The FORMER A Language Learner's Forum Book Club

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MamaPata
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Re: A Language Learner's Forum Book Club 2019

Postby MamaPata » Fri Jan 04, 2019 6:59 am

Wow that sounds like an experience. :shock: Not quite enough to get me back into Latin.

Does anyone have any suggestions for the next few books? Gives people something to do for the 365 day challenge!

My suggestions:

- Ship of Magic, Robin Hobb (Originally written in English, fantasy novel)
- Une Vie, Simone Veil (Originally written in French, autobiography)
- Le Grand Meaulnes (Originally written in French, novel)
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Corrections appreciated.

DaveAgain
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Re: A Language Learner's Forum Book Club 2019

Postby DaveAgain » Fri Jan 04, 2019 9:18 am

Book suggestions:
'Huis Clos' by Jean-Paul Sartre (it's a play, so only 99 pages!)
'Three men in a boat' by Jerome K Jerome (Gutenberg, BNF.fr)

EDIT
Ebooksgratuits.com also have '3 men in a boat' (french)
Last edited by DaveAgain on Sat Jan 05, 2019 7:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Ogrim
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Re: A Language Learner's Forum Book Club 2018

Postby Ogrim » Fri Jan 04, 2019 10:34 am

kanewai wrote:The Metamorphosis of Apuleius (a.k.a. The Golden Ass) - first look. It took me awhile to find the right book. I ordered one in Italian off Amazon, but it turned out to be in Latin - only the introduction was in Italian. I don't know what the second one was - for the most part it seemed to be the right book, but the first section was set in the Renaissance, and not classical-age Greece and Rome.

I finally settled on a hard copy with Latin on one page, and Italian on the facing page. I'm not even close to understanding the Latin, though it's been fun to look up the naughty bits and see how to say those.


Can you give more details about the edition you chose? Your descriptions really make me want to read this book!
1 x
Ich grolle nicht

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Maiwenn
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Re: A Language Learner's Forum Book Club 2019

Postby Maiwenn » Fri Jan 04, 2019 1:53 pm

Using http://www.unesco.org/xtrans/ (sadly not up to date) & goodreads to check for translation availability, I'd recommend:

Le Clézio (French, writes in French)
Désert translations in Arabic, Bulgarian, Danish, English, Estonian, Finnish, German, Georgian, Greek, Japanese, Lithuanian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, Vietnamese
Étoile errante translations in Albanian, Arabic, Danish, English, Finnish, German, Greek, Japanese, Korean, Persian/Farsi Portuguese, Romanian, Swedish, Turkish

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (Nigerian, writes in English)
Half of a Yellow Sun translations in Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Macedonian, Norwegian, Serbian, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish
Americanah translations in Bosnian, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish

Yasmina Khadra (Algerian, writes in French)
Les Hirondelles de Kaboul translations in Arabic, Chinese, Croatian, Danish, English, Finnish, German, Greek, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Malayalam, Norwegian, Persian/Farsi, Polish, Serbian, Slovenian, Spanish, Turkish

Dai Sijie (Chinese, writes in French)
Balzac et la petite tailleuse chinoise translations in Arabic, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, English, Finnish, Georgian, German, Greek, Icelandic Indonesian, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Persian/Farsi, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu, Vietnamese
Last edited by Maiwenn on Sat Jan 05, 2019 8:20 am, edited 1 time in total.
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SC reading: 3819 / 10000 AR
SC reading: 3334 / 5000 FR
SC reading: 65 / 2500 DE :?

Corrections are always welcome. :)

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kanewai
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Re: A Language Learner's Forum Book Club 2018

Postby kanewai » Fri Jan 04, 2019 7:37 pm

Ogrim wrote:Can you give more details about the edition you chose? Your descriptions really make me want to read this book!
I have the translation by Lara Nicoli, with Latin original on the facing page. There are a few footnotes to the text that I find really helpful.

Le metamorfosi o L'asino d'oro. Testo latino a fronte

I've occasionally looked at some of the free English translations on-line to help me with the more obscene passages (there are a lot of words that aren't in my dictionary!), but the translations always sound awkward. The Italian seems to flow better.
1 x
Super Challenge - 50 books
Italian: 11 / 50
Spanish: 50 / 50
French: 16 / 50

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MamaPata
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Re: A Language Learner's Forum Book Club 2019

Postby MamaPata » Sat Jan 05, 2019 6:34 pm

Shall we give it till the end of the day Monday and then start a poll? Then we can have the poll up for a week or so and there should still be time for everyone to get the book for February?
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Corrections appreciated.

Mista
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Re: A Language Learner's Forum Book Club 2019

Postby Mista » Sun Jan 06, 2019 8:59 pm

My suggestion:

Metro 2033, by Dmitry Glukhovsky, originally Russian. Translations in English, German, Polish, Bulgarian, Spanish, Swedish, Italian, Czech, Georgian, Finnish, Serbian, Greek (modern), Romanian, Turkish, French, Slovak, Portuguese, Persian, Hungarian, Croatian, Estonian, Dutch, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Slovenian, Thai, Danish, Azerbaijani (list from Goodreads).

Amazon wrote:The year is 2033. The world has been reduced to rubble. Humanity is nearly extinct. The half-destroyed cities have become uninhabitable through radiation. Beyond their boundaries, they say, lie endless burned-out deserts and the remains of splintered forests. Survivors still remember the past greatness of humankind. But the last remains of civilisation have already become a distant memory, the stuff of myth and legend.

More than 20 years have passed since the last plane took off from the earth. Rusted railways lead into emptiness. The ether is void and the airwaves echo to a soulless howling where previously the frequencies were full of news from Tokyo, New York, Buenos Aires. Man has handed over stewardship of the earth to new life-forms. Mutated by radiation, they are better adapted to the new world. Man's time is over.

A few score thousand survivors live on, not knowing whether they are the only ones left on earth. They live in the Moscow Metro - the biggest air-raid shelter ever built. It is humanity's last refuge. Stations have become mini-statelets, their people uniting around ideas, religions, water-filters - or the simple need to repulse an enemy incursion. It is a world without a tomorrow, with no room for dreams, plans, hopes. Feelings have given way to instinct - the most important of which is survival. Survival at any price.

VDNKh is the northernmost inhabited station on its line. It was one of the Metro's best stations and still remains secure. But now a new and terrible threat has appeared. Artyom, a young man living in VDNKh, is given the task of penetrating to the heart of the Metro, to the legendary Polis, to alert everyone to the awful danger and to get help. He holds the future of his native station in his hands, the whole Metro - and maybe the whole of humanity.
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Cèid Donn
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Re: A Language Learner's Forum Book Club 2019

Postby Cèid Donn » Tue Jan 15, 2019 6:01 am

I've been recruited. I'll be reading Metro 2033 in German with you lovely folks.
4 x
Note from an educator and former ESL/test skills tutor: Any learner, including self-learners, can use the CEFR for self-assessment. The CEFR is for helping learners progress and not for gatekeeping and bullying.

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MamaPata
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Re: A Language Learner's Forum Book Club 2019

Postby MamaPata » Tue Jan 15, 2019 6:58 am

To reiterate, the book for February is Metro 2033. Who will be reading it and in what languages?

I am currently unclear as to if I will read it, but if I do, it'll be in Russian.
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Corrections appreciated.

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Maiwenn
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Re: A Language Learner's Forum Book Club 2019

Postby Maiwenn » Tue Jan 15, 2019 7:03 am

Cèid Donn wrote:I've been recruited. I'll be reading Metro 2033 in German with you lovely folks.


I will also be reading Metro 2033 in German. :)
2 x
SC reading: 3819 / 10000 AR
SC reading: 3334 / 5000 FR
SC reading: 65 / 2500 DE :?

Corrections are always welcome. :)


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