Spanish study planI'm actually starting to put together a proper plan to tackle my gaps in Spanish now to finally get to C1. Since I think this plan might be helpful for some I decided to share it here.
GrammarGramática de Uso del Español A & B
FSI Spanish Basic
Gramática de Uso del Español C
I really need to get rid of many fossilised mistakes from speaking way too early, so I will drill drill drill. This will take a while, but it will probably make a huge difference in the long run. I've done plenty of grammar and a lot of Duolingo before, but never managed to go over all of Spanish grammar systematically. This plan will do just that and hopefully grind out all the horrible beginner mistakes that a speak from day 1 approach leaves.
ListeningThis is actually my strongest skill in general, since I already spent like 500h+ on it. It's probably my only C1 skill. I now primarily need to work on accents and local slang.
Iberian audio SC - I live in Spain, so I can't get around Spanish from here. I don't like this accent much and series from here are horrifically bad, so this is pretty much torture. I'm already almost halfway through this though and know quite a bit of slang from here already from listening to people on the street.
Argentinian audio SC - I love Argentinian movies and most of the time I speak to Argentinians, so this is already pretty strong. I mainly include this just for fun, apart from picking up a lot more street slang. My goal is to be able to watch
Nueve Reinas and understand virtually everything. Even my husband doesn't know half the slang in this one! This will definitely include:
Learning lunfardo with tango lyrics.
Mexican audio SC - we're preparing for a proper trip or longer stay in Mexico City because we have friends there. I already understand this accent quite well since I watched lots of Mexican dubs, but I need to catch up on street slang. Not sure whether this will be fun or not, since Mexican content is usually way over the top stereotypical. On the other hand, the trip will be a huge motivator for me!
ReadingI've read about 4500 pages extensively so far and my reading understanding is still very imprecise and there are lots of vocabulary gaps. I do understand all of what I read in context, but with a certain level of imprecision. Part of the problem was that I didn't focus on one particular region but skipped around a lot between translations, Iberian Spanish, Argentinian, Cuban and Mexican. I probably learned the basic regional vocabulary 4-5 times over which means that I was too busy with that kind of vocabulary to focus on lower frequency words. I also never did much intensive reading in Spanish, so I always feel like I'm swimming a little. The goal is to be able to listen to audiobooks without feeling lost. Right now I'm maybe at 70-85% comprehension with those, because my literary vocabulary is super imprecise.
Argentinian Spanish intensive reading SC - this will be so much fun!
Literary road-trip through Argentina - one book for every province of Argentina. Since the country is very centralised, Argentinian literature is often set in Buenos Aires city or province. I want to get to know more regional literature and do a little literary road trip through the different provinces. I still dream of a proper road trip, but this is a good substitute for now.
De viaje (literario) por España - I actually got the idea for my Argentinian literary road trip from this list and might as well follow the original list, when I'm through my Argentinian literature reading list.
WritingMy writing skills in Spanish are dismal and probably my worst skill, probably only at B1, since I learned Spanish in interaction courses and through immersion. This will need a lot of work!
El cronómetro B2Preparacion DELE B2El cronómetro C1Preparacion DELE C1Essay writing on Argentinian literature= output challenge 50,000 words
I actually don't want to take the DELE, I just find that the writing skills required for such tests are a solid basis. I might have to take the DELE at some point for enrolling at the university here, but it's still unclear whether it's a requirement for the course I have in mind or not. In any case, I will probably work with a tutor for this one, especially for the essay writing part, since any longer writing is unlikely to get reasonable corrections on lang8. The goal is a rather lofty one: Be able to collaborate with researchers on writing academic articles in Spanish. If I make good progress on this I might also start interviewing photographers in Spanish.
SpeakingAt the moment I do speak with an awful lot of mistakes, especially when the sentences become more complex, but people don't switch to English and I can make myself understood with Argentinians 99% of the time. With Spanish people I occasionally get blank stares, because I use too many expressions that are uncommon here and I generally don't repeat myself as often as the locals. I also tend to work my way around subjunctives, because I get them wrong half the time. My goal is to be able to speak *correctly* about complex issues without avoiding subjunctives. Part of it will be grammar training, as already listed above, and the other part will be to actually speak a lot about complex topics, ideally literature. I will only tackle this part of the schedule *after* I do GdUdE A&B and FSI. Also, I want to work on my accent a little more, since so far I only have an Argentinian tinge, but would like to get a nice sounding Argentinian accent going.
Shadowing 3000 sentences from Argentinian movies - This will basically be a home-made Glossika, very likely sourced from Inés Efron movies. I love the way she speaks and I would love to have a similar accent.
50 italki sessionsIdeally I would like to find an Argentinian tutor who studied literature, since I would mainly like to talk about Argentinian literature. My dad has been using a similar approach for his Spanish and he has been speaking about literature from different regions with a Chilean woman for the last 10 years. It's a bit funny, since he totally fails at everyday conversations in Spanish - living in Germany he doesn't need to talk about those sort of things ever -, but he can discuss the intricacies of certain passages written by some obscure Spanish writers. I'm the opposite case - anything more complex than a bit of photography shop talk and discussions about food become a terrible accumulation of grammar mistakes, because I rarely speak about such topics.
GoalsMy ultimate goals for Spanish are:
Reading: 20,000 pages, 5000 of which are supposed to be intensive reading. 4500 extensive done so far.
Listening: 1500h of audio with different accents, including dubs, native series, native movies, audiobooks, lectures and radio. 580h done so far of dubs, native series + more hours of native movies that would be hard to quantify.
Writing: 50,000 words of B2+ level writing in increasing difficulty up to academic writing.
Speaking: 50 italki sessions about complex topics - I've done a single one about a year ago with a widely interested guy from Costa Rica.
Until the end of 2018 I would like to get to at least 15,000 pages, 1000h of audio, reach my writing output goal and half of the Speaking goal.