dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5021 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish
| Message 241 of 271 17 February 2014 at 5:57pm | IP Logged |
I am going to write a log post early, as I am most likely going to be too busy for the rest of the week.
I am up to episode 58 of El Capo and on page 200 of La Sombra del Viento. I am really into this book now, and am still highlighting unknown words. Looking over them, a lot of them are "known unknowns", words that I know exist, but just haven't looked up yet and aren't quite clear from context. I imagine that these will be quite easy to remember when the time comes.
As I am enjoying reading so much, and have made good progress with listening, I am thinking of allocating a little bit more time to it each day, even if that means sacrificing a little bit of listening time. I really feel like I need to make a good, solid effort to get 4 or 5 novels under my belt in a short space of time.
I know that when I am done with La sombra del viento I will be moving on to El Juego del Angel and then El prisionero del cielo, as they are the next books in the series. I have been thinking a bit about which authors I am going to try afterwards. On page 25 of my log, both Crush and Iguanonmon listed a ton of Spanish speaking authors and books for me to try. I have been doing a bit of background reading about a lot of these authors and am excited about exploring these works in the near future. I imagine that i will begin with selecting 1 book from each author, and then eventually select 1 to concentrate on to try and reap the benefits of narrow reading.
Having said that, even reading 1 book from each of the authors would likely take me nearly all year, which is great.
Unfortunately, Spanish will have to take a bit of a backseat for the next 4 or 5 days due to heavy work commitments. While I would usually stay up late and bleary eyed to watch more El Capo, this week I am going to have to put sleep first for the sake of my sanity.
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BOLIO Senior Member United States Joined 4657 days ago 253 posts - 366 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish
| Message 242 of 271 20 February 2014 at 3:30pm | IP Logged |
Just wanted to drop in and tell you how great the Log is. I am sure it has helped you but it has helped me and many others as well.
Thanks.
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BAnna Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4621 days ago 409 posts - 616 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Turkish
| Message 243 of 271 21 February 2014 at 3:24am | IP Logged |
I second the comment about the great log. You have recommended lots of interesting things to check out, if only I
had more time...
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James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5374 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French
| Message 244 of 271 21 February 2014 at 1:10pm | IP Logged |
Yup, dbag is great... and very helpful. Wonderful log. I have benefitted greatly by some of his suggestions. I also find it funny how dbag and I have used so many of the same resources and have such similar feelings about the products, telenovelas,etc.
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dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5021 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish
| Message 245 of 271 03 March 2014 at 11:36pm | IP Logged |
Thanks for the kind words guys- they really gave me a lift during my busy period last week. I am glad people are finding my log useful. I have made something of a resolution to provide more links etc. this year.
I have also recycled several of james29's ideas which I gleaned from his useful log, which I have been reading for a long time now.
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dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5021 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish
| Message 246 of 271 04 March 2014 at 11:50pm | IP Logged |
Tonight I find myself in the situation of either being able to listen to half an hour of Spanish, or spending half an hour writing a log post. I'm going to spend it with Spanish, promise to update at a later date, and leave this motivational video instead.
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Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4143 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog
| Message 247 of 271 05 March 2014 at 12:36am | IP Logged |
I think it must be the time of year...it's hard to dedicate as much time to Spanish as I'd like! So far I've only read translated novels. I'd like to try my hand at a "real" Spanish book. Maybe I'll start with the one that you suggested to me. Anyway, I think that you made the right decision listening instead of logging! It can be so hard to keep up with everything.
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dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5021 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish
| Message 248 of 271 14 March 2014 at 11:17am | IP Logged |
The good news is that on Monday, I finally finished up La Sombra del Viento. I really should have finished it about 10 days before that, before the beginning of March, but my heavy work commitments meant that I was often just too tired to read.
I had very good comprehension of this book, and for the most part really enjoyed it, but I'm still pretty confused about a lot of things. Bear in mind as well that I had previously read 3 quarters of the book as well. The trouble is that there are frequent flash backs which involve a lot of characters, and at times I got confused about who done what.
The idea had been to move on to the next book in the series, El Juego del Angel
but La Isla de los Amores Infinitos by Daina Chaviano (as kindly recommended by Iguanonmon) was on the table in front of me, and I found myself reading that instead. I'm already only 50 pages or so from the end, and plan to finish it today.
This book is great, and Daina Chaviano is definitely an author that I am going to explore more. In fact this book has an even more complicated plot than that of La Sombra del Viento and again I am confused about several details. I have the feeling that these types of issues will sort themselves out with a few more thousand pages of reading.
From looking at peoples Super Challenge logs, it seems that people experience a real jump somewhere between 7500 and 10,000 pages. That's a lot of reading, but I'm really keen to try and get that sort of volume under my belt before the end of the year.
All this reading involves sacrificing a bit of my listening time. I can't yet work out a way to fit in 2 hours plus of listening a day and really push ahead with reading in the way that I fell I need to. Still though, listening is certainly by far my strongest ability, so it can withstand a reduced volume of study.
I haven't moved ahead with El Capo 2 for a while, although being on capitulo 58 means that it won't take me too long to finish the series when I re-start.
I have however found a lot of other interesting content in the last few days whhich I will attempt to post over the weekend.
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