Persistence is Key (EN/DE)

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hedgehog.chess
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Persistence is Key (EN/DE)

Postby hedgehog.chess » Thu Aug 16, 2018 3:18 am

StringerBell wrote:I've enjoyed reading through your log. I'm hoping that since your native language is Polish, you might be able to give me some suggestions. As I was reading through the types of children's/young adult books you've started with, I was thinking, "that's what I should be reading in Polish!" but I'm not sure where to start. Would you be willing to suggest some titles?

It’s been a while since I last read a children’s book:) But from the top of my head: Jan Brzechwa might be the author for you. His rhymes are absolutely fantastic, and we are having a blast with my daughter while reading them. ”Akademia pana Kleksa” by the same author is a strange book but it was an essential reading at my primary school. Julian Tuwim also springs to mind when the rhymes are concerned. And his “Lokomotywa” is world-class.
Translations of Astrid Lindgrens books should also do.
As for the YA literature: Edmund Niziurski, Adam Zbigniew Nienacki, Adam Bahdaj are the authors I read a lot, and I mean a lot. The problem could be their works are from the 50s-60s so some of the vocabulary is out of use now. No one will tell you that something is “morowe” but “cool,super, fajne”.
The whole “Tomek w…” series by Adam Alfred Szklarski was also interesting.
Something more girly you say… Ok, how about the whole “Jeżycjada” series(more than 20 books) by Małgorzata Musierowicz. My wife has them all :) Plus side-the last book was published last year I think so they are more up to date when it goes to vocab. Minuses-flowery language, it can be hard for a non-native speaker to get the jokes, and there are a lot of them. The first volume in the series “Hihopter” is meant for younger publicity, maybe you could try it to see if the style fits you. Oh, and there’s also “Karolcia” by Maria Krüger. If you have any questions don’t hesitate to PM me :)
That was quite a nice trip down the memory lane :)
Last edited by hedgehog.chess on Thu Aug 16, 2018 9:32 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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StringerBell
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Re: Persistence is Key (EN/DE)

Postby StringerBell » Thu Aug 16, 2018 6:13 pm

Thank you for those recommendations! I probably will PM you in the future for some more ideas!
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hedgehog.chess
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Re: Persistence is Key (EN/DE)

Postby hedgehog.chess » Fri Aug 24, 2018 1:47 am

Note to all learners of German here: Have you already read and listened to the short story by AlOlaf in his log? I really wonder why his log isn’t more popular.(I mean really, like 3 "likes" for this story?) The way he writes is really an inspiration and shows how far can you get. Just look with what ease he writes, how he expresses himself, some words combinations I never thought were even possible, but they work! Wahnsinn! I’ve found his log at HTLAL but haven’t found the time(yet) to go through it. But I will for sure.

Update time:

Textbook finished:

Praxisbuch Phonetik. Aussprachetraining für Deutsch als Fremdsprache by Daniela Niebisch

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It’s a stress free introduction to German phonology. It may be better suited for a classroom environment, because some of the exercises require you to speak aloud the answers but there’s no answer key in the form of an audio file. But there aren’t many of those. I also don’t know if I could recommend it to a total beginner who would like to work alone with this book. Some exercises require an intermediate knowledge of grammar and it’s also almost exclusively monolingual. I found it really helpful, as it made me for example aware where the accent should be put in compound nouns and in words containing separable and inseparable prefixes. I also very much liked the idea of “Probleme mit [IPA symbol]? So klappt es:” where you can find some tips how to get the sound out of you. All this explained as simple as possible without requiring to know the exact anatomy of your speech organs. You can check what I mean here: http://www.phonetik-deutsch.de/das-praxisbuch-phonetik. And no, I’m in no way related to the author :)

Course finished:

Extremes Deutsch A1-A2 by Supermemo
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I haven’t really finished it, because it’s a SRS program so I still have to do my fair share of reps but I’ve already seen all of the words and currently at 11% of the B1-B2 course. Surprisingly there were quite a few words that I haven’t encountered before that I don’t think a student at the A2 should absolutely know, but that’s what you get when you don’t create the deck yourself. I prefer it this way as it saves me time for doing other things.

While waiting for the ordered book (autobiography by Hape Kerkeling) to arrive(12 working days and counting, although the distance from Berlin to me is just about 300km, although admittedly you have to cross the border) I started reading a collection of translated short stories by Stephen King, Robert Bloch, Roald Dahl etc. which I found at the book crossing point. I was quite negative about reading translated works, because I though the language would be too simplified. I stand corrected. Even in pulp-fiction there were enough unknown words to keep me busy figuring out their meaning from context. Although I will prefer the literature written originally in German I know I don’t have to shy away from translated works.

I also loaded my italki account with founds for 2 lessons to motivate myself to finally arrange at least one.(Yes, It will be my first) So I’m waiting for the right arrangement of the situation at work and at home to finally try it.
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StringerBell
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Re: Persistence is Key (EN/DE)

Postby StringerBell » Fri Aug 24, 2018 6:48 pm

hedgehog.chess wrote:
I also loaded my italki account with founds for 2 lessons to motivate myself to finally arrange at least one.(Yes, It will be my first) So I’m waiting for the right arrangement of the situation at work and at home to finally try it.


I'm curious to hear how your italki experience is. I've never used it but it seems like everyone else has.
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DaveAgain
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Re: A chessplayer learns languages (German for now)

Postby DaveAgain » Thu Aug 30, 2018 7:03 pm

hedgehog.chess wrote:I also attach a list of contemporary German speaking book authors. I posted in the German Group thread, asking for help in filling in the gaps, but it didn’t find much interest. Maybe here will it reach broader audience :)
Stefan Zweig wrote some popular biographies. He died in 1942, does that still count as contemporary?

Some of his books are available from Project Gutenberg. I enjoyed reading the french translation of his 'Maria Stuart' biography. I've also read his biography of Balzac (french language version), but that doesn't seem to be available from Project Gutenberg, I believe that the Balzac section of 'Drei Meister' was the beginning of it though.

His novella "Schachnovelle" is quite well known too, as a chess player you've likely come across that one before. :-) In 'the name of the wind' Patrick Rothfuss uses a the same image of someone sub-dividing their mind.

EDIT
Non-fiction. Guilia Enders' pop-science/biology book was a big hit.
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hedgehog.chess
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Persistence is Key (EN/DE)

Postby hedgehog.chess » Fri Aug 31, 2018 6:03 am

DaveAgain wrote:Stefan Zweig wrote some popular biographies. He died in 1942, does that still count as contemporary?

One can certainly argue that I left aside even more “contemporary” and famous authors like Heinrich Böll or Günter Grass to just name two. Maybe I should name my list “German speaking contemporary pulp authors” or something even more specific but it wouldn’t sound so good :-)
DaveAgain wrote:His novella "Schachnovelle" is quite well known too, as a chess player you've likely come across that one before. :-) In 'the name of the wind' Patrick Rothfuss uses a the same image of someone sub-dividing their mind.

Yes, I known about his "Schachnovelle", but I read it just in Polish. As you see I have a lot of to choose from :)
DaveAgain wrote:EDIT
Non-fiction. Guilia Enders' pop-science/biology book was a big hit.

Thank you for the recommendation, looks interesting. I remember vaguely that I looked at it some time ago, but didn’t write it down for some reason and totally forgot about it.
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Re: Persistence is Key (EN/DE)

Postby Elenia » Sat Sep 01, 2018 1:10 pm

hedgehog.chess wrote:
DaveAgain wrote:EDIT
Non-fiction. Guilia Enders' pop-science/biology book was a big hit.

Thank you for the recommendation, looks interesting. I remember vaguely that I looked at it some time ago, but didn’t write it down for some reason and totally forgot about it.


I have listened to it in Swedish, and have copies in Swedish, German and English. I'm going through it slowly in German right now. I guess you could say that I enjoyed it. (Obviously, mileage may vary. Also, be aware that she discuss animal testing quite often and without making any excuse or apology for it. I was fine with that, but you might not be. She doesn't go into details, simply discusses results from such testing).
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Re: Persistence is Key (EN/DE)

Postby DaveAgain » Sat Sep 01, 2018 1:35 pm

Elenia wrote:I have listened to it in Swedish, and have copies in Swedish, German and English.
Still a ways to go before you've got the full set. :-)

https://www.instagram.com/giuliaenders/
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hedgehog.chess
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Re: Persistence is Key (EN/DE)

Postby hedgehog.chess » Mon Sep 03, 2018 7:20 am

Elenia wrote:(Obviously, mileage may vary. Also, be aware that she discuss animal testing quite often and without making any excuse or apology for it. I was fine with that, but you might not be. She doesn't go into details, simply discusses results from such testing).



My wife is a MSc in biology and has some experience with animal testing. Rest assured it was never easy. And to get permission to conduct that kind of study you have to justify it in front of an ethic commission. As for the writing style, it’s probably a result of writing papers for scientific magazines, where everyone interested knows that that’s the name of the game.

Language learning update

Audiobook listened:

Helmut Kohl, die Macht und das Geld by Hans Leyendecker (17 hours)

I can’t remember exactly when was the last time I listened to an audiobook with comprehension well below 50%. January maybe? Well, this one I will definitely remember. I thought that it’s a Helmut Kohl’s biography but it turned out to be something different. Well there are some biographical parts(2-3 hours maybe?) but it’s a very detailed analysis of financial frauds committed in the time of his political career. The author takes under the microscope the finances of not only CDU (Kohl’s party) but also other German parties. The result is a combination of a lot of names, dates, amounts of money transfers, quotes from official documents and sometimes even the exact names(numbers) of bank accounts. Not a pleasant listening experience. I wouldn’t recommend it to everyone unless you’re a hardcore Helmut Kohl fan or you’re totally into reading about financial frauds and you have already acquired the necessary vocabulary. Maybe it’s more bearable in the book form, so you could skip the “numbers” part.
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Elenia
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Re: Persistence is Key (EN/DE)

Postby Elenia » Mon Sep 03, 2018 4:16 pm

hedgehog.chess wrote:
Elenia wrote:(Obviously, mileage may vary. Also, be aware that she discuss animal testing quite often and without making any excuse or apology for it. I was fine with that, but you might not be. She doesn't go into details, simply discusses results from such testing).



My wife is a MSc in biology and has some experience with animal testing. Rest assured it was never easy. And to get permission to conduct that kind of study you have to justify it in front of an ethic commission. As for the writing style, it’s probably a result of writing papers for scientific magazines, where everyone interested knows that that’s the name of the game.


Yes, that is the impression I got reading it. It was just a note in case you didn't want to read about animal testing. In your case, I can then recommend the book without reservations. I'm only now reading through it in German, but I found the language simple to follow in Swedish and her style engaging. You can really tell she's passionate about the subject.
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