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Some useful resources for French learners

I’m not very far in learning French, however quite experienced in searching for useful materials (hello planning vs. doing).

Thoughts:

The idea of learning texts by heart, word for word, is controversial. Some people say that you should better recite in your own words, but I found learning the text exactly as it was highly beneficial (you have to drill all those complicated expressions).

Now, after years of learning English in slow pace, I think I’d prefer to grasp the French grammar in a short period of time, so that I get a whole picture and feeling of the language. It’s like building the castle (grammar) and then filling it with furniture (vocabulary). Just start with making a room to live (Présent Simple + basic words) while you are working on the construction. :)

Materials in Russian:

Irgol. This is a personal website of a teacher of French. Has lots of great sets of vocabulary. I mostly enjoy the articles on grammar, such as this one on Verb Tenses. They are usually well-structured and easy to read, sometimes it’s also worth reading the comments. There are also great references on what to learn on levels A1/A2, A2/B1, B1 (maybe more).

The self-study book from the ‘language without borders’ series (Леблан, Панин). I just love these manuals in general. Dialogs make sense.

Grammaire Française (Иванченко). Numerous exercises to make grammar structures stuck in your head.

Materials in French / English:

Bonjour de France. A British website with texts and supplementary exercises, also audio and video. Divided into sections according to the learner’s level.

Easy French YouTube playlist. I stumbled upon this channel when I was looking for some real-life dialogs or phrases to listen to, which are not too, eeh, ‘manufactured’.

TV series for the learners. There is one, called ‘Extr@’ that was filmed in several languages, with exactly the same plot, just for the study purposes (and maybe a bit of fun). There is also ‘Reflets’ series for the French language. 

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Italian Best Shorts 2, Ranked

Yesterday I made another scheduled spontaneous decision and bought tickets to see selected Italian short stories. The cinema ‘Domzhur’ (Домжур, Journalist’s House) is very interesting itself, I would never suppose that building has such facilities inside. It is located in the very center of Moscow and screens movies with subtitles, so I’d recommend to visit it at least once.

7. Domani Smetto (Monica Dugo, 2015). Actors Anonymous. Weird story, I did not understand the plot, and people who made a brochure definitely did not either. The brochure said something like ‘...how gadgets addiction can substitute simple and important real-life talking’. I did not see it. So what was the idea ??? 

6. Rocky (Daniele Pini, 2017). Imaginary Friends, inc.. Quite nice, easy to watch, also very simple and predictive. If you want to write a story about an imaginary friend and deadlines are coming, you’ll possibly end up with something similar to ‘Rocky’. But in general it was sweet and I liked it. But not interesting.

5. Da Cosa Nasce Cosa (Francesco Bruni, 2017). Once again, ???. What was it about? And I do not believe the brochure in this case too. Confusing. But not irritating, as Domani Smetto. Maybe I am too old-school to like movies I don’t understand.

4. Finché c'è vita c'è speranza (Valerio Attanasio, 2015). Oooh, I though it’s a Russian thing to get a loan for a marriage when you are totally broke. Not much to say, move on.

3. Pollicino (Cristiano Anania, 2012). Short, atmospheric, a bit sad, but not heavy on that. What else is needed.

2. Bellissima (Alessandro Capitani, 2015). The rest of the short films that I mention seem not to be famous outside Italy (probably in Italy too). ‘Belissima’ is an exception – there are videos on YouTube and several reviews. Colorful story. I will take the brochure’s path and will not talk about the plot at all, but it’s some enjoyable stuff.

1. L'Appuntamento - Di cosa parliamo quando NON parliamo d'amore (Ylenia Politano, 2016). ‘What we are talking about when we are not talking about love’.  I chose this one as a favourite as I could feel the amount of understatement, of what was NOT said, but was left behind the curtains. I believed there was a background story, felt the chemistry. Good acting and directing, IMHO.

P.S. My vocabulary shrank this morning. I apologize.

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Thoughts on Wolf Alice – Visions of a Life

“How awful's that? I'm like a teenage girl” – Don’t Delete The Kisses

Sometimes you can pick a random song from an album and get a more or less accurate understanding of what is going to happen. This did not work with the ‘Visions of a Life’, at least for me.

I chose this album after listening to ‘Don’t Delete the Kisses’. It made me expect something dream-pop-twin-peaks-ish (the cover with a ballerina could suggest). I also was fascinated by the opportunity to fall in with another indie band with a female vocalist, as now the place in my heart is exclusively for Ms. Florence Welch.

Let’s start with the conclusion: the 'Visions of a Life’ will not stay in my music library, Florence x Machine keeps its position, however it was interesting to listen and think about the album. First of all, the songs are quite diverse in themes and genres. There are tracks which indeed remind of dream pop, those that are gothic rock, punky, there are softer acoustic ones too. Second, the album overall seems to show development within itself. It started simple, with very smooth vocals, which often irritates me (especially if I like the music), and towards the end became darker and more complicated. To say, the darker part I enjoyed more, as it did not make me feel in a teenage drama, what happened in the first few tracks.

I really liked the music in some songs, e.g. in ‘Heavenward’. ‘Sadboy’ has some catchy guitar riffs. I actually added two tracks: ‘St. Purple and Green’, the most emotionally captivating, and ‘After the Zero Hour’, which gave me some Radiohead vibes in the very beginning and Florence later on. ‘Vision of a Life’, named like the album is also nice – gothic feel, gothic lyrics.

‘Ooo Yuk Foo’ leads me to thinking that if I wanted not to ‘give a shit’, I’d rather stick to the Pretty Reckless. As about the rest of the songs, they are often pretty nice, but do not touch at all. At some point I remembered the Franz Ferdinand last album, ‘Always Ascending’, which also seemed way too simple, but somehow slowly got my attention, as songs had catchy choruses. I don’t expect this to happen with Wolf Alice.

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‘The Kindergarten Teacher’

Today I made a spontaneous decision to go to a cinema, and the two movies  in a convenient time slot were Grinch and the Kindergarten Teacher. Well, now I think that Grinch could work way way better for me.

The cinema hall was muggy and smelled cherry tobacco. Guess that that was someone’s perfume, but it felt like inside a hookah bar, when it gets harder to fill lungs with enough oxygen and you can’t wait for a breath of fresh air.

And this is exactly how I felt about the movie. I wanted to run away from the place and never touch the subject again. However, I can’t say the movie was bad – it was not. Cinematographically speaking, it seemed OK to me. The music, the picture were in place. But the plot was so annoying and sickening, in perfect harmony with M.G.’s annoying and sickening character, that I could not enjoy it and would probably not watch the movie again.

Verdict: was not ready for something of this kind.

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Thoughts on Talking Heads – Remain In Light

Hello there!

Today I’m listening to the album ‘Remain In Light’ by Talking Heads. Doubtful if I may refer to it as a classic album, as next year it will be 40 years old, and with such a big jubilee coming, the music still sounds fresh and is widely listened to. It depends on what makes a rock album truly classic, if it is for the sound that reflects the epoch or for its ability to stay, but Talking Heads definitely made a contribution to the world of music and I would grant it the my personal ‘classic’ label.

Despite throwing loud praising words in the previous paragraph, I did not know about the Talking Heads until the day before, so my impressions of the album are not much influenced by any background knowledge.

Let’s move on to the album. My first thoughts are that it sounds VERY MUCH like LCD Soundsystem – American Dream, which is by the way one of my favourite albums ever, and these are similar both in style and feelings that they bring. I noticed straight away the resemblance of ‘Once In a Lifetime’ to the ‘Other Voices’, so did other people (they also added that ‘Change Yr Mind’ strikingly fits the Talking Heads album). And ‘Seen and not Seen’ sounds very LCD Soundsystem’ish. There two bands could meeerge (СЛИТЬСЯ В ЭКСТАЗЕ). In this case choruses seem to be the part that allows you to identify the time of its creation, and distinguish the 2017 album from the 1980 one. With only the verses, I could be totally confused.

Overall, the sound is very modern and experimental, a bit harsh (which is how it should be!). Oh, the word ‘paranoid’ looks good here, too. To be honest, I do not know much about 80s and the rock scene, but these years are more associated in my mind with simpler songwriting recipes, and then this album sounds CRAZY.

I enjoyed ‘Once In a Lifetime’, ‘Houses In Motion’ and ‘Seen and Not Seen’ most. ‘Listening Wind’ starts well, at first I though it would be my fav, but then oh I don’t know why but a bit lost its attractiveness. ‘The Overload’ has very beautiful music. ‘Fela’s Riff’ first notes reminded me of the Bremen Town Musicians cartoon. :)

I would suggest people who happen to like the LCD Soundsystem’s last album try the Talking Heads. And in general, a bit weird sound of the songs in ‘Remain in Light’ is worth the time, even if it does not land in the heart.