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Fighting Windmills: Spanish experiment 1 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5554 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona | Message 41 of 71 27 May 2010 at 9:00pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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"FIGHTING WINDMILLS", DAY 11/14
(un pequeño experimento en L&R española) SUMMARY L&R in Spanish today: 6 hours ("Harry Potter y la piedra filosofal") Background listening: 1 hour (music) ———————————————————— Total L&R in Spanish so far: 79+ hours Sum total of Spanish immersion: 97+ hours Today's reading test: 91% [+4%] ("La Sombra del Viento") NOTES A very early start today, as the neighbours were unfortunately making a racket all night. They also kindly decided to wake up especially early the next morning to continue off where they left their last argument and join in with the dawn chorus. Oh, so very tired today... As you can imagine, I was glad to take a short nap this afternoon to re-energise the batteries, but with a general lack of sleep from this morning's hullabaloo, I managed to magic the alarm clock to the far reaches of the room and sleep for several hours undisturbed. I guess all these hours of L&R with Harry Potter are starting to rub off on me... ;) I don't feel too bad about losing these hours however because I really needed the extra forty winks, and still managed to reel in half a dozen hours altogether today anyway. Following some good advice from Datsungking1, I also think that changing my exercise regime to late afternoon or early evening might benefit me in the long run. I'm hoping this will wake me up a bit in preparation for evening study and perhaps help me sleep much sounder at night. On another upbeat note, I've got to that point now where I can sometimes read ahead in the Spanish text and match it to what I hear in time. This is a great feeling when it happens. I also get random words popping into my head later, perhaps whilst in the kitchen or out walking, strange words calling to me in the back of my mind that I must have picked up the previous day, words like "a la fuenta" and "la fuerte", and yesterday it was "peligrosa" as I recall. When I start to get a little bored of the monotony of study, I try to do a bit of time-boxing (or in my case, see how quickly I can get through the next section with my method). I also dangle carrots, like a nice cup of tea and a biscuit, but only upon completion of one more session. This combination is quite effective when I start to lose a little energy. I really appreciate people's tips and advice on learning Spanish and am learning so much already. At this stage my head is constantly full of questions, having only done L&R so far and inducing patterns and rules. For example I was wondering only today: i ) when is the letter "c" pronounced like "th" and when like "k" in Castilian (I imagine it probably has something to do with broad and slender vowels)? ii) are there any general rules for predicting where the stress falls in a word (it often seems to be on the penultimate syllable, and sometimes on the first, except in cases where there's an accent over a vowel indicating otherwise)? iii) why are the order of conjoined adjectives usually reversed in translation, e.g. "damp and empty" becomes "vacía y húmeda" (empty and damp)? iv) and did I hear correctly, or did the narrator just pronounce "llamando" with a "j", perhaps this is another of those variable pronunciation things in Spanish that ellasevia was telling me about earlier? So many "preguntitas" (little questions) today, I must apologise, but it's a fascinating language and I'm so keen to learn more. Incidentally, the only Spanish dictionary I have at the moment is Langenscheidt's Pocket Spanish Dictionary (not that it would fit in any pocket save Hagrid's), and I must say, it's one of the worst mini-dictionaries I've ever used. It seems to be made for Spanish learners of English rather than the other way round (although this is not what it said in the original description when I bought it), and I'm often not able to find even the most basic words and have to resort to using Google Translate. Can anyone recommend a really good small Spanish dictionary or a decent website (similar to dict.cc in German)? This would come in really handy... 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Wise owl chick Senior Member Ecuador Joined 5316 days ago 122 posts - 137 votes Studies: English | Message 42 of 71 27 May 2010 at 9:18pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
This is simple: K after a, o, u S after e, i S or "th" I htink, but personally, I can't pronounce well "th" therefore I say S. For remember this rule, you must remember 5 words and their pronunciations, for example: CAnción (KA) CEna (SÉ or THÉ) CInta (SI or THI) COcina (KO) CUcaracha (KU)
I use dictionnary Edited by Wise owl chick on 27 May 2010 at 9:23pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5554 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona | Message 43 of 71 27 May 2010 at 9:41pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Thanks for the tips. :) I get the uncanny feeling you can't wait till I start reading "Harry Potter y la Orden del Fénix". Sadly, the narrators in Spanish aren't as cool after the first audiobook (at least for the samples I listened to), but I do look forward to just reading through the rest of the Harry Potter series once I reach a better level. Edited by Teango on 27 May 2010 at 9:42pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
 meramarina Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5965 days ago 1341 posts - 2303 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Italian, French Personal Language Map | Message 44 of 71 27 May 2010 at 11:00pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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You are doing a fantastic job with your Spanish experiment!
I use this online Spanish Dictionary: www.spanishdict.com When you're ready for a monolingual dictionary, have a look at Diccionaro CLAVE: Diccionario CLAVE and for many years I used the University of Chicago Spanish dictionary as my primary resource. It gives you a comprehensive list of idioms, verb conjugations and, especially useful, a lot of regional expressions. I don't have it with me now. I was going to buy a new copy, but the book has been redesigned and I'm not sure it's as good. Also, I'm not sure if it is available where you are. I have a not-so-great El Cheapo paper dictionary for when I read offline and I would not recommend that one so much. It sounds like you are having a lot of fun with your project! 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Wise owl chick Senior Member Ecuador Joined 5316 days ago 122 posts - 137 votes Studies: English | Message 45 of 71 27 May 2010 at 11:32pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I haven't read the Harry Potter books, but I want to know, what did the phoenix in this story?
The second, Diccionario CLAVE seems great but the first is only in 2 languages. I've added CLAVE at my bookmarks. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 6140 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 46 of 71 28 May 2010 at 2:39am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Wise Owl Chick is correct here: K before A, O, U S/TH before E, I Also: For 'G': G before A, O, U J (Spanish J sound) before E, I I like how you used the Irish terms "broad and slender" for these. ;)
The rules are quite simple: - If a word ends in a vowel, N, or S, the stress naturally falls on the penultimate syllable, but if it doesn't you put an accent mark on the stressed vowel. -If a word ends in any other letter, the stress naturally falls on the last syllable, but if it doesn't you just put an accent mark on the stressed vowel.
I'm not quite sure for this one, but I think that's probably just the more natural way to say it in Spanish. In English the one which carries more weight is the last one (I think??) and it's just the opposite in Spanish. I might be totally wrong here because I've never really noticed a difference.
Correct. Just as the letter 'Y' can be pronounced in many ways, so can the letter 'LL.' People who pronounce the former in one way will probably pronounce the latter in the same way. Buena suerte con tus estudios. Edited by ellasevia on 28 May 2010 at 2:41am 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5554 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona | Message 47 of 71 28 May 2010 at 8:50am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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@Meramarina
Thanks for those links, they're just what they Spanish doctor ordered! No longer will I frown over not finding words like "chimera" or "rapscallion" in my dictionary.
I forget myself now, we'll have to read up and find out. @ellasevia Absolutely awesome tips, I'd give you an extra vote if I could! Muchas gracias. These presents this morning have brightened up an otherwise dull day outside, so to celebrate, I'm going to have a French garlic butter baguette (a whole one!), straight out of the oven, to accompany my breakfast cornflakes. :P Apart from that morning coffee lifeline...what's a typically Spanish breakfast, I wonder?? Edited by Teango on 28 May 2010 at 9:06am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Kubelek Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland chomikuj.pl/Kuba_wal Joined 6850 days ago 415 posts - 528 votes Speaks: Polish*, EnglishC2, French, Spanish Studies: German | Message 48 of 71 28 May 2010 at 10:53am | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I was told it's almost nonexistent, coffee and that's it. They eat later in the day.
1 person has voted this message useful |
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