Am I being a little top-heavy with the language posts? Probably. Oh well. I'm currently reading Manon Lescaut by Abbé Prévost, Memory of Water by Emmi Itäranta and Let the old dreams die by John Ajvide Lindqvist so perhaps you'll get a lit corner or two sooner or later :D

Until then...

As I have mentioned before (quite a few times, I believe,) I am studying abroad in France. My home uni requires that at least fifty percent of my French credits are from literature classes, as I also do comparative literature at home. This means that I have to study French literature at around the same level as French students.

What does this have to do with language learning outside of a university setting? Well, I'll tell you.

I was wondering to myself, while idly trawling the How To Learn Any Language [HTLAL] forums and procrastinating on the essay that I should be writing right now, how writing commentaries would aid in the study of a language.

Writing commentaries, for those who don't know, is a very academic exercise. It involves studying a short extract of a text in great detail - the analysis is meant to be almost scientific. When writing a commentary for English, you are meant to deconstruct word choices, lexical fields, punctuation - all of that - in order to see what they impart on the reader: how do they change the understanding of and the feeling induced by the text? What do they say about the narrator, and what does the narration style tell us about the situation? So on, so forth. It's pretty difficult to do even in English, and in French it's a new beast entirely.

A French commentary wants you to not only analyse all of these things, but also look at the grammar of the text. How can the usage of the passé composé as opposed to the imparfait or the passé simple inform our understanding of such and such moment? So on, so forth.

As you may or may not know, I struggle with grammar. Having never learnt these concepts in English, I find them almost impossible to internalise in other languages as I simply have no point of reference and no familiarity. Forcing myself to pay attention to grammatical structures and grammar in the way that writing a French commentary requires might actually be of some use to me.

Of course, this is all conjecture. I have a book of poésie en prose that I have been struggling to read, but which I quite enjoy, so maybe I'll turn my efforts towards that. At least, I hope to as soon as I finish this essay that I have to write!

Happy essaying!

And happier blogging :D

Little Newman

P.S. - Unrelated. Almost every other weekend, the person who lives above me has a guest (or guests, who knows) whose company xe enjoys rather too much for my personal liking. I feel like going upstairs and complaining XD but I guess they're pretty good when I want to party loudly with all my friends and their mothers, so I haven't much of a right...

Gummy dares!

Yesterday. Yesterday was Eurovision, which can only mean one thing: EUROVISION PARTY!

Actually, in all honesty, yesterday was not only the first Eurovision party I've ever been to, but also the first time I've watched Eurovision in over five years (!!!!)

I know, I'm a bad European.

Also, we missed half of it because what was with that astounding amount of concise they went for? However, we missed half of it for a VERY good reason. The majority of the people I went with were from the UK, so of course we wanted to be as drunk as is possible for what we thought was the only possible outcome: pitiful defeat.

So after a couple of rounds of Cheat where you have to wager an amount of alcohol every time you accuse someone of cheating - get it right, and they're wasted. Get it wrong and you're in trouble - we played gummy dares.

In drinking, I'd say vodka gummy bears are about as right as you can get while still being wrong. Usually you just chuck everything in there and hope for the best - at least, that's what we do. They're sticky and start to melt after a while and feel disgusting, not to mention that they're often far too alcoholic to taste pleasant if you're not already well on your way to drunkendom. All of this, somehow, adds up to greatness. A classic example of the whole being greater than the sum of parts. (Erm...)

And do you want to know a way to make your gummy bears drinking party even better? With gummy dares!

We saturated four colours of gummy bears in raspberry vodka: red, white, yellow and orange. While they were soaking, we all wrote out dares of varying degrees of silliness onto slips of paper, folded them up and put them in a pile. The rules are pretty simple, and they go as follows:

You shut your eyes, dip your hand in the gummy bear bowl, and pick ONE. The colour of gummy bear you pick dictates what you have to do.

Red gummy bears are 'safe'. You have to eat it, but that's all.
White gummy bears are a dare. You have to eat the gummy bear and do a dare.
Yellow gummy bears are a shot. You eat the bear and do your shot, all is well(ish).
Orange gummy bears (which we added at the last second,) are truths. You eat your gummy bear, and you answer a question put forward by the group.

Of course, we provided an out for those who didn't want to do the dares. A friend had come to visit from Paris with a bottle of what she touted as the cheapest, nastiest rum ever. I didn't think it was that bad, but I was definitely among the minority. If you really, really didn't want to do the dare, you had to take a half shot of this rum instead. Of course this only works when you have something god awful to drink, because you want to make ducking out of the dare as unpleasant as possible.

This game was a good amount of fun, although I don't think I'll be able to look at gummy bears for quite some time now. Which is a shame because the rest of them are in my sink.

Happy drinking!
And Happy Blogging!
Little Newman

P.S. Speaking of Eurovision - what was that about?? We were all shocked beyond belief and, as a bunch of English girls in France, just a leetle bit worried about what new levels of French hate our night out would bring!

Sprechen Sie Deutsch? Pratar du svenska?

In my last post I mentioned that I am focusing my active language learning efforts on Swedish and German. First of all, maybe I should explain what it is I mean by 'active'. After all, didn't I say I was going to start actively engaging in French?

Yes, even I'm a little unsure how to sort this tangled mess out.

What I mean is that, by and large, I know French. I can sit in, understand, and pass university level classes. I can get myself around in French. Yes, I find it hard to understand any francophone under the age of twenty five (enunciation, people, it's a Thing!) but the problem isn't so much my vocabulary or understanding of basic grammatical structures as it is my lack of exposure.

In short, (bref, as they say,) I don't feel the need to actively go out and follow courses. My book learning is coming to an end and I what I need now is actual usage.

I cannot say the same with Swedish and German. Yes, I can just about string together a jag heter Lily or a ich will deutsches Bücher auf Deutsch lesen. I can understand quite a lot of written Swedish (and, by extension, Norwegian and Danish), an amount that is most definitely not proportionate to the work I put in. My passive exposure to Swedish means I could probably pick up a few more things with minimal effort. But that's not what I want.

I want to be able to pick up a book in Swedish and know that I won't be looking up every second or third word. I want to understand conversations that happen around me (even if I don't feel comfortable taking part.)

And in German? To be honest, my ambitions are much, much higher. I would like to spend a year in Germany, au pairing. Of course, most host families are more than willing to pay for a language course for their au pairs (and I'm pretty sure that taking such a course is a requirement for German au pairs.) But I would like to reach a B1 level of German before that. And, if it is where life leads me, I wouldn't mind doing my masters in Germany, either. But that, of course, is very dependent on a lot of other things.

I have liked German for a very long time. At first, I liked the entertainment value of German composite words which, admittedly, is not a good reason or motivation to learn any language. But as I grew older, the desire to learn German grew stronger. And then I met actual Germans. I love Germans. I have yet to meet and talk toa German that I truly dislike. There are a lot of stereotypes about Germans and German, especially in the English speaking world that just don't match up to real life (although, that being said, there are also a lot that do!)

I like that, when I talk to Germans, I feel that I am actually, truly being listened too - although that terrifies me also. I don't really have that much to say, certainly not much of importance! And I also love listening to Germans speak! Whether they are speaking English, German or French, I love their accents. Quite different from the harsh and guttural sounds most anglophones produces when imitating or speaking German, I find German speech patterns to be quite soft.

Including that notorious German 'ch'! Maybe one of the reasons it's so often misrepresented by anglophones is because it's so hard for us to get right. N'importe, disais-je, I want to try!

In fact, the only thing I can say I don't love about German right now is the Grammar. But I don't love grammar in any language, so I'm certainly not going to let that put me off!

Despite this entire post so far being something of a love letter to German and Germans, most of my effort actually goes into my Swedish.

I think I mentioned before that I am passively exposed to Swedish quite often, but I actively engage in Swedish more often, too. Sometime last year, I bought myself a copy of John Ajvide Lindqvist's Låt den rätte komma in and I am making (so slow as to almost be negligable) progress through it. I am making fairly heavy use of Lingq's Swedish resources and try to understand Swedish whenever I come across is. I recently watched the Swedish film version of Låt den rätte komma in and I can assure you I was quite ecstatic whenever I caught a word or phrase I understood!

I haven't set myself any concrete goals with regards to Swedish, but as a vague goal I would quite like to be able to understand this clip from Johan Glans 'World Tour of Skåne'. I think that I'm probably, somehow, almost a quarter way there!

(Baby steps, friends, baby steps.)

And for both, I am trying to write things. Just a little bit, just what I can, but I'm trying. I find it much easier to hash out (and hash up) a short few sentences in Swedish or German simply because I am not terrified of awful grammar faux pas as I am in French. After all, it doesn't matter if I'm contravening major grammar rules because I didn't know they existed! Whereas in French I feel like the earth should swallow me up and spit me out in some seventh circle of Daily Mail hell for making the slightest mistake because for goodness sake Lilian, you've been at this language for ten years, shouldn't you know this by now?

As I've said in this and at least one previous post, I am using Lingq* and italki for learning (both Swedish and German), and also Lang8 for writing practice. Feel free to find me there!

Happy learning and
Happier blogging,
Little Newman

*also, for those morally against Lingq's practice of awarding people points for linking to their site, have no fear! That link should be safe! While I'm not against it, I'm not particularly for it either. Any points I'm awarded, I'd rather get through actual work that I do. And also, no puns were intended there, they just sort of happened.

Language marriage counselling

As with all my other interests, my efforts to learn new languages wax and wane.

I have managed to narrow down a pretty impressive 'to learn' list down to two languages: German and Swedish. I have also decided to actively fall back in love with French.

To be honest, I'm not sure when I fell out of love with French. Perhaps the process started long ago, when I failed in finding an interesting piece of original language French young adult literature - not just English books in translation. No matter when the process started, it really became apparent to me this year. I've barely made any efforts to speak French in my everyday life, meaning that my conversational skills are more than below par. Write a detailed analyses on what Casanova's changes of verb tenses reveal about his personality and mood in Histoire de ma vie? No problem! Explain, in detail, why I think that I can't really say that I know anything about the current political status of Libya due to the biases and underlying motives of English news and media? I could practically do that in my sleep. But hold a conversation with a couple of teenage girls who I like and whose company I enjoy? Slow down, good sir, you go too far!

Part of the problem is a lack of vocabulary. It's all very well and good to try and look up the vocabulary of casual conversation, but this is an area where I am to be found lacking even in English. I analyse most of my conversation and realise I rarely say anything of substance. It's a fact that most of what passes between my friends and I as conversations are silly in-jokes based on meaningless phrases and past interactions with others and... faces. I make a lot of very stupid faces. Somehow I feel that this won't go far to developing my ability to make either friends or conversation in French.

The problem persists. No matter how many times my roommate and I say we will talk in French, we never succeed. Over the course of the past academic year, we have only had two conversations in French, and they were both short. And she ticks all the boxes: she's French, we get along and have similar interests, and I like her so much that she accompanied me on my last trip back home, which resulted in my family demanding that she come back to visit them in the summer.

So what can I do? Apart from attending ever more language exchanges, where there is the occasional chance of my finding a francophone with whom I can easily and freely speak French?

I'm going to interact much more with French culture, that's what. 'But Lilian, you have spent a year in immersion!' Yes, random observer, yes I have. And during that single year I have made more friends than I have in the rest of my life, all of whom speak English to a native level (if not natively), and with whom I am, at most, only going to speak very bad franglais.

So I will watch more in French. I will try to read more in French (because at my level, reading French should not be as much of a chore as it is). I am going to actively try to find people to speak French with. To that end, I have joined italki, a website that allows language learners to find either conversation exchange partners or teachers willing to help them learn their chosen language. I am trying to become an active member on the How to Learn Any Language forums for the moral support and encouragement of other language-learners (although becoming an active member of any forum is something I find difficult.) I have also found a French series that, so far, I enjoy. It is called Les Revenants, or The Returned, and it has been popular enough to be remade for English television. It's about a small town where the dead are coming back to life, and other supernatural phenomena is building up, also. It's quite difficult in places, with emotionally charged scenes - I'm sure you can imagine the kind of turmoil a family would be going through on their young daughter, dead for four years, returning home without realising that a thing has changed. Harrowing, indeed. But very good.

Finally, I will try writing some more. I am sad to say that creative writing in French is still far out of my reach, but I reckon I could manage a blog post here and there. Then again, I can barely do that in English!

As for my other two languages, Swedish and German? I'll guess I'll have to save that until next time.

Happy language learning and
Happy Blogging!
Little Newman


P.S., for any French language learners looking to improve their listening skills with interesting and amusing native content, try either Cyprien on YouTube or WorkinGirls. Both of them are quite challenging, WorkinGirls far more so than Cyprien, but the entertainment factor is high and makes it all the more worth the effort!

A farewell to Tours

With only one month left in Tours, I'm starting to think of and see all the things I'll miss when I'm gone. Most of all, I'll miss the people: I've made friends from across Europe and the world, and it's with sadness that I admit that I probably won't be seeing many of them again.

But I'll also miss the town. Now that there has been more sun, I'm exploring a bit more - being the sort of creature that prefers to hibernate through the winter. Here are just a few pictures of springtime in Tours.

A gorgeous and mostly abandoned building we stumbled across on a walk.

A quiet spot by the Loire.

The Hôtel de Ville and Jean Jaurès.

The Loire by night - a beautiful scene that inspired some serious awe to rush up within me.

And summer flowers in the pristine Jardin de Prébendes d'Oé, a park that is like a minuscule version of the town itself.

I'll miss all of these things and more, but I'm excited to rediscover London, and to travel through more of Europe.

Happy blogging and happier travelling!

Little Newman

Culture/elle : film

So there has been a profound lack of content where there should be posts. I will blame this on being home and being sick. The culture has sort of fallen out of my life a bit, so here is a post from last month that I wrote and then... Well. Forgot to post.

I went to the cinema with a few friends - sadly not the studio cinema - to see two films in one week. Madness, I know! Here's my write up on them both. Mea Culpa - the first film - was actually really sad and quite harrowing with an ending that wasn't happy but was very good. With some distance between me and the film I can see a major hole in the plot where an explanation should be, but I'm not sure if that's just because I was finding it a bit difficult to follow at the start.

The very next day, we saw the new version of La Belle et la Bête. Of course I was prepared to love it from the start, being a fan of all things fairy tale, and my feelings were not betrayed. The film was gorgeous - delicious scenes of greenery and stone and rose petals, and all in all it reminded of everything I love about fairy tale illustration. The relationship between Bell and the Beast did feel as though it was moving way too fast: the director did not make any use at all of those wonderful cinematographic techniques that indicate the passing of time and this really affected my reception of the story. Talking to my friends afterwards, it would appear that I was not the only one. I also had a problem with the Beast's curse - it was a plot point, and to an extent it was thought out, but not nearly well enough to satisfy close scrutiny. But that apart, it was a film I loved, and I would wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone thinking to go and see it :)

So, old post aside, last week saw us getting some sun. And I do like a bit of sun! Especially here in Tours :) I've done a lot of sitting by the river and drinks outside of cafés, which has been nice.

I also passed through Paris again. Here is Gare d'Austerlitz, photographed at around eight in the morning on the walk across from Gare de Lyon.

It is not very clear, but it the bottom of the photograph is a boat upon which there appeared to be a party that was still going on. In retrospect, that seemed to be most of what I saw in Paris that morning.

Little Newman

Over and out!

Scandilands

Midway through last month, I made my first foray into Scandinavia. I stayed in Sweden's south-west, near Malmö, and it was gorgeous.

I moved to France last September, to a tiny town called Tours, in the Centre region of France. I won't withhold the town it's charms - it is beautiful in the sun and there are a ton of chateaus and museums to visit round about. But it is a very difficult place to travel from. By plane, I can get to five destinations pretty easily - London, Manchester, Dublin (sometimes), Marseille and Morocco. To get anywhere else, pretty much the only way is through Paris.

So I took my almost two hour journey up to Paris, wondering the whole time why the engines of French trains, even the fancy and costly express service I was on, sound more like something you'd find on a plane. (I still don't know why this is. Another French phenomena to add to the list.)

I was met at Gare Montparnasse by a friend who had recently moved to Paris, and we took the métro back to her place.

I'd always imagined that my first trip to Paris would be a little more touristy but sadly this was not possible. I managed to be impressed only by the long walk from Gare Montparnasse to Montparnasse Bienvenüe, the métro stop.

Above, my photography skills exerted on Montparnasse.

I stayed one night with my friend, quietly with a pizza and Archer and the next day she left for work and, with some delay, I left to get my plane.

I was very worried about everything, to be honest. I'd never been to Paris before, wasn't quite confident about how I was getting to the airport, nor how long it would take and the airline I was flying with didn't allow me to check in online.

And then, to top it all off, I got back to Montparnasse, where I was getting a coach to the airport, and realised I had left my card in my friend's appartment.

Honestly, I could have cried. I was imagining all the things that could go wrong, all the charges I could possibly be subject to. My friend was at work, and probably would be there until late: there was no way for me to get my card back.

I made my way to the coach stop, hoping my poorly printed ticket would be accepted. It was, but that, in some ways was another layer of worry: what if I got to the airport only to find out that I couldn't board if I hadn't checked in online? That I had to pay something like Ryan air's 70€ late check in fine? No coach ride should be so fraught with worry.

I arrived at the ghost town that is Paris Orly Airports after dark well before check in opened, which only gave me more time in which to worry and be nervous. I seemed to see some people with official looking documents that I didn't have - did I need them?

I was so nervy when check in finally opened and I got to the desk that my French and my English both failed me and the attendant looked on at me with obvious pity.

But I made it through. It was kind of shocking, after the wasteland of dead space I'd become used to, to be in Orly's boarding lounge with it's reading area, games room and banks of computers for public use, but it was the kind of shock I could definitely get used to!

Boarding went almost smoothly - except for when the boarding gate was changed without any announcement being made - but even when I was on my plane with it's fairly plush seats and free wifi for all passengers I couldn't properly relax.

My arrival in Copenhagen marked the end of step two of my journey. Although the plane landed early, it was still about eleven, and I was by no means close to port.

I felt a moment's reprieve from the stress of the day as I got into arrivals and saw my partner waiting for me, but it didn't last long - we barely had time to hug before we were rushing to catch the train across the Öresund bridge and into Sweden. Sadly it was dark, and so I was unable to pay any attention the this beautiful journey, but I'm hoping to get more opportunities in the future.

My stay in Sweden wasn't very touristy. My partner took me to his favourite spots in Lund and Malmö and I marvelled at a country that functions even when it snows.

The Kings Park in Malmö, so called because it's the grounds of a castle. Possibly the least castle-y castle I've ever seen: from a distance it looks like one of those fire stations built in the sixties that are scattered around London. I'm sure up close it would be much more impressive.

I'm a person who is always impressed with waterways. Having grown up with the Thames, which is probably one of the ugliest rivers I've ever seen, it was nice to see such a beautiful, clean, large waterway - with ducks! London's canals are lovely, yes, but I was charmed by Malmö.

My stay was only too short, and I would love to wonder around Sweden some more in the near future, to see more of the towns of Lund and Malmö as well as the much smaller town where my partner lives.

So, fingers crossed for the future!

Culture/elle - Cinema

So, although I haven't posted, I've actually been doing a lot of thinking about my general life improvement plan that I talked about last month. The idea was threefold: I'd actively make use of my time abroad; I'd actually read (and finish) 50 books; and I'd improve my health. I feel like an ideal name for this project would be Culture/elle - a silly little jeu de mots on the French word culturel, which becomes culturelle when feminised, and elle, the French word for she. How has this been going for me? Let's do a review!*

In making use of my time abroad: my friend and I decided that one cultural activity per week would be enough, and from the very beginning our definition of 'cultural' activities has been very broad. We've been to a lovely independent cinema here, Studio Cinémas, twice - once to see an indie French film called 2 Automnes, 3 Hivers and the second time to see Hayao Miyazaki's Le Vent Se Leve. French film is probably the aspect I appreciate and enjoy most about French culture, outside of the gastronomy, of course. Ever since the Nouvelle Vague years, there has been an emphasis placed on artistry in French cinema that simply isn't present in dominant American cinema culture. The Studio Ciné is nice because it does show films like 2 Automnes and not just every mainstream American release. I found the film to be a lot more experimental than I'd been expecting: a love story presented as a documentary. But it was down to earth and, aside from a strange moment near the end where the characters started singing, it was actually sweet and enjoyable. Another great thing about Studio Cinéma is that almost all of their films are VO unless otherwise stated. That is to say, all their films are subbed. I've never been a fan of dubbing. Even when I don't understand the original language (as was the case with Le Vent se Leve), I'd much rather read the subtitles and listen to the original actors voices. Of course, reading subs in a language not my own provided a slight challenge, but honestly it wasn't nearly enough to impede my my appreciation of the film, or to stop the transmission of sad feelings from it to me. I don't know that I'd actively recommend either of these films, but the Miyazaki was definitely my favourite, although somewhat different from his usual style.

Given the threefold nature of Culture/elle, and also my lack of posts for an entire month, I will split my review up. Hopefully this month I'll do better and post as things happen so that my review can really be just that: a look over the months achievements.

This, then, has been film. I have watched other films in French (I'm counting La Reine des Neiges), and am taking two film classes this semester which have proved very interesting. I also have a loyalty card for Studio Cinéma so fingers crossed for trips to come!

Next Culture/elle will probably coming very soon, and I'll be talking about my trip to Sweden!

Lit corner!

This year, as with last year and the year before, I am signed up for the Goodreads reading challenge. All it entails is you setting yourself a goal of how many books you want to read, and then reading them.

Last year, and the year before, I set myself the pretty ambitious goal of 100 books. Kind of embarrassing that I only finished six :/ this year I'm going with the more reasonable goal of 50 (although it's still quite a lot!) I don't count rereads because - well, it's a challenge. I'm notoriously terrible at finishing things, anyone who knows me can vouch for that. So this time round I hope to at least break into double digits.

I'm not just doing this as a challenge, I'm doing it for me. People who don't know much about literature students are surprised when they hear I don't really read. People who don't know much about lit students, but who do know a lot about me are more surprised. When I was younger I was constantly reading. During class, when walking, at meals... I tell you, the literary character I most identified with was Matilda, and not just because of the magic powers!

I wanna get back to that. I want to start reading again because I like being a reader. It's one of the few things I ever did with any real dedication, and it is a huge part of my personality. So who am I without books?

At any rate, the challenge is off to a good start. I finished my first book today - La Résistible Ascension d'Arturo Ui by Bertolt Brecht. I read it for a class but I enjoyed it nonetheless. When I've got another book or two under my belt, I'll do a Lit Corner for y'all :)

Happy Reading and

Happier Blogging

This is Little Newman,

Over and out

Retour à Tours

I'm not one for New Year Resolutions, which is why I haven't made any. But being home for the first time in a few months meant that I was on the receiving end of all those 'my, how you've changed!' comments. Nothing I want to hear, either.

I've always been skinny: now I am skinnier, and my hair is in sadly terrible condition. Now that I'm back in Tours, I figure I should do something about it. I have also made the decision, along with a friend from home who is in Tours with me, to start actually doing things in the hopes that we can actually experience our year abroad rather than just live it.

So, this is all precursory to what I hope will be an increase in posting about everything. Fingers crossed for me! That being said - I'm exhausted. I don't want to push myself too far: I've only just begun!

So this is Little Newman, over and out!

Xxx