Amerykanka's Adventures - A New Hope (ES, PL, RU)

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coldrainwater
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Re: Amerykanka's Adventures - A New Hope (ES, PL, RU)

Postby coldrainwater » Wed Apr 19, 2017 1:24 am

How would you compare 100 years of solitude to El amor en los tiempos de cólera? When I left off with the latter, I was at risk for running into love story doledrums (I don't even think the first older feller had kicked the proverbial bucket yet). I definitely want to enjoy more Marquez but I may need to find some of his more action-oriented works. His prose is the stuff of legends though.
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Amerykanka
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Re: Amerykanka's Adventures - A New Hope (ES, PL, RU)

Postby Amerykanka » Mon May 01, 2017 3:57 am

coldrainwater wrote:How would you compare 100 years of solitude to El amor en los tiempos de cólera? When I left off with the latter, I was at risk for running into love story doledrums (I don't even think the first older feller had kicked the proverbial bucket yet). I definitely want to enjoy more Marquez but I may need to find some of his more action-oriented works. His prose is the stuff of legends though.


My apologies for taking so long to respond - the final draft of my thesis was due the day before yesterday so things have been crazy. Anyways, to answer your question: it has been a long time since I read Cien años de soledad, but I remember there being more action in it than in El amor en los tiempos del cólera. Or at least there was less emphasis on love stories. Honestly though the tone and pacing in the two novels seem pretty similar to me. Have you tried reading Márquez's short stories? I have not read many of them, but I enjoyed "El ahogado más hermoso del mundo".
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Amerykanka
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Re: Amerykanka's Adventures - A New Hope (ES, PL, RU)

Postby Amerykanka » Mon May 01, 2017 4:14 am

Time for an update!

SPANISH
I am now on page 290 of El amor en los tiempos del cólera - only 90 pages to go, but I just had to return the book to the library. :cry: On the bright side, however, I have finished my thesis and once I get through finals I will have time to check the book out again and actually finish it.

RUSSIAN
I am learning about verbs of going. Yikes. It seems even weirder than Polish . . .

POLISH
I am still listening to Igrzyska śmierci and have made it a few more hours in, in spite of the fact that thesis-writing disrupted my normal gym schedule. And today I decided to explore Polish poetry, so I read a half dozen or so poems by Jan Twardowski and Czesław Miłosz. It brings me back to my early teens and the good old days at Polish Saturday school, when my teachers were constantly assigning new poems.

So here is a poem to muse on:

"Ale książki" ~ Czesław Miłosz

Ale książki będą na półkach, prawdziwe istoty,
Które zjawiły się raz, świeże,jeszcze wilgotne,
Niby lśniące kasztany pod drzewem
w jesieni,
I dotykane, pieszczone trwać zaczęły
Mimo łun na horyzoncie, zamków wylatujących w powietrze,
Plemion w pochodzie, planet w ruchu.
Jesteśmy - mówiły, nawet kiedy
wydzierano z nich karty
Albo litery zlizywał buzujący płomień,
O ileż trwalsze od nas, których ułomne ciepło
Stygnie razem z pamięcią, rozprasza się, ginie.
Wyobrażam sobie ziemię kiedy mnie nie będzie
I nic, żadnego ubytku, dalej dziwowisko,
Suknie kobiet, mokry jaśmin, pieśń w dolinie.
Ale książki będą na półkach, dobrze urodzone,
Z ludzi, choć też z jasności, wysokości.


This poem makes me think of Fahrenheit 451 - and this in turn makes me happy, because I loved that book. It also makes me think of Roman poets talking about how they would live on through their work - Horace and Ovid are in my mind at the moment, but it is such a common trope. In any case, I like the thought of ideas enduring on earth even after their inventors have moved on to a better place.

I think Miłosz in general is a bit too cynical for me, but I like this poem. Also "Cesarz Konstantyn".

Edit: It occurs to me that perhaps I liked "Cesarz Konstantyn" so much because I recently finished reading Evelyn Waugh's Helena. Also, as a classicist, I am a sucker for anything remotely related to classical antiquity.
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Re: Amerykanka's Adventures - A New Hope (ES, PL, RU)

Postby coldrainwater » Sun May 14, 2017 3:23 am

Amerykanka wrote:My apologies for taking so long to respond - the final draft of my thesis was due the day before yesterday so things have been crazy. Anyways, to answer your question: it has been a long time since I read Cien años de soledad, but I remember there being more action in it than in El amor en los tiempos del cólera. Or at least there was less emphasis on love stories. Honestly though the tone and pacing in the two novels seem pretty similar to me. Have you tried reading Márquez's short stories? I have not read many of them, but I enjoyed "El ahogado más hermoso del mundo".

My turn to apologize for being extra slow to respond. Thanks for mentioning the short stories. No, I sure haven't read them (yet). I am on a bit of a listening mission at the moment but will keep these in mind for when I add more direct reading time to my schedule. Despite the love story, El amor en los tiempos del cólera still holds my interest quite easily on account of the quality of the prose overall.
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Re: Amerykanka's Adventures - A New Hope (ES, PL, RU)

Postby Amerykanka » Tue May 30, 2017 4:29 am

coldrainwater wrote:
Amerykanka wrote:My apologies for taking so long to respond - the final draft of my thesis was due the day before yesterday so things have been crazy. Anyways, to answer your question: it has been a long time since I read Cien años de soledad, but I remember there being more action in it than in El amor en los tiempos del cólera. Or at least there was less emphasis on love stories. Honestly though the tone and pacing in the two novels seem pretty similar to me. Have you tried reading Márquez's short stories? I have not read many of them, but I enjoyed "El ahogado más hermoso del mundo".

My turn to apologize for being extra slow to respond. Thanks for mentioning the short stories. No, I sure haven't read them (yet). I am on a bit of a listening mission at the moment but will keep these in mind for when I add more direct reading time to my schedule. Despite the love story, El amor en los tiempos del cólera still holds my interest quite easily on account of the quality of the prose overall.


Yes, his prose is amazing! I must confess that I still haven't finished the book due to the bustle of finishing up school and moving back across the country, but I checked it out from my local public library and so I am ready to go.

What are you listening to right now, if you don't mind my asking? I have been neglecting my listening comprehension over the last month - partly because I am mad at all my Spanish-language TV shows (an unfortunately frequent state of affairs). I'd like to get into audiobooks but I haven't found a good source ever since a lot of them disappeared from YouTube.
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Re: Amerykanka's Adventures - A New Hope (ES, PL, RU)

Postby coldrainwater » Wed May 31, 2017 1:36 am

Amerykanka wrote:What are you listening to right now, if you don't mind my asking? I have been neglecting my listening comprehension over the last month - partly because I am mad at all my Spanish-language TV shows (an unfortunately frequent state of affairs). I'd like to get into audiobooks but I haven't found a good source ever since a lot of them disappeared from YouTube.

You might want to check out what iVoox has in the way of audiobooks. I downloaded a sampling from their literature section and the selection seems quite reasonable. They even had some material from Umberto Eco, an author that I plan to check out when I read extensively. His work in semiotics, as well as his fiction, looks interesting.

I have been slowly building up a listening library based on podcasts. Many of my sources are peninsular and come from either RTVE or iVoox. I enjoyed quite a few episodes from both Hombros de Gigantes and Nómadas and have even dipped into LdeLengua (a linguistics podcast that I used to get used to language teaching terminology). I also have FSI, 31 minutes (Chileno puppet show) as well as some cartoons loaded on my smartphone. I will be experimenting with what happens when I take media like TV series, telenovelas and cartoons and use them as pure listening activities (via .mp3) without watching them visually.
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Amerykanka
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Re: Amerykanka's Adventures - A New Hope (ES, PL, RU)

Postby Amerykanka » Mon Jun 05, 2017 2:03 am

coldrainwater wrote:You might want to check out what iVoox has in the way of audiobooks. I downloaded a sampling from their literature section and the selection seems quite reasonable. They even had some material from Umberto Eco, an author that I plan to check out when I read extensively. His work in semiotics, as well as his fiction, looks interesting.

I have been slowly building up a listening library based on podcasts. Many of my sources are peninsular and come from either RTVE or iVoox. I enjoyed quite a few episodes from both Hombros de Gigantes and Nómadas and have even dipped into LdeLengua (a linguistics podcast that I used to get used to language teaching terminology). I also have FSI, 31 minutes (Chileno puppet show) as well as some cartoons loaded on my smartphone. I will be experimenting with what happens when I take media like TV series, telenovelas and cartoons and use them as pure listening activities (via .mp3) without watching them visually.


These seem like good resources - thank you! I will definitely be checking them out. I believe I have listened to some episodes of Nómadas in the past, but the other podcasts are new to me.
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Amerykanka
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Re: Amerykanka's Adventures - A New Hope (ES, PL, RU)

Postby Amerykanka » Mon Jun 05, 2017 2:23 am

Time for a long overdue update. Fortunately I have more time now, since I have four weeks free before I head to Poland. I decided earlier this semester that this would be a Slavic Summer - these last four years have been full of ancient languages (out of necessity, thanks to my degree) and Spanish (since one of my jobs depended on it). Now, as a graduation gift to myself, I am giving free reign to Polish and Russian - until this fall, when I have to become a respectable graduate student. ;)

The last two weeks have been packed with Polish. My comprehension hasn't suffered much over the years of neglect, but I can't say the same for my active vocabulary. So my plan is to refresh my knowledge and then forge onward - I want to place into the highest level possible of my language program in Poland (I'm hoping C1, but perhaps B2 is more realistic). These next four weeks are critical.

So, strategy.

REVIEW
To begin with, I am rereading Colloquial Polish: the Complete Course for Beginners. I am almost done with this, after about a week and a half; the exercises are for the most part super easy, and it is just a matter of reactivating some of the vocabulary.

ADVANCE
I downloaded the ebooks of Czas na czasownik and Iść czy jechać and these two exercise books will form the heart of my grammar study. My goal is to finish both of them. A lot of this information will be review, or perhaps will serve to render explicit in my mind grammar that I picked up intuitively in my early teens, but I expect there will be many nuances that I have never encountered. I am using Gramatyka języka polskiego: Podręcznik dla cudzoziemców as a supplement, for things like determining what the heck is going on with numerals (especially collective ones).

As I go along, I am writing down verbs that I am uncomfortable with and making a list of them with their most common definitions and uses.

* * *

Grammar will be my main focus over the next week or so, but after that I will be incorporating more listening and reading in. I am most worried about my speaking and writing, so I will address that next week, too. But speaking should be one of the focuses of my program in Poland, after all.
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