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James29’s Spanish Log | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| HermonMunster Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4443 days ago 119 posts - 211 votes  Studies: Spanish | Message 329 of 668 12 December 2013 at 5:34pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hey James,
Glad you're still having fun with the language. I totally understand the weird/coolness of people reading your log. I'm sure your posts have served as a guide for many people. I always stop in from time to time to see what you are up to and maybe incorporate some of what you're doing. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Olis89 Newbie United Kingdom Joined 4024 days ago 29 posts - 31 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Russian | Message 330 of 668 12 December 2013 at 6:14pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have read through both this Log and Hermon's, both are absolutely fantastic and are very motivational. May I also say that I can't believe I never thought of watching The Simpsons in Spanish.... until it was mentioned by James, now I know what I'm doing for a bit of light studying :)
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| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5185 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 331 of 668 13 December 2013 at 7:26pm | IP Logged | ||
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Yes, Simpsons in Spanish is pretty cool. I never really ever watched more than an episode or two in English so it is a new experience for me. I am really bonding with Homer. I love that guy. He cracks me up.
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| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5185 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 332 of 668 15 December 2013 at 2:49pm | IP Logged | ||
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I finished El Capo yesterday. I must say that it was a very worthwhile experience to watch that series. I found it much better than La Reina del Sur... maybe only because my Spanish is better now. I am now thinking that eventually I will watch El Capo 2... but not anytime soon. I was a tad bit disappointed in a couple things. Near the end there are two episodes that are in opposite order and are labeled wrong so I watched episode 86 before 85 (I am not sure of the numbers). I got the whole show, but that kind of screwed things up a bit. Also, there were a few things just left hanging in terms of some of the characters. Also, there were a few things that were simply unrealistic... like all the stuff that happens at the funeral scene and all the people that go to the funeral after breaking out of jail. Anyway, it really was awesome and I am very glad I did it.
I watched a few episodes of the Simpsons this past week. That's a great habit. I went to a meetup. I am not to energetic in the evenings so sometimes I am really dragging at my meetups. that happened this week so I just left early and went home to bed. I spoke with a socialist economist from Argentina on skype. Wow, that was an experience. It was a very civil discussion, but it blew my mind some of the things she actually believed. The discussion was quite passionate which was pretty cool as my Spanish was just flowing. Again, I noticed that Spanish was the default language for both of us because it was much easier for us to communicate in Spanish than English. Also, she was using usted with me so I tried to use usted also. I only use usted if I speak to customers at work which does not happen often. It seems strange, but I do need to practice it. The conversation was cool because it was highly specialized. I worked on my goals for 2014. I am going to do a separate post with my new goals. I have already started on 2014. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5185 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 333 of 668 15 December 2013 at 3:19pm | IP Logged | ||
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Goals for 2014:
Read any 15 books in Spanish. Watch any 100 30 minute TV episodes in Spanish. Re-read Cassell's Colloquial Spanish. Re-read Practice Makes Perfect "Subjunctive Up Close." Discussion of goals: This is going to be my "massive passive" year. I want to read a ton of books and watch a lot of conversational TV. At the same time, I am trying to make my goals realistic. I have had good luck accomplishing my goals for the past few years and I don't want to set out any goals that are unrealistic. Also, I am going to be ok modifying my goals over the next couple weeks. These are going to be the basic goals, but I may modify them slightly. Regarding the books, I thought long and hard about identifying the specific books I want to read, but I decided to simply have a generic "any 15 books" as my goal. I intend to read many series for young readers. I will try to read at least one book from each of four series: Theodore Boone (John Grisham), Harry Potter, Narnia and Lord of the Rings. I am hoping one of those series grips me and I will read all of the books in the series. I will also read Cuando Era Puertoriquena which seems to be a book for fairly young readers. I am not going to re-read the first Harry Potter or Narnia books. I would love to dive right into adult books, but my Spanish is simply not at a level where it would be "easy" and enjoyable. I want to read things that are at a level where I can pick up the meaning of words simply by the context and I do not need to look up a lot of words in the dictionary. When I look at a Grisham book for adults I can understand it, but there are simply too many words I don't know. I don't want to get into books that bog me down. I want to move through books fast. I am also going to count all books the same no matter how long they are. I have already started Ayn Rand's Anthem which is very short. In English it only took me two hours to read. I will count that as a book. On the other hand, I intend to read Rothbard's Man Economy and State which is a 1000+ page economics treatise over two volumes and I will count that as only one book. I should get Man Economy and State in the mail soon and I hope to begin on it in January. That will be my first major endeavor for 2014. I hope it does not take me longer than I think. Reading through Anthem I am seeing that I read Spanish roughly half as fast as English. I think that will speed up, however. Man Economy and State should take a long time, but I should be able to whiz through the shorter books pretty fast. Regarding the TV shows, I will likely stick to The Simpsons and Caso Cerrado. I may also watch the Free to Choose series. I have wanted to watch that for a long time. This goals should be quite simple to accomplish as I have found it very easy to watch a quick episode of the Simpsons most nights for the past few weeks. I am going to read the Cassell's book again. I loved it the first time and it is so helpful. I will read it when I am in the gym working out. It is an easy read, but is packed with useful information. If I have not finished it before the summer I will take it to the beach with me... that will likely bring back memories of reading that book on the beaches of Valencia. I brought that book with me everywhere in Valencia. The most important thing I want to remember about my goals for this year is that they are designed to be a transition. This year will really be a transition from learning Spanish to using Spanish. It will also be a transition into using Spanish productively for my work. I need to improve my vocabulary and understanding more than anything else in order to productively use Spanish in my work and this is what I am hoping to get done this year. I also really value the knowledge contained in Man Economy and State and want to soak it up again as it will be very helpful to me. Re-reading this book is something I have wanted to do for a very long time and I have felt guilty that my Spanish studies have prevented me from doing that. I WILL do it this year. So far on my goals, I have read more than half of Anthem. I cannot put the book down. It is just as good the second time as it was the first time. I have a bilingual text which is hugely helpful. There is a decent amount of vocabulary I don't know and it is so simple to just look over at the English side. I really wish there were more bilingual texts out there. I am enjoying the bilingual text so much I am thinking of getting some of those bilingual readers with short stories as some of my other 15 books this year. I ordred the first Theodore Boone book from the library and I just received a notice that it is ready for pick up. I will get it on Tuesday and by then I will almost certainly have finished Anthem. After Theodore Boone I will likely dive into Man Economy and State. I'd like to get a big dent into that before I take a break for something else. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 3954 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 334 of 668 15 December 2013 at 4:05pm | IP Logged | ||
I think I might join you on this! Last night I was thinking about "hard number" goals, and I decided that I wanted to read 12 books. But I think that 100 TV shows is a good second goal! I have hit a serious plateau this past month, and I almost feel like I'm moving backwards instead of forwards in my active Spanish. I think that a huge amount of input is exactly what I need. So…12 novels, and 100 TV episodes. Sounds very doable. For novels, I'm planning on reading the next 6 Harry Potter books (only two of which I've already read in English) and the Hunger Games trilogy. Then I think I might venture into Spanish novels written for adults. For TV, I'll probably carry on with Buffy. But I saw your link to the Simpsons in Spanish the other day. I might give that a try! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Kerrie Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Kerrie2 Joined 5205 days ago 1232 posts - 1740 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 335 of 668 15 December 2013 at 5:24pm | IP Logged | ||
This is similar to what we did for the Super Challenge that Cristina started last year. It started as 100 films and 100 books in 20 months, but kind of morphed to fit everyone's needs. The 100 books turned into 100 x 100 pages (10,000 pages). It was really amazing to me how much my listening comprehension improved with watching all that TV. And the reading helps me a lot with my vocabulary. At first it was really tedious because I was writing down lots of new vocab, but I put it in Anki and within a few months, it made a huge difference. :) I'm looking forward to reading your log. I don't know if I'll go all the way back to the beginning, but I'm going to catch up on it over the holidays when I have a few days off work. :D 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5185 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 336 of 668 22 December 2013 at 3:59pm | IP Logged | ||
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Cool, thanks for the comments, Kerrie. I think setting concrete goals is more helpful than wishy washy goals like "fluency" or things like that.
In terms of my goals, I finished Anthem/Himno this week. It is a very short book. It had quite a bit of new vocabulary for me. I have a bilingual text so it was simple to just look at the English translation to learn the word. I really value bilingual texts and reading Himno made me think about doing more in the future. I was also pleased that I could read it faster than I thought I would be able to. I have never read without an audio book going at the same time. One book down, fourteen to go. I have also gotten about 40% through the first Theodore Boone book by John Grisham. This is a real treat. It really feels like I am reading a real Grisham book. It is amazing how it just has that "feel" to it. I like it. There is at least one word I don't know on every page, but rarely more than three. I simply mark them with a pencil and look them up later when I have free time. They do not interfere with my reading/understanding. There are many words I can easily guess under the context and there are others I can guess without being sure and there are only a few that I simply don't have a clue. This book is really a great level for me. It is much more realistic than Harry Potter and other fantasy books. I have already lost track of my TV episodes. I have probably watched about 6 or 7 of the Simpsons. It is quite enjoyable. I have spoken a few more times with the socialist economist from Argentina. It is quite interesting. We actually talk about the Simpsons and I realized there are a few things I am missing in the episodes. I heard something in Castellano this week and it made me realize that I have not spoken to my Spanish partners in quite a long time. The Castellano sounded very different. Neither of my Spanish partners are able to talk anymore which is too bad. It was surprising how noticeable the Spanish accent was to me after probably only a month or two without hearing the language. Meetups are ok, but I don't really think they help me progress at all. It is often just the same thing over and over again. I am reading the Cassell's book when I exercise. This was a good move. The Red Hot Idioms book was good, but Cassell's is more appropriate for what I need right now. I love the Cassell's book because it just fits right into my pocket. It brings back memories from travelling all over Spain with the book in my back pocket. Well, onward and upward. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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