The last thing you read

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Meera
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Re: The last thing you read

Postby Meera » 2015-07-09, 6:17

Al-Kitaab.



The Last Thriller you read.
अहिंसा/เจ
Learning: (hi) (ja) (ko) (fr)

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Re: The last thing you read

Postby linguoboy » 2015-07-09, 13:11

La cabeza de la hidra by Carlos Fuentes.

The last poem you read.
"Richmond is a real scholar; Owen just learns languages because he can't bear not to know what other people are saying."--Margaret Lattimore on her two sons

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Re: The last thing you read

Postby vijayjohn » 2015-07-09, 17:56

If song lyrics (with a translation) count, then "Mee Dolkar," a Koli geet (folk song in the language of the Marathi fishing community) written by Shanta Shelke. My favorite part:

या गो दर्याचा दर्याचा दर्याचा दरारा मोठा
कवा पान्यावरी उठतान डोंगरलाटा लाटा लाटा लाटा
कवा उदानवारा शिराला येतंय भारू
कवा पान्यासुनी आबाला भिरतंय तारू
वाट बगून झुरते पिरती
मंग दर्याला येतंय भरती
जाते पान्यानं भिजून धरती
येतंय भेटाया तसाच भरतार माजा

A modified version of a (the! :oops:) translation I found:

Oh, the sea has an imposing presence!
Sometimes the waves on it are as big as mountains.
Sometimes unrestrained wind fills the sails;
Then the boat comes out of the water and touches the sky.
Waiting for love, the sea gets impatient.
It rises in a high tide
To meet and drench the land.
My beloved comes to meet me the same way.


But if that doesn't count, then...I really have to think. :lol:

Ah yes, there's a scene in a Malayalam movie just before a song where the hero is reading a birthday card that the heroine, Sona, gave him. Inside it, she wrote a short message (mostly in English) and an even shorter poem (entirely in English, and presumably untitled :ohwell:). We get to read the poem along with the hero while her voice reads it out loud. "Mee Dolkar" is so much better and probably less trite. :P

The last set of song lyrics you read.

Koko

Re: The last thing you read

Postby Koko » 2015-07-11, 7:02

The lyrics to Crescent Moon by KAITO :lol: All of it is good. And I read them in English but sung in Japanese.

The last thing you read that had a wolf in it [and was happy!].

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Re: The last thing you read

Postby vijayjohn » 2015-07-11, 21:42

Hmm...there's actually been at least a few of these, but I'm forgetting which one the last one was. :lol: I suppose that would be The Call of the Wild by Jack London, which I think is supposed to be happy even though the main character's owner is killed by members of a fictional indigenous tribe in the Yukon, and then the main character avenges his death. :? If that doesn't count, then I guess Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George. (I keep thinking there's something else I'm forgetting, but I can't tell what it is).

The last thing you read in which some of the characters speak a nonstandard dialect of some language.

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Re: The last thing you read

Postby linguoboy » 2015-07-11, 23:57

Probably "And the Hairy Ones Shall Dance", a short story by Manly Wade Wellman. It's set in southern Appalachia and thought the main characters speak Standard American English, most of the others speak a slightly literary form of Appalachian English.

The last thing you read where you figured out the conclusion well in advance.
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Re: The last thing you read

Postby vijayjohn » 2015-07-12, 5:49

Well...I saw the movie adaptation of Chemmeen (written by Thakazhi Sivasankara Pillai) long before I read the book, so of course I was well aware of what would happen in the end before I read it, but I'm not sure whether that counts (since I didn't infer the conclusion or anything, I already knew it beforehand). The last time I actually inferred it, though, would be...hmm...

You know what, I think it's "The India-Anatolia Rromani route: an attempt in consistent narrative reconstruction" by Marcel Courthiade. I think it was pretty obvious from the get-go what his point was (and that unfortunately, he wasn't going to actually relate what he apparently thought was evidence to the actual point he was trying to make).

The last thing you read in which one of the characters comes to realize at some point that they're bleeding.

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Re: The last thing you read

Postby Lada » 2015-07-31, 20:16

That's Borges story "The Immortal".

The last thing you read in which one of the characters pretends to be someone else.

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Re: The last thing you read

Postby vijayjohn » 2015-07-31, 22:04

"Harischandra" from the Amar Chitra Katha series by Anant Pai.

The last thing you read in which the main character was a child.

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Re: The last thing you read

Postby linguoboy » 2015-07-31, 22:12

I think that would have to be one of the short stories in the collection Krik? Krak! by Edwidge Danticat. I'm not sure; I don't read narratives with child protagonists very often.

The last thing you read where someone crossed the sea.
"Richmond is a real scholar; Owen just learns languages because he can't bear not to know what other people are saying."--Margaret Lattimore on her two sons

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Re: The last thing you read

Postby Aurinĭa » 2015-07-31, 23:27

If the Channel between the UK and France counts, then the book I'm currently reading, Agatha Christie's The Murder on the LInks. Hercule Poirot investigates a murder in France.

The last thing you read in which cooking plays an important role.

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Re: The last thing you read

Postby vijayjohn » 2015-08-01, 0:14

Whenever I'm eating a relatively simple (and dry) meal, I tend to read a bit of something with it. The last thing I read part of was A Taste of India by Madhur Jaffrey (I was reading about anarsa in the chapter on Maharashtra while eating a homemade snickerdoodle with a huge glass of milk :lol:). I've read the entire thing at least once and read the various chapters in it several times over since then.

The last thing you read by an author you dislike.

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Re: The last thing you read

Postby linguoboy » 2015-08-13, 15:43

I can think of so many ways to approach this question. For instance, if I take it to mean "an author you dislike personally", it would be Enchantment by Orson Scott Card. But if I take it to mean "someone you discovered you disliked as an author by reading one of their works", I think it would be The Yacoubian Building by Alaa Al-Aswany.

The last thing you read based on a television show, or vice versa.
"Richmond is a real scholar; Owen just learns languages because he can't bear not to know what other people are saying."--Margaret Lattimore on her two sons

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Re: The last thing you read

Postby vijayjohn » 2015-08-16, 13:40

Well, there's the Malayalam version of that book version of Disney's Aladdin I mentioned earlier, and a TV series has been made based on the movie described in that book...but if that doesn't count, then I guess my first novel in Malayalam, Unnikuttante Lokam. Ever since that book came out, I think "Unnikuttan" has come to be used as a generic name for kid characters in popular media in Malayalam, and there's a famous cartoon character by that name (and a TV series based directly off of the original cartoons), who my dad likes far less than the Unnikuttan in this novel because he's too Westernized. :lol:

The last mythological or religious text (or adaptation thereof) you read.

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Re: The last thing you read

Postby Lada » 2015-08-19, 17:14

I don't know if "Conversations with God" by Neale Donald Walsch is count as religious text, but as it's about revelations from God, let's assume that my answer suits the question.

The last thing you read in a foreign language. (I mean book, not this forum).

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Re: The last thing you read

Postby vijayjohn » 2015-08-19, 19:26

I think I'd say Malagal by E. M. Kovoor. (Malayalam may be my heritage language, and I may hear it spoken around me every day and even try to speak it myself, but it's still far from being the language I'm most comfortable with in terms of forming grammatical utterances).

The last thing you read an excerpt of in a language you don't understand.

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Re: The last thing you read

Postby linguoboy » 2015-08-19, 19:41

I'm not sure I quite understand the question, but a friend of mine had a question regarding some of the things she read about Uzbek in an article in the NYT. She included an excerpt from the article which featured a sentence in Uzbek (Siz billan tanishganimdan xursandman). I couldn't make sense of it based on my limited knowledge of Turkish/Turkic.

The last thing you read which mentioned the Turks, Turkish culture, or some Turkic-speaking country.
"Richmond is a real scholar; Owen just learns languages because he can't bear not to know what other people are saying."--Margaret Lattimore on her two sons

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Re: The last thing you read

Postby Yasna » 2015-08-19, 20:41

This post from language hat:
http://languagehat.com/ostler-on-tajik-sart-tat/

The last thing you read which mentioned Iran.
Ein Buch muß die Axt sein für das gefrorene Meer in uns. - Kafka

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Re: The last thing you read

Postby vijayjohn » 2015-08-20, 14:20

My brother's friend's first-grade textbook from Iran that he was kind enough to give me as a gift many years ago :D It's just called Fârsi: Avval Dabestân (فارسی اوّل دبستان) and is written by Fereydoon Jahanshahi (فریدون جهانشاهی).

The last thing you read in which almonds were mentioned.

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Re: The last thing you read

Postby Lada » 2015-09-02, 6:12

I think it's a recipe, though I don't remember which one exactly.

What is the last book series you read?


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