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Post by Wolfgang on Jun 1, 2019 19:53:14 GMT -5
I’ve never read any books in their original language (except for English). I’ve read Ficciones, a collection of short stories by Jorge Luis Borges, but I won’t pretend to understand it. It’s all metafiction which is not a form I enjoy that much even if I can appreciate it intellectually, see, e.g., Italo Calvino. I may have read another book (translated) by a Spanish-language writer but I can’t remember. However, the books by Roberto Bolano is on my list, most notably The Savage Detectives. I tried to read it once but stopped after a few pages. Couldn’t get into the voice of the author even though I really wanted to like Bolano, so it’s going to take me some time to get back into it and fully take in the voice, free of biases and expectations. I can read anything but for some voices, I need a longer acclimation period.
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Post by Wolfgang on Jun 3, 2019 17:38:12 GMT -5
Another thing that drives me batty re. Mandarin. There's a whole bunch of characters that never show up in independent form. They only appear within other characters. So, do I study them or not? Grrr... Here's an example. The water radical is the following:  The character for "river" is the following:  So, here, the "river" character includes the "water" radical because the "river" character has something to do with water. |
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Post by ericleo on Jun 8, 2019 0:14:00 GMT -5
Another thing that drives me batty re. Mandarin. There's a whole bunch of characters that never show up in independent form. They only appear within other characters. So, do I study them or not? Grrr... Here's an example. The water radical is the following: The character for "river" is the following: So, here, the "river" character includes the "water" radical because the "river" character has something to do with water. You are really making significant progress! Radicals are pervasive in written Chinese. There are also "fire" radicals, "human body" radicals, etc. Understanding it will surely help you grasp the language a lot. |
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Post by vup on Jun 11, 2019 1:35:51 GMT -5
Quiero aprender español. Compré “Cien Años de Soledad” por Gabriel García Marquez. is one of the great novels without doubt. It is well worth reading from both a literary and entertainment perspective. If you want great literature with an eye to improving your spanish literacy, I have some other recommendations based on style and syntax: Crónica de una muerte anunciada (Chronicle of a Death Foretold) by Garcia Márquez is also an excellent option. It is a more straight-forward plot and has fewer of the stylistic adornments in language which made Cien Años so unique (and difficult). El llano en llamas (The Burning Plain) by Juan Rulfo, Mexico. A collection of short stories depicting rural life in stark but humanistic prose. Also, the novel Pedro Páramo, which turns many universal myths on their heads. Anything by Jorge Luis Borges, Argentina. El Áleph and Laberintos. A Nobel Laureate and master of crystalline prose, he wrote mainly short stories and essays, and was a major intellectual figure. Anything by Octavio Paz, Mexico. El laberinto de la soledad (The Laberynth of Solitude), El Arco y la Lira. Like Borges, he was also a Nobel Laureate and primarily a Poet and essayist. Elena Poniatowska (France/Mexico) is a journalist and author and a fantastic writer. Keep in mind that like many languages, Spanish has regional and cultural differences. Mexican spanish is akin to Mid-West (or newscast) English, and I have skewed towards more neutral styles. Castellano is the spanish spoken in most of Spain, and it is a bit more formal and traditional (and spoken castellano Spanish features the lisp on the s), while Spanish in the Caribbean is super-fast, joyful and expressive. Spanish in South America is a great blend of structure, style and intellectualism, and you will find many great authors from Chile, Argentina, Venezuela, Colombia and Peru. Poetry is also a great way to learn the language and there are many great options: Pablo Neruda (Chile), Gabriela Mistral (Chile), Sor Juan de la Cruz (Spain), Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz (Mexico), Julia de Burgos (Puerto Rico), Alfonsina Storni (Argentina) in addition to Borges and Paz. You can find these authors at the public library or if you want to purchase them, you can try www.thriftbooks.com which is an awesome website to get used books inexpensively. Very helpful information. Thank you!  I've started by having both the Spanish and the English copy. I'm trying to read a paragraph in English, then the same paragraph in Spanish. Followed by reading multiple paragraphs in only Spanish. Then repeat the same paragraphs to keep the vocab fresh. It's a slow process. I've only finished two pages in Spanish, but it's gratifying. Lots and lots and lots of vocabulary. |
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Post by vup on Jun 11, 2019 23:32:38 GMT -5
Now I’m listening to the audiobook. It’s amazing how long it’s taking to fully understand one sentence of speech at normal speed.
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Post by Wolfgang on Jun 11, 2019 23:37:08 GMT -5
Now I’m listening to the audiobook. It’s amazing how long it’s taking to fully understand one sentence of speech at normal speed. That was my biggest hurdle with Spanish — the speed of the spoken word by native speakers. Otherwise, I did really well with reading and writing tests, but utterly useless in real life settings with real life Spanish speakers. LOL |
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Post by volleyguy on Jun 12, 2019 0:02:43 GMT -5
Now I’m listening to the audiobook. It’s amazing how long it’s taking to fully understand one sentence of speech at normal speed. It's definitely a difficult book. The repetition of the same names for different generations, the appearance of fantastical elements as everyday occurrences, the blending of past, present and future into a mythical and infinite present, and use of language as epistemology (for instance, at the founding of the town of Macondo where everything has to be labeled (e.g. "cow" "dog" and "door"). Spanish has simple rules of pronunciation, with each word having a single stressed syllable. If the word ends in n, s or a vowel, the 2nd to last syllable is stressed. All other words have the last syllable stressed. An accent indicates a stressed syllable that is an exception to the above rules (this is much simpler than French). This is why poetry is a good way to learn the language. Keep it up. I hope you enjoy it. |
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Post by Wolfgang on Jun 24, 2019 14:05:13 GMT -5
Funny way to say "how do I get to the hospital?" in Chinese. Literally, I have to say, in Chinese:
Get hospital how walk
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Post by XAsstCoach on Jul 10, 2019 4:12:05 GMT -5
Was writing a text message and needed to find the word "pick", as in pick out. Pinyin in tiao, and several options came up. Most notable, 跳 (tiào) and 挑 (tiāo). Chose the latter (挑) because of the hand radical 手. Also recognized the foot radical 足 in 跳, which makes 跳 jump.
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Post by Wolfgang on Jul 22, 2019 19:48:45 GMT -5
One of the many great things about learning a foreign language is learning a word that covers an idea in one language that doesn't exist in another language. In Mandarin, the word zeng1 describes the relations between great-grandparents and their great-grandkids. I can't believe such a word would exist!
I remember something similar in Spanish. There are different words for "to know." One word is saber which means to know a fact or some learned skill, while another word conocer means to know or to be familiar with persons, places, or things. In English, "to know" covers all types of things, from facts to people, places, and things. I remember learning that in high school and thinking how interesting it was that the Spaniards decided to slice "know" that way.
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Post by mln59 on Oct 10, 2019 18:41:08 GMT -5
i came across an article in the december 2018 issue of the atlantic in which the author describes language apps. it immediately reminded me of you learning chinese.
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Post by mikegarrison on Oct 10, 2019 18:48:45 GMT -5
I was just thinking about foreign languages today. I routinely stop in at a Brazilian coffee shop and grocery (they do the thing where they import stuff from Brazil that Brazilians can't find here in US groceries). Anyway, most people there speak Portuguese to each other. So I sit there drinking my latte and eating my pao de queijo and thinking, "I can't understand a damn thing these people are saying".
Maybe I should learn some Portuguese.
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Post by Wolfgang on Oct 10, 2019 18:54:19 GMT -5
I was just thinking about foreign languages today. I routinely stop in at a Brazilian coffee shop and grocery (they do the thing where they import stuff from Brazil that Brazilians can't find here in US groceries). Anyway, most people there speak Portuguese to each other. So I sit there drinking my latte and eating my pao de queijo and thinking, "I can't understand a damn thing these people are saying". Maybe I should learn some Portuguese. Or any language. |
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Post by mikegarrison on Oct 10, 2019 18:55:39 GMT -5
I was just thinking about foreign languages today. I routinely stop in at a Brazilian coffee shop and grocery (they do the thing where they import stuff from Brazil that Brazilians can't find here in US groceries). Anyway, most people there speak Portuguese to each other. So I sit there drinking my latte and eating my pao de queijo and thinking, "I can't understand a damn thing these people are saying". Maybe I should learn some Portuguese. Or any language. Huh? I thought we were speaking (typing) in a language right now. |
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Post by vup on Nov 23, 2019 21:08:03 GMT -5
How is Wolfgang 's Mandarin coming along? The People™ need an update. |
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