kanewai's book shelf (current: italian)

[kanewai]

Don't worry, La Horde du contrevent is difficult even for French native speakers and even though I loved it, it took a bit of time to appreciate the book.

That's a relief to hear!

If I can do this with minimal spoilers: how much of La Horde are we supposed to understand as we read it? I was on page 100 before I realized that the combatants in a duel were wearing jet packs (or something that allowed them to fly). This seemed to happen a lot. They'd talk about carrying "helices," but I has no idea that was a weapon until the duel started. I couldn't tell if all this was just part of the novel (i.e. that the reader isn't supposed to know what's going on at first, and that terms aren't defined on purpose), or if that was just due to my not being a native speaker.

[cmia11]

I was beginning to understand what was happening around the 100th page I guess if I remember

[kanewai]

I still haven't settled into any kind of groove here. I got overly ambitious, and now am paring things back down to a more manageable and sustainable level.

French - I am enjoying Proust. This last book so far feels stronger than the last couple, though I am just in the beginning. World War I, and the German invasion of France, have thrown everything up in the air, and threaten to destroy everything the narrator has known.

Spanish - I started the final book in Posteguillo's Escipion Africanus series. Also good.

Italian - Listening to the Storia d'Italia podcast, and watching the second season of My Brilliant Friend on tv.

I rarely do any real studying for the above, beyond a session on Speakly once or twice a week.

German - when I'm motivated I work on Assimil, when I'm not I work on Memrise. I occasionally try German on Speakly, but it's still a bit too advanced for me.

Arabic - I restarted the course on Memrise, and just finished Arabic I this morning. Finally! It's been very useful in getting me used to the script. I didn't get any grammar lessons until the very end of Arabic I, which is a problem I have with Memrise in general. You spend about a month or two on general expressions, but without having any grammar, or any background in the language, it's just noise without context. If I hadn't studied Arabic before this would have been impossible to finish.

Russian - And for the above reasons, I quit Russian on Memrise. I wanted to power through until I got to the grammar sections, but I was just getting too frustrated with the course. I seem to have a harder time with Russian than with any language I've flirted with, which is too bad, as there are so many resources out there. The Pengin Russian book is nice, but without any audio it doesn't really help. I might try again, with a different course, if I end up goinng to St Petersburg in 2021.

Turkish - A few Memrise sessions a week, just for fun, just to refresh my memory. We'll see how far I take it.

Portuguese - Been playing around on Memrise. The videos amuse me, but I don't have any long term ambitions. I secretly hope that I can pick up Portuguese super easily and quickly.

[kanewai]

I think I'll be keeping up with my current broad approach (doing a little bit in a lot of languages). I miss the deep dives into one language, and I certainly need it, but I can only do one or the other. I've tried doing hard with one language and light with a half dozen others, but that took too much energy and I didn't maintain it.

I'm still not sure if I want to join the Super Challenge again. They are awesome, and I haven't missed one ... but I like them most when it feels like a group effort. The last couple it feels like there is a lot of activity for a month, then nothing for 19 months. I might just stick with my own goals I set earlier: five books each in 2020 (actual novels, regardless of page count), in English, French, Italian, and Spanish.

I don't really have goals for audio, but I suppose I could - and work Arabic, German, and Turkish into the mix. Portuguese is out. It's sexy and all, but I'd rather do Assimil some day than slog through Memrise now. I resubscribed to some streaming channels, and now have access to more international movies than before. I have to consciously make time for them, as I usually don't have the patience to park myself in front of the tv for long stretches.

2020 to date:

Spanish: Books
Fernando Aramburu. Patria. 2016
in process: Santiago Posteguillo. La traición de Roma. 2009

Audiobooks
Gabriel García Márquez. Cien años de soledad. 1967
in process: Fernando Aramburu. Patria. Narrated by Valerio Amoruso

Movies
Pedro Almodóvar. Dolor y gloria. 2019
Luis Buñuel. Los olvidados. 1950
Julián Hernández. Rabioso sol, rabioso cielo. 2009

Courses
online: Speakly Intermediate I
online, in process: Kwiziq, Lingvist, Speakly.


French: Books
Ibrahim al-Koni. Les mages. 2010
Tahar Ben Jelloun. L'enfant de sable. 1985
in process: Marcel Proust. Le temps retrouvé. 1927.

Audiobooks
JRR Tolkein. Les deux tours. 1954. Narrated by Theirry Janssen
in process: Marcel Proust. Le Temps retrouvé. Michaël Lonsdale, Denis Podalydès, André Dussollier

Movies
Agnès Varda. L’une chante, l’autre pas. 1977
François Ozon. Frantz. 2016

Courses
CLE Phonétique progressive (A2-B2)
online, in progress: Kwiziq, Lingvist, Speakly, Une dictée par jour


Italian: Books
Giacomo Casanova. Fuga dai piombi. 1788

Movies
Pier Paolo Pasolini. Il fiore delle Mille e una notte. 1974

Television
The New Pope (English and Italian)
in progress: L'amica geniale S2
Alla scoperta dei Musei Vaticani

Podcasts (long form)
in progress: Storia d'Italia, narrated by Marco Cappelli


English: Books
James S.A. Corey. Nemesis Games. 2015
Genesis. Translation by Robert Alter. 1996
in process: James S.A. Comey. Babylon's Ashes. 2016

Audiobooks
Hilary Mantel. Bring Up the Bodies. 2012. Narrated by Simon Vance
Dan Jones. Crusaders: The Epic History of the Wars or the Holy Lands. 2019.
Patrick Radden Keefe. Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland. 2019. Narrated by Matthew Blaney.
Hilary Mantel. The Mirror & The Light. 2020. Narrated by Ben Miles
in progress: Ovid. Metamorphosis. Translation by David Raeborn. Narrated by John Sackville, Maya Saroya, David Raeburn, Martin Jarvis


German: Courses
main, in process: Assimil (on lesson 40)
supplementary: Memrise,
occasionally: Speakly, Lingvist


Arabic: Courses
Memrise Arabic I
in process: Memrise Arabic II


Turkish: Courses
in process: Memrise Turkish I

[kanewai]

I need to vent a bit about Memrise. It should be so much better. I hit the module on 'ordering food' in Turkish, German, and Arabic in the past couple weeks. Each module introduced some food terms, some grammar terms (but limited, like a drill that tells you that -m is the Turkish "I am"), and the infinitive of a few verbs. I think that this is finally building up to an actual dialogue - but it doesn't lead up to any example sentences. I pass the module, and move on to the next.

Since I'm using this to review Arabic and Turkish it's tolerable ... but it would be total bull for anyone new to the languages.

How hard would it be to just use effen' sentences in the drills????

The platform is there. The base content is mostly there. It's just missing some common sense.

[Lawyer&Mom]

Any streaming services you recommend for international content? Or just the usual suspects?

[kanewai]

Any streaming services you recommend for international content? Or just the usual suspects?

Are you in the US? If so, the Criterion Channel has tons of classic international movies, and MHZ Choice has a lot of tv shows from Europe and Asia.

Neither are perfect. Criterion definitely leans towards a certain type of 'serious' film maker. You'll find stuff from the art houses, but not many popular crowd pleasers. And MHZ choice tends to focus on cop and detective shows, but they have a few other shows outside that genre.

The search functions on both channels are poor. I usually do a search on the web (or here) for shows and movies I might like and then plug that into a site like JustWatch to see where I can find it.

[Lawyer&Mom]

MHZ has some interesting looking content. And non-removable subtitles... So not for French or German, but I do enjoy watching shows in other Germanic languages with subs!

[kanewai]

MHZ has some interesting looking content. And non-removable subtitles... So not for French or German, but I do enjoy watching shows in other Germanic languages with subs!

I hate those non-removable titles. They do their own, so you'd think it would be just as easy to allow us to toggle them on and off! My favorite, actually, is when I can turn on native-language closed captions, but that is rare to find.

[lingua]

MHz Choice is not allowed to turn the subtitles off per their contract because they only have the rights for North America. Sometimes they even exclude Canada from viewing specific shows. As I recall the exclusions were in French. I've trained my eyes to ignore the subtitles for Italian shows. Still need them for the other languages. I think they've gotten better with their subtitles. A few have been so big they take up too much of the screen.