madmoiZelle speaks English : atelier débat

[Patriarcaca]

@Howling Have you also considered reading the Hunger Games and Divergent trilogies (if you're still looking for something to read in English and interested in these books)? I haven't read them myself yet, but I heard they were not too hard to understand...)

I have the second book af Divergent (Insurgent) next to my bed. It's been here for months, I never find time to start reading it

For the girls who want to read in English, at first, try a book you already know. Even if you don't understand every single word, you always remember what's happening and that's less depressing. If you want to find new books, spend some time at the "children area" in any english bookshop (nots the very young, but teenagers). My advice : Malory Blackman. Her books are'nt dumb, but still easy to read.

 

[Howling]

@Laetare : Two days ago I had no book to read, now I want to read a lot of books! Ahah ! I saw Divergente two weeks ago and maybe I will start with this trilogy I don't know if I can enjoy reading Hunger Games, I like the movie but I don't know.. I have to try with the first book.
You haven't missed anything to not go at Kassel Seriously, it's not a cultural city, there is only a huge university. But I want to go to Frankfurt ! It's better to stay just one day or two there ?

@Patriarcaca : Everybody say this to me, but I don't really like reread a book (only Harry Potter ).. Tomorrow I will take a look to the children area, great idea

Have a nice day everyone

 

[Cacadum]

@Howling I read Hunger Games in English and it's really easy to understand, and more than that it's well written, well it depends on your taste of course, but I really liked it, and I became fond of this trilogy thanks to the books (I've to admit I tend to love more than deeply post-apocalyptic stories, because creating a new society, making it a criticism of ours and of the next one, it makes me think of what we're supposed to do to make all of this mess a better place... but I'm out of the subject )
Today I found Forrest Gump in my roomate's room, I'll read it in English cause it's funny and well done and absolutely amazing, but wow, that's going to be hard to forget when I'll take my next English exam, and I fear I might write just as bad as he speaks (and that's not a good idea, trust me)
@Patriarcaca I never read a book I already read because there are so maaaaaany books I want to read, I find it sad to read something I already know just out of fear. Buuuut I want so bad to read Looking for Alaska in English ! I wasn't learning any language when I first read it, then I fell in love with John Green's writing, and now I so do have to find that book in its original version (and by the way, I totally recommand The faut in our stars that I read when it first came out, and it's beautiful, I still can't watch the movie because I'm afraid it won't be just as I imagined it)

 

[Hawley]

@Mircea Austen It was supposed to be a debate topic, but I think it just drifted ! You can go back to the first and second pages where we launched some themes, but I feel like this question by @Glouns is still kind of followed :

- Books turned into movies: do you usually read the book first or watch the movie and then read the book? Why?

However if you want to write the same kind of stuff that we do on ECM, @Trigger launched a really nice english ECM a few months ago, you can find it here Right this second

 

[Cacadum]

Sure, we totally drifted away I'll answer that question then, because I think it's a great one.

I tend to always read the book first if I know there's one (if I don't and discover it at the end of the movie, I feel crazy disappointed). On the one hand, if I reeeeeally loved the book, it's really hard for me to see the movie. For example, I can't watch the last Harry Potter (well, both parts of the last one) because I fear it might not end the way I pictured it (and the 6 first movies are great I'll never deny it, but the books are so good, my demands grow and then the movie hardly respects my expectations, and since the 7th book isn't in Hogwarts but in the wide world, I think it might be totally different from what I expected). On the other hand, I'm deadly curious, and if there's a movie, I end up watching it (sometimes years later, sure, but still)

 

[Allie59]

@Cacadum I read and I watched The Fault in our stars and the movie is exactly the same as the book. There are some details we don't find in the movie, but it is nothing really important.

- Books turned into movies: do you usually read the book first or watch the movie and then read the book? Why?

I think I have never read a book before it became a movie, except The Fault in our stars and another book, from Amelie Nothomb. It is simply due to the fact that I usually read french classic novels and I do not watch film adaptation from them. I fear of being disappointed and I am afraid to have an interpretation different from the film maker. However there are a lot of books I want to read because I watched the film, like Harry Potter, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland or Tolkien's books which are wainting for me in my library !

 

[Asmea]

@Howling : I've been living in Stockholm for the past two years (well, almost ^^) I'm an au pair at the moment but intend to stay longer mostly because of a lovely viking
And you're right, reading in english is just so great to learn ! Because you don't really realize you're learning in fact, you're just enjoying yourself with a good book

To answer the subject, it depends ! I'm, most of the time, disappointed when I see movies from books I've read (Harry Potter 3, I have no words ) so I tend to avoid watching them. However, like Game of Thrones for exemple, I watched the series first and it really made me want to read the books, to see which changes were made and of course to have more details ! And as I've seen what the characters looked like (or well, how the serie made them look like), I'm not confused with feeling like "But when I read, my mind had such a different idea of this guy's look ".

 

[Howling]

@Cacadum : Unfortunately I couldn't go to a library yesterday and today I have a lot of work to do, so I hope next week I will purchase Hunger Games books.. If you like dystopia's books, you may read "Brave New World – Aldous Huxley", it’s an old book (1930 I think) but a masterpiece in its genre!
I have never saw Forrest Gump as a movie, and before your message I didn't know it was a book..

@Asmea : Ooooh I'm so jealous ! It must be a beautiful city in a splendid country A viking ... Lucky girl


- Books turned into movies: do you usually read the book first or watch the movie and then read the book? Why?

When I never read the book before, I prefer watch the movie first. With the movie you can see how the environment is, how the persons look, etc… And after when I read the book, it can give me a lot of details that the movie doesn’t give me. In this way I’m not disappointed by the movie, and if I really like the movie I can read the book and discover a new world.

When I already read the book it’s depends. If I have read the book a long time ago (more than one/two years), yes, I will go to the cinema and watch the movie. But if I have read the book less than one year ago, I will wait to watch the movie.

 

[Choucki]

Before anything else, I just would like to precise that I am not really brave in English, I am not that bad in understanding but I can do a lot of progress in writing so that's why this topic would be really good for me I don't mind if someone corrects my mistakes, it would help me =)
- Books turned into movies: do you usually read the book first or watch the movie and then read the book? Why?
Usually, I prefer read the book before watching the movie because I prefer making my own picture of characters and everything else. Sometimes, it is also interesting to compare the two version to see the choices made by the scenarist. Nevertheless, it could lead to deceptions like the case of l'Ecume des jours but maybe it was because the book was so important for me !

 

[La Dame Grise]

- Books turned into movies: do you usually read the book first or watch the movie and then read the book? Why?

Depends Does it work for tv series too ? I watched Eragon and Percy Jackson (by the way, Fall Out Boy on the soundtrack of the second movie = best day ever at the cinema) before reading the book (might explain why I am not going crazy each time mention how awful the movie Eragon, I don't know what they are talking about, read the books afterwards ), and I watched Outlander (the tv series) before reading the books. I started watching Game of Thrones before reading it, but after a couple of episodes I bought the book and I was reading/watching pretty much in the same time. Then I stopped watching the tv series before the end of season 3, but I had already read all the books, so I can spoil whomever I want
Otherwise I usually read the book before watching the movie because... the movie hasn't come out yet, you know haha. And I try to keep in mind that turning a book into a movie is really hard, which is why it's called an adaptation, it's not the book with images, it's another version of the book with people adding their opinion/point of view so I'm usually a pretty good public for these movies

[If you need any help, I am currently in first year of master degree in French/English translation ]

 

[Elkaria]

It tend to watch the first movie, then read all the books and watch the other movies as they come out.

I changed that for Games of Thrones because I was getting annoyed that they didn't follow the threads as well as I wanted them to. The annoyance was lower if I read the books after so I did that (and then I just stopped).

 

[Valyria]

Let's do this!

Books turned into movies: do you usually read the book first or watch the movie and then read the book? Why?
I usually prefer to read the book first. Like some of you, I think the books are almost always better than the TV serie/movie. The only problem is that I get very angry when the movie is not like the book... I probably screamed when I watched the sixth Harry Potter movie
The thing is that I don't have a lot of time to read right now, so I have to watch the movies first, but then I try to read the book. It's also intersting doing it this way: it's easier to picture the characters, the places,... in your head. Believe me, this come in handy when you read Game of Thrones! I'm quite bad at remember names, who is who, so thank God I watched the TV show first!