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| HermonMunster Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4435 days ago 119 posts - 211 votes  Studies: Spanish | Message 97 of 154 13 November 2013 at 3:53pm | IP Logged |
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Well I had my meetup last night and I killed it! I couldn’t believe how the words were just flowing out of my mouth. Several people commented that I was much better than before and new guy from Paraguay told me that he could understand everything I was saying. Awesome huh? He’s the best part, I didn’t even have a beer. Normally a beer or two takes the edge off and I speak better (or at least I think I do). Everyone in the group is so interesting. There are world travelers, engineers, students, retired folks, manufacturers, one fisherman, a few programmers, teachers etc.. We all like to have a good time too.
One guy is a photographer/videographer and he told us something that was alittle surprising. His buddies who are still in Mexico are making more than he is for quinceaneras and wedddings. We asked why and he said that the customers that he has don’t have very much money. He has to try to make his money through volume and he’s trying to improve his English so he can get some higher paying clients. He showed us some of his work and it’s very good. I don’t know why this story popped into my head, but a few trips to Mexico ago I was talking with the program manager and asking him what’s the craziest thing he saw in the assembly plant. He told me at a previous employer he saw a man running through the plant at top speed. Then another man came flying through, chasing him with a machete, then a bunch of the first guy’s friends followed. The knife wielding man caught the other man with his wife. Fortunately for the other man, his friends were able to catch the jealous husband and get the knife from him. How crazy is that! I’m not a super religious man but there is a bible verse that I really like, “ The jealous man shows no mercy.” Edited by HermonMunster on 13 November 2013 at 3:55pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| HermonMunster Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4435 days ago 119 posts - 211 votes Studies: Spanish | Message 98 of 154 25 November 2013 at 5:21pm | IP Logged |
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Welp it's done,
I took the Dele level B1 Spanish exam in NYC this past Saturday. I'm started this post while sitting in a hotel outside of the Philadelphia airport and I've been awake since 5am. In an effort to keep the trip costs down, I got a cheap hotel out in the middle of nowhere which cancelled my plans to explore the city. So my entertainment for the night was eating. Fried scallops, French fries, and a Philly cheese steak. Mmmmm, but waaay to much food. You know you've eaten too much when your full stomach wakes you up. I arrived in NYC on Friday afternoon and was pretty frazzled by the time I made it to the parking structure. There were people everywhere, walking, biking, taking pictures, running, jumping out in traffic, playing with their phones and not looking where they were going. I almost had about 5 accidents in 3miles. After getting to the hotel and unwinding a bit I have planned on studying some more, but instead I just re-read the test description and thought, " I think I'm good." I prepared my clothes for the next day, mapped out the test center, and then did a practice walk. From my hotel room to the door of the Instituto Cervantes it was only a 6 minute walk. I knew it was close, but not that close. (That hotel room was pretty expensive, but I'm making up for it now in the hotel on the outskirts of Philly) Once I had my bearings I went out in search of food. I settled on a upscale Mexican restaurant. It was very nice although crowded. I was at a small table between a couple and a group of ladies. I tried to just review vocab words but it's hard to focus when someone is less than 2 ft away from you talking loudly. After dinner I needed to walk off some of the food. I went down to Times Square and took some pictures. There were alot of people in costumes who wanted you to take a picture with them for money. I was cracking up when a guy in a Spiderman costume came up to me and said, in a New York accents, "Come on, get a picture with spida-man." Hahaha. No thanks! My wife and I are thinking about going to times square for new year's eve this year so it was cool to scope out the area for our trip. She says she wants to do it, but we will see. Word on the street is that you have to get there around 7pm to get a spot. 5hrs in the freezing cold has a way of cancelling the best laid plans. Saturday morning I got up and ate the breakfast of champions... McDonald's. As much as people hate McD's, it does come in handy. It was cheap, fast, and I knew how it would sit in my stomach. The last thing anyone wants to do before an exam is try some new food! I arrived at the test location about 45mins early. The institute is in a very nice, historical building. I was surprised at how nice it looked. It was cold out, about 35 degrees, so all the candidates were packed inside a fairly small lobby. There was a large mix of nationalities and ages from heads full of gray hair to teens with braces and doting mothers buttoning their shirts and hugging them. For my exam there were 8 of us. 5 Americans, a German lady, a Bermudian man, and a Dutch teen. The exam room was just an art gallery with some desk chairs. They were so flimsy that the Dutch guy broke his while leaning back and yawning. Also they were all right handed desks. The Dutch guy and I are left handed which forced us to rotate in our chairs so we could write. That was very uncomfortable and my back is alittle sore today. The exam has 4 parts, reading, listening, writing, and an oral exam. The reading went pretty well for me, but I did have some difficulty with the multiple choice format. Some of the answers were so similar that I had to just choose the answer that felt right. The listening part gave me some trouble. Since the exam was in an art gallery, the sound echoed and was distorted. Not to mention the fact that in the excerpts, the people were speaking so fast. We had to listen and look for the correct answers (read them) at the same time. They gave us 30 second to read the possible choices, but 6 questions with 3 options are not easy to remember in a test situation. Again I had to just use my best judgment and play the scan-tron game. (If I had option C filled out 4 times in a row I knew that there was a high percentage chance that one of those were incorrect). The writing part was simple for me. All my time writing email and chatting on the instant messenger really paid off. I would have been finished with that section first except I wrote too much. I had to go back and redact large portions of my writing. In the second part of the writing section I chose to write about my favorite movie. When I actually started to write i thought, " Ohh no, I don't know any of the words pertaining to this movie!" I had to think quickly and select another film. I picked E.T. because I knew the word for alien. It's probably fun to correct the writing section of the exam because people can get as creative as the want to be. (Side note: when people are given creative license, sometimes what comes out is extremely disheartening. I remember when I was in high school I did habitat for humanity during one spring break (we jokingly called it "poor man's spring break" because you got to go somewhere for only $50) A local school packed our lunches and the kids drew pictures on the bags to decorate them. I was pretty hungry so I was just gobbling my food while everyone else was looking at their bags and laughing/enjoying the drawings. I took a look at mine and immediately thought, “This isn't right." On one side there was a queen that was hitting a smaller person, presumably the kid and the king had a scared look on his face. On the other side, the dad and kid looked like they were in graves. I showed the trip organizer and he said, "Ohh dear, this a clear sign of abuse." He reported it to the school. I try to be a friend to people in general; you never know what they are going through in their personal lives.) I had a 2 hour break between the writing section and my oral exam so I went out to find some lunch. I found a great little Mediterranean restaurant and got the lamb platter. It was soooo good. I really enjoy New York and hope to live there for a few years at some point in my life. I don't think I could be there long term. It's just too different for me. I like seeing grass, trees, and animals other than dogs, rats, and pigeons without having to make a special trip to a park to do so. When I came back to the institute to take my oral exam I struck up a conversation with a guy next to me. He was from Bermuda and was just in the States to take the exam. He owns a restaurant and we getting calls/texts from people asking for a table for the night. It was funny to see someone in a different field have similar off the clock work demands. His wife is Greek/English and can speak 4 languages. I spoke a bit with the German lady and she was talking about how impressed she is with Americans who learn another language. We said it's no big deal and were envious of Europeans because many can speak more than 2. She just brushed it aside saying, " It's not a big deal, English is mandatory in the schools. You have to want to learn another language in America." I never thought about it that way, but it does make sense. The proctor called me into the office area and I thought I would just being the oral exam. I was taken to a room with 3 other people around a table and given 10minutes to prepare my thoughts for what I wanted to talk about. I was a pretty cool situation, sitting around a small round table with 3 strangers taking notes. Every once in a while someone would stop and ask the rest of us how to say a word. I chose to speak about my best vacation ever. It was easy to prepare because I just had to remember interesting parts of the trip and think if I knew the words. I chose the following. - Asking for a refill on my drink and a Greek guy being confused about why I wanted more - Being kicked by a beggar who was screaming, "Come On!!!" with her hand out - Drinking waaay to much at the Heineken factory and falling asleep. Before I knew it the 3 minutes were up. I got caught up a few times with tenses and words that I just didn't know but the proctor gave me the word when I asked and I was able to keep on moving. The next part was a picture where I had to describe what was going on. There were 3 adults that appeared to be taking a class. I just made up a story about how one guy was late, the lady was very studious, and the guy in the back was playing on his phone and was only in the class because his wife said she wouldn't cook anymore if he didn't take it. The proctor started laughing during the story and filling in part of it. Finally we had a mock situation where I was going to take a Spanish class. I just basically said I want to take a short Spanish class in Mexico at one of locations where my employer has a plant, I want it to be this long, and cover these topics... And that was it! DELE B1 is now in the books. I now have to wait 2 or 3 months to get the results. I think that I passed but I'm not 100% sure. The listening part really tripped me up. I know I need to work on it, but part of it is the exam format. I just don't know Spanish well enough to listen and figure out how they are trying to trick me. For example, on the audio portion we had to listen to a phone message where a lady said that she was calling to say goodbye before her trip to America. Later she asks the friend for a favor. The question we had to answer was, "Why did Maria make the call?" One answer was obviously wrong, but the other two were, " to say goodbye," and " to ask for a favor." I was thinking, " Well, she did do both." I chose, "to say goodbye," because that was exactly what she stated as the purpose of the call but I'm still not sure I heard everything right and answered correctly. I think that it’s really important for anyone taking the exam to study hard to make sure that you pass it. I could have put in more effort in preparing but my plan was always to take level B2 in the future. If I don’t pass I will just take level B2 when I’m ready and that will cancel out the failed B1. After the exam I spoke with a guy who had failed the C1 once before and he wasn’t sure that he passed this time either. We spoke a little in Spanish and I didn’t think he was close to being at a C1 level. He’s been out of work for a while and achieving level C1 would remove some barriers to entry for several positions. He was telling me that he’s kind of a nervous guy and little things distract him during the exam. A person coughing or shuffling papers breaks his concentration. That’s really unfortunate because he can probably get to a C1 level, but have extreme difficulty showing his knowledge in a test environment. I missed my wife a bunch on this week-long trip. It’s not easy to have 2 go getters in a relationship. We’ve already had to do the commuter marriage arrangement once and it looks like we will be doing it again at some point next year. It’s hard to end up in a part of the country where both peoples’ skills can be utilized to the fullest. Getting the Spanish cert should help to beef up the resume so that I’m more marketable. We’ve lived in 4 different states because of my job and it’s time to make a move for my wife’s sake. I’m extremely happy that I started this language journey. Don’t quit guys. It gets to be super fun. I’m really proud of myself for taking the initiative to turn my frown upside down and use a bloody nose and a car accident as inspiration to learn Spanish. It’s become a part of my life and I’ll never stop learning/using the language. 6 persons have voted this message useful | |
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5177 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 99 of 154 25 November 2013 at 6:26pm | IP Logged |
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Very motivating and an interesting insight into the exam. I will never take an exam because I won't need to... but I would like to have something quantifiable to work for like a certification.
by the way... if there are four random multiple choice answers (A-D) the odds of the next one being a certain choice are always 25%. It does not matter what the previous or subsequent answers are. It does remind me, however, of the recent Simpsons episode I watched in Spanish where Bart takes the standardized test and cheats... he ends up getting identified as a genius and sent to a special school. I am watching the Simpsons to improve my listening... all of the episodes are online. You may want to check it out here. Edited by James29 on 25 November 2013 at 6:27pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| HermonMunster Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4435 days ago 119 posts - 211 votes Studies: Spanish | Message 100 of 154 26 November 2013 at 4:10am | IP Logged |
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Hey James,
Thanks for the info on the Simpsons. I love that show and I bet watching in Spanish will make the episodes even funnier. One of my favorite characters is Ralph, "My cat's breath smells like cat food." :-) I understand wanting to have a cert for Spanish. It's nice to have something to differentiate yourself or at least meet the minimum requirements for an opportunity. I know that employers tend to do keyword searches to filter resumes The tough thing about the scantron test is that I believe the solution pattern code doesn't allow for complete randomness. There is a chance, however small, that a random set of solutions could all come up as the letter C. I believe that this would cause the students to second guess all of their answers and the purpose of the test, to assess knowledge, would be compromised. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| HermonMunster Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4435 days ago 119 posts - 211 votes Studies: Spanish | Message 101 of 154 27 November 2013 at 6:06pm | IP Logged |
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I had another meetup last night. There were only 9 of us. The weather was pretty nasty, low 40s and rainy. I actually enjoy the meetups more when there are fewer people. It's easier to hear and you don't have to change speaking partners often so you get a chance to really get into a groove talking with someone. The Mexican photographer is getting a lot more comfortable talking with us. I hope he keeps going. He does great film work and I'm sure he'll get more customers if he can speak with them. If I ever have the need of getting some pictures I will be sure to patronize him. I think that’s part of the beauty of meetups you really can’t help but to work the members into your life.
There was one new member yesterday. Her Spanish is good, she's just alittle rusty. The saying,"if you don't use it, you lose it," is very true with languages. At one time she was fluent (whatever that means) and now her speaking is halted. I'd be extremely disappointed if I let my hard earned gains slip away. We are trying to plan a Christmas party for the group where everyone brings a dish from their culture. A few people are going to Mexico for the holidays and I'm alittle jealous. Not of the trips so much but, about the weather. I have a crazy amount of vacation time saved up and I need to use it or lose it so I will take off most of December and a week in January. Yesterday I was thinking, "What am I going to do with all that time?" While it's nice to be out of the office, the day is long and I don't want to end up spending tons of money doing nothing. It's very easy to blow $200 in a week doing nothing in particular. A lunch here, a dinner there, and wash that down with a drink and a movie... you're broke in no time. Prepping for the exam took a lot of my free time and made me a little anxious when I was tired from work and didn't feel like studying. Now that it’s over I'm planning on binging on fun Spanish (tv/movies), exercising, and reading. I have so many books on my e-reader that I haven’t even touched yet. One idea I had to keep myself busy during the days off was to get a holiday job. Something basic like folding clothes, moving, or setting up/ tearing down displays. It's always good to have a lil extra $$ coming in and I think it would be a fun way to meet new people. Hopefully I could get something with a bunch of Spanish speakers so I could get paid while practicing. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| HermonMunster Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4435 days ago 119 posts - 211 votes Studies: Spanish | Message 102 of 154 05 December 2013 at 6:20pm | IP Logged |
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One of my favorite quotes is, “Get while the getting is good.”
I’m currently in negotiations to move in with a Spanish speaking family. My wife is going to move out of state to follow her dreams and I’m staying back to finish up my work assignment before joining her. Our lease has ended with our apartment and now I’m looking for a room to rent month to month. We were searching for places online and then we were offered to stay with a couple that has the sweetener of speaking Spanish in the house. This is the opportunity I’ve been waiting for. Skype is cool, but it’s tough to schedule the time to meet and sometimes the conversations are forced. Meeting with a buddy from the meetup has the same issues. I’ve always wanted an immersion experience and since the plans to move to Mexico were cancelled, I didn’t think I would get the chance. Living with this family, even though it would only be for about 4 months, would be an awesome opportunity to take my Spanish to the next level. The opportunity to come home every day and live in Spanish is very exciting. I think this would knock the halting out of my speech, explode my vocabulary, and get me more familiar with idioms and listening. I’m sure there will be some growing pains, and I really don’t want to move again, but this is an opportunity that I can’t refuse. I really hope our negotiations on rent etc. are successful. On another note, cultural differences are so difficult to resolve. I had a meeting where the European managers were presenting the new management process. There was a big discussion about how the plan will work when it is contrary to Mexican business culture. Basically in Mexico, much like the US, the plant manager is King. What he says gets done. Period. But in Mexico that power is magnified. You simply don’t just tell the plant manager no. The new process is asking program managers and engineers to do just that. A person wisely voiced that the engineers program managers won’t do it for fear of being fired. Here’s the thing, the European managers trump everything, so they could stop a firing, but that doesn’t mean that the plant manager couldn’t do something to make life more difficult for the person who defied them. This new policy is going to put some Mid-level Mexican engineers and managers in incredibly difficult situations where they have to be firm and accommodating/respectful at the same time. It will be very interesting to see how this turns out. I like my job. I learn new things ever day. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| HermonMunster Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4435 days ago 119 posts - 211 votes Studies: Spanish | Message 103 of 154 06 December 2013 at 10:49pm | IP Logged |
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:-(
The move just couldn't work out between us. Too much uncertainty on both sides. It was worth a try. I'm thinking about placing an add for a Spanish speaking roommate. We'll see. As for Spanish, I'm understanding tons more music. It's great. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| HermonMunster Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4435 days ago 119 posts - 211 votes Studies: Spanish | Message 104 of 154 12 December 2013 at 11:20pm | IP Logged |
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Hey Everybody,
12 days till Christmas. I hope you’re almost done with your preparations so you can enjoy the holiday. Spanish is going well for me. I had a meetup on Tuesday that was awesome as usual. There were two new people an American woman and a Mexican man. We all had a great time welcoming them to the group and just hanging out. At the end of every meet up we make a super table with all the people who are leftover and have kind of a group discussion, with a bunch of side conversations going on. I was chatting with a guy about his phone (Galaxy S4, pretty sweet but I’m not so sure I was a giant brick in my pocket. There’s something about a phone that large that doesn’t seem safe to me. I know my leg is already getting nuked by my phone sitting in my pocket all day, I guess I want to keep the nuke-age to a minimum, if that makes sense… ) A bunch of people in the group started clapping and cheering and I thought it was just someone’s birthday or something. I asked what was going on and found out that the guy wearing the suit was just sworn in as an American citizen. How cool is that. His first official act as an American was to go to Spanish class! LOL We made a bunch of jokes about all the things he had to start doing to be a “real” American like watching football, eating hotdogs, and getting a gun. He got a kick out of all of it. I had a really cool experience today. I tend to keep my Spanish skills to myself while at work. In general, I didn’t want people to hear me struggling on the phone, but now I feel that I’m good enough to let-er-rip from time to time. There’s a guy whose cube is close to mind and he swears he knows some Spanish. Today he was showing off by naming all the days of the week. They all know that I took the DELE B1 exam but they have no idea what it means or how good I am. So today I was making small talk, in Spanish, with the Mexican program manager and everyone in my area was like, “Ohhhhhhhhhh!!!!” The best part was that at the time I was talking, a co-worker from Mexico was walking by and he knocked on my cube and mouthed, “Very good Spanish!” Awesome, huh? :-) a native speaker was complementing me. When the call was over he went out of his way to fine me and say, “Man your Spanish is really good.” That made my day. Not too shabby for about 22 months’ worth of study. Here’s the English translation of an email that I was able to send out off the top of my head. Good Afternoon all, Today I went to the prototype room, and the customer showed me some problems with our parts. 1. The 35 way connector had a broken cavity. A little force would push the terminal out of the connector. They had to replace it. 2. We are missing a jacket for the green and yellow wires going to the Datalink. This is very important because if there is electrical interference, the steering may be affected. 3. A wire seal is torn. The wire is perhaps too large for the cavity. There were also marks on a wire that seems due to an operator using a tool to insert it. We have to answer these questions and explain how we will not let it happen again. The files are attached in the email. Ohh yea, something funny happened today. I was explaining how we are planning to go to times square for new year’s eve and used the idiom it’s going to be “colder than a witch’s tit.” I said it in Spanish and they were cracking up. I did a direct translation and to them it was such a strange thing to say. After they stopped laughing they told me the Mexican Spanish (at least in Hermosillo) equivalent. “Está tan frío como culito de pinguino.” “It’s colder than a penguin’s ass.” I had a good laugh at that. I think you could translate that into any language and they’d know it’s really cold. LoL This is unrelated to Spanish, but something that was on my mind. I've gotten back into my exercises again and I think too many people in this country and the world aren't physically fit. I read this story today about a woman who was trapped in a bathroom for 8 hrs and had to break through the wall with a metal rod. The story mentioned how there was an emergency escape door in the ceiling but she didn't have the strength to pull herself up. She could have saved herself and her family tons of worry if she could have done the equivalent of 1 pull up. We need to do better. http://newsone.com/2809969/karen-perrin-woman-trapped-in-bat hroom/ Ohh yea, one more thing on this topic. On Tuesday a friend of mine has something like a heart attack. He's only 39 years old. I was with him at the urgent care, followed the ambulance to the hospital, and had to meet his wife in the emergency room and tell her what was going on. It was a pretty sobering experience that really made me glad that I've stayed active but inspired me to do more. I believe when it's your time to go, it's your time, but we can all do a little bit more in the healthy living department. There were many Spanish speaking people in the hospital and it warmed my heart a bit to know that I could talk to any of them. Okedokie, that’s about all I have to say. If you’re a newbie reading this, don’t quit. I’ve only been at it for a while and I’m having fun with the language every day. It will take some time and effort to get over the initial growing pains of only being able talk like a baby, but it gets a whole lot better. cya 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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