FrenchThe other day I finished listening to the audiobook of
Le Tour du monde en 80 jours, which was very enjoyable. The only thing I didn't understand was of course all the ship related vocabulary. I was never really into reading about pirates or stuff like that, so I don't know that vocabulary in any language. I once started reading Moby Dick and it was so full of boat crap that I got really bored. Besides - the damn whale doesn't even appear until halfway into the brick! Le Tour du monde has fairly little boat vocabulary in comparison and it got universally translated as "boat crap" in my mind. Didn't lose anything important there. The pretend yankee accent during the bits in the US made me chuckle a lot. Also, there was lots of guessing involved with this French speaker attempting to pronounce US city names. Other than that I didn't have any problems with this one.
With that I am now 800 pages into my audiobook challenge. I want to listen to 5000 pages worth of those, mostly classics I think. Next up is La guerre du feu. I watched the movie a few months back and that's definitely the best French movie for beginners, no spoken French at all
So, better read the book to make up for the easy watching experience! I actually found it in book form in one of the local second hand bookstores - we live close to the French border and I can always pick up cheap used French books for like 2-3€ a piece, very convenient. I could read that one, but I'm on a good run with the audiobooks. Besides, I can listen to those while I'm doing other things.
RussianThe last couple of days I was playing with my new Russian camera, but of course that doesn't really count. I called her "Horizontka" by the way - I always name my photography gear, I'm weird like that. So, although I was a bit busy with test rolls and being out shooting, I still managed to do my Assimil and Duolingo. I didn't really make much progress with my intensive reading though. There is still something good to report though: My mum asked me to read something out loud for her in Russian to see how I'm progressing and she was very happy. Apparently I read better than my brother now and I don't have a bad accent at all she say's. I do have one, of course, but she had no problems understanding me. So, my Assimil shadowing has sorted out my accent! We tried the same thing on my last attempt with Russian and she couldn't understand a word I was saying. So, a big yay for Assimil and shadowing!