kanewai's book shelf (current: italian)

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kanewai
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Re: kanewai's book shelf

Postby kanewai » Tue Jun 22, 2021 12:35 am

For a brief moment I thought I could devote 90 minutes a day each to Greek and French, and level up in each by September. I lasted less than a week on that schedule. For all the experience I have with learning, and not-learning, languages, I still get overly ambitious. And then I feel frustrated that I'm not meeting an impossible goal. And then I remember that I am actually making some amazing effin' progress in a short time.

June 20 2021.JPG


GREEK

Assimil: Lesson 85 passive / 35 active. I am so close to the end of the passive phase that I'm tempted to just rush through it. It's a hard course, though, and I only manage to finish about ten lessons a month. Sometimes I wonder if the lessons now are too far beyond my actual level, and that I'm not even managing "comprehensible input." I'll be glad to finish. The active lessons are going well, but are also quite hard at this point.

Language Transfer: I'm running through the Complete course a second time. I might even do it a third time closer to my trip, though I'd probably start from the midpoint.

on deck: I'll start Pimsleur II once I finish Language Transfer. And I might give Επικοινωνήστε Ελληνικά another look once I've finished the passive wave of Assimil.


FRENCH

Kwiziq has been my main source of active study. I'm currently working on level B2, which is going well. I had a harder time with some of the B1 material.

Du côté de chez Swann has been my main media source. I guess I was inspired by all the talk of Proust here lately. I knew I would revisit the series one day. It's actually more enjoyable the second round. I have the audiobook downloaded, and am also reading a graphic novel version by Stéphane Heuet. I really like the graphic novel - it's not as detailed as the book, but it's much easier to keep track of all the characters and the overall plot. It's easy to get lost in Proust's stream-of-consciousness style. It's not a substitute for the books, but it's an excellent supplement.

du cote.jpg



ITALIAN

I've been trying to do Speakly just for fun, when I have the time, but the app crashes so much now that it's not fun.


PODCASTS

I listen to these as they are released, mixed in with my regular podcasts. I am noticing a huge jump in my comprehension for all of them.

Alessandro Barbero, Lezioni e Conferenze di Storia
Marco Cappelli, Storia d'Italia
David Cot, La Historia de España
RNE, Documentos
Jean des Cars, Au coeur de l'histoire
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Re: kanewai's book shelf

Postby Carmody » Tue Jun 22, 2021 1:25 pm

kanewai

Congratulations with Du côté de chez Swann.

I started it about 5 days ago and am reading this edition:

Image


Must confess that I am finding the reading extremely difficult. People all say that it is important to just jump in the pool and start swimming but I regret to say I am drowning at this point.

I wish I could say lots of clever things about it but I am having so much difficulty that I am forced to remain quiet.

I am glad others can excel at this even though I can not. More power to them.
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Re: kanewai's book shelf

Postby kanewai » Wed Jul 14, 2021 10:48 pm

My next project - working my way through Ο Μικρός Πρίγκιπας / The Little Prince. It's going to be hard, but I need something that is a little more fun and entertaining than Assimil / Pimsleur / Language Transfer. Those are all good programs, but after six-plus months of studying I'm a little bit burned out on pure study. But also, I'm not even close to being able to read native material, and I absolutely still need audio. I still mispronounce words in my head when I just read Greek, and long words still dazzle me.

I downloaded the pdf to my personal Google Drive, and made the link public if anyone else is interested: Ο Μικρός Πρίγκιπας

The source for the pdf and the video is eBooks4Greeks (free online Greek books). There's a lot there; the direct link for the audiobooks is here.

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Re: kanewai's book shelf

Postby kanewai » Thu Jul 22, 2021 10:13 pm

Work has been kicking my ass lately. I knew it would be a busy summer, so it's not a big surprise. I've had to scale back my ambitions for language study. I am still slowly moving forward, but the key word is slowly.

Greek
I do about one lesson of Pimsleur 2 per day, and am up to lesson 10. I wish there were a third level.

I hit pause on Assimil at lesson 95 (passive) / 45 (active). I was so close to finishing, but it was taking me an entire evening to finish a lesson by the end of the book - when I had the energy to even attempt it - and I wasn't retaining much. The dialogues might be at level B2, but I am still approaching A1. It would be useful to take a third active pass through the book, and I still might ... if only the lessons were more interesting. The dialogues are purely functional and generic, and rarely rise above that. In other Assimil courses there's silly humor, and in the Latin course some of the lessons were genuinely interesting (like a first person account of the eruption of Vesuvius). The Greek course is useful, but not one I can see using over and over.

I spent two evenings, and a couple hours, working through a few pages of The Little Prince. If I had more energy after work I'd keep at it, but as it is this will be a project for when I have the time.

The Memrise course is a decent adjunct to all this, and I'll work on it a couple times a week.

French
I finished the audiobook of Du côté de chez Swann, and genuinely enjoyed it. The endless chapters of Swann moping over Odette dragged on, just like they did when I read it, but at least this time I understand the context. There will be twists ahead that are rooted in these sections.

I thought I would go back and "close out" some of the early Kwiziq levels, and try to bring them to 100%. It's really hard, even at A1 I reach 95%, and then start making basic mistakes that will drop me down to 94%. The next night I'll bring my score back up to 95%. The next night, I fall a percentage point again.

I started reading Patrick Modiano's Dora Bruder. In it, Modiano attempts to track the fate of a Jewish teenager who ran away from home during the German occupation of Paris. It's based on a missing-person's notice he saw in an old copy of Paris Soir. It's part detective work, part meditation on the lives of people who's history is lost in the shadows of time.

Italian and Spanish
I'll listen to a couple hours each week of podcasts in each. It's nice that I'm at a point where this is actually relaxing, and doesn't feel like work.
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Re: kanewai's book shelf

Postby kanewai » Thu Aug 05, 2021 9:31 pm

Well hello, August.

I'm having turbo-charged days at work still, so instead of doing language lessons on the commute in I'm listening to music to charge myself up, and then music to decompress on the way home. At home, I just want to curl up with a book and some wine. Or tequila. I'm still managing at least 30" of Pimsleur Greek II a day, and squeeze in some French study when I can.
august.JPG


I plateaued a bit with Kwizq, as I usually do. I did a dictation from Une dictée par jour - and bombed it. I thought I understood everything, but my dictation was full of errors. Ugh. Inspired by a post from Jeffers, I registered for the livre-web from CLE's Grammaire progressive du français (I already have the books, I just needed to enter the code online). I'm still trying to navigate the site.

24 days to Nîmes.
42 days to Thessaloniki.

I'm not ready! I'm never ready ...
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Re: kanewai's book shelf

Postby luke » Fri Aug 06, 2021 12:25 am

Always enjoy your informative posts!

Was confused seeing 2020 on your chart, but I will posit that the chart is indeed for the current year. :)
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Re: kanewai's book shelf

Postby kanewai » Fri Aug 06, 2021 1:06 am

luke wrote:Always enjoy your informative posts!

Was confused seeing 2020 on your chart, but I will posit that the chart is indeed for the current year. :)
Thanks! And that column was my carry-over from 2020. I like tracking my progress, but only took a snapshot of part of the full spreadsheet ... since I haven't done much with other languages for the past months.
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Re: kanewai's book shelf

Postby kanewai » Sun Nov 07, 2021 10:05 pm

It's time to catch up on my poor neglected log ...

French

I was in France for three weeks in September - Nîmes for vacation, Marseille for work, Arles for vacation. I'm really happy with how my French went. I've reached the point where I can start start copying the cadences of the people around me, and adjust my accent. At the conference in Marseille I had the best compliments possible: You have a nice accent. But ... you are American? How is this?

I still need to work on my vocabulary, and I still get tripped up a lot, especially if a conversation goes on for more than a few minutes. Sounding good isn't the same as speaking well.

I feel super motivated to level up even more now. I'm currently taking my time with CLE Grammaire progressive du français (A2-B1), and trying to do one dictation a day from Une dictée par jour (level verte). I'm going to take it slow and steady, and not try to rush and finish the course.

I will also try to not distract myself by flirting with other languages.

(yeah, right)

Greek

I've already whined a bit about Greek in another thread. I did fine, but I just didn't do as well as I could have given the insane amounts of time I put into it. In part it was the courses. But also, I was insanely busy at work during August and didn't have a lot of mental energy left to make a final push with Greek, and I also had a three-week French interlude between the US and Greece.

For now I'll put modern Greek aside. If I return I'll spend a couple months focusing on just the basic spoken language. I don't envision adding Greek to the list of languages that I actively maintain - it would take another solid year at least to reach a level where I could rely on passive reading and listening.

Arabic

I'm heading to Morocco this coming May (inshallah), and intend to casually work my way through Assimil Arabic. I don't want to spend a lot of energy on this - it's not even the right dialect for North Africa. I just want the language to be a little less opaque, and to become more comfortable with the script. Unlike Greek, where I really wanted to reach a speaking level, with Arabic I just want a familiarity.

A friend sent me links to the courses they used in the Peace Corps for Darija and Tamazight.

But French comes first ... it's the language I'm actually going to need over there.

The Bookshelf

Some hits and misses here:

Jean-Claude Izzo, Chourmo. The second book in his Mediterranean-noir trilogy. It was easier to follow than the first, and cool to be reading it while in Marseille itself. I'll pick up the third soon.

Laurent Binet. Civilizations. This had a cool set-up: the first section is a Viking saga where the Vikings travel all the way to the Caribbean. The second is the journal of Christopher Columbus - but when he arrives the indigenous Caribe already have horses and are resistant to western diseases. The third chronicles the discovery of Spain by the Incas. The fourth is the story of Don Quixote in the Incan Empire of New Spain. Unfortunately, the writing was dull (each section was written in the same style, and each character sounded like every other) and the story became increasingly preposterous. I didn't finish.

Ágota Kristóf. Le grand cahier. A very dark and twisted fable of two twins in wartime Europe. Highly recommended.

current: Tahar Ben Jalloun, Cette aveuglante absence de lumière. This is based upon the story of a political prisoner who spent 18 years in a dark cell in Morocco. It's a story of his survival, interspersed with flashbacks about the failed coup he was part of. It's fascinating, but challenging, reading. I only can handle one chapter at a time.

current audio: Marcel Proust. À l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs. I started this months ago, and it will probably take me months to finish. I remember some beautiful passages from the book while the narrator is in Balbec; I forgot how much time we first spend in the excruciatingly-boring salons in Paris.

Spanish: Santiago Posteguillo. Los asesinos del emperador. This is the first book in Posteguillo's trilogy on the Emperor Trajan. It opens with a conspiracy to assassinate the Emperor Domitian, then flashes back a generation to trace the events that led up to the murder. As always, his books are extremely detailed and well-researched, and his characters perfectly realized. Their actions always make sense; it never feels like the author is manipulating his characters to serve the plot. And, as always, his books are extremely long. I'm only on page 400, and already we've lived through the Year of Five Emperors, the conquest of Jerusalem, and the building of the Flavian Amphitheater.

Then Vesuvius erupted ... and I still have 600 pages to go.

The other two books are also 1000-pages each. This is gonna take awhile.
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Re: kanewai's book shelf

Postby kanewai » Fri Nov 12, 2021 10:53 pm

Française

I'm taking my time with Grammaire progressive. I have to fight the temptation to rush through it and finish it and move on to the next course. I'll do a page or two of exercises each day, and when I've finished a chapter I'll do the online exercises. When I have time I follow this up with a dictation. At this point I "know" French, I just need to improve it - so this is working for me.


العربية

Taking a cue from French, I've been using the Assimil course as a dictation tool. The absurdly slow speech on the recordings actually helps. Arabic is a language that I'll return to every year or so. I doubt I'll ever become fluent, and that actually takes the pressure off. I can study it a bit, and then put it aside when I don't have the time or energy.


Podcasts

Storia d'Italia (Marco Cappelli) has been covering the Longobardi kingdoms in Italy, but recently took a detour for a special episode in the land of the Franks with La faida (561-584):

In questo episodio speciale, andiamo in Franchia per narrare di due regine formidabili: Brunhilde e Fredegunda, le terribili regine di Austrasia e Neustria. La loro rivalità è degna di quella di Atia e Servilia nella serie HBO Rome e segna l’intero cinquantennio seguente alla morte di Clothar I (561), in una faida di sangue e potere.

E’ questo che faremo dunque oggi: andremo oltre le storie dei Re Merovingi, e scopriremo la storia delle Regine che li manovrarono uno contro l’altro.


Marco Cappelli did a guest spot on another podcast I listen to, History of Byzantium (Robin Pearson). In Discussion with Marco Capelli about Byzantium and Italy. In the episode notes Pierson writes Please do tell any Italian speakers you know about Storia d'Italia (italiastoria.com). I'm doing my part!

La Historia de España (David Cot) has finished chronicling the rise and fall of the Visigothic kingdoms, and we are entering a new period of history with La conquista musulmana de la península ibérica.

Au coeur de l'histoire has a new host, Clémentine Portier-Kaltenbach. It took me a few episodes to get used to her, but now I'm enjoying it.
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Spanish: 50 / 50
French: 16 / 50

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Re: kanewai's book shelf

Postby Lawyer&Mom » Sat Nov 13, 2021 8:12 pm

Have you ever found a history of France podcast like you have with Spain and Italy? I’ve found lots of history podcasts in French, but not specifically a chronological history of France.
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