Japanese and Mandarin in 50 years, with a lot of detours.

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David27
Green Belt
Posts: 279
Joined: Thu Apr 13, 2017 8:52 pm
Languages: English (N)
French, Spanish (advanced)
Russian, Portuguese, Italian, German (proficient)
Mandarin, Japanese, Dutch (low-intermediate)
Latin, Polish: (beginner)
Abandoned languages (for now) :( Greek, Czech, Bengali, Arabic, Norwegian
x 987

Re: Japanese and Mandarin in 50 years, with a lot of detours.

Postby David27 » Sun Feb 14, 2021 4:12 am

Dr Mack Rettosy wrote:Hi David,
Wonderful log. Just finished reading through it all. It's incredibly inspiring how you've kept at languages through a demanding career in medicine. How wonderful that your hobby allows you to make connections with your patients! Also, congratulations on the news of an expanding family! Bringing a child into the fold will present scheduling challenges but also opportunities (like your interest in raising bilingual children).

I'm all in on Mandarin at the moment, so wanted to share a few ideas for Mandarin listening materials.

Have you considered a youtube premium account? Doing so allows you to download videos and listen w/o data or wifi. There's also the benefit of being able to multitask (use another app) or shut off your phone screen (save battery) while listening. Subscription is $15/month but the first month is free so you could give it a try? I ended up paying for the subscription and using it as my singular listening source. Some ideas of what to listen to:

I'll leave you with that, but happy to share more.

Curious, did you ever manage that beach-destination vacation you had planned for the first two weeks of March 2020? Myself and my SO also vacationed during that time and had quite the memorable experience with COVID-19 beginning to spread (fortunately, it was only domestic travel).


Thank you for commenting and sharing the materials (looks great, and I needed more Mandarin sources to check out as right now I have tons of Japanese resources, but with Mandarin I had less on deck)! A lot of that may still be well above my current humble level. Honestly I had never thought of YouTube premium, but you make a good case for it. Given that the due date is imminent, I won’t start now (won’t have enough time to play around with it and make good use of the trial), but later this year I’ll give it a go and check it out! As for the vacation, yes I did go to Florida. it was the first 2 weeks of March 2020, so we likely had a similar experience.
4 x

David27
Green Belt
Posts: 279
Joined: Thu Apr 13, 2017 8:52 pm
Languages: English (N)
French, Spanish (advanced)
Russian, Portuguese, Italian, German (proficient)
Mandarin, Japanese, Dutch (low-intermediate)
Latin, Polish: (beginner)
Abandoned languages (for now) :( Greek, Czech, Bengali, Arabic, Norwegian
x 987

Re: Japanese and Mandarin in 50 years, with a lot of detours.

Postby David27 » Sun Feb 21, 2021 4:38 am

Il y a un forum ici ou Nooj demande si le statut socio-économique d'une langue est un critère important en choisissant une langue à étudier. Je vais mettre mes pensées voici plutôt que là où il a demandé parce que : 1. Ma réponse n’est pas unique 2. J’ai envie d’écrire en français aujourd’hui, et 3. Je vais donner mon expérience personnelle.

Dans le monde, oui, je crois que c'est le facteur le plus important (c'est pour cela que l'anglais est si dominant parmi deuxièmes langues). C'est aussi parce qu'il y a moins d'avantages économiques pour les anglophones, qu’ils sont toujours les pires en apprentissage des langues dans le monde. S’il y avait plus d’avantages économiques, les anglophones aussi apprendraient des autres langues. Ce n’est pas à dire qu’il n’y a aucun avantage, mais ce n’est pas suffisant pour motiver la plupart des gens. Ce forum est une exception, parce que clairement nous sommes tous passionnés par les langues étrangères, alors le statut socio-économique est moins important pour nous.

Dans mon cas, j’ai voulu apprendre le français par une fascination par l’histoire européen, et un intérêt à visiter l’Europe. À mon lycée, les options était le français, l’espagnol, ou le japonais, alors j’ai choisi le français. À l’université, j’ai voulu continuer mes études de français, et j’ai pensé faire un double major physiologie (pour plus tard appliquer à l’école de médecine) et français. Après avoir étudié en France l’été entre ma première et deuxième année à l’université, j’ai voulu faire le « French and Arabic tract » avec une concentration sur l’Afrique du nord, et passer 6-12 mois au Maroc dans ma quatrième année... Mais après avoir bien réfléchi et recherché mes options, j’ai pensé que ce serait plus difficile à tout faire pour être accepté à l’école de médecine, peut-être j’aurais du faire une autre année des études pour tout faire, et je ne voulais pas prendre encore plus de prêts scolaires. J’ai aussi voulu continuer d’étudier des langues, parce qu’il est déjà devenu une passion pour moi. Mais en pensant à ma carrière, j’ai décidé d’étudier l’espagnol (en rétrospectif… choix impeccable, David). Et parce que je l’utilise au travail, il est devenu le plus important langue étrangère dans ma vie, et je n’utilise guère le français. Donc même si je veux dire que pour moi le statut socio-économique n’est pas important, il a joué un grand rôle. Et en rétrospectif, comme je disais, je ne ferais pas autrement.
2 x

David27
Green Belt
Posts: 279
Joined: Thu Apr 13, 2017 8:52 pm
Languages: English (N)
French, Spanish (advanced)
Russian, Portuguese, Italian, German (proficient)
Mandarin, Japanese, Dutch (low-intermediate)
Latin, Polish: (beginner)
Abandoned languages (for now) :( Greek, Czech, Bengali, Arabic, Norwegian
x 987

Re: Japanese and Mandarin in 50 years, with a lot of detours.

Postby David27 » Mon Mar 01, 2021 3:47 am

February was a bit of a setback hours wise, but I did continue making some progress. In Japanese I finished Genki I and was able to put it away. For the next month, my goal is 1 chapter a week in Genki II, I haven't started that textbook, and really once I finished the prior book I took a bit of a break from textbook work.

For Mandarin, I also want to get back into textbook work. I've been mostly focusing on just listening, but want to hop back into the John DeFrancis series and practice my reading/writing. So 1 chapter a week as well for that is my goal.

I'm enjoying Amor en los tiempos de Colera well enough, I'm 120 pages in, goal to read at least 200 pages this month. I want to get my Spanish to a second household language for me, so I need to boost it to C2 and just try to use it more in my day-to-day life. Expecting the baby any day now (due date 3/1- with preparation for the baby I have done less focused study recently). I'm not going to be militant about speaking just Spanish, but we'll see, I want to share the language as it's something I love and am passionate about, hopefully some abilities rubs off.

French has surprisingly got a bit more attention in February. Yesterday I had a 30 minute phone chat with a French friend who I haven't spoken to in awhile, and it was great catching up. Also I watched Lupin on Netflix with my wife and we enjoyed the first season.

Other than that the other languages didn't get a ton of attention, mostly podcasts and youtube. For Dutch Easy Languages has released a few new episodes, and the man who does the videos has his own youtube channel (Dutch and Go with Nout), whose videos I started to watch.

February Hours:
Spanish: 9 hours, 50 minutes
Japanese: 9 hours, 5 minutes
Mandarin: 9 hours, 5 minutes
Russian: 4 hours, 45 minutes
French: 3 hours, 20 minutes
German: 2 hours, 50 minutes
Dutch: 2 hours, 5 minutes
Italian: 1 hour, 15 minutes
Portuguese: 1 hour, 0 minutes
Latin: 1 hour, 0 minutes

2021 Running totals
Japanese: 24 hours, 30 minutes
Mandarin: 23 hours, 50 minutes
Spanish: 17 hours, 35 minutes
Russian: 9 hours, 50 minutes
German: 5 hours, 15 minutes
French: 5 hours, 10 minutes
Dutch: 3 hours, 5 minutes
Italian: 2 hours, 40 minutes
Latin: 1 hour, 25 minutes
Portuguese: 1 hour, 0 minutes
7 x

David27
Green Belt
Posts: 279
Joined: Thu Apr 13, 2017 8:52 pm
Languages: English (N)
French, Spanish (advanced)
Russian, Portuguese, Italian, German (proficient)
Mandarin, Japanese, Dutch (low-intermediate)
Latin, Polish: (beginner)
Abandoned languages (for now) :( Greek, Czech, Bengali, Arabic, Norwegian
x 987

Re: Japanese and Mandarin in 50 years, with a lot of detours.

Postby David27 » Wed Apr 07, 2021 2:33 am

Lots of news. The biggest being the birth of my daughter! That whole experience was a such a roller-coaster of emotion, excitement and fear (thankfully in the end all has been ok). I don’t know why I made any goals or thought I would be able to keep to any kind of regular schedule. I also only had 2 weeks off of work… and going back to work was really hard, but I did it so I can take some time to help out at home and take some family leave later this year when my wife goes back to work (still, if anyone else is debating how much time to take off…. take more than 2 weeks). With that being said… my interests remain the same, just time and energy took a bit of a hit.

Spanish has remained pretty stable, mainly because I still use it at work, and now I’m trying to use it more at home singing and just speaking in Spanish to my wife or baby at times. English is our primary language, and I’m under no illusion that I’m going to be able to raise a perfectly balanced bilingual child with beautiful Spanish… but my hope is that I gift her some Spanish understanding and ability. We’ll see how that goes. Didn’t do nearly as much reading as I thought I would. In fact, 100% of the reading I did do, was before she was born.

For Japanese and Mandarin, they both took a big hit, I didn’t even finish 1 chapter in my textbooks (I did almost 1 chapter in each, but didn’t quite finish the chapters). That has just been too difficult to maintain regularly. The Genki II I did keep up a bit, and those chapters are long with lots of exercises to go through. I got to japanesepod101 lesson 100. I’m also thinking about downloading the anki 2k/6k Japanese vocabulary deck to just start drilling myself with a bit of vocabulary each day, thinking maybe that will help me with my consistency. However I never really liked flash cards, so probably won’t do that. I prefer just occasionally logging on to Lingq, listening to podcasts, etc. I’ve also found a new podcast for simple Japanese called Nihongo con Teppei, haven’t listened to it yet (found it today). For Mandarin, I listen to chillchat, which is aimed at beginner Japanese, but I still pick up things and the hosts are pleasant to listen too. A bit too much English, but when I’m tired driving home after a day of work, it hits the spot.

Outside of that I still like EasyGerman podcast. Italian I listened to a lot of youtube videos from progetto happiness (or something like that, it was recommended by Italianoautomatico, and had videos of a visit to North Korea which was interested and got me onto the channel. Otherwise, having a baby and being tired and with odd sleeping schedule paradoxically helped my language dabbling (as in more of the non-focus languages got time). Doing Japanese or Mandarin takes some real energy, but listening to a bit of Latin or Dutch… much easier at this point (given prior experience with German and other Romance languages). Dutch and go is a new Dutch youtube channel I watched. Dutch being easier for me than Latin, given more prior study time with so I'm closer to an intermediate level, beginner Latin still.

March Hours:
Spanish: 7 hours, 30 minutes
Japanese: 6 hours, 25 minutes
Mandarin: 5 hours, 10 minutes
German: 5 hours, 0 minutes
Italian: 4 hours, 10 minutes
Dutch: 3 hours, 0 minutes
Russian: 1 hour, 45 minutes
French: 1 hour, 0 minutes
Latin: 1 hour, 0 minutes
Portuguese: 25 minutes

2021 Hour totals:
Japanese: 30 hours, 55 minutes
Mandarin: 29 hours, 0 minutes
Spanish: 25 hours, 5 minutes
Russian: 11 hours, 35 minutes
German: 10 hours, 15 minutes
Italian: 6 hours, 50 minutes
French: 6 hours, 10 minutes
Dutch: 6 hours, 5 minutes
Latin: 2 hour, 25 minutes
Portuguese: 1 hour, 25 minutes
12 x

David27
Green Belt
Posts: 279
Joined: Thu Apr 13, 2017 8:52 pm
Languages: English (N)
French, Spanish (advanced)
Russian, Portuguese, Italian, German (proficient)
Mandarin, Japanese, Dutch (low-intermediate)
Latin, Polish: (beginner)
Abandoned languages (for now) :( Greek, Czech, Bengali, Arabic, Norwegian
x 987

Re: Japanese and Mandarin in 50 years, with a lot of detours.

Postby David27 » Sat May 08, 2021 2:08 pm

I’ve been spending a lot of my free time at home pacing back and forth, trying to rock our baby gently to sleep, and when I’m not doing that, I also have my long commute in the car to and from work… so I’ve spent much more time listening to podcasts. A lot of my old podcasts: Easy German podcast, The Daily, and a soccer podcast “the football ramble” on occasion, podcast italiano, but I’ve also added some new ones to the mix including Chillchat, which is a Chinese podcast out of Shenzhen with a teacher and a foreigner who discuss different topics on life in China in usually English and lower-intermediate Mandarin as a language lesson. It has too much English for my liking, but if I’m tired or have to pass time, that can be easier for a 15-20 minute time rather than listening with intent focus to pure foreign language. The alternative to that is what I’m listening to in Japanese: Nihongo con Teppei, which are ~4 minute lessons 100% in simple Japanese. This is perfect language learning material, as I understand >95%, and can follow along but still will pick up new words, 100% taught and explained in Japanese. This is far superior methodology wise, but 1. I haven’t found a good version of this in Mandarin, and 2. the short lesson format isn’t good for long drives. Doing more Nihongo con Teppei means less japanesepod101, but I still do some.

I’ve had difficulty finding time for free reading now, so I replaced that with listening to an audiobook in Russian, “Master and Margarita” by Bulgakov, one of my all-time favorite books. Audiobooks can be challenging, as you really need to understand almost everything to get the subtleties and important parts of the plot, but I’ve read this in English >10 years ago, after that between 2011-2014 ish I’ve read it twice in Russian, so I’m very familiar with the story and language. I also am watching the Russian mini-series adaptation made in ~2005, which while production quality isn’t very high, the great acting and faithfulness to the source material makes it very entertaining. So far, I’ve gotten through about half of the audiobook and series. I do miss reading Amor en los Tiempos de Colera, and hope to return to it soon… but I’m having trouble finding extra time to sit down and read for even 10-15 minutes. For the same reason, formal textbook study took a major hit.

April Hours:
Spanish: 10 hours, 35 minutes
Russian: 10 hours, 0 minutes
Mandarin: 8 hours, 0 minutes
Japanese; 7 hours, 30 minutes
German: 6 hours, 0 minutes
Dutch: 1 hour, 35 minutes
Italian: 1 hour, 35 minutes
Latin: 50 minutes
French: 20 minutes

Running 2021 total:
Japanese: 38 hours, 25 minutes
Mandarin: 37 hours, 0 minutes
Spanish: 35 hours, 40 minutes
Russian: 21 hours, 35 minutes
German: 16 hours, 15 minutes
Italian: 8 hours, 25 minutes
Dutch: 7 hours, 40 minutes
French: 6 hours, 30 minutes
Latin: 3 hours, 15 minutes
Portuguese: 1 hour, 25 minutes
6 x

David27
Green Belt
Posts: 279
Joined: Thu Apr 13, 2017 8:52 pm
Languages: English (N)
French, Spanish (advanced)
Russian, Portuguese, Italian, German (proficient)
Mandarin, Japanese, Dutch (low-intermediate)
Latin, Polish: (beginner)
Abandoned languages (for now) :( Greek, Czech, Bengali, Arabic, Norwegian
x 987

Re: Japanese and Mandarin in 50 years, with a lot of detours.

Postby David27 » Tue Jun 01, 2021 3:09 pm

Je n’ai pas des grandes nouvelles pour le mois de mai (no big updates for the month of May). This time of year with the beautiful spring weather reminds me of getting ready to go on exciting summer trips in years past: in 2008 when I went to study in Lyon, France for 2 months with a French host-family, or 2009 when I visited Hamburg Germany to meet up with a friend who I met the previous year in France who was studying there- and this is when I first tried to learn some basic German phrases, but didn’t officially start learning German until a few years later… or 2011 going to Moscow for a month to study Russian at университет плеханова. I’m feeling nostalgic in part because I haven’t left NY since March of last year (and no plans to leave the state until maybe Christmas I’ll see family in Texas, if corona is well controlled).

Japanese/Mandarin: I haven’t completed as much language-wise as I would have liked. For Japanese and Mandarin I’m still at my decreased pace of study, but still picking away at it, mostly trying to improve my listening comprehension. I also wasted several hours watching youtube Japanese gurus debate “pitch-accent”, absolutely pointless for me since my Japanese is nowhere near the level for it to matter for my Japanese, but being a language enthusiast I couldn’t resist listening in on their opinions on the subject.

Russian/Spanish: I’m just about finished with Master and Margarita youtube series and audiobook, and I’ve watched some other Russian youtube videos now and again. For Spanish my use is mostly practical use at work, though I did sit down for 30-60 minutes once or twice over the last month to read el amor en los tiempos del colera again. So didn’t make huge progress in the book but I made a conscious effort to sit down and read a few times.

German/Dutch: EasyGerman podcast while commuting, for Dutch I’ve been trying to watch Dutch youtube videos when I can. I also have been going through Dutch duolingo to get vocabulary practice and to play around with duolingo to see what it’s all about.

Latin/Italian/portuguese: I’m a student of Luke Ranieri or Scorpiomartianus, if he publishes videos in Latin, I watch and study them when I can, that’s the extend of my latin studies but he published a longer Beginner conversational Latin video, which I’ve used to study and which is why I spent a bit more time with Latin (still nothing serious). Italian I listen to Davide Gemello podcast italiano or his youtube channel every now and again. My Portuguese I still have on the back burner.

French: I had one long conversation in French with a Haitian couple who spoke French (I can’t communicate in Creole, unfortunately). Without practicing any French in a long time, my French feels rusty. Even though I spoke very fluently in the past, now I feel like I have to put effort into having a long conversation, and push out Spanish words that keep popping into my brain while speaking French, which never happened in the past. I’m not worried about it though, if I ever need to brush up on my French, reading one book and watching a movie or two and I’m sure I would be ready to go full French if I needed, and I was still able to have the full conversation, it just felt like effort.

May hours:
Spanish: 9 hours, 40 minutes
Russian: 9 hours, 20 minutes
German: 6 hours, 40 minutes
Japanese: 6 hours, 5 minutes
Mandarin: 6 hours, 5 minutes
Italian: 2 hours, 15 minutes
Latin: 1 hour, 55 minutes
Dutch: 1 hour, 45 minutes
Portuguese: 45 minutes
French: 40 minutes

Running 2021 total:
Spanish: 45 hours, 20 minutes
Japanese: 44 hours, 30 minutes
Mandarin: 43 hours, 5 minutes
Russian: 30 hours, 55 minutes
German: 22 hours, 55 minutes
Italian: 10 hours, 40 minutes
Dutch: 9 hours, 25 minutes
French: 7 hours, 10 minutes
Latin: 5 hours, 10 minutes
Portuguese: 2 hours, 10 minutes
5 x

David27
Green Belt
Posts: 279
Joined: Thu Apr 13, 2017 8:52 pm
Languages: English (N)
French, Spanish (advanced)
Russian, Portuguese, Italian, German (proficient)
Mandarin, Japanese, Dutch (low-intermediate)
Latin, Polish: (beginner)
Abandoned languages (for now) :( Greek, Czech, Bengali, Arabic, Norwegian
x 987

Re: Japanese and Mandarin in 50 years, with a lot of detours.

Postby David27 » Mon Jul 05, 2021 2:12 am

This past month I started strong, feeling very motivated to dive into some of my favorite language-learning related activities. I read more than I had in the prior few months, totaling a humble 115 pages in Spanish this month, but since I hadn’t been in any good fiction reading habits in years, this was a good amount for me. I’m trying to read for 10-15 minutes on weekend days, and at least one day during the week. Often work gets in the way (being on call the last 2 weeks didn’t help), but I do enjoy having a book that I’m reading, and slowly making progress. Hopefully I improve on that in the future! Audiobooks on the other hand have been a great way to pass time while trying to rock my daughter to sleep. I finished “Master and Margarita”, and then listened to “Batallas en el Desierto”, a short novel by Mexican author Jose Emilio Pacheco, and now I’ve started “A Dog’s Heart” by Bulgakov as well.

Bulgakov’s “Master and Margarita” had always been one of my favorite books. On this listen through, I actually found it a bit less enjoyable than on previous passes (though still overall very much enjoyed listening). I still think Part 1 is an absolute masterclass in fantasy, and the humor is on point. Part 2, which focuses on Margarita, the Devil’s ball, and a continuation of the Jerusalem time line drags a bit. It’s not bad or boring by any stretch of the imagination, but I just don’t love it in the same way like I do Part 1. I’ll probably go back to this novel in another 5-10 years.

Batallas en el Desierto is another repeat of a favorite. It’s short, but Pacheco manages to say so much, sometimes in a direct telling, but often in an indirect manner. It takes place in the narrators memories of ‘La Colonia Roma’ part of Mexico City where he grew up in the ~1950s. I wrote a page journal entry on it in Spanish, but I won’t bore you with all my thoughts on it here (or include spoilers... though it's not really a book one reads for the plot... more of for the feel, the writing, and the world that he is describing).

For “A Dog’s Heart”, I read it in ~2010 in English. I never enjoyed it as much as “Master and Margarita”, but since I enjoy Bulgakov’s writing, I wanted to continue with another audiobook by him.

Mandarin/Japanese: I was on a Mandarin kick this month. I always love Japanese, by my continuation in Mandarin for some periods is just sheer willpower and stubbornness to never quit. This month though I’ve loved studying it, enjoyed writing out vocabulary, trying to memorize new phrases, work on my pronunciation of tones, and have been all over youtube listening to all kinds of youtube videos in Mandarin. I also found the new HSK 3.0 core vocabulary lists (I saw a video series with 500 of them that gives them one at a time, with them in context with a sentence), and have been going through them making sure I know them all. So far I’ve covered 300, and I feel pretty confident with all of this vocabulary which is a morale boost. Japanese is more of the same as previous months, nothing particularly new that I want to comment on.

Spanish: Batallas en el desierto y amor en los tiempos de colera. I’ve been trying to consistently speak to my daughter in Spanish and read to her in Spanish as well

German/Dutch: Podcasts, mostly. I like listening to German in the car… I don’t know why, but I’ve created this habit, and it’s been good for my German listening comprehension. The extra time on Japanese/Mandarin has been bad for my Dutch.

Latin: Going through Luke Ranieri’s youtube lessons on weekends (except the past 2 weekends, when I was on call… I have some catching up to do)

Italian/French/Portuguese: bad month, the Portuguese I did was videos explaining the differences in grammar and pronunciation between European and Brazilian Portuguese, since 99% of my exposure has been Brazilian, I wanted to at least know what the differences are so when/if I am exposed to more European Portuguese, I can hopefully pick it up quicker with theoretical knowledge ahead of time.

June Hours:
Spanish: 12 hours, 30 minutes
Mandarin: 12 hours, 30 minutes
Japanese: 12 hours, 15 minutes
German: 5 hours, 50 minutes
Russian: 5 hours, 35 minutes
Latin: 2 hours, 25 minutes
Portuguese: 45 minutes
Italian: 35 minutes
French: 35 minutes
Dutch: 35 minutes

Running 2021 total:
Spanish: 57 hours, 50 minutes
Japanese: 56 hours, 45 minutes
Mandarin: 55 hours, 35 minutes
Russian: 36 hours, 30 minutes
German: 28 hours, 45 minutes
Italian: 11 hours, 15 minutes
Dutch: 10 hours, 0 minutes
French: 7 hours, 45 minutes
Latin: 7 hours, 35 minutes
Portuguese: 2 hours, 55 minutes
8 x

David27
Green Belt
Posts: 279
Joined: Thu Apr 13, 2017 8:52 pm
Languages: English (N)
French, Spanish (advanced)
Russian, Portuguese, Italian, German (proficient)
Mandarin, Japanese, Dutch (low-intermediate)
Latin, Polish: (beginner)
Abandoned languages (for now) :( Greek, Czech, Bengali, Arabic, Norwegian
x 987

Re: Japanese and Mandarin in 50 years, with a lot of detours.

Postby David27 » Tue Aug 03, 2021 6:16 pm

July hours:
This past month I had similar habits to June, I have really enjoyed all of the "HSK-3 vocabulary" videos put out by different Mandarin teachers with sentence examples, I feel this is making a big difference in helping to solidify my core vocabulary. Otherwise I now have a week vacation, and with wife and baby rented a nice place on the shore in Long Island. One small positive of restrictive travel due to the pandemic is getting to explore so many great places and enjoying more great local venues. Getting some nice R&R now and enjoying some reading and GENKI studying, as when we get back for the last few days of the vacation week I'll be moving us to a new apartment :cry:

July Hours
Spanish: 11 hours, 25 minutes
Mandarin: 11 hours, 0 minutes
Japanese: 9 hours, 0 minutes
Russian: 6 hours, 20 minutes
German: 5 hours, 45 minutes
Latin: 2 hours, 30 minutes
French: 2 hours, 5 minutes
Italian: 1 hour, 35 minutes
Portuguese: 45 minutes
Dutch: 40 minutes

Running 2021 total:
Spanish: 69 hours, 15 minutes
Mandarin: 66 hours, 35 minutes
Japanese: 65 hours, 45 minutes
Russian: 42 hours, 50 minutes
German: 34 hours, 30 minutes
Italian: 12 hours, 50 minutes
Dutch: 10 hours, 40 minutes
Latin: 10 hours, 5 minutes
French: 9 hours, 50 minutes
Portuguese: 3 hours, 40 minutes
5 x

David27
Green Belt
Posts: 279
Joined: Thu Apr 13, 2017 8:52 pm
Languages: English (N)
French, Spanish (advanced)
Russian, Portuguese, Italian, German (proficient)
Mandarin, Japanese, Dutch (low-intermediate)
Latin, Polish: (beginner)
Abandoned languages (for now) :( Greek, Czech, Bengali, Arabic, Norwegian
x 987

Re: Japanese and Mandarin in 50 years, with a lot of detours.

Postby David27 » Thu Aug 05, 2021 9:08 pm

No puedo aguantar más del “Amor en los Tiempos del Cólera”. Leí 378/460 páginas y no puedo tolerar de leer mas. Yo sé que soy en la menoridad aquí, y que la mayoría de gente cree que las obras de García Marques son un tesoro cultural del patrimonio mundial, pero yo nunca quiero volver a leerlo.

Advertencia de SPOILER para cien años de soledad y amor en los tiempos del cólera.

Cuando leí 100 años de soledad hace 10 años. No me gustó mucho. Me gustaba la idea de que es una fábula que representa el nacimiento y historia de Colombia. Pero muchas veces me perdí en la lectura con todos los nombres iguales, y no me sentí bien con todo el incesto en el libro. Pensé que debe ser una alusión de algo histórico en Colombia y solo no lo entiendo… cuando hablo de mi experiencia con otros que lo han leído, me dicen que también lo encontraron difícil a leer y a gustar durante la lectura, pero su estilo es una obra de arte! A me eso suena a “intellectual wanking”. Pero quizás es solo que ellos aprecian arte y yo no tengo la paciencia para eso. Pero escuché que Amor en los tiempos del cólera es buena, entonces cuando lo vi en una tienda, lo compré, y ahora suficiente tiempo ya pasó que estaba listo a tratar de leerlo de nuevo… mala decisión.

Amor en los tiempos del cólera me engañó. Los primeros ~100 páginas no estaban malos, y aunque no fue mi favorito tipo de libro, me gustaba y aún encontré partes chistosos. Sin embargo, cuando Fiorentino Ariza crece, la lectura se vuelve aburrida, machista y a veces asquerosa. Florentino hace una lista de las mujeres con quien tenía relaciones sexuales (622) para “aliviar el dolor” de no estar con su primer amor, quien lo rechazó a los 15 años. Y aun que ella dijo claramente que no lo ama, el espere 50 años a ella, y al fin ella lo rechaza otra vez, pero Florentino sigue escribiéndola cartas hasta que ella lo acepta…. Que estupidez (y suena a acoso). También hay dos casos de violacion en el libro, y en ambos casos no ven la cara de quien hizo el acto… y la victima se enamora con el violador, y quiere averiguar su identidad para estar con el/ella en vez de estar traumatizado. Y García Márquez ve estas acciones como actos de amor en vez de una violencia. Pero lo peor de todo, y porque no podía terminar con el libro (usualmente aun cuando no me gusta un libro, lo termino eventualmente), es cuando Florentino es un viejo guardián de una adolescente familiar… y inicia una relación sexual con ella. Que asco. Leí el resumen y veo que la deja cuando el marido de su primer amor muere, para estar con ella en el fin de sus vidas, y la chica adolescente se suicida por tristeza. La intención en el libro es que el amor es como la enfermedad de cólera, que destroza vidas jovenes… pero el autor confunde amor con lujuria, codicia, celos, y violencia. Leyendo los resúmenes de otros libros populares de Gabriel García Márquez, memorias de mis putas tristes, un hombre de 90 años quiere acostarse con una “Virgen adolescente de 14 años drogada y durmiendo.”… Nunca quiero leer mas de Gabriel García Márquez.
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MorkTheFiddle
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Languages: English (N). Read (only) French and Spanish. Studying Ancient Greek. Studying a bit of Latin. Once studied Old Norse. Dabbled in Catalan, Provençal and Italian.
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 11#p133911
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Re: Japanese and Mandarin in 50 years, with a lot of detours.

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Fri Aug 06, 2021 4:52 pm

David27 wrote:No puedo aguantar más del “Amor en los Tiempos del Cólera”. Leí 378/460 páginas y no puedo tolerar de leer mas. Yo sé que soy en la menoridad aquí, y que la mayoría de gente cree que las obras de García Marques son un tesoro cultural del patrimonio mundial, pero yo nunca quiero volver a leerlo.

Except for Cien Años and most of his stories, nothing else by García Márquez appeals to me at all. You got further in Love in the Time of Cholera than I did. And if it helps, I knew a Puerto Rican woman who disliked him perhaps more than you do. I once read Cien Años was indebted to Vergil's Aeneid. I can see the connection, but don't see how knowing the poem helps a reader enjoy the novel.
To each his or her own, and more power to you for saying what YOU like.
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Many things which are false are transmitted from book to book, and gain credit in the world. -- attributed to Samuel Johnson


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