kanewai's book shelf (current: italian)

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jmar257
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Re: kanewai's book shelf

Postby jmar257 » Tue Jan 12, 2021 3:31 pm

kanewai wrote:podcasts: David Cot's new La Historia de España is excellent.

Me parece muy interesante el primer episodio y voy a seguir viéndo el serie. ¡Gracias por compartirlo!
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Re: kanewai's book shelf

Postby kanewai » Sat Jan 16, 2021 12:24 am

And my little burst of energy is over! Or rather, it's still there, but Greek is getting challenging. I need to devote more mental energy to it, which means there's less energy for jumping around & doing a little bit of everything. That is going to be my primary focus for most of the year. I really enjoy it; I get a the same buzz I got when I first started Italian. I can imagine leveling up to a level where I can start reading, though I know that's going to be challenge.

I'll continue with Assimil Arabic for the time being, and see how far it takes me. I don't have many illusions about being able to pick up Arabic novels at any time soon. It's kind of fun just to be able to write, and I'm working on improving my ruq'ah handwriting style by transcribing the lessons.

As for the Romance languages, for now I'll rotate through Italian / Spanish / French study, and continue reading and listening in all of them.

Travel gives me the motivation to really push hard in a language. If the world stabilizes I've got a few major trips in my future. This helps me prioritize my studying.

  • September 2021 : two weeks Marseille (work), one week Nîmes (fun; for La Feria des Vendanges); two weeks Greece (fun; Thessaloniki, Meteora, Delphi, and Athens). I already have the ticket in hand.
  • March 2022 : 3 weeks Morocco. I promised a friend I'd organize a journey for his 60th birthday.
  • Spring 2023: 4 weeks on the Via Francigena, Lucca to Rome. I wish I could do this now, but it takes a couple years to save up enough vacation time to walk a camino. I loved my walks in France and Spain, and dream of the day I can return to the road.

It seems odd to plan for so far into an unknown future, but the kind of long adventures I like to take require a fair bit of planning and budgeting. If only I had married rich ... I'd retire and just travel the world.

What's interesting is that I have friends who want to join me in Greece, but it's the one place that I want to do solo. I need to be alone, without English-speaking friends, to push through those first barriers in speaking a language. They can join me in France, or Morocco, or Italy ... but no, they all want to join me on the one trip where I don't want them! That one is mine, all mine.
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Re: kanewai's book shelf

Postby Mista » Sat Jan 16, 2021 1:12 pm

To me, making travel plans far into the future seems to be the only thing that makes sense right now. I'm also making travel plans, but I haven't dared make any for 2021 yet. I hope all your plans work out!
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Re: kanewai's book shelf

Postby kanewai » Wed Jan 20, 2021 5:35 am

Mista wrote:To me, making travel plans far into the future seems to be the only thing that makes sense right now. I'm also making travel plans, but I haven't dared make any for 2021 yet. I hope all your plans work out!
I keep playing leap frog with mine; as each plan is cancelled it will end up at the back of the queue. I was really hoping to walk a camino this spring, but I have zero hope that will happen. September still seems early, given all the chaos around us. But I'm learning Greek, and I know I'll lose motivation if I have to bounce that one.
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Re: kanewai's book shelf

Postby kanewai » Thu Jan 28, 2021 2:40 am

I have so many books, so little time.

Greek

Language Transfer - to Lesson 50 / 120. I started off doing three to five lessons at a shot. Now I've slowed down to one a night, and it usually takes me twenty minutes or more.

Assimil - to lesson 22. It now takes me two nights to finish one Assimil lesson. I'm still learning to hear Greek. Even when I know the sentence I can't always make out the words when I listen to them. I spend one night listening to the audio multiple times, and the second night transcribing it.

Επικοινωνήστε Ελληνικά (Communicate in Greek) - This book just arrived. It's mostly a Greek-only grammar book, though the instructions are in English. It's not on par with CLE for French (but what is?), and already there are a few things I don't like: there are too many games (such as, circle all the words with the letter η in them ), and some of the exercises are designed for a classroom (such as, have a conversation with your partner using your new vocabulary ). I still think this course will be useful; I suspect that I am going to need quite a few resources to level up in Greek.

I found that I was missing the hard-core FSI substitution, transformation, and correlation drills that helped so much with Spanish and French - and so I spent the afternoon downloading the first 25 lessons of the FSI Basic Greek course.

- It's been a long time since I made a concerted effort to learn a new language. I've flirted with quite a few, but didn't aim for much higher than an A1 in any of them.


Arabic

I am enjoying Assimil, and have made more progress in two weeks than I did last year with five months of Memrise. Arabic is a tricky one for me - I revisit it every couple years, but am never ready to make the long, multi-year commitment to reaching a higher level. I think most of the pleasure I get from it is just being able to write in the pretty alphabet.


Romantics

I know have a complete set of target-language grammar books! Grammatica pratica della lingua italiana, Gramática de uso del Español, and Grammaire progressive du français. I'm hoping to rotate through them, doing a week or two with one & then moving on. These are all review-level courses for me; I have strong passive skills but absolutely massacre them when I try to speak.

Some nights I can rotate through three languages. Some nights Greek leaves me mentally beat and all I want to do is curl up with a good novel when I'm done.


Books

For the past couple years I've told myself to only read one book at a time, and rotate through the languages, but I kept getting bogged down in massive books that took forever to read. It's a bit easier to do this when I stick to modern, popular novels.

I'm going to be lazy and just post the synopses from Goodreads here.

Finished: Amin Maalouf. Nos frères inattendus. 2020. A pleasant surprise; I haven't read anything by Amin Maalouf before. I'm looking forward to reading more.

Alec, dessinateur d’âge mûr, et Ève, romancière à succès d’un unique livre mythique, sont les seuls occupants d’un minuscule îlot de la côte atlantique. Ils ne se fréquentent pas, jusqu’au jour où une panne inexplicable de tous les moyens de communication les contraint à sortir de leur jalouse solitude.

New: Julia Navarro. Dime quién soy. 2010. I've seen this in bookstores in Mexico and Spain, but was intimidated by the length (close to 1000 pages!). So far it's enjoyable, and it's easy for me to spend a full afternoon reading it.

Una periodista recibe una propuesta para investigar la azarosa vida de su bisabuela, una mujer de la que sólo se sabe que huyó de España abandonando a su marido y a su hijo poco antes de que estallara la Guerra Civil. Para rescatarla del olvido deberá reconstruir su historia desde los cimientos, siguiendo los pasos de su biografía y encajando, una a una, todas las piezas del inmenso y extraordinario puzzle de su existencia.

On deck: Elsa Morante. L'isola di Arturo. 1957

Il romanzo è un'esplorazione attenta della prima realtà verso le sorgenti non inquinate della vita. L'isola nativa rappresenta una felice reclusione originaria e, insieme, la tentazione delle terre ignote. L'isola, dunque, è il punto di una scelta e a tale scelta finale, attraverso le varie prove necessarie, si prepara qui, nella sua isola, l'eroe ragazzo-Arturo. È una scelta rischiosa perché non si dà uscita dall'isola senza la traversata del mare materno; come dire il passaggio dalla preistoria infantile verso la storia e la coscienza
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Carmody
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Re: kanewai's book shelf

Postby Carmody » Thu Jan 28, 2021 3:59 pm

kanewai,

I am amazed at how productive you are, both in the short term and the long term with your language studies. I find it incredible.

Would you care to share some of the secrets that make it possible for you to hold down a regular job along with your language studies?

Whatever it is I celebrate your many successes!
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Re: kanewai's book shelf

Postby kanewai » Thu Jan 28, 2021 10:46 pm

Carmody wrote:kanewai,

I am amazed at how productive you are, both in the short term and the long term with your language studies. I find it incredible.

Would you care to share some of the secrets that make it possible for you to hold down a regular job along with your language studies?

Whatever it is I celebrate your many successes!
Ah, thanks!

Though I don't know if there's any secret, beyond following the advice I got when I first found HTLAL - daily study, slow and steady, will bring results. The key is to be patient & not quit in frustration.

I don't have kids, and don't like tv. I didn't even have a television when I started French. That frees up a lot of time!

Beyond that, there was a lot of trial and error. And I mean a lot of errors. Usually this involved either 1) flirting with a lot of languages but not focusing on one at a time, or 2) taking too long a break before I reached a self-sustaining level (where I could read, or listen to podcasts, or have conversations without too much effort).

Here's what my actual day was like, yesterday:

-----------------------------------------

Morning: it's nice outside, so I walk to work (one hour). I listen to an English audiobook part of the way, then ... when I'm on a stretch where no one can see me talking to myself ... I switch to Language Transfer and practice Greek.

Evening: walking home, I listen to my book a bit, then a podcast in Italian.

Night: Study Greek for about 45 minutes. This is my primary focus. Practice writing in Arabic a bit. Eat, pour myself a drink, settle on the couch with a Spanish novel.

----------------------------------------

That's sort of the pattern, more or less. I was studying with the French/Spanish/Italian grammar books, but now Greek is taking up more of my mental energy. I know from experience that if I need to study some each day, and that if I really want to learn it I will need to make it my main focus.

Also, I know that after my trip I will need to keep studying - at least until I reach a point where I can read easy novels. After that I can take a break. Travel is really what gives me the motivation to make the initial hard push. After that, it's the chance to read in the target language.
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Re: kanewai's book shelf

Postby jeffers » Thu Jan 28, 2021 11:05 pm

kanewai wrote: two weeks Marseille


Ah, Marseille! I spent a four day weekend there a couple of years ago, and loved every minute. I day-tripped to Aix en Provence, which is also very much recommended.

When you prepare for visiting somewhere, do you also look for media set in the place? If you like that idea, I have a handful of recommendations (listed from best to worst, according to my current mood):

Un aller simple by Didier Van Cauwelaert, a short and relatively easy to read novel. The first half is set in Marseille and the second half is set in Morocco, so it would do double duty for you! I read the book and listened to the audiobook read by the author. There's a film as well, but I haven't seen it.
Marseille, the Netflix series about Marseille city politics, with Gerard Depardieu. I enjoyed finding a few settings that were used frequently in the series, such as the Château d'Eau in Parc Longchamps.
Caïn, a policier set in Marseille about a cop in a wheelchair. I quite enjoyed the series starring Bruno Debrandt (who also appears in Engrenages). I found a couple settings for this series as well when I was there, such as the pier just south of Plage des Catalans.
Taxi (and the sequels). "So bad they're good" films all set in Marseille.
Plus belle la vie, a soap opera set in Marseille. Before I went on my trip I watched every daily episode for four or five weeks, mainly as a good way to work on my listening comprehension of ordinary spoken French. It was quite effective as a tool, but I dropped it after my trip.
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Re: kanewai's book shelf

Postby kanewai » Fri Jan 29, 2021 12:27 am

jeffers wrote:
kanewai wrote: two weeks Marseille


Ah, Marseille! I spent a four day weekend there a couple of years ago, and loved every minute. I day-tripped to Aix en Provence, which is also very much recommended.

When you prepare for visiting somewhere, do you also look for media set in the place? If you like that idea, I have a handful of recommendations (listed from best to worst, according to my current mood): ...
How many "likes" can I give one post? Part of the fun of travel planning for me is immersing myself in local media. Thanks for these; I've added 'em my queue. I might have to succumb and subscribe to Netflix - I've been holding out.

I do have one book on order, Total Khéops by Jean-Claude Izzo. It's part of a trilogy set in the Marseille underworld. Apparently it's "considered a modern classic of the Mediterranean noir style." I didn't even know that Mediterranean noir was a genre until last week.
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Re: kanewai's book shelf

Postby Carmody » Fri Jan 29, 2021 12:44 am

kanewai

Many thanks for sharing your routine; you make it all sound so doable and casual.

The idea that the TV does not interfere sounds important.

Congratulations again on your great accomplishments.
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