Reading short stories challenge 2016

Ongoing language-learning challenges, and team challenge logs (but not individual logs)
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tomgosse
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Re: Reading short stories challenge 2016

Postby tomgosse » Fri Jan 15, 2016 6:37 pm

My short story for this week was on Jeanne d'Arc. Last week's was about Charlemagne.
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Sofia
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Re: Reading short stories challenge 2016

Postby Sofia » Wed Jan 20, 2016 9:03 pm

A bit late…but I'm in :)

Languages and levels: German, level is around B1. I'd love to add Japanese, but I need to do a couple of things first 1) finish to learn the alphabet and 2) learn a decent amount of basic words :D Until then…it's German only.
Goal: I'd like to play it safe and keep my goal as general as it can be: read at least once a week.
Books you plan to read: I'm currently finishing a German novel and won't start a new book until I'm done with this one. I haven't picked it yet, but it's probably going to be a short story from the International Children's Library.
Profile link: Goodreads and BookLikes (I'm currently using both sites to see which one I prefer, in the end I'll keep only one).
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Re: Reading short stories challenge 2016

Postby lusan » Thu Jan 21, 2016 3:33 pm

I just finished "Trobadour". It was very difficult. Mostly descriptions, though it gave me a great idea. I will take 6 words everyday from these stories for my Passive Anki deck. After a year, it would be another 1800 words in the bank.

I begin today "Pana Medusa" by Michał Galczak.

I am using my signature to count the number of read stories. So far, N=3 of 50 goal.
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Re: Reading short stories challenge 2016

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Fri Jan 22, 2016 2:47 am

I'm in.
My languages will be Spanish and French, both of which I read well, and Ancient Greek, which I don't read well at all.
For Spanish, on my shelf sits a two-volume edition of Cuentos completos by Julio Cortázar.
For French, I plan to read stories from Je voudrais que quelqu'un m'attende quelque part by Anna Gavalda. This is possibly cheating, because I have already read all but one of them. Yet I like them so much, I want to read them again, even if it won't count.
For Ancient Greek, well, there are not any Ancient Greek short stories that I know about. But Ancient Greek plays are rather on the short side. For example, the famous Oedipus Rex of Sophocles is only 1530 lines long in the Perseus.org edition. So I'll go out on a limb and commit myself to reading five Ancient Greek plays, including one each of Aeschylus, Euripides and Aristophanes. But I will be using texts whose editors provide as much help as possible to the reader. First up will be "Hippolytus" by Euripides.

Stories read
24 January 2016
Spanish: "Continuidad de los parques" by Julio Cortázar (Argentina).
French: "The Opel Touch" by Anna Gavalda.

31 January
Spanish: "El río" by Julio Cortázar.
French: “L'enlèvement de la redoute” by Prosper Mérimée.

7 February
Spanish: "Ictión" by Myriam Bustos Arratia (Chile). Strange story about a society of underwater creatures.
French: "Un drame au bord de la mer" by Honoré de Balzac.

14 February
Spanish: "Holocausto sin tiempo en un pueblo lleno de luz" by Roberto Castillo (Honduras).
French: "Le Cigar de don Juan" by Alexandre Dumas (père).

21 February
Spanish: “El intermediario.” Marcial Souto (Argentina). Antología del cuento hispanoamericano.
French: « Le meunier du Boël. » Adolfe Orain. Curiosités, croyances, superstitions, chansons et coutumes de l'Ille-et-Vilaine.

28 February
Spanish: :"Los Venenos." Julio Cortázar.
French: "La demoiselle en deuil." Paul Ginistry in Contes de Gil Blas, 1887.

6 Mar
Spanish: "El jardín de senderos que se bifurcan." Juan Borges (Argentina). Ficciones
French: " Claude Gueux." Victor Hugo. + audio read by Pierre-Jean Chérer.

13 Mar
Ancient Greek Play: Hippolytus. Euripides.
Spanish story: “Mariposas de Koch.” Antonio di Benedetto (Argentina). Antología.
French: « La bataille de Froeschwiller (récit d'un témoin.) ». Ernest Daudet.

19 Mar
Spanish: “Tren nocturno.” Abdón Ubidia (Ecuador).
French: « Le Curé de Cucugnan ». Alphonse Daudet.

26 Mar
Spanish: Elena Garro (Mexico). “Antes de la guerra la Troya.”
French: Guillaume Apollinaire. « Cox City. » Free Online Stories.

13 Apr
Spanish:
Roberto Bolaño. “El Ojo selva.”
Roberto Bolaño. “Gómez Palacio.”
Roberto Bolaño. “Últimos atardeceres en la tierra.”
French:
Guillaume Apollinaire. « Le Matelot D'Amsterdam »
Théophile Gautier, « La Mille et deuxième nuit ». ***
Octave Mirbeau. « La Bonne ». From Lettres de ma chaumière.

Edit (9) to show stories read by or after 31 January 2016 and to add countries of Spanish writers and to italicize names of books.
Last edited by MorkTheFiddle on Wed Apr 13, 2016 5:35 pm, edited 11 times in total.
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Re: Reading short stories challenge 2016

Postby Serpent » Fri Jan 22, 2016 10:09 pm

That's not cheating :) I'm inclined to exclude rereading stories within the challenge, but rereading what you read before is definitely fine!

I finally read my first story :lol: :oops: It's from Sicilia fantastica. I've been reading another story in Italian but I'm still not done with it :?
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Re: Reading short stories challenge 2016

Postby Allison » Sat Jan 23, 2016 7:41 pm

I'm in!

Languages and levels: Spanish. Reading-wise, I'm currently working my way through my first adult novel (probably 6-10% unknown words), I've read a few short stories, and I'm regularly reading news articles that interest me with pretty good comprehension. It's still a slow process to read something, but it's improving quickly.
Goal: Finish my two parallel text short story books.
Books you plan to read: Short Stories in Spanish: New Penguin Parallel Text and Spanish Stories / Cuentos Españoles (A Dual-Language Book). I've read one story in each of them already. One has 9 left and the other has 12 left. I'll be reading the Spanish version and using the English version to check my comprehension or give me definitions of vocab I don't know.


I'll be editing this post to keep a list of the stories for the challenge, up to five, counting one per week maximum.

Updated list of completed stories and reviews/comments as of October 17, 2016:
  1. El libro talonario, Pedro Antonio de Alarcón, July 8: boring
  2. El rey sapo, o Heinrich el de los hierros, Brothers Grimm told by Philip Pullman translated by Enrique Murillo, August 20: I liked it
  3. El gato y la ratita montan su hogar, Brothers Grimm told by Philip Pullman translated by Enrique Murillo, September 3: sure!
    El muchacho que se fue de casa para averiguar qué son los escalofríos, ditto, ditto: such a weird premise that I liked it
    El alacrán de Fray Gómez, Ricardo Palma, September 3: the stories in Spanish Stories/Cuentos Españoles seem to have no point, unfortunately
  4. El revólver, Emilia Pardo Bazán, September 17: this is the first short story in my Spanish Stories/Cuentos Españoles that I liked! Unfortunately, I realized it's the only story in that book written by a woman
  5. El fiel Johannes, Brothers Grimm told by Philip Pullman translated by Enrique Murillo, October 17: one of those really weird fairy tales that involves sudden child murder, so, uh...
The five story challenge is complete!
Last edited by Allison on Mon Oct 17, 2016 2:53 pm, edited 6 times in total.
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Re: Reading short stories challenge 2016

Postby Teango » Sat Jan 23, 2016 9:54 pm

Just finished reading my third simple storybook in French this morning - this is so much more fun than Assimil!
- Le rocher rouge
- Le jumeaux et la machine du temps
- L'Étranger dans la neige


As a very rough estimate, I'd say it all adds up to about 7,000 words (i.e., 31 pages each book, with lots of illustrations, not including parallel text). I'm looking forward to reading my next story in French soon enough, but I guess I better do some Assimil groundwork in the meantime too. ;)
Last edited by Teango on Fri Feb 12, 2016 9:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Reading short stories challenge 2016

Postby lusan » Sun Jan 24, 2016 8:44 pm

Last night I finished 'Panna Meduza.' It was a nice 2100 words read. I understood better this time but it was hard. Actually all the stories will be hard and, most likely short. They are at C1 or C2 levels. I guess I read maybe at A2 or B1 levels. It would be nice find a bunch of B1 interesting polish short stories, but normal native is what I got, so I will drive on.

Started "Opuszczony budynek" by Marcin Lubojański. It has 2630 words.
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Re: Reading short stories challenge 2016

Postby tomgosse » Sun Jan 24, 2016 9:02 pm

Last week's short story was about François 1er et la Renaissance. This week's story was about Henri IV et les guerres de Religion.
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BAnna
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Re: Reading short stories challenge 2016

Postby BAnna » Sun Jan 24, 2016 11:00 pm

Better late than never:

Languages and levels: Spanish and German both around C level
Goal: Read 20 stories in Spanish and 15 in German
Books you plan to read: (Both are aimed toward English-speaking intermediate level university students)
ES: El cuento hispánico: a Graded Literary Anthology
DE: German Stories Deutsche Erzählungen: A Bilingual Enface Anthology

A link to your profile/shelf on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/3 ... nish-germa

Read:
DE:
1. Der Prokurator von Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
2. Unverhofftes Wiedersehen von Johann Peter Hebel
3. Das Erdbeben in Chili von Heinrich von Kleist

ES:
1. Apocalipsis por Marco Denevi
2. Chanclas por Sandra Cisneros
3. El eclipse por Augusto Monterroso
4. Las lavanderas por Elena Poniatowska
Last edited by BAnna on Fri Jan 29, 2016 12:34 am, edited 5 times in total.
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Turkish Study: 121 / 300

Half SC Turkish Reading: 153 / 2500
Half SC Turkish Films: 1605 / 4500

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Half SC Russian Films: 0 / 4500


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