Shouko's Spanish Log

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Shouko
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Shouko's Spanish Log

Postby Shouko » Fri Aug 21, 2015 6:13 pm

Hey all! I wasn't an active member on the old HTLAL forum (to be quite honest, I only had a single post there :D) but I thought I could finally try to make a log. Last summer, I started learning Spanish in earnest (because of college), but I'm still not at a point where I can pass my Spanish courses with ease.

I'm also participating in the Erasmus Programme of my college and I'm going to study in the Universidad of Valladolid this fall (HELP :? ). I'm VERY excited and nervous, but I also think that this will be the perfect time to push my Spanish to the next level (hopefully a strong B2)!

Well, I'm going to list some of the resources I'm using at the moment:

Gramática de uso del español. Teoría y práctica C1-C2: Even though I'm not even at this level yet, I have started this workbook recently. Since I'm still on holidays, I will probably do two units a day and just see how it goes. The units at the start of the book aren't that challenging yet, but I have already added a few new words to my anki list. Also, the explanations are very clear and easy to understand. :)

ERASMUS+ site
: Erasmus students are given access to the site after they complete a language test. There are different categories (grammer, vocabulary, argumentation and more specific stuff) with short "videos" and exercises. I'm not a big fan of the little exercises since you mostly just have to memorise the whole clip, so I usually only watch the videos a few times.

El Internado: I am watching the seventh season of El Internado. The series is fun, absolutely ridiculous and silly at times but also very addicting. I still need the subtitles to understand everything, but it gets easier and easier. After I finish the series, I will try to watch something without subtitles at all.

BookTube en español: I think someone at the old HTLAL forum started a thread and called attention to the phenomenon of "booktube". I didn't use youtube that much at the time, but since then, I started searching for Spanish (and English) booktubers and subscribing to them. I think my favourites would be Lucía Lorena, Clau Reads Books and Juliana Zapata.

Other tools and resources: Anki, Veinte Mundos, Notes in Spanish & Spanish Obsessed, Fantasy Life in Spanish (3DS) and books!

Any advice is greatly appreciated! :D
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Re: Shouko's Spanish Log

Postby e.z.b. » Fri Aug 21, 2015 6:28 pm

Hey Shouko - I don't have any real advice since you're miles ahead of where I am, but I'm also in the Spanish-learning process so I thought I'd say hi! I'm going to have to keep on eye on your log and see what resources I can co-opt :) Your erasmus programme sounds like it'll be great. I studied in Budapest while I was in college and it was an amazing experience. I'm not sure if you're watching El Internado with English or Spanish subtitles, but if they're English and you want to switch to something with Spanish subtitles as an intermediate step, James29 just pointed me to Telemundo. Their youtube station has a ton of shows with accurate Spanish subtitles. ¡Buena suerte!
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Re: Shouko's Spanish Log

Postby rdearman » Fri Aug 21, 2015 6:45 pm

Welcome aboard. I hope you'll post on the experimental Spanish forum. Seems to be lots of interesting discussions going on there.
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Re: Shouko's Spanish Log

Postby mjfleck2000 » Fri Aug 21, 2015 7:34 pm

I was unaware of "booktube".... so I clicked on one of the links ( Lucía Lorena).
This struck me as a tool that could be very useful to practice listening skills.

I changed the settings on booktube to SHOW SubTitles.
YES! Subtitles!

My immediate impression was that this could be useful for language learning by first listening to the video (actually, listen numerous times) WITH the subtitles.
As I become familiar with the dialog I could listen with subtitles off.
There is also a speed up/ slow down audio setting. I think that after listening with subtitles off, I could SPEED UP the video. After I am able to understand at the increased speed, I could reset the speed to normal. I'm betting that the video at normal speed would seem easier to understand after this exercise.
I'll give it go.
Thank you for sharing this resource.

Mike in Idaho
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Shouko
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Re: Shouko's Spanish Log

Postby Shouko » Fri Aug 21, 2015 8:15 pm

e.z.b. wrote:Hey Shouko - I don't have any real advice since you're miles ahead of where I am, but I'm also in the Spanish-learning process so I thought I'd say hi!


Hi! :D I wouldn't call it "miles" since my writing and especially my speaking skills are still horrid. :oops: And I alreay took a look at your log and I'm sure I will also learn a lot from your experience – it's great to see how differently other people learn! :shock:

e.z.b. wrote:Your erasmus programme sounds like it'll be great. I studied in Budapest while I was in college and it was an amazing experience.


Wow, in Budapest! :shock: I'm going to live with two Spanish students from the same university, so I have – in theory – a great environment to practise my Spanish. Too bad that I'm a shy introvert and will probably have to force myself to be more social. :lol:

e.z.b. wrote:I'm not sure if you're watching El Internado with English or Spanish subtitles, but if they're English and you want to switch to something with Spanish subtitles as an intermediate step, James29 just pointed me to Telemundo. Their youtube station has a ton of shows with accurate Spanish subtitles. ¡Buena suerte!


I'm definitely going to check out Telemundo when I'm finished with El Internado! :D I'm watching the show with English subtitles since I don't think there's a version with Spanish subs...? ¡Muchas gracias!

rdearman wrote:Welcome aboard. I hope you'll post on the experimental Spanish forum. Seems to be lots of interesting discussions going on there.


Thank you! :D Yes, I actually already posted something in the "book" thread. I love reading and I try to read at least two Spanish books a month, so I'm going to continue to post in the Spanish forum. ;)

mjfleck2000 wrote:I was unaware of "booktube".... so I clicked on one of the links ( Lucía Lorena).
This struck me as a tool that could be very useful to practice listening skills.

Thank you for sharing this resource.


WOW! :shock: I never thought my resources would be that helpful. :lol: I'm very glad that you find booktube useful though. :) I really enjoy listening to the different booktubers; I really like the sound of Lucía's voice, and I think we share the same taste in book genres so that I usually always appreciate her recommendations and opinions. Juliana is a bit harder to understand, because she speaks faster, but she has a very positive and energetic attitude, which I like. Clau might be the easiest to understand? I actually never use the subtitle function, but I try to listen very carefully. :)
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Shouko
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Re: Shouko's Spanish Log

Postby Shouko » Fri Aug 28, 2015 5:28 pm

It's time for my first update! :D

Reading


I recently started Una Serie de Catastróficas Desdichas, which is a series with dark humor for children. The books are fairly short (about 200 pages), and some of the words are even explained by the narrator in an humorous way. The story is definitely darker than I anticipated, especially in the very first book. It's an easy read, but the story already gets repetitive in the third volume. Still, I'm going to continue with the series because it does has some amusing scenes, but I don't think I will read the books consecutively – I need some variety. :D (And Jesus Christ, Mr Poe is one annoying bastard! :evil:)

Listening

    El Internado – Temporada 7: 4|15 Capítulos
    El Truco Final (El Prestigio)
    4x Spanish Obsessed
    2x Notes in Spanish
    1x VeinteMundos

I'm pretty satisfied with the things I watched (and listened to!). :)
I'm still plucking along with El Internado and enjoying it immensely. I don't want to spoil anyone so I will just say something that was obvious from the very first episode: Iván, you're such a hopeless moron! Episode 4... I just... god dammit.
I also watched the movie El Truco Final (El Prestigio) in Spanish. I didn't understand everything perfectly, but I always knew what was going on. Well, I quite liked it even though the ending was a bit... cheap.

Grammar

    Gramática de uso del español: 25|106 Unidades

I really like this workbook and already learned a lot of new things. :) I think I had the biggest problems with Unit 17 (Pronombres personales de objeto indirecto) and 18 (Usos de me, te, se...). I still get sometimes really confused with the pronouns and I didn't even know about some of the rules of the usage. For example, you can emphasize the amount of food you have eaten:

Rocío come muchos kiwis. (hábito)
vs.
Se come dos kiwis para cenar. (énfasis en cantidad)


This is something I definitely still have to practise a lot!
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Shouko
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Re: Shouko's Spanish Log

Postby Shouko » Mon Aug 31, 2015 9:34 pm

I really like the idea of arthaey's daily output challenge so I'm going to try to answer as many prompts as I can! :D

Have you created any art in the past five years?

[tweet by @TableTopicsInc]


De niña siempre dibujaba pokemon... mi favorito era – por supuesto – Pikachu. :lol: Con 16 años compré una tabla gráfica, que era una buena inversión. Ya he dibujado y esbozado mucho con ella, pero en el último tiempo no tengo muchas oportunidades para dibujar. Por eso, hoy en día solamente estoy produciendo gráficos inacabados. Es un triste hecho, pero espero que pueda hacer más dibujos en un futuro próximo. Por lo menos dibujo ponis junto con mi hermanita con frecuencia. :oops:

Image
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Shouko
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Re: Shouko's Spanish Log

Postby Shouko » Fri Sep 04, 2015 4:23 pm

I spent pretty much the whole week preparing everything for my travel to Spain. I'm getting pretty scared tbh. :shock: Well, I still managed to do my daily grammar lesson and watched a bunch of episodes of El Internado.

Reading

Harry Potter y la piedra filosofal 63%

I've finally started the Harry Potter series! :D I'm enjoying it so far and I also jotted down some unknown vocab. It's pretty easy at the moment. :)

Listening

El Internado – Temporada 7: 11|15 Capítulos
1x VeinteMundos

I'm not a big fan of Spanish songs, and it's really hard to find something I actually like in this language. That's why I'm even happier that I have discovered a singer on youtube, who covers anime songs in Spanish. YAY! ~ Here are two songs I absolutely adore. :D



Grammar

Gramática de uso del español: 37|106 Unidades

Nothing much to say. I'm continuing with the workbook, but I'm thinking about reducing the amound of units to one per day (which I already sometimes did, pff).
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Shouko
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Re: Shouko's Spanish Log

Postby Shouko » Fri Sep 04, 2015 11:27 pm

I have no idea what I just wrote... but that was pretty much my first thought when I read the prompt. :lol:

You are elected the mayor of a town you are visiting, but you don't know the language spoken there.

[tweet by @DailyPrompt]


Estoy mirando mi entorno y preguntandome como he podido caer en esa situación.
¿Es esto un sueño? Tiene que ser. No hay otra posibilidad. No hay otra explicación para–

Una loba ha aparecido a mi lado y empieza a discutir con la perra que me estaba diciendo cosas incomprensibles desde que he llegado a este pueblo y que parece más vivaz que todos los niños que he visto en mi vida. De repente están mirandome con los ojos chispeantes, y tengo que tragar. ¿Qué está pasando?

–¡Guau guau! ... ¿guau?
La voz de la perra es muy alta y penetrante; pero ¿qué puedo hacer cuándo no entiendo nada?

–¿Qué...? Lo siento, pero no sé qué estás diciendo– expreso mis pensamientos con una cara de disculpa.

Los dos animales parecen decepcionados, y me siento mal aun cuando no tenga ninguna culpa. ¿Qué es lo que exactamente quieren de mi?

Entonces veo como una ardilla está acercandose a nosotros. Lleva ropa azul de deporte y un casco de motorista. Espera, espera. ¡Eso no tiene ningun sentido! ¡¿Porqué está llevando un casco...?! En ese momento la ardilla se estaciona delante de nosotros, se arrodilla en el terreno y comienza a dibujar algo en la tierra. La loba y la perra tienen una mirada esperanzada mientras están mirando la figura azul. Parece que está dibujando una casa grande con algo encima y algunos animales que están delante del edificio. Estoy frunciendo el ceño, pero la ardilla tiene un aspecto satisfecho. Señaliza la persona encima del edificio con la rama que está sostiendo y señala a mi con el dedo (¡¿dedo?!).

La miro cuándo empiezo lentamente a entender que quieren de mi. Todavía estoy confundida; esto y un poco perdida, claro. Pero parece que me he convertido en la alcaldesa de este pueblo.

–¡Guau!
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Re: Shouko's Spanish Log

Postby Spoonary » Sat Sep 05, 2015 10:27 am

Shouko wrote:La miro cuándo empiezo lentamente a entender que quieren de mi. Todavía estoy confundida; esto y un poco perdida, claro. Pero parece que me he convertido en la alcaldesa de este pueblo.

–¡Guau!

Pero ¡qué genialidad, por favor! :lol:

Me encanta, en serio. Ojalá pudiera yo crear algo tan guay :)
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