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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| HermonMunster Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4631 days ago 119 posts - 211 votes  Studies: Spanish | Message 9 of 154 18 August 2012 at 11:33pm | IP Logged |
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Hello Everyone,
It's been a about a month since I've last posted. I haven't given up or anything, just busy with life and work. My wife and I are expecting a baby in late March so things have been kinda crazy. I'm also studying for a professional exam so my Spanish time has been cut back a bit. Right now I'm at about 400hrs worth of studying for the year (started late Feb) I'm really impressed by this. Never did I think that I'd have so much time in already. Thank goodness for smart phones, in a lot of ways I think tech is contributing to the down fall of humanity, but in my case, it has made so much of my study possible. I'm still listening to 1hr of Spanish in the car (platiquemos) and I just finished level IV. Over half way done.. Horray. My pace has slowed down a bit b/c I haven't had time to read the lessons. Without reading, I sometimes have to listen to a lesson 4 or 5 times to get the hang of it. I also signed up for the website newsinslowspanish.com. I haven't had a chance to really review the material because I was focused on downloading files so that I could review them at my leisure.It seems like a very good site that has tons of real life vocab. It's pretty fun to review old news stories and think, "ohh yea, that was a big story at the time." I'm looking forward to on working all those lessons. I'm now able to use the past I and II pretty proficiently in my writing. I'm much slower in my speaking. Unfortunately I've had to travel every other week for past 6weeks and I've missed 3 meetups. That's my only real time to talk. I don't like to talk with my Mexican co-workers on the phone is Spanish because I don't think the other people in the cube farm want to hear me practicing. HOwever, more and more of the folks in Mexico are hearing that I'm trying to learn and they are being very helpful. Several people only communicate with me in Spanish. Recently I've been trying to talk to every person that I suspect of Spanish speaking. It may be alittle rude, but I just start by saying I'm trying to learn Spanish would you please talk to me. So far, no one has turned me down. I guess it helps that I normally do it in resturants :-) After December 1 of this year I should have more time to Skype people. Then I want to speak about an hour a day talking to people. Alot of people have told me that it takes 4 years to become fluent, and I'm ok with that. It's only been 5 months and I'm amazed at how far I've come. I have another work trip to mexico during wk 44. I'm very excited to have another 5 days of immersion. Last time I was there in May I tried to speak alot but I had some trouble with taking directions. This time I want to show up with some jokes in Spanish and be able to do more small talk. I will be down there for day of the dead so hopefully some of the guys will take us to the graveyard so we can be a part of everything. I've always thought that's one of the coolest traditions in Mexico. I was kinda sad when a co-worker told me that the young people don't really participate anymore. That's about it. Still plugging along. I know all this hard work will pay off some day 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| pbromide Bilingual Triglot Groupie United States Joined 4545 days ago 76 posts - 98 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish*, French Studies: Russian, Swedish | Message 10 of 154 19 August 2012 at 1:34am | IP Logged |
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Ah, another person learning my native language! I don't know why, but it always makes me
happy even if Spanish is studied by many people. Perhaps it validates my feelings of "this language is not useless." So I dropped by to wish you good luck, offer you a language partner if needed, and also to say that "mi nariz está triste porque el sol es muy fuerte" and "mi cosas nunca" made my day. Don't worry, they will soon become amusing anecdotes as you travel towards Spanish proficiency! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5781 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German | Message 11 of 154 19 August 2012 at 1:57am | IP Logged |
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What a lovely log. I love your enthusiasm and your steady but realistic progress. I hope
you keep posting. Esposas 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| HermonMunster Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4631 days ago 119 posts - 211 votes Studies: Spanish | Message 12 of 154 12 September 2012 at 4:07pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks pbromide for the post. It is pretty funny when I think about how badly I was failing when trying to get help for my bloody nose. I think all languages have value. There are so many things that don't translate exactly and the only way to understand is to learn the language.
Random review, thanks for the post. I think I will be posting for the next 2-3 years at least. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| HermonMunster Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4631 days ago 119 posts - 211 votes Studies: Spanish | Message 13 of 154 12 September 2012 at 5:26pm | IP Logged |
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Hello Everyone,
Been a while since my last update. There has been alot going on in my life. I've decided to only post about Spanish progress and not much else in personal life after this post. Just for clarity and to avoid awkward posts in the future, I want to let readers know that my wife and I lost the baby at about 9 weeks pregnant. It was an extremely difficult thing that we are still dealing with, but we are trying to move forward without any more "when's the baby due?" type questions. You get alittle fatigued of having to explain over and over again. On to Spanish.... My progress has been steady even though the recent events have taken most of my time. I'm now on unit 34 of platiquemos and I have over 700 words in my Anki that I know. I'm listening to the lessons about 3x each and then going to the readings once. I find it interesting how South American ( and some Mexican) politics is so socialistic. The reading for 32 had a section where the president gave a speech about a dam being built and how it was for the benefit "of the people." I couldn't help but to think, "yea right" the president and his people will get the benefits and the poor will get some benefits but do all the labor. I was surprised to learn during one of my trips to Mexico that the government essentially sets a maximum wage for assembly line workers. They supposedly keep wages low to keep manufacturing in the country. This creates a strange situation because everyone is equal as far as human righs are concnered, be we are all unequal when it comes to talents. How does one company make sure that their employees don't jump ship??? Believe it or not.... food. The companies can't pay more money in wages so they compete with the quality and variety of the lunches. I can tell you from experience that the food is unbelievably good. Most people don't equate an assembly plant with great lunch, but it's the truth. Just thinking about it now is making me hungry. I haven't been watching Destinos or my telenova for a while. I know more passive learning is good, but I'm trying to get the most bang for my buck and also I try to listen to Spanish radio so that base is covered. It's funny how I think that Spanish is difficult to learn because of the tenses/conjugations, but English isn't so easy either. Take my second sentence of this paragraph. Two idioms that are really complicated if you break them down. "Bang for Buck" - first you'd have to learn that bang is what americans use for an exploding sound, but you have to be careful because it also has a sexual meaning. I can just imagine the trouble that could come from mixing up a few words. "I want to bang for buck" "Give me bang for buck" lol Also "bases covered" assumse some knowledge of baseball defense or it just doesn't make sense. Learning a language is no easy task, but I'm having fun doing it. Last week I had my Spanish/English meetup. We are in a new restuarant and the setup isn't really that condusive to switching partners so 3 of us spent the 1.5hrs talking. I met a nice american lady who has been studying forever, but recently got serious and wants to push through to the next level. She's alittle bit better than me so I had fun and learned a bunch through talking to her. I realized that I need to learn the Spanish alphabet and practice more on my numbers. I know them but i do have to think. I need that to be more automatic. Not hearing numbers correctly made me think that the lady said that she has been married for 10 years, but had a Spanish speaking boyfriend for the last 4. I was sitting there with my mouth and eyes wide open 8-O then I looked over to the group leader next to me like, "Did you hear that. I can't believe she's so open about this. What kind of freaky table do you have me at. To each his own..." Finally I had to call a Spanish time out and get everything straightened out. She dated a Spanish dude in 1987 for 4 years. LOL Last week I was traveling for work and when I do I try to stop at the same Mexican resturant every time. They remember me and only talk in Spanish unless I get completely lost. I think they really like helping me and not because I'm bringing good $$$ in the door. I think it's in the way I approach them. I learned a long time ago that people really like talking about themselves. So I just come in, order, and then ask simple stuff. Where are you from, how long have you been here, have you ever been to the places in Mexico where I've been? Simple stuff like that gets the ball rolling and next thing you know, we're having a good convo and they are correcting my minor mistakes. The waiter taught me how to say "i'm full, good, satified" in the right way. I was trying to do a direct translation. I'm full = Estoy lleno. But that doesn't really make sense in Spanish. The guy told me that lleno is more for a parking lot or something not your stomach. He said that "estoy satisfecho" is what i really wanted to say. I think that the world needs alittle bit more compassion and empathy. I know that so called illegal immigration is a big problem in parts of the US, but people say some crazy things on the topic. I try to stay away from conversations on the topic, but when I do get drawn in I try to mediate the discussion and keep it from becoming an argument. I just try to remind everyone that we are talking about people not monsters, not the boogeyman, not space aliens, but people and in my opinion any man who wouldn't try to walk through the desert, swim a river, or ride in a truck bed to make a much better life for his family or himself isn't a man. Folk have to remember that we would all do what we had to do to have a better life. One of my favorite quotes is, "enthusiasm is contagious." I'm seeing that this is certainly true with language learning. I had a mexican coworker ask me if I could help him learn English. I guess he's seen my progress in the last 6mo and is thinking "sign me up!" Where he is there aren't too many americans to speak with and I'm not sure if there is a meetup.com there. I'm sure he realizes as much as I do that ti's extremely important in manufacturing to know 2 languages. Also my wife is starting to learn too. Ideally I will create some invention to change the world and make me billions of dollars, but in the off chance it doesn't happen, I want to always be gainfully employed. i'm thinking that in about 4 years my Spanish will be mucho primo and at the same time my company may be really serious about fixing some minor quality and cultural issues to the point where they 'd pay an american sized salary for someone to work in Mexico. The cultrual difference stack up and are making both sides so angry. I had a coworker in mexico tell me "the customer isn't yelling about it so we didn't think it was important." WHAT!!!!! I'm not even a high strung guy but I've been told 10s of times "relax man." I wish there was a word for un-relax in Spanish so I can say it all the time. The cultures are just different but I think with the right training and maybe a guy down there to explain what will happen and why (this guy would have to have some power) things would get better. In the mean time though I think that by knowing Spanish I will be able to communicate how important something is to the customer or at least give them a heads up in words they 100% understand before going into meetings. I'm still waaay better in writing than speaking. I met up with some co-workers a few weeks ago and they were kind of shocked that I couldn't keep up with the conversation. I just need more time speaking. In the new year I will be done with platiquemos and my intensive, formal study. Then I will speak as much as possible and work through newsinslowspanish.com Signed up with them for a month and through some very boring effort, was able to archive most of the content for my later use. That's about it. Edited by HermonMunster on 12 September 2012 at 5:37pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5373 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 14 of 154 15 September 2012 at 1:17am | IP Logged |
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Hey, great log. I am very sorry for your loss.
Platiquemos/FSI is great. It will start getting much more difficult pretty soon when it gets into details and drilling on many of the grammar points the other courses don't even touch. Get used to the socialist mentality in Latin America. I have done a lot of language exchanges and at first I found it surprising how socialism can just seem logical to so many people. It really seemed odd to me so I used to ask a lot of questions to try to figure out the thought process... then I just gave up and decided not to talk politics with people in language exchanges. Keep up the good work. I feel my study of Spanish is motivated by that same inner drive as you have described. It is a cool journey. I am jealous that you get to travel to Mexico for work and even more jealous that your wife will travel with you. My wife will not travel out of the country with me (not even to a nice resort in Cancun). Enjoy your studies. Edited by James29 on 15 September 2012 at 1:20am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| caam_imt Triglot Senior Member Mexico Joined 4860 days ago 232 posts - 357 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2, Finnish Studies: German, Swedish | Message 15 of 154 15 September 2012 at 11:05am | IP Logged |
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By the way, Hermun, I always say "estoy lleno" when I'm full. I think it's a bit
misleading when certain people tell you that a certain expression is wrong just because they might no like it/use it. Of course "estoy satisfecho" is correct, but in MY view, that is a word that I see more often in written media. It's not something I say when I'm eating out with my friends, BUT it might be different in other parts of Mexico. Just my two cents :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| HermonMunster Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4631 days ago 119 posts - 211 votes Studies: Spanish | Message 16 of 154 20 September 2012 at 6:53pm | IP Logged |
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James29,
Thanks for the condolances and the post in general. So platiquemos is about go into overdrive? Good! I think I'm ready. I'm kinda getting anxious to finish the program and move on to something new. Thanks for the heads up on socialism in Latin/South America. I'll steer clear of debates until my Spanish is much better. One of my many interests is economics and I've done some extensive reading about socialism and its devestating long term results. I think with my limited speaking/listening skills I will just say, if someone is really pressing the issue, "if you care so much about this, put your own money up, but please don't volunteer mine." There's a guy who came to the lanuage exchange 2x ago who wanted to talk politics at the table. The moderator had to lay the smack down because people are coming to have a good time and work on their language skills not to be attacked for their beliefs. I hope that guy comes back so I can debate him after the session. I kinda enjoy putting blowhards in their place. Thanks for the jealousy of my wife. I told her about it and how her adventurousness is soo cool and rare. She loved hearing it! Sometimes we live in our own little worlds and accept the things we do as normal. I forget that there are alot of people with deep seated fears that will never do things that others do without thinking twice. Perhaps your wife gets too much of her information from tv. The "if it bleeds, it leads" mentality makes Mexico look much more dangerous than it is. Yes there are major problems and many people have died in the drug game, but most of the people were involved in the drug game. When I was in Durango the police had just found 20 bodies, but when I was out and about downtown no one felt unsafe. As wild as the drug game is down there, there are still some rules. Plus there are alot of areas in the US where people shouldn't go. Maybe eventually she'll come around to hitting a beach or something. I love being able to go down there and my favorite thing is to go to peoples houses and more or less be a tall, funny looking Mexican for a week. Unfortuantely I'm usually with the customer so I have to be the dad of the group and makes sure everyone else is ok. This upcomming trip I'm going to try to do everything in Spanish, including my job. Last time I was very self conscious and didn't speak too much Spanish in the office. This time my attitude will be "no hablo ingles." caam_imt, Thanks for the reply. I think you're right. It's hard when people offer their opinion and state it as fact. Estoy lleno made sense to me as I was trying to express a physical condition more than being satisfied. The food was great but I wasn't stopping because I was sated. I was stopping because there was no room in the inn, so to speak. I had a meetup this past Tuesday and it was a good time as usual. I sat next to some new folks and a lady was telling us how she just broke up with her boyfriend. That made for some good discussion and new vocab words. We also spoke about fantasy football, and dreams for the future. I'm starting to see how one can communicate with a limited vocabulary. You have to be very clever and take the long way, but bottom line, I want to be understood. It's dfficult though when talking about something that is supposed to be enticing and you have to use the words that you have at your disposal. For instance, I had French collegue come to the US to train us in the new program. We all went out to the bar and we were trying to get him to order some American food. "You ever had a tater-tot?" "What is tature-to" (lol at me trying to make french sounding reply) "It's like a French fry that's been smashed down into a little cube." (I was clasping my hands in a crushing motion). "Uhh no thank you." Haha, in hindsight "smashed down" with hand motions and a twisted face showing much effort probably should never be used when talking about food. Ohh yea, I was listening to the radio and had a breakthrough. I could understand about 80% of a song and new 100% of the chorous. "Be careful because you have my heart in your hands." I was thinking, "wow, i know what they are talking about." Been about 6 months of study everyday. Slowly but surely I'm getting it. I have alittle over 800 words in my Anki deck and probably about 650 hrs of study. In 2 years I'll be 35 years old and I want to be considered fluent and ready to take some exams. I'm learning for fun and to help me do my job better, but I'm also doing it to make some more $$$$$$. The way I look at it, once I know Spanish well enough, I will essentially be 2 people. I won't be mad if Spanish Herm doesn't make as much as American Herm, but when you add them together it better be more than monolingual Herm. Edited by HermonMunster on 20 September 2012 at 7:00pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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