Stelle’s 2018 log

[garyb]

I dabbled in Russian years ago and my experience was the same: it seemed to take so much effort to force even the most basic vocabulary into my head, and my brain was fried after an hour or less of study in one day. Fascinating language, and I might pick it up again one day, but it would be a big commitment. I still think that the usual principles apply, but it just takes considerably more time and work.

I didn't know about the announcement of the new Casa de Papel series until now! I'm concerned too, as (speaking as vaguely as I can so as not to spoil it for other readers) I thought the story was finished and I'm not sure where they can take it. Hopefully it doesn't go the same way as something like Vis a Vis that started off great but became ridiculous and deliberately extreme as they kept trying to drag out the story.

Avoiding ukulele forums is probably a good idea if they're anything like guitar forums: you'd probably end up wanting to buy another 9 just because it's what everyone else seems to be doing! Although I suppose it's a bit like your experience here of just wanting to learn one language but then seeing all the polyglots...

[Stelle]

Garyb, so many shows start out strong and then end up becoming ridiculous! Let’s just try to stay cautiously optimistic.

Well, I’m still playing with Russian. Most days I spend 30-60 minutes on Russian, in some combination of Pimsleur, duolingo, memrise and russianforfree.com. I had to listen to the first Pimsleur lesson three times before feeling confident enough to move on, but I’m almost done with my first run through lesson 4, and I don’t think that I’ll need to repeat it. I feel that Pimsleur is helping me to learn slowly, but well. My library only has the first eight lessons available, but I might pay for a short-term membership to a bigger library that has the whole program available.

I’ve decided to join the Super Challenge for the third time. The first time I participated, I “won” with Spanish. The second time, I signed up for both Italian and Spanish. I ended up abandinig Italian part-way through, but I think I would have won with Spanish if I hadn’t stopped tracking.

This time around, I’m joining with Spanish again. I’m also joining with Italian, which I’ve decided that I should maintain, if only passively.

[Stelle]

We’re now almost one month into the current Super Challenge! I’m progressing pretty slowly, but at least I’ve been able to log films and books in both Italian and Spanish. I’m not logging via the Twitter bot, because I’m waiting for the SC site to be ready. I’m just keeping track on index cards and - as of today - via progress bars on my log here.

Italian

I’ve read two Geronimo Stilton books, Stiltonix contro il mostro Slurp and S.O.S. Superinsetti all’assalto. The Geronimo Stilton books are great for Italian learners who aren’t quite ready for adult books. They’re fun, fast-paced, and full of pictures that help with unknown words. Several words on each page are printed in large colourful fonts. Most of the fonts are just for fun and visual interest, but there are also lots of words with fonts that help with meaning. For instance, the book that I just finished had the word “formiche” with letters formed by tiny little ants, and the word “crepa” in thick gray cracked letters. At about 124 pages each, they count as 30 pages for the Super Challenge (4 to 1, since they’re children’s books).



The series was originally written in Italian, but it’s been translated to many different languages. Highly recommended!

That said, the books are written for children and they’re a bit on the easy side for my current level of receptive Italian. I’d originally planned on reading all of the Italian Geronimo Stilton books available at the public library, but the thought doesn’t really appeal. Instead, I’ve decided that Italian will be my excuse to read books that I would never bother reading in English, starting with translated Dan Brown books. I have Angeli e demoni ready to go!

For the film half of the Super Challenge, I think I’m going to focus on Star Trek to start. So far, I’ve watched Star Trek The Next Generation season 1 episodes 7 and 8. Again, it’s fun stuff that I would probably never get around to watching in English. I watched them in Italian, only turning on the Italian subtitles when I missed something that seemed crucial. I have to say that Netflix has a pretty impressive selection of dubbed shows!

Spanish

I finished Harry Potter 6, 87 pages of which counted towards the Super Challenge. I’m currently 160 pages into HP7, but I only log pages when I’ve finished a book.

For the film half of my Spanish Super Challenge, I’d like to focus more on films than I have in the past. I’ve watched a lot of Spanish TV over the past few Super Challenges, but very few full-length films. I still plan on watching some TV series on Netflix (Ministerio del Tiempo and Mar de Plástico, I’m looking at you!), but I’d like to watch at least one movie per month. Since the beginning of May, I’ve watched two Spanish movies, both of them on Netflix.

Orbita 9 is a science fiction movie set in a future where the fate of humankind rests on space pioneers who are setting out to colonize a new planet. The main character, Helena, has been all alone for years since her parents died.

Warning: the official trailer contains a massive spoiler. Not sure why they chose to do that. Proceed with caution, and avoid altogether if you don’t like spoilers!



Orbita 9 is a bit silly at times, and I definitely rolled my eyes a few times, but it was very watchable. I enjoyed it!

I also watched Verónica, a very creepy horror movie about a teenaged girl who tries to contact her father using a Ouija board. I generally like scary movies, so long as they don’t rely on gore. Gore turns my stomach and I refuse to watch movies with graphic violence. Verónica was very scary, but not gory. I was legitimately creeped out and jumped like a fool when my dog barked during a tense moment.



Very worth watching, but only if you aren’t disturbed by movies about evil.

Russian

I’m still plugging along in Russian! I listen and respond to Pimsleur every day during my commute (about 25-30 minutes total per day). I started a month ago (on April 20), and I’ve only made it through the first seven lessons. I have to listen to most of them three or four times before I feel like I’m ready to move on. Aside from that, I’ve also spent 15-20 minutes most days on Memrise and/or Duolingo. My progress is very slow, but it’s fun and relaxing. Every morning, my Russian-speaking students beg me to tell them a new sentence that I’ve learned. They’re so cute!

[Stelle]

...and one more Spanish movie last night.

Thi Mai is the story of an older woman whose adult daughter dies suddenly. Along with her two friends - both of whom are going through issues of their own - she travels to Vietnam to find the little girl that her daughter was in the process of adopting.



The movie was obviously meant to be funny and heartwarming, but it just...wasn’t very good. The actors were quite charming, but the movie itself was predictable and absolutely full of stereotypes. I was also bothered by its problematic portrayal of adoption. I definitely wouldn’t have watched this movie if it were in English. Overall, I can’t recommend it.

But hey! Another 94 minutes for the Super Challenge!

[Stelle]

Spanish Super Challenge update:

This weekend I watched the movie Madre. Diana is an exhausted stay-at-home mom, dealing with her pregnancy and caring for a severely autistic and often violent son on her own, while her absent husband is overseas on business. Everything changes when she meets Luz, an older Filipino woman who seems to have an almost magically calming effect on Martin, her son.

I watched the trailer after having seen the movie, and they barely seem like the same film. The trailer makes it look like a much scarier and more violent movie than it actually was. I probably wouldn’t have watched the movie at all if I’d seen the trailer first.



This movie started out really good. It was unsettling and disturbing, and it gave me that feeling of dread that only a good slow-burn thriller can. I enjoyed what I thought was interesting social commentary on race, class and “other”ness. The two main actresses were very strong, and I was on the edge of my seat for most of it. I was looking forward to an ambiguous ending that would leave me thinking.

Instead, everything fell apart in the end, and the last ten minutes were equal parts ridiculous and unbelievable. This could have been a really interesting film, but instead it devolved into a generic, boring thriller that I’ll be unlikely to remember a year from now. Bah. What a disappointment. I wanted to be able to recommend this film, but sadly I can’t.

Still, I’m glad that I watched it, if only because I had inside knowledge that I wasn’t supposed to have. I could understand most of what the nanny said in Tagalog to Martin, much of which didn’t match the translation app on Diana’s phone. That was fun!

Despite how hit-and-miss Spanish language films have been, I’m really glad that I’m making an effort to watch movies rather than only TV series. It’s a different kind of challenge for me.

With regards to reading in Spanish, I’m on page 194 of Harry Potter 7. I neither hate nor love the book, but it definitely feels liks work. I find myself thinking “I should read HP”, rather than “I want to read HP”. I thought that I learned my lesson about abandoning books that I don’t love back when I was reading the Percy Jackson series, but for some reason I just can’t seem to let the Harry Potter series go. I think that part of it is that it’s such a huge cultural phenomenon that I never participated in. I want to be able to say that I’ve read the series.

Or it might just be the fact that each book cost me 25 dollars.

Italian Super Challenge update:

I’m on page 62 of Angeli e Demoni, and you know what? I’m loving it! It’s very easy to read; I find that it has even has even fewer unknown words than the Geronimo Stilton books, which is rather funny. I read The DaVinci Code years ago in English, and just couldn’t be bothered to read any other Dan Brown books, but they seem to be exactly the right level for my current Italian. Yes, the story is silly and the female characters are one-dimensional, but I’m having fun reading it.

I also watched two episodes of Star Trek The Next Generation in Italian. I’d forgotten how uneven and sometimes downright awful the first season was! Still, I enjoy it, and I understand it pretty well. It’s also nice to know that I have my Italian listening lined up for the next good while...sometimes deciding what to watch is half the work.

Russian

Nothing new to report, except that I’m still doing a bit of Russian every day! I’ve finished the Pimsleur lessons available at my library, which is too bad because the Pimsleur lessons were really working well for me. I have some Michel Thomas CDs that I’m going to try out tomorrow. Other than that, I’ve done Memrise every day and Duolingo most days. Russian remains low-key and relaxing. I have yet to fully commit, but it’s kind of suprising to think that I’ve done it every single day for over a month.

[lingua]

I've not read any Harry Potter books. They never interested me. When I first joined this forum I was surprised at how many people read them in multiple languages. I can only hope they enjoyed the series. If I hate a book I won't finish it regardless of language. However, I find myself more tolerant of average or mediocre books in Italian than English but I still have my limits.

[Stelle]

Another weekend, another Spanish movie...



I´m not quite sure which genre Secuestro is...psychological-thriller-slash-crime-drama, I suppose. It was a very twisty-turny story that kept me guessing. The ending wasn’t quite satisfying, and I yelled at the characters in the movie more than once. One scene in particular was very difficult to watch. Can’t say I loved it.

So far, I’ve watched five films since the Super Challenge started, and - while all of them were entertaining enough to finish - none of them were great. I hope that I can discover some really amazing films over the next few months!

I’ve barely done any reading at all this week. I’ve been busy writing report cards and trying to survive the last few weeks of school. Last week was brutally hot, with the temperature inside my classroom climbing to 34 degrees Celcius, but it’s cooled down. I hope it stays cool until the last day of school (June 29th) so that I can stay sane!

I've not read any Harry Potter books. They never interested me. When I first joined this forum I was surprised at how many people read them in multiple languages. I can only hope they enjoyed the series. If I hate a book I won't finish it regardless of language. However, I find myself more tolerant of average or mediocre books in Italian than English but I still have my limits.

I don’t hate the Harry Potter series. I think it’s fine, but it isn’t gripping me. Although I know that lots of people love it obsessively, t’s just not quite my “thing”. If I weren’t reading it in Spanish, I definitely wouldn’t be finishing the series.

[MonoDeano]

A bit late to the congratulations but I really enjoyed the detailed post about your time in Guatemala. It was interesting to hear you both had such positive experiences coming from different levels of Spanish. Thanks for the post and the inspiration!

[Stelle]

So I guess I’m back!

I have done absolutely nothing language-related since July. I spent two weeks traveling in Portugal in July, and then came back home and dove into prepping for a new grade. I absolutely love my new position teaching second grade and don’t for a second regret the change. But change brings with it a whole pile of work.

I’ve definitely lost what tiny little bits of Russian I learned, and I’m as of yet undecided whether I will pick it up again, or just let it go.

My main goal right now is to jump back into consuming Spanish media. I’m really not sure how I let it fizzle to nothing, especially since it was such a big part of my life for several years. But I’m starting small: every day this week I will either watch an episode of Mar de Plástico or I will read 30 pages of Harry Potter 7. On a good day I’ll aim for both.

Today I watched S1E11 of Mar de Plástico and read chapters 28 and 29 of Harry Potter. I was pleased to see that four Spanish-less months had zero effect on my comprehension.

Other than recommiting to spanish...well, I’m honestly not sure. There are several things that I could do:

- start Russian again
- focus on finally bringing my Tagalog to a conversational level
- pick up my receptive Italian where I let off, with extensive watching and reading

Honestly...I’m just not sure if any of those are really worth the effort.

Anyway, there’s no need to decide right now. The main thing for today and the immediate future is bringing Spanish back into my life!