kanewai's book shelf (current: italian)

[kanewai]

Once again, I got over-excited & started too many things at once. Now I'm over committed, but don't want to drop anything.

I seem to do this once or twice a year.

French

Les trois mousquetaires. I always thought this was an adventure story. It's definitely entered the popular American and British mind as a purely adventure story (witness the excruciating adaptation BBC recently did). I didn't realize how much of a satire it also was. In the first chapter Dumas even describes D'Artagnan as "Don Quijote at 18."


Spanish

La catedral del mar is nice and fast-paced. It's definitely a page-turner, in the best way.


Italian

Storia della bambina perduta. The book is taking a dive into the darker side of Napoli. We've known all along that one family, the Solara, were involved in the criminal underworld. Usually stories look at it from the men's side, or the criminals' side (like the amazing Gomorra). It's fascinating to see it from the side of two women who are resisting, both in their own way.



Latin

Le Latin. Chapter 84. I've stalled a bit. Sometimes the chapters are easy, and I think I've actually learned Latin without pain, or with ease, or whatever the current tagline is. And then other chapters I struggle through. Assimil has had sections taken from medieval Latin, and books in translation, like the Little Prince or Winnie the Pooh (Winnie ille Pu), but so far there hasn't been anything from the classical texts. There are selections from Cicero in the next section. I don't even know if I'll like Cicero or not, but I'm excited to give him a try.

The Aeneid arrived, and even though it's heavily annotated it looks a lot harder than I was expecting. I hope I'm ready for it when I finish Assimil.


German

German with Ease. Chapter 7. I've stalled. For some reason it's hard for me to do two Assimil simultaneously. I just don't have the mental energy to focus.


Japanese

Pimsleur I. Chapter 11. Even though this is a review, I've forgotten everything.

Japanese with Ease arrived, and I showed it to co-workers who are bilingual. They thought it looked like an impressive system. I won't start this until I finish Latin ... and then it will come down to a face off: German vs. Japanese. I still have no idea which one I'll choose.


English

(audiobook) Leo Tolstoy. Anna Karenina. Narrated by David Horovitch. One of the 'problems' with the super challenge is that I don't have time to do much reading in English. I only started listening to audiobooks within the past year. I always thought it would be painful to listen to one person reading a book. I was wrong - I love it. I finished Middlemarch last month, and now this is my second big fat epic on tape. I think I'll be working though a lot of big fat epics this way!

And Tolstoy is an amazing writer. I wish I could read him in Russian ... there are so many languages I wish I could read in ... sigh.

[kanewai]

Super Challenge Eve

I'm starting in the middle of so many books and shows; this list is to mark where I'm at before the Super Challenge starts, so I know how much to officially log.

French

audio: Les trois mousquetaires. 15 hours 20 minutes remaining.


Spanish

reading: La catedral del mar. 9% done / 605 pages to go.


Italian

reading: Storia della bambina perduta. 70% done / 150 pages to go. This book is longer than I thought. It's hard to tell sometimes with kindle.
tv: Romanzo Criminale. Two episodes down, ten to go.
podcast: Alle otto della sera: 20 Imperatori Romani. One emperor down, nineteen to go.


Latin

reading: Le Latin. 15 chapters to go in passive phase. I don't like counting Assimil with the Super Challenge, but for Latin I might make an exception.
reading: Lingua Latina Pars I: Familia Romana. Ten chapters down, twenty-five to go. Approximately 240 pages, though I might re-read a couple chapters when I get start on this again.


The last couple challenges I would log everything on twitter right away. I think I'll back away from that this round, and just log a book or a series when I've finished. It'll be easier, though I won't have that satisfaction of seeing weekly progress ... or the frustration at seeing my lack thereof.

[Josquin]

The Aeneid arrived, and even though it's heavily annotated it looks a lot harder than I was expecting. I hope I'm ready for it when I finish Assimil.

I certainly don't want to discourage you, but reading the Aeneid after completing Assimil is a high goal. IMHO it would be better to read some easy prose, such as Caesar's De bello Gallico, first. I did five years of Latin at school and we didn't even tackle the Aeneid. I tried to translate parts of it later on my own, but even that was difficult.

You should probably get a feeling for easy Latin prose before tackling poetry. Caesar is a good start for that, or maybe Cicero. And even if you feel comfortable with Caesar, maybe try to read some Ovid (e.g. Metamorphoses or Ars amatoria) before moving on to Vergil. If, however, your one and only goal is to read the Aeneid in the original, then by all means try, but if you really want to learn Latin and profit from reading the Aeneid, you should probably wait a little bit and read easier stuff first.

Just my two cents...

[indeclinable]

Nescio an sit bonum consilium legere Vergilium cum sis in capitulo X Familae romanae. Ipse Ørberg confecit et accommodavit florilegum Aeneidos ad usum discipulorum, censuit tamen spectandum esse usque ad Cap. LX Romae Aeternae antequam legerent discipuli Vergilium. Dixerim tibi melior esse primum perlegere saltem Familiam Romanam.

Utcumque, si putas te valere, suaserim tibi ut adhibeas editiones In usum Delphini (aut editiones Lemaireanas) quae habent textus paraphrasi Latina versos cum notis.

---

I wouldn't advice taking on Virgil if you're still on chapter 10 of Familia Romana. Ørberg himself made a specially prepared anthology of the Aeneid and he considered apt to be read when you're in Chapter LX of Roma Aeterna. I'd suggest that you wait until you at least finish Familia Romana.

In any case if you're confident there's the In usum Delphini editions (or the Lemaire ones) which can be a big help because of the notes and paraphrases in Latin.

[kanewai]

You should probably get a feeling for easy Latin prose before tackling poetry. Caesar is a good start for that, or maybe Cicero. And even if you feel comfortable with Caesar, maybe try to read some Ovid (e.g. Metamorphoses or Ars amatoria) before moving on to Vergil. If, however, your one and only goal is to read the Aeneid in the original, then by all means try, but if you really want to learn Latin and profit from reading the Aeneid, you should probably wait a little bit and read easier stuff first.

Just my two cents...

Thanks. And I was just heading over to the Classical Languages thread to ask for some reading advice! The Aeneid is definitely a goal, but not the only one. Right now my goal is to be ready for native literature by late summer. Virgil can wait! Or Vergil ... I've got to get used to spelling his name with an 'e.'

I wouldn't advice taking on Virgil if you're still on chapter 10 of Familia Romana. Ørberg himself made a specially prepared anthology of the Aeneid and he considered apt to be read when you're in Chapter LX of Roma Aeterna. I'd suggest that you wait until you at least finish Familia Romana.

In any case if you're confident there's the In usum Delphini editions (or the Lemaire ones) which can be a big help because of the notes and paraphrases in Latin

Wow. More great resources! My summer plan is to finish Assimil and Familia Romana, and then to start Roma Aeterna. I'm still in the daydreaming stage of which classic to start with ... though realistically, it'll be Caesar and not Virgel. It's still fun to take a look at the texts.

[kanewai]

I haven't registered on the twitter bot; I figure I'll wait until it's functioning normally. When it's up I'll register for Italian, French, and Spanish. I'll keep track of Latin and German on the log, but I'm not sure yet if I'll be ready to try a challenge with them.

I had my first encounter with Cicero this week, when Assimil used a selection from his o tempora o mores speech. It was insanely hard ... and Cicero is supposed to be one of the easier Latin authors. My first pass I understand nothing, even with the French translation. On my second attempt the next day I could untangle the sentences. The third day it finally made sense to me. Three days per chapter is becoming the norm for me on this last part of the book.

It's a great speech, and it's exciting to finally tackle some writing from the classical age. It's also a bit humbling to realize how far away I am from reading with fluency.

Last time I had trouble finding good Italian podcasts. They all had either poor audio quality, or were on issues that didn't interest me at all. This round I've found a series of documentaries by rai.tv that are perfect - the Italian sounds 'clean' (i.e., I can understand it when I focus), and the episodes are 20 minutes each (which is about how long I can focus). For Spanish I'm still using content from RNE.


French

audio: Les trois mousquetaires. 140 minutes. 13 hours remaining.
reading: Le Latin. 12 pages of French text.


Spanish

reading: La catedral del mar. 40 pages (15% done)
podcasts: Documentos: Orson Welles en España, and Nómadas: Caminos de Occitania. 120 minutes


Italian

reading: Storia della bambina perduta. 75 pages (85% done)
tv: Romanzo Criminale. One episode. 60 minutes.
podcast: Alle otto della sera: 20 Imperatori Romani. Three emperors: Tiberio, Caligola, and Claudio. 60 minutes


Latin

reading: Le Latin. 12 pages of Latin text. Through Chapter 89.


German

Slowly working through the Complete German course from Language Transfer. I don't have the time now to work properly on the Assimil course. I'll pick it up again when I've gotten over this current hump with Latin.


Japanese

Through lesson 18 of Pimsleur I. That's enough for this round.

[MamaPata]

When I did a Latin GCSE (a while ago) we had to study a section of the Aeneid, so it certainly can be possible. We'd only studied Latin for two years. Obviously it may have been a simplified version, I don't remember, and we worked through it with a teacher. But it may mean that there are resources related to that, that might be of use to you?

I miss Latin!

[kanewai]

Making some good progress so far on the Super Challenge. I'm almost tempted to try for three full challenges ... but I know that not every week will be as productive as this week.

I'm still tracking totals with excel. I'll move over to twitter with a bang once the site is running smoothly.


French

audio: Les trois mousquetaires. The musketeers continue to gleefully murder their way across France, all the while defending the honor of shady women who are using them for their own nefarious ends. Ten hours remaining.

reading: Le Latin. Every page of Latin had a page and a half of French commentary in small type. I went back and counted page by page ... and realized that I have easily read 60 pages of French so far with this book!


Spanish

reading: La catedral del mar. 90 pages (22% done). This is an fast-paced historic epic, set in 14th century Barcelona. There's been some horrible scenes of violence ... so far all against women. I wonder if male authors are conscious when they do this. It's such an action-movie cliche, where violence against women serves to motivate the male hero. I like the book; I just hope that this trend doesn't keep up for the next 500 pages.

audio: I've listened to a couple hours of RNE documentaries, and started watching La Case di Papel on Netfilx. It's a heist flic, and I wasn't sure I'd like it. I hated all the smug characters in movies like Oceans 11, and thought this might be a Spanish version of that. So far, though, it's pretty good.



Italian

reading: I finally finished Storia della bambina perduta. This was an amazing series. The last half of the book was brutal - Napoli absolutely destroys a lot of the main characters. I couldn't put it down, and stayed up late for two nights in a row to finish the last 100 pages.

Next up is Orlando furioso di Ludovico Ariosto, raccontato da Italo Calvino. I didn't realize that this is the same Orlando as the French Chanson de Roland. The French epic only deals with his death; the Italians have a whole cycle of Orlando epics dealing with his loves and adventures in the east, in the west ... and on the moon. I'm still on the introduction, so I'm not sure how much of this book is the epic, and how much is Calvino's commentary on it.

audio: I've given up on Romanzo Criminale. The subtitles aren't synced well, and the dialect is too strong for me to understand on its own. But also, I'm just not interested in a bunch of petty criminals. For podcasts, I'm still working my way through 20 Imperatori Romani.


Latin

reading: Le Latin. I survived my first encounter with Cicero and Caesar. Both were harder than I was expecting. Hopefully they'll be easier when I revisit them during the active phase of Le Latin. The book has gotten easier the last couple chapters. There's a ton of new vocabulary, but the grammar and structure are a bit easier to handle.

I doubt I'll be entering Latin as a part of the Super Challenge.


German

Still working through the Complete German course from Language Transfer. This is really an excellent way to get introduced to a language.


Japanese

No more. Sayonara, Nihongo.


English

I finished Anna Karenina. What an amazing story.


Current stats
French: 60 pages reading, 305 minutes audio.
Spanish: 87 pages reading, 300 minutes audio
Italian: 150 pages reading, 195 minutes audio

[reineke]

Virgil can wait! Or Vergil ... I've got to get used to spelling his name with an 'e.'

I'm still in the daydreaming stage of which classic to start with ... though realistically, it'll be Caesar and not Virgel.

Orlando F. I enjoyed the first couple of cantos.

https://www.liberliber.it/online/autori ... udiolibro/

[kanewai]

Challenge Week 3

I'm heading to the mainland for a few weeks, so my progress is about to stall. I'll have lots of time to read on the plane and train, but beyond that I don't know how much down time I'll have.

I'm feeling pretty good about balancing my three modern Romance languages. Sometimes I feel good about working Latin and German into my routine. Sometimes it feels like too much. I have to remind myself that I just need to do a little each day, and that over time I will see progress.

French

audio: Les trois mousquetaires. I have become completely lost in the plot. I can't keep track of who's sleeping with whom, who's betraying whom, and who exactly Milady is trying to kill. I went online and read an English synopsis of the chapters I had just listened too ... and was still completely confused. Maybe this is part of the novel's charm? Seven hours remaining.

reading: La Prisonnière . I'm finally getting back to Proust. I've been putting this volume off - it's five hundred pages of Proust focusing on obsessive love. Again. I think this is the third subplot on obsessive love. It's hard for me to relate to this. I've never been a very jealous person, and to me the narrator in this volume seems creepy and a touch psychotic. And I mean psycho in the truest Alfred Hitchcock sense - the narrator has pretty much traded in his mother for Albertine. If we find out he's secretly keeping his mother locked in the attic I wouldn't be surprised.


Spanish

reading: La catedral del mar. A third finished already. It's a big fat novel, but it's a fast read.

audio: La Casa di Papel is off to a solid start. I'm really enjoying it.



Italian

Orlando furioso di Ludovico Ariosto, raccontato da Italo Calvino. This is going to be harder than I thought. Like the Three Musketeers, the plot is horribly convoluted. I've lost track of who drank from which magic fountain (one makes you love a person, and one makes you hate them). As far as I can tell, Angelica has drank from the fountain of hate, and Rinaldo from the fountain of love. He pursues her. Angelica flees to the woods, where she falls in love with the Saracen King of Africa. I'm not sure where Orlando is.

All this, and I'm only on the first couple pages.

audio: I decided to give Romanzo Criminale a second chance. I keep reading great reviews, but so far I'm still neutral. on it


Latin

reading: Le Latin. I thought I would finish the active phase this weekend, but Assimil threw me a curve ball. For the last couple pages the exercises have been longer than the dialogues, and are accompanied by full pages of footnotes and explanations - all in small type and light colored text. It would have been easier on my eyes if they had just made these separate chapters. I'd skip them, but they're excerpts from Pliny's account of Vesuvius & they're actually really interesting.


German

I've reached chapter 40 of Complete German course from Language Transfer. Ten to go. I'll start on Assimil when I get back.





Current stats
Goal (for a full challenge): 172 pages reading, 310 minutes audio
French: 90 pages reading, 470 minutes audio.
Spanish: 134 pages reading, 480 minutes audio
Italian: 190 pages reading, 360 minutes audio