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James29’s Spanish Log | ||
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| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5376 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 257 of 668 24 June 2013 at 2:40am | IP Logged | ||
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Cool... thanks for the advice. For some reason, these posts make me remember when I went into bookstores in Ecuador asking for audio books. It was hilarious... I kept asking for audiolibros and nobody knew what I was talking about. I had to explain it and the store owners looked at me like I was crazy.
Edit: Unfortunately, I won't be buying many things in Spain because when I travel I travel VERY light. I only bring one small backpack with me. I will almost certainly look for some unabridged audio books. A while back I bought Assimil's New French with Ease in both the Spanish base and English base. It has been sitting on my bookshelf for probably more than a year now. I figured I would buy it to motivate me. Oh well... now at least I am happy that I bought it before the price went up. I also noticed that Using French is indeed available in Spanish base. If I ever do French I think I will have to do it in a Spanish base in order to justify it to myself as I really have no practical reason for knowing French. I have many native French speaking family members so maybe I can justify it for some sort of family reasons... although all of the French speakers married into the family. I am interested to know how much it really helps/maintains Spanish to study French through Spanish. My goal would be to simply use my 30-60 minutes every morning for studying French through Spanish for about a year. I'd like to get to the working in a fast food restaurant level. Then I would try to just maintain it and maybe take some trips to French speaking countries (or just talk with family members). I will check out Curso de Frances. Thanks for the suggestion. Edited by James29 on 24 June 2013 at 2:42am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5376 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 258 of 668 26 June 2013 at 10:16pm | IP Logged | ||
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One of my long term Spanish goals has always been to combine my Spanish hobby with my economics hobby. I love to read Austrian Economics (libertarian). Recently I have put my economics hobby on hold as I decided I really needed to exercise and get healthier. I really want to get back into doing economics/libertarian things in Spanish again. I watched a lecture series by Manuel Ayau (an absolutely amazing man... his biography is incredible), watched several lectures/speeches by Jesus Huerta de Soto and, though it is not Austrian or even libertarianism, I read Atlas Shrugged in Spanish.
There are some amazing resources out there for anyone interested in libertarianism or Austrian Economics in Spanish. Universidad Francisco Marroquin's New Media is probably one of the best resources out there. Under colecciones there are several great lecture series and seminars including an introductory course on economics taught by Manuel Ayau himself. It is about 12 hours long and has a full Spanish transcript. There are thousands and thousands of hours of quality video and audio on their site. Instituto Juan de Mariana's website similarly has a lot of great material on it. One of the nice thigns about this website is under multimedia and "mas videos" they have a 43 class lecture series by Jesus Huerta de Soto. Huerta de Soto is one of the best known Austrian Economists in the world. The lecture series follows his course for a full university semester. I have not yet watched it, but I have watched several classes. Huerta de Soto is a highly energetic, articulate and charasmatic guy. there are also many other great audio and video resources on the Juan de Mariana website. Jesus Huerta de Soto's personal website has most of books and articles freely available online. He has written some of the most authoritative treatises on monetary policy and economics. I note also that many of his books and articles have been translated into numerous other languages and are also available on his website. Anarchocapitalista.com has some interesting material on it including a pdf with links to NUMEROUS classic libertarian books in pdf form here. I don't use the website much, but that pdf with links is amazing. Instituto Mises Hispano is the new Spanish site of the Mises Institute. It has been getting better with time. It has a blog, videos and articles. Many of the videos are in English. Union Editorial is a Madrid bookstore with hardcopies for sale of almost anything you need in Spanish. I do note, however, that almost all of their books are easily and freely available online simply by googling the name of the book plus "pdf." They seem to be the only place that stocks many of the classics. These are just some of the best resources out there. One thing I have never been able to find is an audio book in Spanish of any of the classics. The closest thing I found was the audio book of Atlas Shrugged. If anyone is aware of an audio book in Spanish of an Austrian Economics text I would be eternallyl grateful for a link. 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5376 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 259 of 668 01 July 2013 at 12:28am | IP Logged | ||
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I have been working on FSI lesson 20 for a few days. It has a lot of good drills on le, lo and la. One day this week I just repeated those drills three times. I did them twice again today. I can do them now without mistakes so I think I will just do the full lesson tomorrow. This is really helping. I remember some of these drills from when I did FSI the first time and I am glad I am now putting some extra effort into them.
I had a long drive for work and listened to about an hour or so of Cajas de Carton. It is pretty easy to understand because I have listened to it so many times and the Spanish is not too hard. I also did about an hour of LR of Cajas de Carton today and yesterday. I did a few good Skype talks this week. One very long one in English. Every now and then with my regular partner we have a very long English talk. I like to do this because we usually talk in Spanish and it only seems fair. I did a meetup. It really makes a big difference when a native speaker is there. I forget it if I mentioned it previously, but I received my Cassell's Colloquial Spanish book. It looks great! I cannot wait to start it. I think I will start using it as my exercise book when I finish reading Assimil's Spanish Without Toil. I have been kind of a slacker lately on exercising so I have not made too much progress on Without Toil. I think I am now on about lesson 80 or 90. Frankly, I forget. I really should just stop doing it, but something is making me finish it. I don't like quitting anything in Spanish once I commit to starting it. There are so many things I want to do. I really want/need to start doing more reading and watching TV. I am glad to be doing FSI and I think it will be a good capstone to my Spanish "studying" and I will just be able to focus entirely on native material after that. I really wish there were more unredacted audio books. I really like reading them. I have a few lined up and hope to get to them soon. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| HermonMunster Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4634 days ago 119 posts - 211 votes Studies: Spanish | Message 260 of 668 03 July 2013 at 4:03pm | IP Logged | ||
This is really cool James. When I get a little bit more time I'm going to look into all of these links. I too am a part-time student of Austrian economics. I've read about 30 books on the topic and tried to tackle Human Action. I only got about 25% through before I started with Spanish. I think it's really cool how you are pursuing your passions in Spanish. I need to start doing that so I can get 2 to 1 and use my time more efficiently. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5376 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 261 of 668 03 July 2013 at 10:29pm | IP Logged | ||
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Yes, Spanish is a great language for libertarianism. It's good to know there are other like minded folks out there. Between Manuel Ayau and Jesus Huerta de Soto I think I will have enough original Spanish Austrian Economics material for my entire life. I really need to get back into it. I have really been slacking in the economics hobby.
I liked Rothbard's Man, Economy and State better than Human Action. I remember reading Human Action and often thinking "holy cow, I don't even know that word in English... I wonder what it is in Spanish." Human Action in Spanish is available online for free. Amazingly, not all of ME&S has been translated yet. I so want a Spanish audio book of one of these two books, but, unfortunately, one does not seem to exist. I did write Union Editorial a while back and ask them about audio books and they told me they would do one in the future. I followed up with them and they never responded. I also told Amazon that I would buy a Spanish audio book of Human Action. That New Media site is awesome... especially the videos with the running transctiption. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5784 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German | Message 262 of 668 04 July 2013 at 4:29pm | IP Logged | ||
Thanks for these links. I've been neglecting my Spanish, but this will allow me to do in Spanish somethibg I was already doing. Fantastic, 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5376 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 263 of 668 07 July 2013 at 7:16pm | IP Logged | ||
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I LOVE Cassell's Colloquial Spanish. It is exactly what I need right now. For the past several days I have been reading from it and I am almost to page 100. It is perfect for a summer book for me. In the summer I like to have an easy to use Spanish resource that I can easily carry around and not worry about dropping it in the lake. This book is perfect. It is little (roughly the size of an Assimil book) and it was really cheap. It is also very easy (and even relaxing) to read. I feel kind of silly saying this, but it is basically a dictionary and I really enjoy reading it... it's first edition name was "Beyond the Dictionary in Spanish." It is organized like a dictionary, but has really cool explanations. It explains things that are extremely helpful and tries to explain the nuances of words in a way that a dictionary just does not do. It is also great for intermediate/advanced vocabulary. It is a lot like Breaking Out of Beginner's Spanish, but on steroids. Anyway, I will keep working on it.
I also have now completed one run through FSI lesson 21. This is where I dragged the most on my first run through FSI. There are a bunch of lessons that have about 1.5 hours of audio. I'll keep working on FSI until I finish, but I am going to take breaks whenever I want. Doing Cassell's really makes me realize I need to pick up more vocab and do more advanced things in order to get to the next level in Spanish. FSI is great and I will continue with it, but I think what is weakest for me is vocab and comprehension (of course, my formal writing is basically non-existent but I am not counting that now). I also finished LR of Cajas de Carton again. Cool little book. Reading it made me see that, even in an easy book like that, there are still a lot of words I simply do not know. I also realized that the audio is actually pretty fast. It is also very Mexican which I don't have a lot of exposure to. I had a good meetup. Nothing really ever new there. It is just a good opportunity to talk. I have noticed, strangely enough, that when someone is grasping for a vocabulary word I can often put my finger on it moreso than many other people. I get lots of comments on how I speak properly in terms of grammar. I do notice, however, that I am not really able to lead a lengthy conversation. Everyone else who is at my level can tell a story for a few minutes and when I try to talk to the whole group I just feel like I start bumbling after a while. Maybe that is just me being self conscious, however. For the Fourth of July I decided that when I am in Spain I will hitch a plane over to England for a couple days. I have never been to the motherland and figure if I don't go in this trip I might never go. I think it will be fun. I really need to do more planning for my trip to Spain. Part of me just says... "screw it, do whatever you want and don't worry about planning." I also really need to decide if I am going to hire a tutor when I am there. It is clear that this trip (especially with flying to England) is going to cost me MUCH more than originally anticipated and tutors in Spain are not exactly cheap. Spanish schools seem to be even more expensive. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| HermonMunster Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4634 days ago 119 posts - 211 votes Studies: Spanish | Message 264 of 668 08 July 2013 at 2:17am | IP Logged | ||
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Hey James,
Another good post. Reading your blog always gives me new ideas for studying.
I feel you totally on this point. We have modified our travel plans drastically because of $$ or the lack thereof. Have you thought about trying to hire a student or recent grad? I'm not sure where you could find one, but I've read numerous articles about the extraordinarily high unemployment rate (53%)for Spanish youths. Seems like you'd be able to find someone who needs the money and you could be the answer to each other's prayers. Just a thought. Edited by HermonMunster on 08 July 2013 at 2:18am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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