I'm not proposing to read for 24 hours but I am going to take up Sarah's mini-challenge. To read for an hour in a language foreign to me. So, I am going to see how much, if any, of the German I learnt is still in the memory banks!!!
Good old Projekt Gutenberg has provided me with a Sherlock Holmes translation: Das Diadem aus Beryll
So, I'll report back in an hour and let you know how I got on!
Update:
Well, I stared at German words for an hour.....let's say that I was able to get the gist of it but by no means an accurate picture of the story. I also didn't get very far :) I managed the direct speech better than the descriptive sections and apparently I remember very few verbs.... However I do still have a reasonable feel for sentence structure. So I have a feel for the, er, feel of the sentence; I simply don't understand every word! :) I helped myself along a bit by reading a paragraph or a few sentences if it was a long paragraph at a time and working out what I thought it meant and then comparing it with the English version on Project Gutenberg. Clever plan, eh? At least it meant I could check how I was doing and figure out any specific words that didn't make any sense to me. So, there we are - challenge met. At least I did my best. I obviously need to work a bit harder if I want to keep some semblance of German in my brain.
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7 comments:
How foreign is foreign? As in, could I jump into Jean de Florette since it's 7 years since I achieved A-Level French?
Why not? Whether you could still make sense of it I don't know - but you could try! :) AT least, that's my take on it!
Hi Em! WELL DONE (that's a big well done btw) on participating in the language mini-challenge :) Who cares how much of it you understood? Point is you did it, right?!
I spotted I missed a call from you the other week and have been keeping my beady eye out for you ever since! (Could you feel it? My beady cyber-eye?!) But I know from hard-earned experience that if I'm relying on the off-chance we're on at the same time, it might never happen... will we try schedule something? What do you think?
I'm editing some Project Peru movie stuff too, so am full of the joys! Jess said she'd finished one so that's inspired me to get a move-on and try finish what I've been working at on and off for months now... when am I supposed to find the time to work?! :)
@ sepha - well I had a go, like you I found it difficult but the rhythms were familiar (JdF was one of my set texts), so I got a few chapters in and now I have new reading to finish - shame I'm never awake enough in the morning for anything more taxing than Elizabeth Peters!
@ciorstaidh - well, good for you! Bravo!
And I'm always in favour of a little "Peabody!" and waving my parasol around.... ;)
Are you allowed to use a dictionary for this challenge, or does that make the challenge too easy - only I have a wonderful book about the Theatre of Cruelty in Dutch that I'd like to get my teeth into ....
L xx
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