mitcht - continuing spanish, (beginning french/portuguese?)

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mitcht
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mitcht - continuing spanish, (beginning french/portuguese?)

Postby mitcht » Mon Jan 04, 2016 8:21 pm

Hi all,

I did have a log on the old HTLAL site which seems to now be somewhat relocated here but I certainly didn't make a huge amount (or any...) effort in maintaining it. That said, I have continued lurking both here and at HTLAL over the course of the past year in search of new materials or just generally to check in on others progress. Encouragingly, despite not posting I have managed to keep at my Spanish over the past year and on reflection, even if it didn't seem i was progressing at the time, I can see the strides I have made - reading is no longer a chore, I am no longer hesitant about watching a series without subtitles for fear of getting lost, and generally speaking I think my conversational abilities have improved but that's harder to measure.

Some achievements over the past year included:
  • Completing FSI - this was a massive pain but i got through it, I'm sure there would be some value in re-doing at a minimum the final 10 units but realistically I'm unlikely to ever touch it again
  • Finishing several books - el principto, ojos de agua, la ciudad de las bestias, amongst others
  • Completed a few series - el internado, bajo sospecha, gran hotel
  • Spent some time in Puerto Rico where I was generally comfortable dealing with my girlfriend's friends and family. I did find the extended use of Spanish throughout the day and having to deal with multiple people speaking in groups more exhausting than I expected though.
  • Completed gramatica de uso de espanol (B1/B2)
  • Listened to a range of podcasts - radio ambulante, various things on ivoox
Goals for this year include:
  • 1 book a month - currently reading la senal y el ruido (Native Silver) but at ~680 pages i may have to start picking out some lighter items in the future
  • Write more - I've realised recently that not having spent any time dedicated to writing that this skill is severely lacking. I rarely write anything of length in English either which probably doesn't help
  • Some voice recording each week - this is more to have some measure of progress than anything
  • Thinking of taking the C1 exam this year but not 100% set on it just yet, somewhat depends on how demanding work ends up being
  • Other items are pretty routine so don't really constitute a goal - some spanish around the house, watching some series with my girlfriend, my standing 1 hour class a week, etc.

I'll probably look to join the upper intermediate/advanced TAC team an hopefully contribute more this year. I have also been flirting with the idea of picking up french/portuguese but I think I'll probably park it at least 6 months if not 12 and I'm not really sure which - leaning towards french as i think i'm more likely to visit Montreal/France than Brazil over the short term.

Mitch
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mitcht
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Re: mitcht - continuing spanish, (beginning french/portuguese?)

Postby mitcht » Mon Jan 11, 2016 12:53 am

It's been a bit of a crazy week getting back into work and routines, etc. Unfortunately that hasn't made for the best start to the year in regards to language learning. I have certain activities that I don't really count as study because they will happen anyway - watching some spanish series (sin identidad at the moment), listening to the local spanish radio/podcasts and reading before bed. Where I struggle is the more deliberate 'study' tasks - anki, recording 10 mins a day, writing an article or getting moving with gramatica de uso de espanol (C1/C2).

I wrote i think 4 times and did the same in recordings, not a failure but also not a huge success. Either way much more than i did last year (ie. zero). I really need to find a way not to hit the snooze button in the morning and get on top of these things before life gets in the way.
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mitcht
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Re: mitcht - continuing spanish, (beginning french/portuguese?)

Postby mitcht » Mon Jan 18, 2016 10:51 pm

Again not a stellar week with my Spanish studies - watched more of sin identidad though I have now gotten a bit distracted watching the jinx. Was pleased to see that bajo sospecha is back again for a second season - fans of el internado/gran hotel will notice a familiar face with Ivan/Julio playing the main character in this series. Actually, Javier from gran hotel is in sin identidad too.

I did a couple of exercises from the grammar book over coffee which i enjoy on weekend mornings. I'm still very slowly working my way through the signal and the noise (nate silver) but i think it was a bad choice - not because it's overly difficult just because it's non-fiction and as a result it can be slow going and i'm not dying to pick it up. I basically only read before bed and at best i make it through a handful of pages before wanting to sleep. I have the book thief sitting here to read but i don't like having two books going at the same time...

I took two classes this week via skype and one was a bit of a disaster. For whatever reason I woke up on saturday and my spanish was terrible - I was tripping over every second word. Sure enough this carried over into the class and by 30 minutes in i was just watching the clock waiting to be put out of my misery. Thankfully i seem to have recovered, it's not a good feeling when a couple of years of work seems to be able to disappear all of a sudden without warning.

Very little progress on recording myself or writing, seems to be the first thing i let slip despite probably being what will give me most benefit.
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mitcht
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Re: mitcht - continuing spanish, (beginning french/portuguese?)

Postby mitcht » Sat Feb 06, 2016 10:02 pm

Have been going through a really busy period at work and unfortunately my spanish (and fitness) are suffering. I had the intention of trying to do some version of output challenge though I haven't actually signed up though after January i'd be a decent way behind. I just did a rough word and minutes recorded count and January has me at ~2300 words and ~140 minutes. One problem I have is that a lot of both what i have written and just chatting to myself are about similar time fillers as I don't really have that much of interest to say/write. Have kept my standard 1 class a week though I usually try and add another 1-2 which I haven't done and am on exercise 38 of gramática de uso del español. We have just finished watching sin identidad and am now back on to the second season of bajo sospecha. At the moment I'm reading "acceso no autorizado" having somewhat gotten bored of "la señal y el ruido".

For those interested in carribean spanish i can recommend two puerto rican films - una boda en castañer and el broche de oro.

Feeling tempted to start on french or portuguese and just maintain spanish but I'd like to take the DELE C1 first which will be a bit of work.
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Blue
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Re: mitcht - continuing spanish, (beginning french/portuguese?)

Postby Blue » Sat Feb 06, 2016 10:30 pm

Hey Mitch. Do you think you could estimate the number of hours to get through FSI Spanish? I haven't been able to find an answer on Google.

Good luck if you go for the C1 exam.
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Stelle
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Re: mitcht - continuing spanish, (beginning french/portuguese?)

Postby Stelle » Sun Feb 07, 2016 12:57 am

I really enjoyed the Spanish translation of The Book Thief. Highly recommended! I have a hard time investing a ton of time in any non-fiction book, even in my native language. I just don't get hooked.
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mitcht
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Re: mitcht - continuing spanish, (beginning french/portuguese?)

Postby mitcht » Sun Feb 07, 2016 3:08 am

Stelle - for whatever reason I forgot I had already bought the bookthief and when i was tiring of the Nate Silver book i found the other. I may read it next.

Blue - it's hard to say it depends on how thoroughly you want to do the course and what level of spanish you're starting from. I think doing each lesson prior to the last 10 2 or 3 times would be fine and then last 10 you'll need more time on. It's easy to invest a lot of time being trying to perfect each lesson but in my opinion the marginal gain is pretty low after a couple of goes. Definitely don't recommend using this as your only study as you'll probably burn out and give up - it's not all that interesting. It definitely helped me but perhaps i could have got just as much elsewhere for less investment.
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mitcht
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Re: mitcht - continuing spanish, (beginning french/portuguese?)

Postby mitcht » Tue Feb 09, 2016 1:09 pm

As a distraction from work I was looking for french resources (specifically the audio for french in action) and found that you can access what I believe is all audio resources by signing up for a guest account here: http://sites.middlebury.edu/french-action/. Does anyone know where to get a digital copy of the textbooks/workbooks?

Has anyone used FIA? Would it be sufficient to use alone or am I better off combining with something like Assimil?

I have also stowed a bunch of Portuguese resources. Probably should refocus on Spanish and my work...
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mitcht
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Re: mitcht - continuing spanish, (beginning french/portuguese?)

Postby mitcht » Mon Apr 11, 2016 12:47 am

Still lurking around the forum even though i haven't posted anything. Have started making more of an effort about studying for the C1 exam - It doesn't appear I should have trouble with the comprehension, listening and (probably) speaking sections. Although I haven't done any real directed practice on the 3-5 minute speech part and I am sure I will be full of nerves which won't help. What I am struggling with and could really derail me is the written section - i have barely written in spanish (and about the only thing i write in English are emails). I know that it is a weakness but I am really struggling to motivate myself to improve on it because it feels like such a chore. Aside from the more directed study I'm doing my usual TV, podcast, radio, talking with family and friends bit. I have also, probably as a distraction, bought the assimil brazilian portuguese course (base language spanish) and done the first two lessons. Curious to see how I progress.
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mitcht
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Re: mitcht - continuing spanish, (beginning french/portuguese?)

Postby mitcht » Mon Jul 18, 2016 11:20 pm

Again a long stretch between updates but I have been relatively good with my Spanish study. I ended up taking the C1 exam last week - hard to know how i got on and especially painful to know that the wait for results is ~3 months. I was quite nervous during the oral section which didn't help and on walking out noticed a few stupid mistakes. I also didn't find the text very well structured which made the preparation of the speech a little tougher than in some of the example papers.

I stuck with Portuguese for about a month and then when i decided to enroll in the exam I decided to put it on hold as I was beginning to find it creeping in to Spanish at points (pronunciation and vocab). Not sure if i will go back to it or not, over the next couple of months I am intending to get on top of some non-language tasks and just stick to Spanish. Once i get the DELE results we'll see, french may be a little better in terms of trying to minimize interference with Spanish.
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