a barrel”
une cave = “a cellar”
à perte de vue = “as far as the eye could see”
s’étendre = “to stretch, extend”
ramasser = here, “to pick up (as from the ground), gather, collect”
une grappe = “a bunch of grapes”
une cuve = “a vat, tank.” cuver = “to ferment.” cuver son vin = “to sleep it off.”
un chardon = “a thistle”
sentir = here, “to smell”
siffler = “to whistle”
qu’il s’en élève un autre = qu’il s’élève un autre obstacle
un rugissement. rugir = “to roar,” that is to make a loud and menacing sound appropriate for your species (in this case, a wolf). A wolf howls, does it not?
dévoué = “devoted”
attraper = “to catch.” Same verb used with colds: attraper un rhume.
le gibier = “game” (animals of the sort hunters generally go after)
See the earlier note on foi de coq.
tirer sur = “to shoot at” (literally, “to draw on”)
la perdrix = “partridge”
la bécasse = “woodcock”
une gelinotte = “hazel hen” or “red grouse”
un coq de bruyère = “grouse”
I hope you know how to figure this one out: “He had been shooting in vain for a week.” See MadBeppo. And also MadBeppo.
The aspect of the verb is important here. il commençait à s’ennuyer = “he was beginning to get tired (of…).”
croasser is the sound a crow makes. un croassement
croquer = 1. make a cracking sound (a food being eaten); 2) make a cracking sound as you eat something; 3) devour something quickly.
en guise de = “in the way of” = “as if you were”
dépecer = “put into pieces” (as, with a knife)
écorcher = “to skin.” une écorce = “bark” (of a tree); “skin” (of a fruit)
aller chercher means “to go (and) get.” E.g., Va nous chercher des chaises = “Go get us some chairs.”
le treillage – This garden turns out to be a civilized one.
Note the aspect of the verb: qu’il tombait = “that he was falling.”
dont m’a parlé le Corbeau – Note the inversion; le Corbeau is the subject.
étourdi = “dazed, made dizzy.” verb étourdir
(une) griffe = “a claw”
saler = “to salt.” le sel = salt
le sable = “sand”
un filet = “a net.” From le fil = “thread, string, wire”
un hameçon = “a fishhook”
qu’il s’y était mal pris = “that he had gone about it wrong.” s’y prendre. Je ne sais pas comment m’y prendre = “ I don’t know how to go about it.”
mordre = “to bite.” A regular –(d)re verb.
Ne sachant que faire = Ne sachant pas ce qu’il fallait faire = “Not knowing what to do”
bouillonner = “to bubble, to be agitated (water)”
s’enfoncer dans = “to disappear into, to sink into, to plunge into” (to make yourself go into the fond)
comme s’il se livrait un grand combat = “as though a great combat were being waged.” livrer = “deliver, hand over.” livraison à domicile = “home delivery.” Note the inversion!
mouillé = “wet(ted), damp”
serrer = “to grip tight, squeeze.” serrer la main à quelqu’un = “to shake someone’s hand”
arracher = “to tear out.” s’arracha une griffe = “pulled out one of its claws”
voulut l’essayer = “wanted to try it and did try it”; hence, “chose, decided, to try it”
frais et dispos – is a set phrase. = “completely refreshed”
la queue – Most animals have one, but humans do not (at least not a visible one). From Latin cauda
retarder = “slow down, impede”
passé simple of atteindre. This is one of its very possible meanings.
un balai de cheminée = “a chimney-broom,” making him quite short.
nez crochu = “hooked nose”
Doctors don’t wear them anymore.
se redresser = “to straighten up” (again)
je viens de la part de = “I come at the behest of (or recommendation of, or suggestion of)”
soulever = “to lift” (something, holding it from the bottom)
avoir de la peine à = “have difficulty (doing something)”
une tige = “a stem”
prescrire. Note the inversion: que vous a prescrit la fée
échapper à = “to escape from.” The vous is an indirect object.
Here vouloir in the passé simple means a wish that is not fulfilled; hence “tried to.”
qui doit = “which is to”
il se sentit enlever = “he felt himself be (OR being) lifted up”
fendre = “to split.” A regular –(d)re verb.
se précipiter = “to rush”
grandir = “to grow up (get big)”
C’est que – The idea is: “She said this, because…” Or: “The fact was,…”
de toute la tête = “by a whole head”
car…parti = “for he had left two years, seven months and six days ago.”
se lasser de = “to tire of.” las, lasse = “tired.”
adossé = “with its back to”
un jupon = a garment that goes under a skirt (une jupe); back then, a petticoat
le linge = “linen,” but here probably linge de corps is meant, which = “underclothes.” du linge pour la maison = all kinds of cloths used in a home (towels, tablecloths, sheets…)
une armoire = “a wardrobe,” that is, a moveable closet.
In French, you “push” a cry out; also a sigh; also various other expressive sounds.
garnir = “to furnish, equip, adorn (with)”
une casserole is what we call a saucepan (has one long handle).
une marmite = a cooking pot (bigger than une casserole and has two little handles).
un gigot = “a leg of lamb”
avaler = “to swallow” (to make something go aval down your throat).
se rassasier = “to satisfy one’s hunger.” Heureux les affamés et les assoiffés de justice, car ils seront rassassiés. (Mt 5:6)
la vaisselle = here, a collective noun meaning “all the dishes used for eating.”
un drap = “a bedsheet”
se borner = se limiter

https://www.madbeppo.com/text/le-bon-petit-henri/

http://www.litteratureaudio.com/livres- ... e-de-segur
http://www.litteratureaudio.com/livre-a ... fants.html
2 x

User avatar
Le Baron
Black Belt - 3rd Dan
Posts: 3513
Joined: Mon Jan 18, 2021 5:14 pm
Location: Koude kikkerland
Languages: English (N), fr, nl, de, eo, Sranantongo,
Maintaining: es, swahili.
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=18796
x 9393

Re: Team Me: Foxing Around

Postby Le Baron » Mon Jan 24, 2022 11:29 pm

What a great list of words/phrases. Many will find those useful. I'll poke my nose in on a few...

The en here means something like “for all that.” il n’en continua pas moins sa route = “he nonetheless (for all that) continued on his path.”

Just 'nonetheless/nevertheless'. N'en est pas moins.

à tire-d’aile

Take flight (literally 'take wing'). That latter also exists as a common idiom in English.

Inouïe still lives on though as meaning 'unheard of' or unprecedented. Inédit seems to be also commonly used now,. Both also mean something 'new' and not heard of/seen before.

ôter is a fancier substitute for enlever.

Indeed though, as far as I know, ôter, unlike enlever, doesn't have the figurative meaning of 'pulling off'...e.g. a feat or task, and also doesn't mean 'kidnap'!

I'll not boringly comment on every one.
0 x

User avatar
reineke
Black Belt - 3rd Dan
Posts: 3570
Joined: Wed Jan 06, 2016 7:34 pm
Languages: Fox (C4)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=6979
x 6554

Re: Team Me: Foxing Around

Postby reineke » Tue Jan 25, 2022 3:26 am

Le Baron wrote:What a great list of words/phrases. Many will find those useful. I'll poke my nose in on a few...

The en here means something like “for all that.” il n’en continua pas moins sa route = “he nonetheless (for all that) continued on his path.”

Just 'nonetheless/nevertheless'. N'en est pas moins.

à tire-d’aile

Take flight (literally 'take wing'). That latter also exists as a common idiom in English.

Inouïe still lives on though as meaning 'unheard of' or unprecedented. Inédit seems to be also commonly used now,. Both also mean something 'new' and not heard of/seen before.

ôter is a fancier substitute for enlever.

Indeed though, as far as I know, ôter, unlike enlever, doesn't have the figurative meaning of 'pulling off'...e.g. a feat or task, and also doesn't mean 'kidnap'!

I'll not boringly comment on every one.


à tire-d'aile
locution adverbiale

Littéraire. Avec des coups d'aile rapides et ininterrompus : Voler à tire-d'aile.

Larousse

Swiftly.

"La pie a échappé au chat en s’envolant à tire-d’aile.
The magpie escaped from the cat by flapping its wings hard and flying away"

Cambridge dictionary

"Take wing" is more commonly connected with starting to fly/flying away (s'envoler).

ôter and enlever are indeed not always interchangeable

It's not boring and feel free to comment.

I was thinking about taxonomies, lexical fields, the growth of children's vocabulary and how words hook together.

Bird>parrot
>raven
>Wing>feather
egg, nest
flying
etc.

I listened to three of Ségur's stories today. Blondine, Le Bon Petit Henri and Les petites filles modèles which is a short children's novel.
1 x

User avatar
reineke
Black Belt - 3rd Dan
Posts: 3570
Joined: Wed Jan 06, 2016 7:34 pm
Languages: Fox (C4)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=6979
x 6554

Re: Team Me: Foxing Around

Postby reineke » Tue Jan 25, 2022 7:43 pm





0 x

User avatar
reineke
Black Belt - 3rd Dan
Posts: 3570
Joined: Wed Jan 06, 2016 7:34 pm
Languages: Fox (C4)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=6979
x 6554

Re: Team Me: Foxing Around

Postby reineke » Sun Jan 30, 2022 7:00 pm

1 x

User avatar
reineke
Black Belt - 3rd Dan
Posts: 3570
Joined: Wed Jan 06, 2016 7:34 pm
Languages: Fox (C4)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=6979
x 6554

Re: Team Me: Foxing Around

Postby reineke » Tue Feb 01, 2022 4:43 am

January 2022

FRA
Chateaubriand
Ségur

ITA
King
Netflix

ESP
Cortazar
Cartoons

PORT
Netflix

RU
Chekhov
Netflix

DEU
Kafka
0 x


Return to “Language logs”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: emk and 2 guests