Sillygoose1's Language Extraordinaire

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sillygoose1
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Posts: 380
Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2015 6:25 pm
Location: USA
Languages: _
NA: English
C2: French
C1: German, Italian, Spanish
B2: Russian, Portuguese
A2: Japanese
A1: Mandarin
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=751
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Re: Sillygoose1's Language Extraordinaire

Postby sillygoose1 » Tue Sep 08, 2015 11:59 pm

extralean wrote:Je laisse ce petit commentaire uniquement pour montrer que je m’intéresse à ce que tu fais! Je suis content à voir que t'as pas laissé tomber le français.

Pourquoi étudies-tu la corse?



Merci du commentaire et de l'interet! Ca me touche beaucoup. Et moi aussi je suis content de l'avoir pas laisse'. Je crois qu'il fallait une petite pause et voila.

En fait, je l'etudie plus. Mais, j'ai voulu l'etudier a fond pour deux raisons: La premiere, ca aide avec la comprehension des autres langues/dialectes d'Italie et la seconde parce que c'est tres expressive comme langue, j'adore sa melodie surtout.

Je voudrais bien l'etudier, mais il y a pas de films ou livres avec qui pratiquer. Ca m'a fait quitter l'envie :/
Last edited by sillygoose1 on Fri Sep 11, 2015 2:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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sillygoose1
Green Belt
Posts: 380
Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2015 6:25 pm
Location: USA
Languages: _
NA: English
C2: French
C1: German, Italian, Spanish
B2: Russian, Portuguese
A2: Japanese
A1: Mandarin
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=751
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Re: Sillygoose1's Language Extraordinaire

Postby sillygoose1 » Wed Sep 09, 2015 9:05 pm

Little update:

Found out that at my college, each department (Romance, Germanic, Slavic) have a large library of language learning materials that I'm gonna check out. I'll update more by the end of the week.
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sillygoose1
Green Belt
Posts: 380
Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2015 6:25 pm
Location: USA
Languages: _
NA: English
C2: French
C1: German, Italian, Spanish
B2: Russian, Portuguese
A2: Japanese
A1: Mandarin
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=751
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Re: Sillygoose1's Language Extraordinaire

Postby sillygoose1 » Fri Sep 11, 2015 1:53 pm

Alright guys, I'm all moved in to my new house and the cable is all ready to go! Time to get back into the groove.


French:

Finished the 3rd season of Fais pas ci fais pas ca.

I'm looking forward to finishing the series up and moving on to others real soon. I also found some cool movies that came out recently:

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I saw half of MR 73 before but that was years ago when I barely could understand movies even WITH French subs. I'm gonna give it another go.


Spanish:

Went on a little La que se avecina spree and watched 6 episodes during the internet downtime. I'm going to finish El internado this weekend also I think. It's time to move on and I've been with it for a long time now.

Some more movies came out that I'm looking forward to:

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I've had REC 4 for awhile but didn't get around to watching it.

For anyone else who had this problem before, I'm having a slight block in comprehension. For those who are familiar with it, you may know that when you start understanding less than what you could before that usually means that it's getting stronger. So after another marathon then a little break I'm hoping to come back stronger in Spanish. In fact, the same is happening to me in French too. After my little TV binge this past week it seems to be that way.


German:

I couldn't really do much because I don't have a physical dictionary and would be lost without one. But I'm planning on finishing this graded detective reader this weekend and start watching some movies or something.


Italian:

Watched an episode of I Cesaroni and wasn't a big fan. I wasn't too crazy about the Spanish version either so meh. I didn't get to do much reading.


Greek:

Stuck on lesson 23. It's a tricky one. They introduced the imperfect + a lot more vocabulary. This one may take me a day or two to get through.


Latin:

Finished lesson 40.
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extralean
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Re: Sillygoose1's Language Extraordinaire

Postby extralean » Fri Sep 11, 2015 2:02 pm

sillygoose1 wrote:parce que c'est tres expressive comme langue, j'adore sa melodie surtout.


Je trouve que c'est une assez bonne raison! ;)
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: 53 / 52 53/52 Book Challenge. Reading: Ourania - J.M.G Le Clezio

sillygoose1
Green Belt
Posts: 380
Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2015 6:25 pm
Location: USA
Languages: _
NA: English
C2: French
C1: German, Italian, Spanish
B2: Russian, Portuguese
A2: Japanese
A1: Mandarin
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=751
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Re: Sillygoose1's Language Extraordinaire

Postby sillygoose1 » Sun Sep 13, 2015 5:39 pm

French:

Not too sure what to say, but I guess I'll say something atleast.

I downloaded alot of French philosophical works from people like Sartre, Onfray, Foucault, Beauvoir along with some French literature like some Zola, Baudelaire, and I think a few others...

So my reading backlog for French is pretty backed up right now so therefore I'm going to stop downloading stuff for now because I have alot to work with.

Now, I haven't been watching much French material because I ran into a few problems which I'll explain in the Spanish section but I'm really happy with those policier/noir movies I found that I mentioned in my last post.

I have, however, been spending more time listening to French rap. This has been teaching me some really useful slang as well as helping me with listening comprehension. The problem with French is that alot of words are homonyms so even though I'll hear something right in a song, I won't interpret it correctly. I'm not too worried because how many of us can understand everything in a song first try in our native languages? Especially rap.


Spanish:

Seven more episodes of El internado left, then I'm going to finish the 3rd season of La que se avecina and maybe start a new series or continue with my other unfinished ones. Aguila Roja is already on its 8th season and the last time I watched it was during its 5th - same with Isabel. I'm gonna get caught up on both definitely after this season of La que se avecina. But I'd also like to start with other series/movies from other countries which brings me to a problem I had the other day:

While in a game, I was playing with a Costa Rican and a Colombian who were friends with each other. Besides the fact that they were total jerks, I saw it as a decent opportunity to practice a little. I asked, "De donde sois"? Anyway, later in the game they were complaining but I couldn't understand them 100%, only the gist. I was a bit taken aback by that. But then I realized, I've only been focusing on the speech from Spain and Argentina. I mean, I understood them when they were talking normally like making calls and all that, but when it got to the informal stuff I couldn't follow too well. Then they started blaming me for something and thought I was from Spain so when they mimicked the Spanish accent I could catch everything they said, even the informal stuff. So like I said, this made me realize that I don't really know anything about the informal speech of other countries besides Spain, Argentina, and a bit from Mexico because I only read books and watch media from those countries really. My plan now is to widen my horizons and start finding material to watch from other countries even if I'm not as interested in it. Colombia, Mexico, and Venezuela have some gems, but Caribbean stuff is harder to come by.


Italian:

Watching some Squadra Antimafia. Things are getting a bit difficult for me to understand and I think it's due to the fact that my brain is getting more and more accustomed to Italian so I need to give it time to adjust. It feels like a block where I don't understand as much as I used to. This is progress.


German:

Read another chapter. Coming across alot of unknown vocab that I can't figure out from context. This language is moving really slow for me continuously, but the motivation to learn it has come back unlike before.


Latin:

Did 3 lessons of Assimil.
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sillygoose1
Green Belt
Posts: 380
Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2015 6:25 pm
Location: USA
Languages: _
NA: English
C2: French
C1: German, Italian, Spanish
B2: Russian, Portuguese
A2: Japanese
A1: Mandarin
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=751
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Re: Sillygoose1's Language Extraordinaire

Postby sillygoose1 » Fri Sep 18, 2015 6:11 pm

French:

Watched the first two episodes of the 4th season of Fais pas ci fais pas ca. Real funny stuff. For as much as I love this series, I don't think anything will top the scene in season 3 when the Bouleys go to a psychiatrist and she asks their son to draw them each as an animal. Eliott drew his father, Denis, as a basset hound. "Eliott, tu m'as dessine' en basset? Je trouve ca un enorme manque de respect!". But also everything with Christophe is pretty much gold too.

Since I don't have much schoolwork, this weekend will be dedicated to furthering my advancement in the series and reading that Stieg Larsson book.


Spanish:

Finished El internado. The feels and sentiments man. You know what? Yeah, there were tons of plot holes and tons of filler, but Ivan and Julia melted my heart. I liked the series and it was really an adventure these past 71 episodes, but I don't think I'd ever be able to watch it all again. I'll watch Boardwalk Empire, The Sopranos, and The Wire 2 more times each before I'll be able to rewatch El internado because it doesn't have much rewatch value. I'll probably watch some clips of it on Youtube for the next few weeks then forget about it. :/


Italian:

Watched the first episode of the fifth season of Squadra Antimafia. My listening is worse than I thought so I'm going to be working on that for a bit next to French. I couldn't watch seasons 2-4 because I was too excited to get Scialoja, Bufalo, Ruggero, and Libanese back together again. It's kind of weird hearing them use Sicilian colloquialisms considering I know most of them from Rome and I watched Romanzo Criminale where they speak in Romanesco all the time. It sort of breaks the immersion to hear Il Libanese say "minchia" (to me he'll always be Il Libanese).


German:

Finished my graded reader, not sure what to do next however. Probably start a B2 level book or something.
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sillygoose1
Green Belt
Posts: 380
Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2015 6:25 pm
Location: USA
Languages: _
NA: English
C2: French
C1: German, Italian, Spanish
B2: Russian, Portuguese
A2: Japanese
A1: Mandarin
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=751
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Re: Sillygoose1's Language Extraordinaire

Postby sillygoose1 » Sun Sep 20, 2015 4:43 pm

French:

Blazing through FPCFPC. One more episode left of the 4th season. I'm still running into this problem and it seems to be mainly with French where a few sentences per episode I just completely miss and cannot understand. When I watched El internado that happened also at times, but with Spanish and Italian like I said it isn't as frequent.


German:

Started reading a book called Die 13 1/2 Leben des Kapt'n Blaubar. It's a story about pirates or something. I found it while browsing books that are around a B2 level and there is a good amount of looking up words that I've had to do. It's a nice size book so I'm excited to see my progress by the end.


Italian:

Watched an episode of Squadra Antimafia and started reading a bit more of Zero Zero Zero by Roberto Saviano, the same author of Gomorra. It's about cocaine. It's not too challenging, but it's interesting nonetheless.


Latin:

Assimil lesson 45


Portuguese:

More Stephen King reading


My plan for this week is to finish the 4th season of FPCFPC, finish the 3rd season of La que se avecina, finish the 5th season of Squadra antimafia, and devote more time to finishing this Larsson book because I have alot of other texts to read.
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sillygoose1
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Posts: 380
Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2015 6:25 pm
Location: USA
Languages: _
NA: English
C2: French
C1: German, Italian, Spanish
B2: Russian, Portuguese
A2: Japanese
A1: Mandarin
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=751
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Re: Sillygoose1's Language Extraordinaire

Postby sillygoose1 » Tue Sep 22, 2015 7:54 pm

French:

Finished FPCFPC. Thinking on whether to continue through the series and watch it all through or just watching some Les bleus or Candice Renoir.

For those who don't know of either, Les bleus is a series about police rookies entering the force. I think it's supposed to be a dramedy.

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Candice Renoir is a remake of that Spanish series where there's this supermom who solves crimes.

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Les bleus has been on my list for awhile, but I'm still not decided on Candice Renoir. I might have to watch a few episodes to see if it's worth finishing.

Besides that, I'm still on my way through the same book. Each chapter is at least 20 pages so it's not really convenient, especially because I'm more interested in 19th century French literature, poetry, and philosophy right now but I don't want to leave the book halfway through. Maybe I'll have to uninstall all of my video games until I finish it.


Spanish:

Not sure if I mentioned this already, but I'm going to start watching Capadocia soon along with the second season of Epitafios and the second season of Profugos. I need to get out of my Spain bubble a little and start getting accustomed to other accents.

Capadocia is a Mexican series revolving around a women's prison, but not a la Orange is the New Black. It's a bit more dark...

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Epitafios is a series in which the first season revolved around a school fire in which children died and then later when murders start popping up. I don't remember the whole thing because I watched the first season like 2-3 years ago.

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And Profugos is about drugs, corruption, and police informants. The first season was great so I'm hoping the second is too. For anyone who saw Narcos, Cucaracha from the first episode is on of the main characters in Profugos.

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There's also a cool book I found called Psicomagia by the Chilean/French author Jodorowsky in which he recounts his time spent with Mexican folk healers and some wild stuff about dreams.

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Italian:

Some more Squadra Antimafia. Listening getting better, still more gaps than I'd like. I'm really glad I skipped through the first 3 seasons of the series because so far 5 is pretty cool.

I discovered some cool contemporary Italian philosophy that I didn't know existed and which I'm going to check out after Zero Zero Zero. Since I'm on an image spree, here's a pic of it:

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I'm also going to buy the Romanzo Criminale book. Why not?


German:

This book is killing me, but I know it'll help in the long run. I forgot what it was like to constantly look up words and sit there rereading sentences until you turn blue in the face not understanding a thing. I'm aiming for a B2 level by New Year's. Once I finish this book German is on my top spot.
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sillygoose1
Green Belt
Posts: 380
Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2015 6:25 pm
Location: USA
Languages: _
NA: English
C2: French
C1: German, Italian, Spanish
B2: Russian, Portuguese
A2: Japanese
A1: Mandarin
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=751
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Re: Sillygoose1's Language Extraordinaire

Postby sillygoose1 » Thu Sep 24, 2015 7:31 pm

French:

Started season 5 of FPCFPC. Decided to go for it and finish it all or at least this season then go for Les bleus/Candice Renoir.

My listening is somewhat off/on with French continuously. It's definitely not a vocab issue at this point so I'm still going to just bombard myself with media. It's weird because sometimes I'll listen to a rap song I've never heard before and understand more than certain movies or something.

As far as reading goes, I'm re-reading Les particules elementaires because I decided that I need more depression in my life and I've also started the infamous Discours de la methode by none other than good ol' Rene Descartes. I love his name because it's like a relic of when French had more S's in its vocabulary. Same thing with a lot of Quebecois people.


Spanish:

Still haven't started Capadocia yet because of school + I've been watching FPCFPC + Squadra Antimafia as well as focusing on my German/Portuguese but I have a four day weekend this week and plan to get some episodes watched. Since I'm on a little philosophy reading kick and it's one of my two majors at university, I'm also going to read Estudios sobre el amor by Ortega y Gassett. Spanish philosophers are heavily underrepresented but the ones I've found tend to focus a lot on love and tragedy which is awesome because it's one of my favorite subjects. Kinda makes me wanna read some ancient Greek plays.


Italian:


Did some more SAM watching and ZZZ reading. Italy produces some cool electro bands. When I say some I mean two that I know of but those two are probably better than the top 5 electro bands of any other country in my opinion. I've been watching some Romanzo Criminale clips on youtube (how else can I hear authentic Romanesco?) and some stuff is slipping by me. I think I just need more listening practice in general then it'll come to me.


German:

This book is still killing me. It takes me like 15 minutes to get through one paragraph. I want to pull my hair out. But, the good news is that I decided that I need some outside help with this language so I went to see the head of the German department at school. Language professors are some of the coolest people and you can tell they love what they do even if I don't necessarily agree with their methods. I told him about my auto-didactic methods and he said that it's not a good way to learn. :/ He speaks German, Russian, and Czech. Anyway, he offered me the opportunity to sit in some classes as an audit but unfortunately it didn't coincide with my schedule. But he sent me a list of some native/highly fluent tutors as well as signed me up for the German club where every other week is a conversation session. I'm not sure if I'll be able to attend, but it's a nice option to have.


Portuguese:

Tried watching some Youtube skits. Did more reading. Conjugations are sort of easy for me to recognize as I can more or less assimilate it but I'm not 100% able to reproduce it.


Latin:

Did an Assimil lesson. Lessons are getting a bit harder as the vocab isn't getting translated as clearly anymore on the right side.


Greek:

Did an Assimil lesson. It's kind of difficult now. I need to go through it again a few times.
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sillygoose1
Green Belt
Posts: 380
Joined: Mon Jul 20, 2015 6:25 pm
Location: USA
Languages: _
NA: English
C2: French
C1: German, Italian, Spanish
B2: Russian, Portuguese
A2: Japanese
A1: Mandarin
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=751
x 631

Re: Sillygoose1's Language Extraordinaire

Postby sillygoose1 » Sat Sep 26, 2015 11:10 pm

French:

Finished the 3rd part of Discours de la methode. It's written in really elegant language but it's some of difficult from a philosophical standpoint. It took awhile for some of what he was saying to sink into my head but after that I started getting it more.

On chapter 10 of my re-read of Les particules elementaires.

Finished episode 3 of season 5 of FPCFPC. Comprehension getting better, still missing some bits but all around improvement compared to a few months ago. I'm talking like those minor changes that actually make a big difference like for example when people talk low or are whispering I can make out what they're saying, or if someone was talking and I didn't pay 100% attention I managed to pick up key information and use the sounds to deduce what was said. Stuff that we do in our native languages that we don't even think of.


Spanish:

Read the first chapter of Estudios sobre el amor by Ortega y Gassett. Didn't really get much out of the first chapter that I didn't know of already but it seems interesting.

I watched an episode of Capadocia but I think I want to get a little more acquainted with Mexican speech so I'm watching a telenovela called Antes muerta que lichita. It's about a socially awkward woman who decides to make a change and become confident and all. It's pretty funny so far but I missed some words here and there. Then again, I've hardly ever heard Mexicans talk. I don't even live in an area with many of them, just Caribbeans.


Italian:

Read more ZZZ. It's really cool and I'm enjoying it. I like to study organized crime once in awhile but I haven't found a book as good as this one. It encompasses cocaine business all over the world including South America, Italy, USA, and so forth. I think I like it more than Gomorra so far.

Watched another episode of Squadra Antimafia.


German:

I'm currently using a reader version of the book Eine Liebe aus nichts about a woman who goes back to Germany (If I remember correctly) for her father's funeral. It's sort of difficult - in between Metamorphosis and that other book I was reading earlier.
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