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Stelle Speaks Spanish and Tagalog | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4146 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes  Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 265 of 384 08 June 2014 at 5:52pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Super Challenge Update
I'm currently at number 50 in the Super Challenge! I know this because I'm lame and counted how many people are ahead of me. So far, I've logged 4 movies and 8 books. I've logged something every Saturday for the last 3 weeks, but I don't see a "streak" next to my name. Honestly, I don't particularly care, so I'm not going try to figure out why. This week… reading: I'm about halfway through the third Percy Jackson book. It's all action and very little else, so it's pretty easy to read. I'm still enjoying the series, but I'm looking forward to finishing up and moving on to something else. Of course, that probably won't happen until August at the earliest! I don't log novels until I'm finished, so the only pages that I logged this week and last were articles that I've read online and the Democracy Now transcripts. I'd really like to get my hands on some Spanish-language magazines - something along the lines of National Geographic. I think I'm going to do some googling this week and see if I can subscribe to any Spanish-language magazines in Canada. watching: Surprisingly, I'm finding that it's harder to watch than it is to read! I think it's because my husband and I are in the depths of an 8-season Supernatural marathon on Netflix. We watch 2 episodes most days - which doesn't leave me with much time or interest in watching more TV. I think we'll be done in a week or two. Unfortunately, seasons 2 of Orange is the New Black and Homeland are both queued up and waiting… This week, I did watch one episode of Fragiles - which is so far the best show that I've watched on Drama Fever. I also watched an episode of the Simpsons. I'm almost at the end of season 2, and my attention is starting to wander, but the episodes are nice and short, so they're easier to fit into the day. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Warp3 Senior Member United States forum_posts.asp?TID= Joined 5537 days ago 1419 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Korean, Japanese | Message 266 of 384 08 June 2014 at 9:52pm | IP Logged | |||||
I've seen a few people talking about this series (and noting that it seems easier to read in Spanish than the Harry Potter series thus making for a better starter series), so I'm somewhat tempted to try diving into these books myself (since I was already considering trying Harry Potter in Spanish, but haven't yet). Of course, then again, it's yet another piece of translated media and I think part of my lack of a solid "hook" in Spanish so far is that everything I'm consuming is non-native material (and thus could just as easily be consumed in English).
I've received 4 issues of "People en español" so far, but I've not actually taken the time to read any of the articles yet. I recently moved them to the bathroom hoping that will increase the chances that I pick one up and start reading it (rather than having to make separate time for reading them) based on something from one of the AJATT articles, so we'll see if that helps. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4146 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 267 of 384 11 June 2014 at 6:44pm | IP Logged | |||||
I think that Percy Jackson is definitely easier to read than Harry Potter. It's also a bit less layered, of course. While HP grew up with its audience, PJ was *definitely* written for kids, from start to finish. I really want to get a subscription to GEO or to Muy Interesante - but both are prohibitively expensive in Canada, at least from what I've managed to find online. I'm not at all interested in People in any language! Ha! But I think that your bathroom plan is a good one. ;) Good luck! 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Warp3 Senior Member United States forum_posts.asp?TID= Joined 5537 days ago 1419 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Korean, Japanese | Message 268 of 384 12 June 2014 at 2:11am | IP Logged | |||||
That sounds like a good reason to try it then. I was already considering starting with HP anyway (but hadn't bought any of the books yet), so I might as well change targets and try this series first. Thanks for the info.
Sadly, I'm starting to suspect I'm the same way. I don't have any desire to read People magazine in English, but then again I don't follow any US celebrities but follow tons of Korean celebrities (and a couple Spanish ones) on Twitter, so I was hoping a foreign language entertainment news magazine might also end up being more appealing than the US equivalent. I've flipped through the magazines several times, but nothing ever really catches my attention. Like you, I could see something more educational catching my attention more easily. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4146 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 269 of 384 14 June 2014 at 4:20pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Super Challenge Update
Not much new to report this week! reading: I still haven't finished the third Percy Jackson book. I should be finished and able to log it next week. I'm still reading/listening to Democracy Now every weekday. I tried listening to one without the text, and I was able to understand almost all of it, so I was happy about that! But I really enjoy reading and listening at the same time, so I don't plan on changing my approach to DN anytime soon. watching: one episode of The Simpsons and one episode of Fragiles. I got completely lost during one conversation in Fragiles. I thought about watching it again with the subtitles, but then decided that that one conversation wouldn't hurt my overall understanding and just carried on with the show instead. I have two episodes left, and then I'll move on to something else - although I'm thinking that I might watch Fragiles a second time a few months from now. speaking: nothing this week! I had to cancel my tutoring session and didn't have time to reschedule it. I won't be working in July, so I'm going to aim for a minimum of two hours of speaking per week. and one more thing… As I mentioned in my Tagalog log, I'm getting a bit frustrated with HTLAL. It's very slow for me, and often times out. I love both of my logs here, but I'm a bit nervous that one day this site will close down permanently, and I'll lose everything. I've been considering the possibility of moving my logs to another forum, although I really don't like the idea. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4146 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 270 of 384 14 June 2014 at 7:25pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I took an online placement test last fall, and my results were B2.1 (ie. a course for sitting the B2 test would have
been the appropriate level for me). I've just taken the test again, and my results were C1.2, which means that - with some effort - I might be able to prepare for a C1 test. The reading and listening questions were different this time, probably because last time they gave me B-level text/audio based on my results on the writing section. Not that I *want* to take a test, since I have no reason for needing a formal level, but it was nice to see some improvement! I was worried that I might be at the same level now as I was last year. The listening part of the test was *very* hard for me. The audio wasn't great, and it was hard to concentrate on the speakers. If you're interested in trying out the test, you can find it here: Cervantes test 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4146 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 271 of 384 22 June 2014 at 9:55pm | IP Logged | |||||
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weekly Spanish update
speaking: My Skype session this week flowed so well. The hour flew by, and I was able to use some more complex sentence structures. We had a fun 10-minute conversation using the structure "quién hubiera imaginado que…" (who would have imagined that…) reading: I didn't read much of my novel this week. I absolutely thought that I would have been finished by this weekend, but instead I left it unopened most nights. I did read a total of 48 pages from a variety of online sources: Democracy Now, Amnesty International, BBC Mundo. My passive vocabulary is such that I can read an article without having to look up very many words. But my active vocabulary has stalled a bit. I think that I'm going to choose at least one article per week to read intensively, adding all unknown words to anki. watching: Since I started learning Spanish, I've been focusing on TV series. I find it easier and more motivating to follow a TV series. But this week I watched my first Spanish movie in the past year: Tambien la Lluvia. It was a very good film! Highly recommended! Unfortunately I watched it on Netflix Canada, and there was no option for turning off English subtitles. I'm compulsive about reading subtitles, so I couldn't help but read them. I'm a fast reader, so I was also able to listen to all of the Spanish - which, of course, I understood perfectly, seeing as how I'd just read the English translation. It would have been better to just watch the movie and see how well I understood. I honestly think that it would have been very challenging. grammar: I mentioned a few weeks ago that I tried to do FSI after my trip and my brain went into full revolt. But I tried again this weekend, and found myself enjoying it again. I did unit 46, which I'd already done before going to Spain. I think that I'm going to try to add FSI back into my daily walks, just for 20 minutes or so per day. I may very well finish FSI after all! I also finished the Duolingo Spanish skill tree. I stopped using it after Christmas, because I just wasn't finding it useful anymore. But I only had 3 skills left to learn, and I decided that I wanted to complete the whole thing. I stand by my earlier conclusion: Duolingo is useful, but only the first 3/4. After that, they push so quickly through complex concepts that it isn't much use at all. But still, I'm happy to be done! Edited by Stelle on 22 June 2014 at 9:57pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4146 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 272 of 384 28 June 2014 at 2:47pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Weekly Update
This has been a very good week for Spanish. I don't know if it's because Tagalog has seemed like a lot of work this week, but I seem to be turning to Spanish every time I have a spare minute. I've added extra listening and extra reading to my day, which I hope will pay off. I'm considering sitting a C1 Spanish test next Spring, just to see if I can do it. It's not important for my work; it's just that I'd like to be able to put a name to my level, for interest's sake. reading I finally finished the third Percy Jackson book, and have started on the fourth. I've ordered the fifth book from Amazon, but it ships in 3-5 weeks, so I suspect that I won't have it in time. I'll probably read the third Harry Potter book if that happens. I'm still reading news reports (Democracy Now en espanol and Amnestia Internacional) with full transcripts every day. One day I tried to read the report without the podcast and I found it painfully dull, so I think I'll just keep doing what I'm doing. I've added intensive reading back into my Spanish schedule. I want to work on expanding my vocabulary, and this seemed the best way to do it. I also wanted to expand my reading horizons after reading Iguanamon's dizzying and inspirational list of reading materials in about 40 different languages. ;) This week I printed out 3 interesting articles and read each of them twice. During the first read, I highlighted any unknown words, looked them up and added the interesting ones to anki. I also added several words that I understood when reading, but that weren't part of my active vocabulary. The second read was just for general fluency. I'm hoping that this will give a boost to my vocabulary while also exposing me to more interesting ideas and materials. I chose my articles from BBCMundo: Chileans cheated with World Cup package askin g permission to kiss corruptio n in education Intensive reading of an article doesn't take me very long and the articles were interesting, so I'll definitely carry on with this over the next few weeks. Listening I watched Un Cuento Polar (An Arctic Tale), a family nature documentary. It wasn't a challenge at all to understand. The narrator spoke slowly and clearly, and the vocabulary was very simple. It was almost too easy! But the cinematography was beautiful, and I like nature documentaries, so I enjoyed it. That said, I really should know better than to watch movies with polar bears in them. Those creatures break my heart every. single. time. I'm not ashamed to say that I cried three times during the movie. OK, maybe I'm a little bit ashamed. I've also started listening to Buenos Dias America (thanks to James29 for the suggestion!). Each show is about a half an hour, and I like that it covers news from across Latin America. After deciding - again - that I wasn't quite ready to jump back into FSI Spanish, I was looking for something useful and interesting to listen to while walking. BDA fits the bill perfectly! I understand almost everything, although I do have to concentrate. If my attention wanders for even a few seconds, it takes me a little while to find the trail again. Buenos Dias America I'm not counting BDA for the Super Challenge, since I want to watch 9000 minutes of audio with corresponding video. The Super Challenge would be much too easy if I could do the whole thing while walking the dog - especially if I'm listening to news reporters who enunciate clearly with neutral accents. It's supposed to be a challenge after all! Committing to regular TV watching has been surprisingly difficult for me, and it's something that I want to focus on this year so that I can train my ear to follow rapid-fire conversations. I'm still looking to expand my listening, perhaps by finding some general interest podcasts that aren't strictly news reports. speaking As always, my Sunday morning Skype chat with Auri was a highlight of my weekend. I mentioned a few weeks back that I wanted to challenge myself more during my Skype sessions, but the truth is that I'm very happy with our "chat over a cup of coffee" approach, and I'd hate to change that. Instead, I've decided to try adding a second weekly Spanish session starting next week. I've worked with several italki tutors in the past, and all of them have been lovely. However, we all have the same pattern: talk about life in general. I've found that it's very difficult to change a way of communicating when you already have a pattern in place, so instead I've found someone new, who - based on her profile - seems to have an academic background (history, literature) and an interest in current affairs. I'll talk to her for the first time on Monday, and if we click, I'll suggest that we both read the same article every week and then discuss it over Skype. I think that that will give me the push that I need right now. grammar I finished FSI Basic unit 47 this week. Overall, it went very well - although there's one 15-minute section that I'll probably have to repeat a few times. I'm not sure if I'll carry on with unit 48 next week. I will finish all of FSI Basic someday, but it's just not resonating properly with me right now. I finally found my Practice Makes Perfect Spanish Verb Tenses book, buried under a mountain of work stuff in the trunk of my car. I only have about 30 pages left - future perfect, conditional perfect, present perfect subjunctive, pluperfect subjunctive, passive voice - so I think that I'm going to make a push to finish the book by the end of July. Thanks to my extensive reading, none of the verb tenses are completely new to me. But I'm not yet confidently using them during conversations, so I think that a bit of focused study will help. Super Challenge Update So far I've logged 8 90-minute "films" and 16 50-page "books" since the beginning of May. Next week, I'd like to log at least 180 minutes of watching. Edited because links drive me crazy on this forum. Is there something that I don't know about linking to outside sources? Why are my links always broken? And why does it keep adding line breaks in the clickable descriptions? Argh! Edited by Stelle on 28 June 2014 at 3:00pm 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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