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James29’s Spanish Log | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5376 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 321 of 668 29 November 2013 at 3:22pm | IP Logged |
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El Capo is starting to pull together. I watched episode 73 today. I am not much of a TV watcher, but this is a decent show. I'd recommend it as a good Spanish learning tool. The plot is very straightforward, but it is extremely suspenseful and easy to follow. They use the voseo so that is a bit odd, but not at all hard to understand after an episode or two.
I must say that I am a bit disappointed in the fact that Julieta has not been in the past few episodes. She was kidnapped by her father's people and sent to a safe place. She always makes the episodes a bit more "enjoyable" to watch. I also finished season one of The Simpsons. This is a pleasant surprise. It is easy to bang out a 20 minute episode. It is a million times easier for me to fit in an episode of The Simpsons than it is to watch El Capo. I like the Simpsons too. It is not hard to understand and the stories are quite worthwhile. I have never really watched the show in English so I did not know how much I have in common with Homer. I am really starting to bond with him. I am amazed that I whizzed through the first season so fast. I watched an episode of Caso Cerrado. I need to watch that more often. I forgot how entertaining it is. I did a bit in the Red Hot Book of Idioms... it is going to take a long time to get through that. I timed myself for a few pages and figured that it may take 70+ hours at my pace to get through the entire book. It is great and I am working in the idioms into my speaking. I will use the book whenever I am just sitting around... like waiting for my wife in the car or waiting for a meeting out of the office at work. This next summer I will probably use it as my beach book if I have not yet finished it by then. Meetups are getting better. For some reason more new natives are showing up. There seems to be a new native every time. This week I spoke quite a bit with a Colombian woman. I had a major accomplishment this week in the gym. I worked out with a friend at his gym and there were two guys speaking Spanish. Later I walked up to one of them and spoke with him in Spanish. I feel stupid just going up to someone out of the blue and speaking to them, but we had a great talk and he was very appreciative. He was from Ecuador and we talked for quite a while about my trip. It was very easy to understand him. His friend did not seem interested in talking and he explained to me that his friend was quite shy. Initially I did not understand what he was saying because I did not know the word he used for shy. I still don't know what he said. Anyway, he was a small business owner in town and we exchanged cards. I did some skype text chats. I really don't know how much I get out of these anymore. Frankly, I don't know how much I get out of regular talks anymore. It is so easy and not challenging to just chat away with my skype partners I don't really think I am learning anything. It does make me more comfortable with just chatting in Spanish. That's cool. Plus, using skype has really given me so much respect for how big the world is and how different other cultures are. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5376 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 322 of 668 08 December 2013 at 1:35pm | IP Logged |
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El Capo is coming together. It is a well done show. I watched episode 82 today (of 90). There are a couple things that are a bit unrealistic, but it does not really bother me. I have noticed that when I have a hard time understanding a conversation (not too often) I usually figure out what happened later in a subsequent part of the show.
I feel great that my Spanish is at a level where I can simply watch the show and actually enjoy it. It is fun to just sit down and see what happens in the story. It is not "work" at all to watch. I have decided to read the series of children's novels by John Grisham called Theodore Boone, Kid Lawyer. I ordered the first one in Spanish from my library and will read it when I receive it. I really want to read children's novels, but I just don't get too excited about Harry Potter, Narnia or Lord of the Rings. I have read a few of Grisham's novels and really like them so I am hoping his children's series will work for me. The only negative is that there is not an audio book. Eventually I will read his adult novels that have audio books. I also ordered the Spanish translation of Man Economy and State by Murray Rothbard. I have wanted to re-read the book in English for several years now and I feel very guilty that I have not. My Spanish hobby really took away from my study of economics. I am determined to read the book next year. It is a thick book (over 1000 pages), but I read parts of it online and should be able to read it pretty easily. I don't know how long it will take. In English I believe it took me about 40 hours (more or less). I don't believe I have read any books in Spanish without audio so I don't know how slow of a reader I am. I will try to get a handle on my reading speed when I read Theodore Boone. Work was a bit crazy this week, but I was able to watch El Capo every day but one. I also watched a few episodes of Los Simpson. Los Simpson are going to become a great evening habit. It is so easy to just watch a quick 20 minute episode. My weekly meetup was good. It was smaller this week. I prefer it that way because the conversations seem better. I have been thinking very hard about my 2014 goals. I am almost ready to officially decide what I am going to do. I really feel like I need to do things that are going to be beneficial to my business instead of spend so much time on Spanish. My hope is that I can kill two birds with one stone and simply use my Spanish to read things that will be helpful. That being said, my goals are going to be somewhat vague because I don't want to set myself up to fail and I need to be sure to give myself some flexibility. I did not do much else this week. Edited by James29 on 08 December 2013 at 1:38pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| AmyinBrooklyn Senior Member United States Joined 4052 days ago 87 posts - 122 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 323 of 668 12 December 2013 at 5:12am | IP Logged |
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Hi James -
I have really enjoyed your log. It is such an inspiration for me (I actually just started my own last week.) I wondered if you'd ever tried to read any books by Arturo Perez Reverte - he is a fantastic Spanish writer. I actually was a fan well before I embarked on this language journey. I've been giving on of his books a go (even though they are much too advanced for me), but it seems like you would definitely be able to handle them! Thanks! Amy 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5784 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German | Message 324 of 668 12 December 2013 at 12:58pm | IP Logged |
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@ AmyinBrooklyn:
Have you considered reading this author using L-R? There is plenty of information on that method in this forum (including this log), but the main advantage for you would be that it would enable you to read books in Spanish that are far above your current level (rather than waiting a year or two to reach a level that would enable you to just read them). There are good English translations available cheaply and there used to be audiobooks of the Spanish "floating about online". 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| AmyinBrooklyn Senior Member United States Joined 4052 days ago 87 posts - 122 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 325 of 668 12 December 2013 at 3:50pm | IP Logged |
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@Diglot
Yes. I've been giving it a go using the English translation + audio. It's just slow going. I can't really manage the hours upon hours that some suggest. Initially, I was trying to understand every grammatical concept - doing it that was took me two hours to get through two sentences. But last night, I worked for an hour and half, listening and reading to both the English and the Spanish and I was able to get through about five pages and added about 20 words to my Anki flashcards. I really wanted to read something that was written initially in Spanish and not translated from English to Spanish. The story is suspenseful so I'm hoping that it keeps me going. Thanks! Amy 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5376 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 326 of 668 12 December 2013 at 4:38pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks for the comments. I always think it is funny that people actually read my log.
I have read La Reina del Sur in English and also watched the Telenovela. It is a great story. I went on a mission to find the audio book in Spanish and after much toil and trouble it turned out to be a computer generated voice that I could not listen to. I do not believe there is a real audio book of the story. There are a couple of his books in audio on ivoox.com and maybe someday I will listen to them. I am planning to read a whole bunch of books next year. I am going to stick to easier to read books becasue I hate looking up vocabulary in the dictionary. I don't really like fantasy books, but I will probably read a few because I really prefer to listen to audio a I am reading. This morning when I was watching El Capo I found myself saying to myself how cool it is that I really understand Spanish quite well. The website had two episodes flip flopped so I watched them out of order. I could understand what was happening so well that I figured it out by some nuances. Listening has been one of my weak spots for a while and it is really cool to see it start to improve. I'll check out your log, Amy. The study of Spanish is really cool and I am having a blast. I hope you like it just as much. Randomreview, are you ever going to do a log? I must say that you have given the most helpful suggestions over the years. I will be eternally grateful for the suggestion to get the Cassell's book. I am likely going to start it again in the New Year. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| AmyinBrooklyn Senior Member United States Joined 4052 days ago 87 posts - 122 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 327 of 668 12 December 2013 at 5:03pm | IP Logged |
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@James29
I love your log! Seriously! I've read so much of it. It is so inspiring! I wanted to watch the telenova of Reina del Sur, but I couldn't find it with closed captioning. I found the computer generated audio too - YUCK! But after much searching, I found this for the audio of Part 1: http://onlicha.blogspot.com/2012/11/la-reina-del-sur-libro-a udiolibro-parte.html Since I have you, can I ask which Cassell's book you have? I tried to find it but wasn't sure. :) Thanks! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5376 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 328 of 668 12 December 2013 at 5:34pm | IP Logged |
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The Cassell's book is like Breaking out of Beginner's Spanish on steroids. It is like reading a really interesting/fun dictionary. That sounds strange, but you will understand if you see it. Click here to see it on Amazon. I usually have one book like this going casually... just to fill in gaps in my day.
The log is cool because it keeps me honest to myself. I cannot even remember the last day I did not do something in Spanish. The few times I miss a day I feel very guilty because I know I will have to log it in on my log. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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