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Spanish Log (TAC 2014 Team Lobo) | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5021 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 177 of 271 22 February 2013 at 12:59am | IP Logged | ||
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A very quick update as I am tired, hopefully to be followed by a much more thorough one once I am rested.
A lot has happened since the last update: . The language exchange is no more. More on that later. . I have enrolled on a TEFL course and completed a weekends worth of training in london, as well as several hours worth of Online modules. I don't think it will help me get a job (?) but it will give me an idea of how to give lessons, which may help when I go back to Spain. .Still working through transcriptions of espanol podcastas an exercise in extensive reading. Perhaps getting a bit bored with these and considering flicking over to vientemundos instead. .Listened to several episodes of Spanishpod upper-intermediate in the car. These are pretty easy now, I just need to put the advanced episodes onto my MP3 player. There are hundreds of episodes for each level! . Began watching "La Reina del Sur" and I like it. I think it has the addictive quality I have been after, although I do find the rate of speech a little challenging. Very different from watching a documentary, where I usually have a very high rate of comprehension. I am up to episode 5. .Read several articles on pylamasurf which I really like. .Found my copy of Como y donde pesca lucioperca en Espana and read a lot of it. .Several other minor things I have forgotten. Looking at the above that seems like a lot, but I don't feel like I'm working hard enough. I am going to concentrate on getting a lot of input for the next few weeks while I'm busy with work, TEFL etc, then try and give the active skills another big push. I am struggling to keep up with everything at the moment and seem to be tired all the time, but I worry that if I don't work harder I will remain a perpetual B1. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5374 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 178 of 271 24 February 2013 at 12:17am | IP Logged | ||
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La Reina del Sur is great. The book is a good read too. I read through the English text before watching the telenovela. It really helped understanding who was who. You may want to try that. The telenovela follows the book pretty well, but has a lot of additional twists and turns. I only have four episodes left and it is amazing how they are bringing everything together.
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| dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5021 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 179 of 271 04 March 2013 at 12:50am | IP Logged | ||
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Yep, La Reina del sur is fantastic. I will probably read the book in both languages at some point. I notice that the author has written several other thrillers, so they must be worth checking out at some point.
This week I have watched several episodes of filosofia aqui y ahora. This series is great! It comes from Argentina, and uses very clear language. In fact, Philosophy was a very big interest of mine about 10 years ago, and a subject I studied at college. I'm glad I found this series as I was concerned that I was forgetting some of the key ideas of the key philosophers. The first 2 series concentrate on the ideas of these thinkers (i.e Descartes, Kant, Sartre etc). I am looking forward to the third series as it deals with Argentine thought, something I am really keen to learn about, while the fourth and fifth series seem equally interesting as they deal with Latin American thought and Human rights respectively. I also watched at least a couple of episodes of buscamundos, one about Cambodia and one about Vietnam. I have really, really high comprehension of this series, and it is genuinely very interesting. We don't have many travel shows quite as good in the UK. I also watched a great hour long travel program about Panama and Colombia, although I cant find the link. I watched the subtitled version of "The Motorcycle diaries" last night and that was great, although there is no way I would understand much without the subtitles. Actual movies seem to be the final frontier in terms of comprehension. I have listen - read the first third of the parallel text version of the Da Vinci code. I am not too sure whether I like the method or not, I am thinking that perhaps it is to slow. It seems useful, but kind of inefficient. I really don't know. I will finish the book then decide whether the method is something I want to invest much time in or not. I am however looking forward to reading several of those parallel text novels. Listened to several episodes of spod upper intermediate as well. They ae at the level where my comprehension just snowballs the more I listen, and there is a lot of useful info about vocab, grammer, idioms etc. I have a lot of commitments coming up in the next week or two. I am applying for several decent jobs, and of course I have the damn TEFL course to finish, so I am quite happy working my way through native materials for a while, and putting the active study on the backburner. By the end of the year I really want to be reading novels and watching films for pleasure. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5021 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 180 of 271 07 March 2013 at 11:54pm | IP Logged | ||
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For my own notes: hundreds of videos about fishing in Argentina/Chile here: http://www.youtube.com/user/ZonaSafariTV
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| dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5021 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 181 of 271 11 March 2013 at 11:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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As foreseen, it was a relatively quite week. I am really pleased though as I seem to have quite a high comprehension of videos at the moment. I have watched a lot of videos about politics, philosophy etc. and at times I would say I have a 90% - 99% comprehension rate.
And when you think about it, I haven't really been exposed to that much native material in the last month or so. Probably 2 hours a day as an absolute maximum, and often a lot less. I often wonder what would happen if I spent a month doing a kind of AJATT experiment. I think it would drive me crazy though. So for the moment I will be continuing along in my rather lazy fashion, just getting a lot of listening in, and reading as much as possible. I have too much to be doing right now to push hard with other areas, but I anticipate that that will pick up again in a month or so. But for now, simple exposure seems to be really worthwhile. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| VivianJ5 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4261 days ago 81 posts - 133 votes Speaks: English*, French | Message 182 of 271 27 March 2013 at 12:37pm | IP Logged | ||
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I've just read through all your posts about learning Spanish, which I am in the process of starting, and I have to say,
your learning journey is incredibly inspiring! I hope you continue to post, even if it's at longer intervals. I've learned so much that is useful for my own language studies, and I'd love to see your continuing improvement. Thanks! 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5021 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 183 of 271 30 March 2013 at 12:20am | IP Logged | ||
Hey Vivian, thanks so much for dropping by! I am always amazed that some people actually read what I write here, as it is often just stream of consciousness writing. Thanks so much! Having just read through my last few pages, it does indeed seem that I post at much longer intervals than before. I suppose this is natural when going through the long, intermediate plateau, as less progress seems to be made from week to week. However, I will probably be posting in this log indefinitely, as learning Spanish is a genuine obsession of mine! I really want to get up to a C1, and maybe even C2 level, and that is going to take time! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5021 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 184 of 271 08 April 2013 at 12:33am | IP Logged | ||
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I am feeling really pleased with the level of my Spanish right now.My listening comprehension has just exploded in the last few weeks, and my reading ability isn't too bad either. Only 6 weeks or so ago I wrote that I was worried that I would remain a perpetual B1 if I didn't start working harder. Well, now I feel that B2 is definitely within reach. Somehow, I seem to have turned a big corner and everything is a lot easier. I feel like the hard work is behind me (at least in respect to passive skills).
As usual I have left my log update until too late and now I'm too tired to write probably, so I'll aim to update properly in the week some time. Night Edited by dbag on 08 April 2013 at 12:34am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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