Ogrim's Krambu - a plethora of languages, mostly European, both old and new

[anamsc]

Por cierto, Quelibroleo.com es una nueva red social de intercambio de gustos y opiniones literarias, un poco como Goodreads pero en español únicamente. Todavía se encuentra en fase Beta, pero parece que ya tiene un buen número de usuarios. A lo mejor me apunto yo también.

I have given a link to the website "Quelibroleo" if you want to know more and read other people's opinions. Quelibroleo.com is a bit like Goodreads, but in Spanish only, and it is still in its early stages, but it can be an interesting place for those interested in Spanish literature.

Les recomiendo a todos que no se registren en esta página web, ya que hay un problema de seguridad muy grave. Cuando me he registrado, la página me ha enviado un correo electrónico con mi contraseña. Esta red social me parece interesante, pero no se debe usar hasta que arreglen este problema.

Please do not sign up for this website; it has a very bad security issue. When I signed up, the site sent me an email with my password. The website seems interesting, but it should not be used until they fix the problem.

(Thanks for the recommendation, though . I enjoy reading your blog, even though I never comment.)

[arthaey]

In my password manager, I keep a "wall of shame" of those sites that store passwords in plain text like that. I wish this site were the only one doing this!

You're totally right that it's terrible security. On the other hand, if you put nothing on the site that you don't mind being public anyway, and you never reuse passwords, the actual downsides are pretty limited.

[Ogrim]

The more that Spanish-speaking forum members read and talk about "literary" books, the more sure I am that that genre isn't my thing. But anyhow, thanks for your mini review!

You're welcome. This novel seems to be part of a "trend" in Spanish literature which has been going on for quite a while: The historical novel with a spy/mystery plot. There are some very clear similarities between Dime quién soy and El tiempo entre costuras for example, and other best-sellers more or less in the same genre includes La catedral del mar by Ildefonso Falcones and Un millón de gotas by Víctor del Árbol. It is not a genre I am particularly fond of, but to me, apart from the storyline itself, the most important thing is that a book is well written in a literary sense, and that is just not the case with Dime quién soy.

Please do not sign up for this website; it has a very bad security issue. When I signed up, the site sent me an email with my password. The website seems interesting, but it should not be used until they fix the problem.

(Thanks for the recommendation, though . I enjoy reading your blog, even though I never comment.)

Thanks for telling about the password issue. Hopefully they will fix it, as mentioned this is a Beta version still.

[Ogrim]

It is not often that I give up a book without finishing it, but I am strongly tempted to do so with Dime quién soy. As the story evolves it gets less and less credible, and I find the language tedious. I still have a some three hundred pages left, and I doubt I have the patience to waist my valuable time on this book any more. Maybe I'll just jump to the last chapter to see how it all ends. Conclusion: If you are looking for historical novels with interesting plots in Spanish, you would do better to read something by Arturo Pérez Reverte. I think his books are light entertainment more than anything else, but at least they are well researched and well written.

I've just been told that I will have a job-related trip to Lisbon in a couple of weeks. Time to pick up Portuguese???? I am sure if I put aside everything else and spend all my free time on it, I should be able to speak decent portuñol in fifteen days time. Seriously though, I can understand written Portuguese pretty well, but at least I will try to train my ear to understand al little bit of the Portuguese spoken by os lisboetas. Any tips for good media?

[iguanamon]

I read one of Julia Navarro's books, Dispara, yo ya estoy muerto , a couple of years ago. It was the same formula- 900 pages and a historical novel. This one was about Jewish history from Russia to Israel. I enjoyed much of it, though there were plenty of long, plodding stretches, but the ending left me disappointed because of the ironic (and unnecessary) "shocking" twist she put on it. It was, to say the least, incredulous and left me with a bad taste in my mouth after having invested in reading 900 pages. So, I know what you mean. Her style is somewhat reminiscent of a 20th century American writer of epic historical novels, James Michener, though not as good, in my opinion.

I found a video series teaching Portuguese for Spanish-speakers a few years ago on Canal Extremadura from Spain you might find useful for your purposes: Falamos Português The first episode is basic tourist situations. Careful, you might end up wanting to learn Portuguese Boa viajem a Portugal!

[Ogrim]

Thanks for the link to the series from Canal Extremadura. Very useful in preparation for my trip to Lisbon.

Julia Navarro used to be a well respected journalist, but she seems to have forgotten one of the golden rules of journalism: "be concise!" This weekend I "speed-read" another couple of chapters, but I think I am ready to let this book go.

Français
En fait il faut que je trouve du temps pour lire un livre qui parle du temps, à savoir Le facteur temps ne sonne jamais deux fois d'Etienne Klein. J'ai déjà lu son livre Discours sur l'origine de l'univers et je l'ai trouvé très intéressant. Etinne Klein est un physicien avec un doctorat en philosophie des sciences, et il est capable d'expliquer les grandes questions de la physique, l'astronomie et la cosmologie d'une manière claire et précise, et surtout intelligible et amusante.

Actually I need to find time to read a book about time, namely The time factor never rings twice (the French title plays with the title of the book and film "The postman always rings twice" as "facteur" means both "factor" and "postman"). I already read his book "Discourse on the origin of the universe" which I found very interesting. Etienne Klein is a physicist with a doctorate in the philosophy of science, and he is able to explain the big questions in physics, astronomy and cosmology in a clear and precise manner, and above all, in a way that is understandable and entertaining.

I also want to read a book which is about to be released for Kindle this week, Politics: Between The Extremes by Nick Clegg. The former Deputy PM of Her Majesty's government went from being a very popular politician to one of the most reviled persons in the UK, and I am curious to see what he has to say. I am not going into politics by expressing any opinion on Mr. Clegg or the Coalition government, but I look forward to reading his book which should give some insight into this (for the UK) highly unusual Government that was the coalition between the Tories and the Libdems. (For a Norwegian, coalitions are the norm, not the exception.)

My Russian classes are starting again this week, and I am now in the group B2/C1 . I am afraid that my productive output speaking and writing is way below that level, while my listening and reading comprehension is probably a weak B2, but my teacher thinks higher of my abilities than I do myself . In any case, I prefer to be pushed upwards, it motivates me to work harder.

[neofight78]

but my teacher thinks higher of my abilities than I do myself

Then you are almost certainly underestimating yourself

[Ogrim]

but my teacher thinks higher of my abilities than I do myself

Then you are almost certainly underestimating yourself

Or my teacher is misoverestimating me

[Ogrim]

I found a video series teaching Portuguese for Spanish-speakers a few years ago on Canal Extremadura from Spain you might find useful for your purposes: Falamos Português The first episode is basic tourist situations. Careful, you might end up wanting to learn Portuguese Boa viajem a Portugal!

So I have spent some time watching a few of the lessons of the series recommended by Iguanamon, and I really enjoy listening to Portuguese, although, truth be told, I do prefer the sound of Brazilian Portuguese to that of Portugal Portuguese. Brazilian sounds softer and more musical to my ears. However, I am not going to Brazil , but to Lisbon, so I will continue to focus on understanding the European version.
Yes, the temptation to learn to speak Portuguese is there, but I don't have the time to work on that right now. And I realise it would be real work, in spite of all the similarities between Spanish and Portuguese. I found this list of Spanish-Portuguese false friends, which is eye-wateringly long. I think you can risk some really humourous or embarassing misunderstandings if you apply some of these wronlgy, like the difference between Spanish embarazar and Portuguese embaraçar, or enamorar and namorar .

Does anyone know what the attitude of people in Lisbon is to someone speaking Spanish to them? I have not been to Portugal for almost 25 years, and back then some people claimed that it was better to use English than Spanish, because using Spanish would be considered rude, as if Portuguese was just a dialect of Spanish. However, as far as I can remember I did not meet any negative reactions when I spoke Spanish, but I also recall that many people spoke excellent English.

Edit: After posting this I came across this very intersting blog article (in Spanish) about speaking Spanish or portuñol in Lisboa. A really interesting read, which goes some way to answer my question.

[iguanamon]

When I checked into my hotel in Lisbon (definitely not 5 star!) I checked in at the desk in Portuguese and the desk clerks were happy to stay in Portuguese and thanked me for not speaking Spanish to them. They said it was really annoying to have to deal with it at times because detail on both sides tends to get lost. Still, portunhol can get your point across.

Yes, people who speak Spanish as a second language often think that Portuguese will be a walk in the park because they can already understand a great deal of it in written form... until they start trying to talk to people in Portuguese. Word order, tenses, small differences between "ser"and "estar", pronouns, falsos amigos... to get Portuguese right takes a lot of effort. It wasn't until I stopped looking at it as a "variant" of Spanish and started treating it as a distinct language that I actually began to learn it well. With Portuguese, the devil is definitely in the details. A similar, but funnier article is this one by a Colombian journalist, Daniel Samper, about learning Portuguese Eu não falo português

Lisbon is my favorite European capital. It's small enough that you can really embrace it. It's full of culture and multicultural as befits the capital of the Lusophone world, which it still is. You'll hear all the accents from Goa, Timor Leste and Lusophone Africa to Brasil.