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James29’s Spanish Log | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5367 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 377 of 668 23 February 2014 at 2:36pm | IP Logged |
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It was an ok week. Nothing special. I managed to do some Spanish every day which is good. If I did not have this every day habit of doing a bit of Spanish every single morning I think I would have slacked off this week. Things are busy and hectic for me and I rely on my 30-60 minutes of Spanish every morning to give me some structure.
Anyway, I am working on Man, Economy and State still. I am on page 485 of the first (of two) books. There are 516 pages in the first book so I am almost done with it. I am amazed how fast I can move through it. Sometimes my mind wanders. I understand the Spanish very well and never have to look up words. If there is a word I don't know I will almost certainly figure out what it means within a couple more pages. The content is great, but requires some fairly intense thinking. that is where I slack sometimes. I have so many unrelated things in my head my mind wanders and then I realize I am just reading the Spanish and not doing enough thinking about the content. I do this in English too so it is not a big deal. I will stop with Man, Economy and State when I finish the first book. I ordered the second Theodore Boone book by John Grisham from the library and I will read it when I get it. I like those books and I figure I'll read books I like. The first Theodore Boone book was very easy to read so I think this second one should be fine. I bought the third Harry Potter book online, but have not yet received it. When I see one of the books in the series for sale for super cheap (for example $0.01 plus shipping) I buy it. I now have the first three. I'll eventually read them. I want to read them in Spanish before my son starts reading them in English. I am really slacking on the exercise department and did not work at all on the Cassell's book. I only had one day in the gym this week and did not feel like reading it. A friend of mine has a Colombian woman visiting. I went to dinner with them one night and had a great time. She spoke very fast and very slangy. It was tough and I had to ask her to slow down numerous times. Before dinner I spoke to her on the phone to coordinate things for dinner and had a horrible time understanding her because we had a bad connection. I could understand my friend in the same call just fine in English. this was a bit discouraging. I had a meetup. Nothing new there. I also had a couple decent skype talks. I am still trying to find a good reliable partner. I think many people study hard for a few months and are all motivated and then they just burn out and disappear. That seems to be very common in the "learning English" community. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| BAnna Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4614 days ago 409 posts - 616 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Turkish | Message 378 of 668 23 February 2014 at 9:23pm | IP Logged |
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You might enjoy the following website, which has pdf's of Hazlitt's Economía en una lección, Von Mises' La
mentalidad anticapitalista, etc. and related articles. LIBRE I agree with you completely on the importance of reading or watching content in another language that you would enjoy in your native language, although of course you can learn from anything...You may or may not enjoy Harry Potter, but a lot of the vocabulary there may not be all that useful unless you enjoy tales of wizardry and magic and plan to read more of the same. I have picked up soccer terms in Spanish via osmosis (my husband watching games), but I have very little interest in the subject, so I don't read articles or books about it, for example, but if one were to take an exam in a language, I would imagine there would be an expectation of learning a lot of varied vocabulary words. I know there are a number of "Spanish for Business" or "Spanish for Medical Personnel" books out there. Maybe a business-focused one would be useful to you? I was curious, so did a quick search and found the following website, but I haven't used it myself: Business Spanish 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5367 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 379 of 668 24 February 2014 at 2:54am | IP Logged |
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Thanks for the links, BAnna. I am surprised I have never seen the LIBRE site. I have spent tons of time searching for Austrian Economics material in Spanish. I have Hazlitt's book Spanish. What I'd love to find is a good audio book of any Austrian Economics book in Spanish. I found Hayek's Road to Serfdon in Spanish audio and some books by Hoppe but they use a computer voice that I cannot stand.
I have been thinking of buying some of Michael Porter's books in Spanish. I have wanted to read his "Competitive Advantage" for years but have never done it. Maybe if I make it part of my Spanish "studies" I will finally do it. For one of my next trips I would like to find some sort of conference in business or ecomonics in a Spanish speaking country. I think that would be cool to attend something like that in Spanish. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5367 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 380 of 668 02 March 2014 at 7:09pm | IP Logged |
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Not the greatest Spanish week for me.
Goals for 2014: Read any 15 books in Spanish. -> 3.5 done (Anthem, Joven Abogado #1, Narnia #1 and half of Man, Economy and State) Watch any 100 30 minute TV episodes in Spanish -> more than 61 done Re-read Cassell's Colloquial Spanish -> finished the "C" section. Re-read Practice Makes Perfect "Subjunctive Up Close." -> No progress yet. Discussion: I did finish the first half of Man, Economy and State. It feels like I finished a book because the book is divided into two separate 500+ page hardback books. Plus, I will now take some time off before starting the second half. I had two days where I did not do any Spanish in the morning. I simply had to do things for work. I think one of those days I did not do any Spanish at all. That is very rare... a day with zero Spanish. Watching an episode of the Simpsons is so easy to do now. I am only going to count the Simpsons toward my 100 episode goal for the year. It is too hard for me to keep track. I am not even sure if my count is good. I may have watched a lot more by now. It should not be hard considering I am just going through the episodes from start to finish and they are all numbered. I surfed youtube for a while and found some guys in Miami that do half hour "episodes" on their websites about their business. They do the same thing as me so it was kind of cool to watch. I may take a few weeks and watch all those episodes. I really want/need to boost up my professional related vocab. I cannot really think of anything else for now. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5367 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 381 of 668 09 March 2014 at 2:08pm | IP Logged |
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Goals for 2014:
Read any 15 books in Spanish. -> 3.5 done (Anthem, Joven Abogado #1, Narnia #1 and more than half of Man, Economy and State) Watch any 100 30 minute TV episodes in Spanish -> more than 67 done Re-read Cassell's Colloquial Spanish -> finished the "E" section. Re-read Practice Makes Perfect "Subjunctive Up Close." -> No progress yet. Discussion: Good week. I read another chapter of Man Economy and State. I am a big proponent of reading things that really interest you. When the second Theodore Boone book came in I started reading that. I read it today and yesterday. I have finished eight chapters. I like the Theodore Boone books. They read like a real Grisham book. The characters are kids, but the story is well done. I am not looking up any words. I have only looked up two words... waffle and ditch. There were others I did not know, but they did not interfere at all with my understanding. I must say, however, the storyline is not really that great for kids. It is written at a pretty low level, but I'd be freaked out if I was a kid. This one is about a girl who has delinquent parents. The mother is a drug user and her father abandoned them. The mother disappears on a binge and the little girl gets kidnapped by a distant relative who escaped from a maximum security prison. Right now the cops are getting ready to pull her body out of the river while her friends watches on TV and from a nearby cliff. I have a feeling it won't be her body, but it is somewhat of a gruesome story. Also, the main character, Theodore Boone, seems to use "lawyer tricks" to be deceptive with his teachers, parents and cops. They ask him important questions and he sneakily answers in ways to throw them off from the truth or only tells half-truths knowing they will be deceived. I digress. It is a cool story and I enjoy reading it. I am not doing as many skype talks as before, but I am still managing some. I need to do more. I had a nice meetup. There was an Argentinan woman who was very pleasant to talk with. I forgot to mention last week that I did a lesson on Spanishpodcast.org. It was well done and I wish I would have done those. I think the Spanish is simply too slow and I need to work with more advanced material. I wish there was something similiar for a slightly more advanced level. I am doing a lot of passive stuff this year and it is what I need. That being said, I am having the desire to do something "harder" like drilling or real studying. I am thinking of getting a challenging grammar book with drills/exercises. I took a few online grammar tests and did fine, but I want to make some of the challenging parts of grammar more automatic. These grammar things come with time. I am noticing that I feel pretty good with the subjunctive now. It is just really "clicking" in my mind. I have not done anything in particular other than simply use the language and the more difficult grammar points seem to be simply becoming more natural. It is somewhat discouraging to see how long a time there is between levels now. I feel like I am at a low B2 level and C1 just looks like it is years away. I picked up an adult Grisham book and it just seemed too advanced to enjoy. I am also enjoying the Simpsons, but I do not follow everything. In regards to the Simpsons, this is something I never would have watched in English, but I am really enjoying it in Spanish. It is a perfect length and contains a lot of different situations/vocabulary. The speech is clear and fairly easy to understand, but they speak at a good conversational speed. I am also really bonding with Homer. I am starting to think I may actually be able to watch all the episodes of the entire series. There must be roughly 500 episodes. Maybe I can have them all watched by the end of 2015? Edited by James29 on 09 March 2014 at 2:09pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5254 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 382 of 668 09 March 2014 at 2:40pm | IP Logged |
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Have you seen the Centro Virtual Cervantes B2 and C1 exercises here: CVC Aveteca C-1, B-2 . They're monolingual, multimedia and interactive with over 70 "lessons" at this level. I think working with something like this in place of shadowing 60 hours would have you see more improvement. The CVC exercises are not a course, more working with and within the language in a structured way to explore more advanced concepts and usages.
Don't get too discouraged by the slower progress at this stage. Keep interacting with Spanish and you will improve, James29. Good to see you're enjoying the Simpsons in Spanish! Going through several series in Spanish really helped me improve a lot! 500 episodes of "Los Simpsons", how could you not get better! In Portuguese, I've watched a few series and they've been a real help. Right now, I'm watching "Jogo de tronos" or "Game of thrones" in Portuguese dub. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5367 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 383 of 668 09 March 2014 at 3:01pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks, iguanamon. I have looked several times at that link, but I don't really understand how to use it. I should probably take some time and really figure it out. It seems hard to read the lessons. I wish there was some sort of pdf option.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5254 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 384 of 668 09 March 2014 at 3:24pm | IP Logged |
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The flash units of the exercise have an option to print by clicking the "imprimir" icon in the upper left. If you don't have some kind of pdf printer installed on your computer, get one. There are several free options, but you do tend to get what you pay for in regards to "free" software. I use the official Adobe pdf writer software and could not survive electronically without it. There are cheaper paid options available. I use pdf in my job every day and it also helps me to make my own e-books and keep extensive files from web content outside of my job. I consider pdf printing ability and manipulation to be indispensable for my language-learning.
If you use the firefox browser, when you click on a unit it will open in a separate window and that window is really too small for comfort. Copy and paste the web address in that small window into a new tab and you can increase its size by using the "+" button on your keyboard. The units are easier to use like this online. If you have the firefox "Flash Video Downloader" installed, you can download the audio in mp3. Sadly, the technology involved in the exercises isn't the most modern, but the content will be highly useful, quite thorough and help you a lot, I believe- as long as you continue interacting with Spanish, which I know you will. I know a lot of Spanish beginners read your log. This site can also be used by beginners. The units start at A-1 and work all the up to C-1. It is simply an amazing free resource that will get a learner used to working within the language and internalizing Spanish earlier. The units are quite thorough and work in depth on various important aspects of the Spanish language. The Centro Virtual Cervantes is part of the Real Academia Española and a good site for a Spanish-learner to bookmark and get to know. Edited by iguanamon on 10 March 2014 at 12:04am 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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