kanewai's book shelf

[DaveAgain]

In German (and, I suspect, in most American coursebooks for any language these days), the pattern is: In lesson 8 we'll finally look at the nominative and accusative cases. Don't worry, we're not going to ask you to memorize tables and charts. We'll get to the other cases later. Then they wait until lesson 17 (!) to introduce something as basic as the dative case. They seem to not want to scare us students.

This kind of soft approach worked for me with Italian - but I had already studied French and self-taught Spanish. German is so inflected that I need the old-fashioned drills and charts. I ordered one of those laminated German-grammar charts on-line, but it's not organized the way I would have done it. I'll probably need to set some time aside and make my own.

Two Routledge books have shown up on UK university reading lists: Basic German, and German Grammar in Context. (one of the Basic German authors is also a co-author of TY Complete German).

[kanewai]

July Update - I did surprisingly little last month. I'm already behind in the reading parts of the Super Challenge, but I'm not feeling the same motivation I've felt for past challenges. I think the group aspect of the first couple really helped. I'll keep tracking what I do, at least for my own interest.

Epic Greek
I've reached Lesson 15, and am working on the first ten lines of the Iliad. I'm going to need to make some flash cards and properly memorize the tenses and declensions we've learned so far. That was going to be my task last week, but I didn't get around to it.


German
Struggling with motivation. I want to already be at the level where I can read and listen to podcasts, but for some reason I don't find the actual studying of German as rewarding as I do for many other languages. It's not fun the way Romance languages are, and it doesn't have the exotic thrill for me that languages like Greek, Arabic, or Turkish have. And so I keep muddling on with Assimil when I'm feeling energized, and Memrise when I'm not, since I've come this far.


French
Finished Le temps retrouvé. This was by far the best of the lot. Each novel had some key moments; this had a dozen of them. Proust really did bring it all together in the end. I started Le Bureau des Légendes Saison 4, and so far the series is at the top of its form.


Spanish
Half way through La traición de Roma. I'd like to join the July book club, but I still have roughly 400 pages to go on this one. I also finished the Patria audiobook. It was challenging keeping track of which character was which, since the book jumps around so much, but once I settled in it was an excellent listen.


Italian
Just podcasts. I haven't even started reading for the Challenge.


Arabic and Turkish.
Mostly nothing, though I did spend a few evenings with Memrise II earlier this week.

[katsu]

Finished Le temps retrouvé.

Such a simple sentence to announce such a monumental accomplishment. Congratulations! This is something I hope to achieve someday.

How would you rank the difficulty of Proust's French among other classic authors? I'm now (barely) able to read Flaubert and Stendhal, and am wondering if Proust is in reach, or if I should wait until I'm at a higher level.

I started Le Bureau des Légendes Saison 4, and so far the series is at the top of its form.

Coincidentally, I just started this same season. It's currently hard to get French stuff here in Japan, but I managed to find a third-party seller on Amazon who would ship the DVDs to me at a not-too-exorbitant rate. I think this is my all-time favorite French series. I'm forcing myself to only watch one episode a day, so I don't finish it too soon.

[kanewai]

How would you rank the difficulty of Proust's French among other classic authors? I'm now (barely) able to read Flaubert and Stendhal, and am wondering if Proust is in reach, or if I should wait until I'm at a higher level.

Proust was surprisingly accessible. He's sort of the opposite of Flaubert in some ways. For Flaubert each sentence means something and moves the plot forward. In Proust it feels like the plot doesn't move at all, and yet at the end of each book you are stunned to realize how much actually happened.

The hard part with Proust is that his thoughts flow one into the other. I couldn't just pick him up and read him on the bus for ten minutes; I'd have to immerse myself in his world each time. Parts were definitely a struggle, especially when he was dealing with the politics of the Parisian salons. I just didn't care much about that. But other parts really were some of the most beautiful pieces of writing I've read in any language. If you can read, even barely, Flaubert, I'd say it's safe to dive in!

[Carmody]

Finished Le temps retrouvé.

Congratulations!

A magnificent accomplishment!

[Carmody]

kanewai

Could you suggest to me the best edition/publishing house that I should choose if I am going to read the
Le temps retrouvé in its entirety?

Congratulations and thanks.

[kanewai]

Could you suggest to me the best edition/publishing house that I should choose if I am going to read the
Le temps retrouvé in its entirety?

Probably the easiest is to get one of his oeuvres complètes collections on kindle. I've done this for a lot of the classic authors; it's affordable, and I'll have the book ready when I'm in the mood. I did an audiobook for the Albertine novels towards the end.

What was super-valuable was the Proust, ses personnages website. The series has an insane number of important characters who would disappear for hundreds of pages. Minor characters in one book become major characters in the next, and major characters fade away. I relied a lot on the website to refresh my memory on who was who. It's well laid out, so you can follow a character book by book, and stop before you are spoiled by anything. And since there are some true surprises in the books, I'd highly recommend avoiding spoilers!

[Carmody]

Regret to say I am the only person left who does not own a Kindle. Do you have suggestions other than that?

Thanks.

[Lianne]

Regret to say I am the only person left who does not own a Kindle. Do you have suggestions other than that?

Thanks.

I don't have a Kindle either. (I love my Kobo!) But you can read Kindle books in your browser, and there's also an app you can install on a phone or tablet. I don't do it much since it's not as nice as reading on a dedicated ereader, but it's handy when there's something that's only available as a Kindle ebook.

[Carmody]

Many thanks for the great idea, however, I am a guy that prefers the hands on experience of holding the book and writing in it.
Thank you.