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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 513 of 668 06 September 2014 at 1:43pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have never read Harry Potter so reading it now in Spanish is the first time I am encountering the story. I never knew it did not track the English because I have not seen the English. Being very wizard-ish makes it kind of difficult to understand because they describe things that are not very realistic (I guess that's the point) so I often cannot use my logic to make educated guesses about what the Spanish means... if I had previously read in English about the animal that had the hind legs of a horse and the head of an eagle that would be easy to understand... instead I'm left a bit guessing...
I seem to agree that Harry Potter really is not the greatest thing for language learning. The vocabulary is unusual. The bigger problem for me is that I just don't really like this type of story. In other news, I just found out that I'll have to be going to Mexico for a work conference... yippee!! 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 514 of 668 07 September 2014 at 3:15pm | IP Logged | ||
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OK, time to update things for the week. It was another decent week. I never worry anymore about not having a day with Spanish. It has just become part of my life.
I'm still reading Harry Potter 3. I am about half way done now. I finished chapter 11 today. I read a short chapter summary in English before I read the Spanish chapter. I like doing this. It gives me the basic overview of the chapter so if I get lost I don't get horribly lost. My comprehension is definitely getting better now and I am not getting lost as often. There is definitely vocabulary I do not know, but it does not interfere too much with my comprehension. I'm listening to VOA news every morning. That will become a forever habit I think. I have always liked listening to the news in the morning on the way to work so I feel like it is something I WANT to do when I jump into the car. It is fairly easy to understand and sometimes I try to focus really hard on understanding and that makes more of a difference. I have noticed that if I "try" hard to understand I can improve my comprehension... unfortunately, it is too draining to stay hyper-focused for a long time. I can do the same thing with Harry Potter. I spent quite a bit of time this week with the Cassell's book. I forget exactly where I am, but I am pretty close to the end of the alphabet entries... maybe I am on about U? They have some good appendices in that book that I will re-read also. My evenings have not been too great lately in terms of Spanish. Too many things going on in my life. Work is unusually busy and so is family life. I did watch a couple episodes of Caso Cerrado. I also went to a meetup, but there were only a couple other guys there and I am ashamed to say that I did not feel like speaking Spanish so I mostly spoke in English. I had a couple short talks on Skype and another nice talk with a customer from Peru. The customer spoke English quite well so we only chit-chatted in Spanish and did the important business things in English. I've been meaning to note for a while that if anyone has any parallel texts they are willing to share of modern popular books (like Follett, Stephen King, Dan Brown, John Grisham, Hunger Games, Garcia-Marquez, Allende, Perez-Reverte, etc) I'd really appreciate it. I found reading El Intermediario with a parallel text extremely useful and I am having a hard time finding more books. Someone gave me 100 Years in Solitude and I hope to read that sometime soon. I am surprised that popular novels are not published in a parallel format. It seems like there are not any available. Reading Hermon's most recent post made me think. Now that I "speak" Spanish I have a much different perspective on things with my job. I look at the same things as my co-workers and I am able to envision opportunities that they simply cannot even imagine. I see the demographic trends toward Spanish speaking and I also see how incredibly under-served the Spanish speaking market is. I wonder if I am missing something sometimes... now that I "speak" Spanish it just seems so obvious that I need to push my business in that direction. I will definitely have some logistical issues that I'll have to focus on (I really cannot be the only Spanish speaker in the business if I am going to actively pursue Spanish speaking business)... but, over time if I have a vision in my mind I can easily fix the logistical issues. I'll also need to think about the logistics of expanding into a different city because my city has very few Spanish speakers. Even if it does not work out... it sure is fun. I am already getting very excited for my trip to Mexico. I need to remember that it is still four months away! My conference is for three days and I think I'll take a week off before the conference to "study" Spanish. I really need to think up some things to do because I am not too interested in going to a Spanish school anymore... been there, done that... and I just don't feel like going to school. Edited by James29 on 07 September 2014 at 3:19pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| BAnna Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4623 days ago 409 posts - 616 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Turkish | Message 515 of 668 07 September 2014 at 6:08pm | IP Logged | ||
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I don't know if you like short stories, but Penguin Books publishes a series of books of short stories in Spanish with parallel texts in English (and notes at the back). These books are available at many libraries and used.
Example: Penguin Parallel Spanish Short Stories 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5263 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 516 of 668 07 September 2014 at 7:18pm | IP Logged | ||
Sadly, due to copyright and market size realities, bilingual editions of recent novels are rarely available. It's not just the copyright of the original but the copyright of the translation as well that causes issues. The market simply isn't large enough for recent novel parallel texts to justify a publisher's investment. That's why most parallel texts are public domain works. Amazon has a number of parallel texts available, but, they won't be what you know and like. Herein lies the problem. If you want parallel texts of novels you like, you'll probably have to make your own, pretty much- very time consuming. Or, you could find existing ones you can tolerate. The easiest route, though probably the least palatable one, would be the latter. Sometimes, language-learning is a compromise between using what we really want to use and what we can find or make on our own. There's always a trade-off involved. Perhaps there may be a business opportunity available to create bilingual texts of popular bestsellers. I can't imagine though it would ever be a large enough market to interest the big boys in the publishing field. Edited by iguanamon on 08 September 2014 at 3:09am 2 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 517 of 668 08 September 2014 at 3:31am | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks for the suggestions. I have already read the first Penguin book and really liked it. I may read another of that series. The "Stories from Puerto Rico/Latin America/Mexico/Spain" are a good series of short stories in parallel text also.
I'm kind of more looking for a novel. I have found a bunch of short stories, classics and poems in parallel text, but very few real books. I do note that I did find and buy Ayn Rand's Anthem in parallel text ... I was very surprised to see that in parallel text. Edited by James29 on 08 September 2014 at 3:32am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Kerrie Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Kerrie2 Joined 5396 days ago 1232 posts - 1740 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 518 of 668 08 September 2014 at 3:46am | IP Logged | ||
There's always the option of getting the book in both languages and referencing the English when needed. Depending on how much help you need with a particular section, sometimes I just jot words down that I want to look up. Other times I've found it helpful to have an English copy on hand, though. I just finished reading Pillars of the Earth (Spanish version), and there were a few times where I was completely clueless and pulled the English book out. Luckily my library had the book in both languages. :) 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| rdearman Senior Member United Kingdom rdearman.orgRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5237 days ago 881 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, French, Mandarin | Message 519 of 668 08 September 2014 at 11:49am | IP Logged | ||
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I have been sticking with reading books which I've read before in English and it seems to have helped. I found a lot of Stephen King's books have been translated, and I've read them before. His writing style if very straightforward and because he is prolific you can read a lot of his books. Using the same author I found to be good because once you get used to the writing style you can read faster.
2 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 520 of 668 14 September 2014 at 2:06pm | IP Logged | ||
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Well... I have not read many novels in English. I read a lot of non-fiction... investing, business management, history, etc. type of things in English. I have read a few Grisham novels and liked the ones I read so I have been thinking those would be ok to read in Spanish too. I may also read some biographies.
So... this week was not bad. Not a lot of time to do Spanish things, but easily managed to do a bit of Spanish every day. One thing I really like about listening to the VOA news on the way in to work is that I feel like I get my Spanish in even if I have to skip my "study time" when I arrive at work. This week I had a couple "emergencies" come up when I arrived at work and did not get much Spanish in after I arrived. I have been slowly working through the third Harry Potter book. I spent four or five days on it this week. Today I read chapter 15 so I am a bit more than two thirds done with it. It is ok. After about 30 minutes I have to set it down and re-motivate myself to come back to it and finish the chapter. I am understanding it much better now than I did at the beginning of the book. I think that's just a matter of adjusting myself to the style of writing/speaking. I read a good amount of the Cassell's book and finished the letter sections. I'll read through the appendices and finish that up soon... hopefully. Definitely worth the re-read. Not much in the way of talking with natives. I don't recall doing any Skype talks this week and there were not any natives at the meetup. This is an area where I have been lacking lately... I am reading a lot and watching TV, but not talking as much as I'd like in Spanish. When I do talk, however, it does not seem like I am rusty so I don't mind. This week I have not been able to watch much TV. I've been getting home late from work and that cramps my evenings a lot. I might have watched an episode of Caso Cerrado. I am starting to miss the convenience of the Simpsons. It was so nice to sit down and watch a quick 20 minute episode. I did not seem to have a problem doing that every single night. It was jut the right amount of time. With Caso Cerrado I feel like I need to watch the second case and I just cannot seem to sit down for just the first 20 minutes... I know this is not really a problem with the show, rather, it is a personal quirk... but, it causes me the problem of not being willing to sit down for the evening and watch something. I'd really like to get into the habit of watching Caso Cerrado every night because it is interesting and I think it is perfect for what I need right now. I have been thinking about my goals for 2014. They are taking a lot longer to complete than I thought they would. I thought I'd easily be done by now. Reading the books is taking longer than I thought. Reading Man, Economy and State was probably more equivalent to 4-ish books, but I only counted it as one. Also, on my goals, when I set them I really felt that I needed to work on my subjunctive. Now, I don't feel that need anymore. The subjunctive just seemed to click all of a sudden. Now, with all the reading and TV watching I am doing the subjunctive just falls into place. I am still going to do the PMP book on the subjunctive, but it makes me realize that I really want to be careful about setting really long term goals. I'm starting to do some research on my trip to Mexico. I'll be going to Los Cabos. I'd like to find something productive to do that will require me to use my Spanish. I'm not really in the mood to go to a Spanish language school. There seems to be a lot of sport fishing there, but I'm not really into that. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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