Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4142 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog
| Message 321 of 384 21 August 2014 at 1:13pm | IP Logged |
nj24 and iguanamon - many thanks to both of you for the recommendations. My list keeps growing! I've always
been a voracious reader, so I'm looking forward to "book magic" in Spanish.
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James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5373 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French
| Message 322 of 384 21 August 2014 at 6:43pm | IP Logged |
Nice posts. I particularly agree with Iguanamon about reading translations... and directly related to what he says about La Reina del Sur. I read the English translation of that book and it just seemed very strangely written. Nobody would ever write that way in English. It made me realize that the exact opposite is how things must seem when I am reading a book translated from English. Unfortunately, I am stubborn and simply am sticking to books translated from English because I more value the fact that I want to be certain I will actually enjoy reading the book.
Sometimes I want to stop reading recommendations because I already have enough books and resources to last several years. Maybe I'll challenge myself to go a full year without buying any more books!
Stelle - great work on keeping your languages going. I have always been very shocked at how incredibly fast you picked up Spanish to such a good level.
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Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4142 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog
| Message 323 of 384 21 August 2014 at 7:18pm | IP Logged |
Thanks James29! I have to admit that I got a lot of my Spanish for "free", since the grammar has a lot in common
with French. Any suggestion that I'm naturally fast at language learning can be thrown out the window, since I'm
still struggling to express myself like a toddler in Tagalog after nearly four months. Ha!
And I agree with you about resources...I thought that I was a frugal language learner. Then I crunched some
numbers and realized that I've spent over 150 dollars on Spanish books alone in the past year! Oops! Still, I'll
keep collecting titles in the hopes that I'll find a book that really grabs me. (Although they'll have to wait until we
move to Toronto and I have access to a better library. The book budget is set at zero for the foreseeable future.)
To everyone who has so kindly suggested books:
Thank you!
Most of my reading over the past year has been in Spanish. And the novelty of "WOW! This is Spanish! And I'm
READING it!" might be starting to wear off. I spent the past two weeks devouring English books, and it really
made me aware of how different it feels to read in English and in Spanish. I like to read in Spanish, but I rarely
get lost in a Spanish book, and I've never lost a whole day to reading an entire book.
In all fairness, I have the same problem in French. I went through 13 years of francophone school, and now I've
been teaching French for over a decade. I obviously have absolutely no difficulty at all reading in French. And yet,
I just...don't. And when i ask my francophone friends what they're reading, they're either reading historical fiction
(which I don't love, but which seems to be a huge market in French Canadian literature) or else they're reading -
you guessed it - English books translated into French.
I still have several Harry Potter books on my bookshelf that I plan on reading, but I really think that it's time for
me to branch out into novels originally written in Spanish. I think that I need to find a genre that I enjoy and that
has a market in the Spanish-speaking world. It's just a question of exploring a bit more, rather than sticking to
what's safe!
Edited by Stelle on 21 August 2014 at 7:19pm
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Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4142 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog
| Message 324 of 384 21 August 2014 at 9:18pm | IP Logged |
I listened to a really interesting podcast today about the state of Spanish in the world:
Futuro Abierto
Unfortunately, there were a few technical issues, so one of the interviews had to be cancelled, but it was overall a
very good show!
The podcast ended with this very cute and funny song:
Que dificil es hablar el espanol
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Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4142 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog
| Message 325 of 384 22 August 2014 at 8:33pm | IP Logged |
I just wrote a long post about my belief in the importance of extensive reading using easy texts. It was originally
meant for my log, but it got a bit too involved, so I posted it in Learning Techniques instead. The first half of it is
about my experiences reading in Spanish, while the second half is more specific to my current experiences as a baby
speaker of Tagalog:
On Reading Easy Books
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AmyinBrooklyn Senior Member United States Joined 4049 days ago 87 posts - 122 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish
| Message 326 of 384 23 August 2014 at 5:57pm | IP Logged |
Hi Stelle -
Great log as usual, I wrote down many book recommendations.
I see that you really haven't found anything to watch yet. I'd like to suggest Que Pobres Tan Ricos. Here in the US, it's streaming on Hulu so maybe you can find it somewhere, but with 160+ 45 minute episodes, it will definitely keep you busy. One of the reasons, that I love it is that it's not an overly dramatic - it's funny and heartwarming, and I'm totally hooked. Also did you watch Valentin yet? It is streaming on Netflix and one of my favorite movies in any language. Look forward to reading more updates! -Amy
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montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4826 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh
| Message 327 of 384 24 August 2014 at 8:05pm | IP Logged |
iguanamon wrote:
"Nómadas" rocks! That's what I mean by a podcast- long,
interesting and better than television because it paints pictures with words. I've been
listening to it for a few years now. :)
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In the UK, people (at least of my generation, who grew up before TV was quite so
universal) used to say "the pictures are better on radio". :-)
And of course, podcasts are a modern-ish means of listening to radio. I use them all
the time for German and Welsh (and I enjoy them in English as well).
@Stelle: I'm not actively studying Spanish, but my wife is. I'm always trying to
get her to listen to podcasts to enhance her listening comprehension (and also just for
enjoyment), but she seems resistant (or just doesn't get around to it.
I'll pass on the links to the various rtve.es series (no harm in keeping on
trying), but do you happen to know of any which also come with transcripts?
(Preferably free).
Many thanks.
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Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4142 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog
| Message 328 of 384 25 August 2014 at 1:18pm | IP Logged |
AmyinBrooklyn wrote:
I see that you really haven't found anything to watch yet. I'd like to suggest Que Pobres Tan Ricos. Here in the US,
it's streaming on Hulu so maybe you can find it somewhere, but with 160+ 45 minute episodes, it will definitely
keep you busy. One of the reasons, that I love it is that it's not an overly dramatic - it's funny and heartwarming,
and I'm totally hooked. Also did you watch Valentin yet? It is streaming on Netflix and one of my favorite movies in
any language. Look forward to reading more updates! -Amy |
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Thanks for the suggestions! I'll look for Que Pobres Tan Ricos. Right now I'm watching Aqui No Hay Quien Viva. It's
quite funny, so I think I'll keep watching it for a while.
As for movies...I honestly haven't watched very many at all. I've only watched Tambien la Lluvia (very good, also on
Netflix). But I'll definitely look for Valentin!
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