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James29’s Spanish Log | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| BAnna Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4432 days ago 409 posts - 616 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Turkish | Message 369 of 668 09 February 2014 at 6:02pm | IP Logged |
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Your posts about the Narnian books made me curious. It's been years since I've read them, but found an excerpt in English:
"At first Shasta could see nothing in the valley below him but a sea of mist with a few domes and pinnacles rising from it; but as the light increased and the mist cleared away he saw more and more. A broad river divided itself into two streams and on the island between them stood the city of Tashbaan, one of the wonders of the world. Round the very edge of the island, so that the water lapped against the stone, ran high walls strengthened with so many towers that he soon gave up trying to count them. Inside the walls the island rose in a hill and every bit of that hill, up to the Tisroc's palace and the great temple of Tash at the top, was completely covered with buildings - terrace above terrace, street above street, zigzag roads or huge flights of steps bordered with orange trees and lemon trees, roofgardens, balconies, deep archways, pillared colonnades, spires, battlements, minarets, pinnacles. And when at last the sun rose out of the sea and the great silver-plated dome of the temple flashed back its light, he was almost dazzled." This is not simple text and would certainly not be in Spanish either, although these books are considered to be for children. I think it is often a myth that children's books are much easier to read than adult books. That's true if the language is actually simplified, but clearly that isn't true for the Narnia books. A lot of children's books are designed to be read by adults to children, after all. If you decide to put the book aside for a while and come back later, that's ok. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Crush Tetraglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5675 days ago 1622 posts - 2299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto Studies: Basque | Message 370 of 668 09 February 2014 at 7:52pm | IP Logged |
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Also, i'm pretty sure most of those websites were written by professional translators or native Spanish speakers working for the company. You wouldn't necessarily need to write perfect Spanish, you could pay someone to translate or proofread what you've written or just write in simple, clear, understandable Spanish, that perhaps has a mistake or two but is clear in what it says.
And as others have said, there's no use struggling through a book you can't enjoy. A few years back i remember listening to the Eragon audiobooks in Spanish, it's probably much simpler and i found it entertaining, at least. I'm not sure what your tastes are, though. 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 371 of 668 10 February 2014 at 2:24am | IP Logged |
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Strange. I wrote a post earlier today and it did not show up. Anyway, that is a typical quote from the book, BAnna. I can understand the basics, but there is enough tricky stuff in it that I cannot keep following it after a few paragraphs like that. I am now thinking maybe I'll just move on and come back to Narnia some other time. I actually miss reading Man, Economy and State so maybe I'll just go back to that.
The truth is that I never really liked fiction. The only fiction authors I have enjoyed consistently are John Grisham and Ayn Rand. Maybe I'll just read the two other Grisham books for kids and then just dive into his regular books. I don't really have the desire to read any Rand now. Eventually I'll read the Fountainhead, but I have never read it in English so I would like to be much more advanced in Spanish before I try to tackle it. I bought another Harry Potter book and maybe I will try those. I did not really like the first Harry Potter... I am just not really into that stuff. People say they get better so we will see. Plus, my son is probably going to start reading those soon so I'd like to know the story. No need to worry about me quitting or getting too discouraged... I still absolutely love Spanish and it is my way to take a cheap vacation every day... I just study Spanish and I feel like I am in my own world and have no stress or worries. It is great. On the website... yes, I have thought about hiring a translator or simply paying my website company to make a site in Spanish for me. I just feel like I should be more advanced than I am and when I read things I say to myself "I'd never be able to write that well." The more advanced I get the more and more I see how much more I need to learn and practice. One thing happened today that was kind of cool. I did a random voice chat with someone on sharedtalk. There was a terrible echo. I'd talk and then a couple sentences later I would hear it on the other end. I'd say a full sentence or even two and I could then hear myself very clearly in the echo before the other person responded. It was neat to hear myself. I don't recall ever recording myself. I actually think I sound pretty good. I did notice that I use a lot of "filler words" that I don't really notice I am saying... like... "uh", "bueno", "si, si,", "pues..." etc. It's not a problem, but it was very noticeable to me and I think I do it subconsciously to buy myself time to think. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Crush Tetraglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5675 days ago 1622 posts - 2299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto Studies: Basque | Message 372 of 668 10 February 2014 at 7:29am | IP Logged |
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I've had that happen before on SharedTalk, too. It makes it really hard to talk!
En cuanto a eso de sentir que cuanto más aprendes más te queda por aprender, yo también lo siento. Leo algo y como tú me digo que yo nunca hubiera podido escribir eso. Lo entiendo perfectamente, pero no me puedo expresar así. Y la verdad es que es frustrante. Quisiera mejorar tanto, poder decir que hablo perfectamente el castellano, pero no puedo y tampoco sé cómo llegar ahí. Hablo y noto que mi lengua todavía se tropieza, que todavía es un poco torpe y que algunos sonidos, sobretodo combinaciones de la 'r', la 'l' y la 'd', me son muy difíciles. Yo nunca pensé que algún día estudiaría el castellano, de pequeñx todxs lo estudiaban porque decían que era más fácil que el francés o el alemán. Y como que la mayoría de mis compañerxs de clase lo estudiaban, yo elegí primero el latín y después el alemán. Ahora creo que es una de las lenguas más preciosas del mundo, que se puede expresar de una manera preciosa en castellano, y sinceramente envidio un montón a todxs lxs que tienen ese don. Creo que casi todos los idiomas tienen sus respectivos alicientes, y para mí, aparte de la gente a la que he conocido a través de él, lo que más me enamoró del castellano fue su literatura, la lengua escrita. ¡Cómo quisiera servirme del rico vocabulario (¡léxico!) del castellano para escribir novelas, poesías, canciones, lo que sea! Bueno supongo que no te hacía falta saber todo eso, pero creo que conozco muy bien ese sentimiento de descubrir el otro lado del iceberg. Sólo puedo decir "¡Ánimo!" y que sigas disfrutando del viaje, que será largo pero como bien dices, es un viaje hermoso, ¡disfrútalo! 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 373 of 668 16 February 2014 at 3:24pm | IP Logged |
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Yes, it is like a journey without an end. I do love the journey to learn Spanish. I have learned that I cannot plan things out too far in advance becasue it is really difficult to anticipate where I will be in terms of my Spanish level in 6 months or a year. I'm just going to keep going with it.
I must say that I am happy with my progress. I now watch the Simpsons for pure enjoyment and the language does not really cause any problems at all. In the past I could not watch, listen or read Spanish in the afternoon or evening because my brain had to work too hard. Now I really enjoy it. I am also enjoying reading. Anyway, thanks for the encouragement. Goals for 2014: Read any 15 books in Spanish. -> 3 done (Anthem, Joven Abogado #1 and Narnia #1) Watch any 100 30 minute TV episodes in Spanish -> more than 51 done Re-read Cassell's Colloquial Spanish -> finished the "C" section. Re-read Practice Makes Perfect "Subjunctive Up Close." -> No progress yet. Discussion: Things with work, weather and family have been taking a ton of time and effort, but I made some good progress with Spanish this week. I am back to reading Man, Economy and State. This is something I would likely be doing in English if I was not studying Spanish so I feel like it is well worth it. I can move through the book pretty fast. Depending on how many diagrams there are in the chapter, I can read a page in 2-3 minutes. Without any diagrams I am safe in assuming I can read a page in 3 minutes. I am about 3/4 of the way through the first half. I watched a bunch of episodes of the Simpsons. This morning I watched the last episode in the fourth season. I love having a series with 20 minute episodes because it makes it so much easier to sit down and watch one. I could not watch as often with El Capo because it was so much harder to find 40 minutes. Eventually I'd like to finish the entire series of the Simpsons. We will see. I am now more than half way to my goal for the year of 100 30 minute episodes. It is hard to believe and I need to make sure I count correctly... I double checked and I think my count is correct. I did start before January so the number is a bit inflated. Also, however, I did not count the episodes I did before I set my goals. In all, I have now watched 79 episodes of the Simpsons in Spanish. I finished the "C" section in the Cassell's book. I am only working out once or twice a week now so this is slow moving. I'll keep with it. It is enjoyable and I am glad to be going through it a second time. I had a long drive for work and listened to Assimil's Using Spanish dialogues for about 45 minutes. The CD player in my car stinks so I shut it off. I had no problem understanding it at all. I like Assimil and wish there was another advanced course. Maybe someday I will whiz through that course again. I have been doing some skype talks. Nothing new here. I have a few partners that I work with, but I kind of miss my old partners. It just is not the same. I had a great experience going to the local Mexican restaurant next to my office. I spoke with my waitress a few times in Spanish. She never really responded to me. Then, near the end she asked me if I really speak Spanish and we had a very long talk in Spanish. It was slow in the restaurant and we chatted for quite a while. It was a very cool talk because I really felt like I was speaking and understanding almost perfectly. I am sure I made mistakes, but she was very obviously surprised at my Spanish level. I note that she was Colombian and I think that accent is easiest to understand. Meetups are fairly non-eventful now. I am basically just doing them as a social event now. I like the group of regulars that go. I really need to take a vacation sometime soon. I'd like to combine it with a trip somehow. It will be short notice if I go somewhere which causes a problem with prices. My problem is that my schedule and committments are much less flexible now. anyway, I am doing some searching and hope to figure something out. I won't be able to take vacation in the summer so I need to go fairly soon. I will probably only be able to take a week so it will need to be some place fairly close. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Crush Tetraglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5675 days ago 1622 posts - 2299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto Studies: Basque | Message 374 of 668 16 February 2014 at 8:24pm | IP Logged |
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I've heard people say that Columbian Spanish is one of the clearest varieties of Spanish. I've always felt that people from Columbia tended to speak really clearly, too. People can be reluctant to speak to me in Spanish here, too, they say "You don't look like you speak Spanish" ;)
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| dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4832 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 375 of 668 17 February 2014 at 5:20pm | IP Logged |
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I don't know if you have ever visited El Capo Fans?. They have split all the episodes up into 2 parts of approximately 20 minutes each, they have both seasons, and I think they will be adding episodes of El Capo 3 as they come out.
I like what you said a couple of posts back about studying Spanish being a way to take a cheap vacation everyday- I feel the same way. Great news about the Mexican restaurant next to your office! I would love that. I really rue the fact that there just aren't many Spanish speakers where I live. 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 376 of 668 17 February 2014 at 11:14pm | IP Logged |
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AWESOME! That is great, dbag. Thank you. I have been thinking about doing El Capo 2 and with 20 minute episodes I may just dive in. It makes a HUGE difference for me. It is so much easier to tell my wife "oh honey, I'll do that in 15 minutes" than if I tell her I am going to be tied up for 40 minutes. I can get away with 20 minutes in the evening, but not 40.
The Mexican restaurant is a blessing, but also a curse. I am cheap and I have found myself going over there for lunch too often. It is just too convenient and the food is amazing. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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