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James29’s Spanish Log | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Kronos Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5262 days ago 186 posts - 452 votes  Speaks: German*, English | Message 265 of 668 08 July 2013 at 4:39am | IP Logged | ||
Yes, this book is a gem and highly entertaining to read in. You get so much details on word usage across the different parts of the Spanish speaking world, how expressions differ from country to country, nuances of meaning, the historical background etc. All written in a witty and well-informed style, and it doesn't shy away from making you aware of the odd ambiguous phrase or juicy slang expression either. I couldn't find out much about the author, though I think he was British and around seventy when the last revision came out in 1980. So unfortunately we will never get to see yet another expanded, updated edition. The book is long out of print, but I liked it so much that I bought three used copies instead of one, of which I gave one to a friend. There is a digital version, too. Someone has put the entire A-Z content online, with some comments by readers: C a s s e l l’ s C o l l o q u i a l S p a n i s h The content stops with the letter Q, but the two missing sections can be found on the following threads: R-T U-Z Edited by Kronos on 08 July 2013 at 5:37am 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 266 of 668 15 July 2013 at 12:51am | IP Logged | ||
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Great post... thanks for posting the link.
I am still working on FSI. I did another lesson or two this week. It is tough to do FSI at home so I am going to stick to only doing it during the week. Also, the lessons in this part are much longer and really seem to drag. I can go for about 45 minutes staying quite concentrated and then my mind starts to wander... if I only have 10-15 minutes to go I can stay concentrated, but if I have another 30 minutes it is tough. I am still reading through Cassell's. It is awesome. I spent a ton of time on the book this week. I also watched a few episodes of Caso Cerrado. This show is perfect for language learning. It is a bit too nuts, however. Some of the storylines are simply disgusting or absolutely bizarre. I don't like how Telemundo has the videos set up on their website. I wish there was some sort of index. I did a few skype talks. These are more just for fun now and to use the language. I don't ever really get corrected on skype anymore. I had a good meetup. These are pretty much the same every week. I have definitely learned that I don't have the best understanding of when to use tu/usted. I, personally, feel like I can use tu with almost anyone at a meetup. I notice sometimes, however, that when there is more than one native present I cannot understand why they use tu/usted. There were two natives of roughly the same age that were using usted. It made me wonder why they are using usted with each other, but I use tu with both of them. Well, I need to go prepare for Spain. Edited by James29 on 15 July 2013 at 12:55am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4252 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 267 of 668 16 July 2013 at 10:58am | IP Logged | ||
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I'm impressed that you read Atlas Shrugged in Spanish. That book was somewhat challenging to read in English.
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| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5376 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 268 of 668 05 August 2013 at 3:16am | IP Logged | ||
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Yes, Atlas Shrugged was a challenge in both English and Spanish. I read it in English right before reading it in Spanish so it was much easier. Great book for learning Spanish... 60 hour audio book!
Well, my trip to Spain was AWESOME! I don't really know where to start. The good news is that my Spanish improved dramatically. I spoke Spanish all the time and had tons of long conversations. Valencia was hot, HOT! Going to the south of Spain in the middle of the summer was not a good idea. My house did not have A/C so that really sucked. Living in a house was very nice as I was able to cook my own meals and it was cheap. I also got to meet some very nice people from all over the world. I realized how lucky English speakers are. There were many people from other countries who only spoke their native tongues and English. English was a default language. The highlight of the trip was the bullfight. It was amazing. I never knew how artistic and historic bullfights are. I really enjoyed it. I sat next to an old couple and the man was very happy to explain everything to me... in Spanish. I also had a short trip to England to visit the town of my ancestors. That was cool. I now have a very favorable image of England. It was very nice. I think I learned as much about England in this trip as I did Spain... one of the guys in the house was from England and we talked a lot about England. I travelled all around Valencia on the metro. It was amazingly easy. I asked for directions tons of times. I also had numerous conversations with all types of people... wait staff, bus drivers, random people in the parks or on the beach. There were a few things I did not understand, but, for the most part, I really had absolutely no problem with the language. I realize that the weakest parts of my Spanish are my ability to understand things without contextual cues and my vocabulary. If someone came up to me and asked a question out of the blue I would often not understand anything. For example, I was waiting on a bench outside the metro and a young guy came up to me and started talking. I did not have a clue what he said (I suppose now that maybe he was talking in Valenciano, but I doubt it) and I asked him to repeat himself and he did and then I immediately understood that he was meeting someone he did not know and he was wondering if I was the person he was supposed to meet. This sort of thing was annoying to me... in restaurants when the wait staff would ask me a question that I was not anticipating... I sometimes had to ask follow up questions to understand what they were asking. In terms of vocabulary, I simply need more. There were some pretty basic things that I forgot and some other fairly basic words that I simply did not know. I guess vocab will come with time. I did spend much more money than I wanted to. Spain is expensive. It was worth it though. I spent my last day in Madrid with the family of one of my exchange partners. That was really cool. It was amazing to get to know someone over Skype and then actually meet the person. They are a very nice couple and I had a wonderful night at their house and on a whirlwind tour of Madrid. I must say that La Puerta del Sol thoroughly disappointed me. All the Spanish courses make it sound like it is the coolest place in the Spanish speaking world. It really did not seem that cool to me. The central plaza, however, was pretty darn cool. I really feel like this trip was a major breakthrough for my Spanish. There were some times where someone would speak to me in English and we switched to Spanish to be understood better. This happened on the airplane with more than one flight attendant. I was pretty pumped when I realized that my Spanish was better than their English. I did not have too much free time so I did not do much "studying", but I did finish Cassell's book. I still have the appendix to read... that looks pretty good. In terms of Spanish since I have been back... I did another lesson of FSI (lesson 23). I also watched an episode of El Capo. I find it annoying that I stopped El Capo for so long. I'd like to keep working through it. I like the show. I think I want to finish FSI and El Capo before I embark on any new major projects. When I finish this run through FSI I am not going to do anymore course type things. I will just watch shows and read books. My computer at home really sucks. I cannot watch videos on it anymore because the sound just gets all screwed up. I can do audio and FSI on it, but I don't like to FSI at home because it is easy to get distracted here. I will need to find something to do at home. Maybe I will start an audio book. I only have about five months left in the year. I'd really like to get done with FSI this year. That would be great. If I do 2 lessons a week I will be able to do it. I am thinking more and more about French. I probably won't start it anytime soon, but I do feel like I will do it. My Spanish is good enough that I could do Spanish based Assimil. When in a Valencia bookstore I looked at the Spanish based Using French and I did not have any problem at all with any of the Spanish in the book. If I used Spanish to learn French I think I will be able to get myself psyched up. My problem with French is that I feel like it is not really a productive thing to do. I feel like Spanish is actually going to be helpful to me long term with work and living in the US. Oh well, I may update more about Spain later. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| sfuqua Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4766 days ago 581 posts - 977 votes Speaks: English*, Hawaiian, Tagalog Studies: Spanish | Message 269 of 668 05 August 2013 at 7:01am | IP Logged | ||
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Your trip to Spain sounds awesome! I'm jealous. I'm not clear about something in your Spanish, do you speak with seseo? Do you ever code switch?
I've switched back and forth between pronunciations a few times based on what materials I'm using. Did you settle on one? 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 270 of 668 06 August 2013 at 4:04pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hey James,
Awesome trip! I'm happy for you. I know it's a great feeling to be able to communicate on the street. I'm sure you made that old guy's year; he's probably talking about you right now. Thanks for being a good ambassador for Americans. There are so many stereotypes that are based on TV/movies and it's good for people to see that we are just regular people and don't want to shoot everything that moves and chew bubble gum all the time. I too have the itch to learn French next. Maybe you can just start at a slower pace since you don't have any need for it now. I think I will study Spanish only for 2 more years then move on to French. Learning a language is just part of our lives now. I don't think we should ever stop. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5023 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 271 of 668 06 August 2013 at 11:39pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm glad you had a good trip James! You should check out Valencia during Las Fallas one day- It's awesome and not very well known in the English speaking world.
I felt the same as you about parts of Madrid- to me it doesn't strike me as that much different to any modern city. In fact I also felt decidedly underwhelmed by big parts of Buenos Aires too. Do you mind if I ask what part of England you went to? I would be interested to know. Are you able to watch El Capo at the moment? I can't get the videos on the Mundofox site to work at the moment, and the videos on the link that iguanamon put on my log are down at the moment too. 2 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 272 of 668 07 August 2013 at 3:15am | IP Logged | ||
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I don't really think much about what type of Spanish accent I have. I am told quite often that I have a very pleasing accent, but I still sound mostly like an American speaking Spanish. I am very conscious of my word choice and try to use the correct words depending on who I am talking to. I definitely understand peninsular Spanish better... no question about it. That was quite obvious in my trip to Spain. I think I kind of have a mish mash of accents. I like to use the Argentinian ll sound and I often do sound like I am from Spain with some words... like ejercicios... I have heard that word a billion times on Assimil and would never be able to pronounce it with a Latin American accent.
Yes, Hermon, I really like being a good ambassador for the US. Many people were very pleased that I take such an interest in their language and culture. I had a number of great talks with various people. It was great. I spent most of my time in Birmingham when I was in England simply because that is where the cheapest plane tickets were to and it was relatively nearby Stratford Upon Avon (where my ancestors were from). I went to Stratford for a day and loved it. I actually was able to find one additional generation in their official records registry. I also spent a day in London. Frankly, I was very surprised how much England seemed like the US. Except, I must say, that thing with driving on the other side of the road... that REALLY freaked me out... I am lucky I did not get killed while crossing the streets. Yes, I am able to watch El Capo. I watched an episode on Monday and as I am writing this post I double checked and it seems to work fine for me. I actually did the first lesson of Pimsleur French today. I requested Paul Noble's French from the library, but they could not get it for me... so I will start with Pimsleur. I felt like an idiot. I am going to have to do the lesson over again. I may not even keep up with French and I don't mind if I quit it. I do think I will do it somewhat seriously when I am done with FSI Spanish... when I can focus on doing the Spanish based Assimil New French with Ease. Edited by James29 on 07 August 2013 at 3:16am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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