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Nu face nada (Romanian + Spanish log)

  Tags: Romania | Romanian | Spanish
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Crush
Tetraglot
Senior Member
ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5857 days ago

1622 posts - 2299 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto
Studies: Basque

 
 Message 17 of 44
02 November 2014 at 3:18pm | IP Logged 
¡Que te diviertas un montón! Cuando yo estuve en España (en Madrid) oía el rumano casi todos los días, así que si te empeñas en hablarlo ahí seguro que oportunidades no te faltarán. Pero en ese entonces creo que seguía pensando que el rumano era un idioma eslávico, al menos así me sonaba, jeje.

No sé si te lo hemos preguntado ya o no, pero ¿en qué parte de España vas a estudiar?
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Rniks
Newbie
United States
Joined 3696 days ago

36 posts - 47 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish, Romanian

 
 Message 18 of 44
18 November 2014 at 9:10pm | IP Logged 
¡Muchas gracias, Crush! A mi también creía que el rumano era un idioma eslávico pero con algo que me
recordaba a Italiano la primera vez que lo escuché. He regresado de estudiar en Valencia ya hace más de un año.
Este viaje era otra vez a Valencia, pero justo fuera de la ciudad en un pueblo y de vacaciones. Y además
gastamos unos días en Oviedo.

Welp, I'm back! I made it back home late last night, and woke up all warm and fuzzy with the afterglow of
memories from a wonderful trip. (: I stayed with my boyfriend and his family just outside of Valencia for a week,
then we headed up to Oviedo by train for another week, and finally returned for the last few days of my trip to his
family's home. I have to admit, although Oviedo was beautiful, staying along with his family was much better for
my Spanish since we weren't on our own the whole time.

Although, I don't think I necessarily learned a ton in the sense of discovering new things in Spanish, I definitely
got in some much needed speaking and listening practice! One of the first nights there we went to a small bar
where his brother works and all sat together with a friend of theirs eating, drinking, and talking outside. It was
was such a great feeling being able to socialize in Spanish, even if I stumbled around and missed things, it felt
much more natural than in the past.

On one of the last days we found ourselves in Villena for dinner at a friend's house, though, and it was so difficult
to keep up with the approximately ten Spaniards sitting around the table talking and joking at rapid fire speed
that I felt my brain was emitting sparks and smoke as the night went on. Everyone made such a nice effort to
include me, though, and gave me such motivating compliments on my Spanish that by the end of it I was on
cloud nine.

Romanian did not go unused, either! Amongst themselves at home, my boyfriend and his family used lots of
Romanian mixed with Spanish and also had a few television channels on in Romanian, especially the night of the
elections for the new president there (his mother waited in line almost eight hours just to vote!). A surprising
amount of Romanian came to my head, and it was lots of fun seeing everyone get a big kick out of it. With
the mix of Spanish, Romanian, and English between us all, lots of funny moments ensued and we all got on great.
My comprehension is not high at all, but it's fairly easy to pick out and understand the words I do know.

No actual studying was accomplished, but some films were watched, if that might count for something. On the
train rides to and from Oviedo, I watched Guillaume y los chicos, ¡a la mesa!, Un invierno en la playa, and Jazmín
Azul, none of which are originally Spanish, but all of which I understood quite well to my delight. (: We also
watched a Romanian movie one night, Filantropica, a black comedy that I enjoyed a lot and the third Romanian
movie I've seen so far. I'm eager to watch more now for sure.

Other than that I made the exciting discovery that rtve.es has subtitles (in Spanish!) on some of the programs
they put up, free of charge. Now back to reality and my studies.

Edited by Rniks on 18 November 2014 at 9:43pm

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Crush
Tetraglot
Senior Member
ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5857 days ago

1622 posts - 2299 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto
Studies: Basque

 
 Message 19 of 44
19 November 2014 at 3:47pm | IP Logged 
It sounds like you had an amazing time, hopefully you'll get more opportunities to go back (and spend even more time there!). Welcome back, in any case!
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Rniks
Newbie
United States
Joined 3696 days ago

36 posts - 47 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish, Romanian

 
 Message 20 of 44
23 November 2014 at 5:38am | IP Logged 
Oh, I really do hope so and thank you again, Crush. (:

Spanish
4 episodes of Aquí no hay quien viva

I don't have a ton to update and feel semi-ashamed of how little I've done with Spanish since coming home. On
the other hand, though, I've finished the second season of Aquí no hay quien viva on a high. I'm not sure if it's
because the last episode was a clip show or because I was especially focused, but I understood more from it than
usual. I'd say I caught around 80 to 85% today, even the usually fuzzy in my head speech of Mariano was
miraculously clicking. Over the next few days I think I could benefit from a little bit of structure with FSI drills to
help keep my speech advancing along with my comprehension.

Romanian
Review of Discover Romanian
Chapter 4 of Discover Romanian
Chapter 1 + half of Chapter 2 of You CAN speak Romanian!

For Romanian, I intensively reviewed the previous chapters of Discover Romanian and finally completed the fourth
chapter for real this time. Things are still basic enough where I haven't covered much of the grammar but far
along enough now that retaining all the information is getting more difficult for me. Also, I caved and bought
myself another book, which I of course did not need, but I've got no regrets. It uses the up to date orthography
and is chock full of dialogue and vocabulary that so far seems to include more exposure to colloquial speech.
Besides that, I loaded some DLI lessons onto my Ipod, so I'll review them over the next few days before beginning
with a new one.
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Rniks
Newbie
United States
Joined 3696 days ago

36 posts - 47 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish, Romanian

 
 Message 21 of 44
23 November 2014 at 11:02pm | IP Logged 
No studying accomplished yet, but today in work I spoke Spanish! I'm working a part time job in sales, and a
woman came up to me today to ask a few questions and immediately went into Spanish. I had to strain to
understand, I think she might have been from the Caribbean, but I was able to answer and help her out. And bonus
points for me since my boss walked by right as we were chatting and remarked she didn't know I spoke another
language! A small victory. (:   
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Rniks
Newbie
United States
Joined 3696 days ago

36 posts - 47 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish, Romanian

 
 Message 22 of 44
29 November 2014 at 6:54am | IP Logged 
Tonight was spent making invitations for my best friend's wedding coming up in the spring. Her husband to be is
Brazilian, and we went to his parents' house to get all the invitations started with the help of his sister, who along
with me is a bridesmaid. They were speaking a lot of Portuguese, and it was neat being able to understand bits and
pieces. I have a few other friends who are Brazilian and over the past few years have had lots of opportunities to
listen to it. While I can't say whether I'll learn it in the future, I've always loved how Brazilian Portuguese sounds.
Also, as the maid of honor, I'll have to give some sort of short speech/toast at the wedding. I figured it might be
nice to do a small bit in Portuguese, for the Brazilian half of the crowd in attendance, especially since I know many
will be flying in directly from Brazil and do not understand or speak English. Of course, the wedding is still a few
months away and all, but I'm nervous about speaking in front of crowds in English, never mind in Portuguese, so I
think I'll prepare and revise something (over and over and over...) in advance.

Edited by Rniks on 29 November 2014 at 7:24am

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Rniks
Newbie
United States
Joined 3696 days ago

36 posts - 47 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish, Romanian

 
 Message 23 of 44
29 November 2014 at 9:09pm | IP Logged 
Spanish
3 episodes of Aquí no hay quien viva
light reading from Taxi and an article here or there online
Unit 3 of the FSI Spanish Basic Course
1 Lesson in Lingualia

I've continued Aquí no hay quien viva as usual. I think in addition to frequently watching these episodes, I should
try to add in daily exposure through native podcasts or some kind of listening I can make into a habit.

Besides that, I read a little from Taxi by Khaled Al Khamissi. I've been reading it off an on for months and
months now. I have some kind of aversion to finishing books in Spanish and still have La sombra del viento to go
through. But I really like picking up and starting Taxi since the chapters are incredibly short and don't rely on
the previous chapters to make sense. Each chapter revolves around the author's brief encounter with a different
cab driver in Egypt. With Taxi, I don't highlight any unknown words, I only look them up if they really start to bug
me.

I also finished and consolidated FSI Unit 3, I can finally move onto Unit 4! Of course, it's rather easy going right
now, but I want to put in the effort and drill until I'm certain with FSI.

I also decided to move on in Lingualia from the B1 course to the B2 course. There's lots of great info and
idiomatic expressions from B1 that I might not have internalized 100%, but there's no reason to agonize over it,
they'll appear again in real life contexts if they're common. I think by keeping my time spent on the app light and
entertaining, I'll be more likely to use it. It's only a supplement anyway. It has made me realize that I do neglect
certain grammatical constructions in my speech, though.

Romanian
Chapter 2 of You CAN speak Romanian!
Went over the initial dialogues of Chapter 3 of You CAN speak Romanian!
Reviewed lessons 1-4 of the DLI Romanian Basic Course

I've gotten a little further into You CAN speak Romanian! and one of the suggestions of the book is to create your
own dictionary based on the vocabulary in the chapters since there is no glossary. I'm not sure I want to do this,
as I don't want to get carried away memorizing and recording every bit of my courses. DLI is already meticulous
and exacting enough. I might, however, give writing my own sentences using some of the vocabulary a shot.

This whole week has been about review it seems, and now that I'm down with reviewing DLI lessons, I'm excited
to move on to newer ones.
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Rniks
Newbie
United States
Joined 3696 days ago

36 posts - 47 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish, Romanian

 
 Message 24 of 44
04 December 2014 at 12:28am | IP Logged 
Spanish
1 episode of Salvados: Tres días en Errenteria
1 podcast, Nómadas: La llama de Alejandría
1/3 of an episode of Cuéntame cómo pasó
Writing activity for lesson 1 course B2 in Lingualia
Lesson 4 FSI Basic Course
Read more of Taxi and a few blog posts online
Chatted on Whatsapp
Sentences for pluscuamperfecto

I catch my self getting frustrated for not understanding more than I do, like I've lingered in intermediacy for too
long with Spanish. Oh well, as frustrating as it is, I'm sure there's some kind of improvement even if I can't
immediately perceive it.

I'm starting to write out sentences for tenses I don't use often in a notebook, taking them from native stuff I read,
watch, or listen to, or straight from learning materials. I began with pluscuamperfecto, which isn't necessarily
difficult for me to use, it's just that I don't. I think this might have something to do with it not being a structure
I'd use often in English, and I tend to make the mistake of borrowing from how I'd say things in my native
language when constructing Spanish sentences.

I really liked Salvados, but it was a big struggle understanding some of the people Jordi Évole was interviewing,
although he remained relatively clear throughout. Nómadas was somewhat easier, but it was also tough
decoding what some of the interviewees were saying, although to be fair I believe Spanish was not their first
language. Salvados was about the process of reconciliation, what has changed, and the extent to which
communication has opened up following ETA's ceasefire in Basque country. The Nómadas episode was all about
Alexandria's historical importance and the changes the city has seen over the centuries.

And finally, I only watched a third of the Cuéntame cómo pasó epidsode because only a third of it had subtitles in
Spanish, and that was the reason I had chosen it in the first place. I'm pretty bummed out that a lot of the shows
with subtitling on rtve.es don't seem to be available to watch outside of Spain, so I ended up looking for them
elsewhere to no avail.

Romanian
Lesson 5 of DLI Romanian Basic Course
Working through Chapter 5 of Discover Romanian
Working through Chapter 3 of You CAN speak Romanian!

Working through the usual materials, taking my time to learn and absorb.    

Edited by Rniks on 04 December 2014 at 12:31am



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