James29's Spanish and French Log

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Re: James29's Spanish (and sometimes French) Log

Postby crush » Thu Dec 29, 2016 4:55 am

Hey James (and Bolio), nice to see you all still around and kicking Spanish's rear!

If i were you, i would aim for passive skills in French and forget active skills entirely. It will require very little effort from you and as you progress with Spanish your passive French (reading) skills will also improve. Being able to read in French is just cool, there's so much material, so many amazing books. Parallel texts (or interlinear texts like here: http://bermudaword.com/French/index.htm, you can get in touch with member Keys if you want to try some of the books out for free) are also quick, fun, relatively painless ways to "study".
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Re: James29's Spanish (and sometimes French) Log

Postby James29 » Sun Jan 08, 2017 1:24 pm

Well, I wrote a nice long post last weekend that somehow got eaten by the website (or my technological incompetence).

Anyway, thanks to both of you for your comments. I read an article about an 84 year old marathoner talking about how/why he is still able to run incredibly fast marathons at age 84. He says it is because he has turned running into a past time. He does it the way he wants to. People call him a bit nuts because he just goes into a small cemetery across the street and runs for three hours at a time every day. He does not do hills and does not keep track of distance. He just likes doing it like that and so it works for him. He has his reasons for everything he does and it makes sense for him. It would not likely work for anyone else, but that does not matter.

As I was reading this article it made me think of my Spanish (and French). I'm just doing what I want to do and it works for me. It must simply become a past time... a hobby of sorts.

Spanish:

So, in terms of my Spanish hobby this week, I finished the first Jack Reacher novel. It was definitely worth reading and I am sure I'll read more of those books. I see that the others are mostly written in the third person. I think I generally prefer the first person, but I'm sure they will still be good. It took me quite some time to finish the book as I did not have much time to devote to reading. I started it on the Saturday after Thanksgiving and just read on weekends. I finished it yesterday. It was easy to read, but used quite a bit of new vocabulary. It was a good mix of easiness but also looking up a word every now and then.

I've also been watching Celia and movies in Spanish as I run on the treadmill. I've found I cannot watch more than two episodes of Celia in one run so if I'm going to go for more than 90 minutes I'll watch a movie. I usually run 90 minutes on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. That's six episodes in a row. Then I'm ready for a bit of a change. I run my long runs on the weekends. I prefer to run outside on the weekends. If the weather cooperates with me I'll run outside, but, if not (like today) I'll run on the treadmill. For some reason am drawn to dubbed movies for the weekend. There is something about not having to struggle to understand that is nice when I'm just plugging along on the treadmill.

With Celia I have decided to turn on the subtitles. I believe they are ver batim. I have never ever used subtitles before, but I felt like I was missing some of the details and I did not want to have to concentrate as hard as I was before. I must admit that with subtitles I am seeing things that I would have missed with audio only. Mostly this is because of the pronunciation.

Last week I was out of town and went to a meetup. There were two native speakers and both initially asked me where I was from (as if I were a native). I responded that I was from Spain and we had very short chats prior to me explaining that was not true. For some reason my Spanish on that day was flowing perfectly and I was able to pull that off for few seconds. I wish my Spanish was like that every day.

I have a new car and have not yet figured out how to get my phone to play in the car so I have not been doing anything with my commute. I need to get that figured out sometime.

French:

I'm going to get back into French. This morning I picked up Sandberg's French for Reading again and picked up where I left off. I think I'll just slowly keep working through this book. I really like it and it is what I need for now. I want to get to a decent reading level before I do anything else. Assimil is good too (I finished lessons 1-49 a while back), but I'll save the rest of that course for later. I'm doing a review of chapters 1-13 right now in the Sandberg book and today I finished chapter 7. I have gone through chapters 1-13 twice before but never got past that.

I thumbed through some books I have in French and am genuinely surprised that I can still read more or less what I could read before. My reading seems to be roughly at the A1 level. I can read that level without too much effort. I can read A2 but it is harder. I can sometimes get the gist of some sentences in the Dan Brown and Grisham books I have in French, but am a LONG way from reading that type of thing.

I had the crazy idea of watching shows in Spanish on the treadmill that also have a French audio soundtrack. There are many animated series on Netflix that have both language options. I watched a few, but don't really think I'll be doing too much of this. I'd rather just watch things I like. I'd love to find something I really like that has audio in both languages so when I'm ready for French TV I'll already have something familiar.

I do find it quite interesting (and odd) that I have this on and off again relationship with French. Sometimes (like now) I really have a strong desire to learn the language. Then, after a while, I am convinced to quit and re-focus on Spanish. I have never felt like dropping Spanish. I think right now I can see that my Spanish is at a very good solid level and I don't think I'd really lose much by spending some time on French. With a bit of time on French I could probably get to a decent level and really enjoy French.

Anyway, that's it for this week. I've got to find a good movie on Netflix to watch and go for a nice long easy run.
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Re: James29's Spanish (and sometimes French) Log

Postby Allison » Sun Jan 08, 2017 7:04 pm

James29 wrote:With Celia I have decided to turn on the subtitles. I believe they are ver batim. I have never ever used subtitles before, but I felt like I was missing some of the details and I did not want to have to concentrate as hard as I was before. I must admit that with subtitles I am seeing things that I would have missed with audio only. Mostly this is because of the pronunciation.

I'm sorry you're having trouble with Celia but I have to admit I'm glad to hear it too, because so am I. I've been using the subtitles more than I expected when starting it.
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Re: James29's Spanish (and sometimes French) Log

Postby James29 » Sat Jan 14, 2017 11:12 am

Spanish:

I'm really enjoying watching Spanish on Netflix while I run on the treadmill. Originally I thought I'd be able to just power through telenovelas at a rate of 12-ish episodes per week. I spend six hours on the treadmill during the week and much more if the weather is bad on the weekend. However, I've learned that I need a bit of variety. It is hard for me to watch so many episodes of the same show in such a short amount of time.

I'm falling into a nice pattern. I'm watching two episodes of Celia on weekdays where I spend 90 minutes on the treadmill (usually Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays) and something else on the days I run for 45 minutes (usually Mondays and Fridays). Then, if I'm on the treadmill over the weekend I'll watch a long movie.

So, in addition to Celia I watched "The Long Long Holiday." It is a French historical fiction cartoon set in Normandy during WWII. I absolutely loved it. It follows the lives of a few young kids that move to the country from Paris at the start of the war so they can live "safer" with their grandparents. Originally there were 10 half hour episodes for French TV. On Netflix it comes out as five 47 minute episodes. The story really grabbed me. I found the show because I was looking for something that would have a nice French connection and I'll be able to watch it in French eventually. It has audio in multiple languages including Brazilian Portuguese. I note that Netflix says it is for kids aged 5-10, which is definitely true - they did a great job presenting the "terrors" of war in a kid friendly way - but it was also quite satisfying for me, an adult.

I'm still watching Celia with subtitles. I think I'll just continue like that. It just makes it easier. I like the story. It is nice to watch a telenovela that is not about drug dealers. I have not yet "bonded" with any of the characters. I think Telemundo telenovelas are great and likely the best out there, but I've noticed I always seem to have a problem finding characters I can bond with in their telenovelas. I'm not sure why that is.

I've got my new car set up to play audio from my phone. It is actually pretty easy. There is a two ended cord that I plug into both my phone and my car and it just plays the phone audio in the car speakers. This allows me to listen to the VOA news every morning. I would not mind listening to something else during the morning commute. I tried an audio book one day, but, as always with audio books, I often space out for a minute or two and then get hopelessly lost in the story. Maybe a really easy podcast would work? The news is fine (and this is how I get my news for the day) but I would now be open to finding something else. I wish my French was good enough to listen to something in the car.

This is a busy time of year for me at work and I have not had time for meetups lately. I have, however, had a few phone conversations with my Spanish speaking customers. Here is something telling about my Spanish - I have a Colombian guy I talk with. I can understand him "perfectly." However, this week he called me and we had a pretty bad connection. It made it extremely difficult for me to understand. In English the connection would have been an "annoyance" but in Spanish it really hindered the conversation so much that I simply told him I'd call him back the next day. Then, when I called him back the next day we had a perfect phone connection and I could again understand him "perfectly." Distractions, muffling, background noise and things like that still cause problems for my Spanish. I'm not sure there is really anything I can do about that other than just keep getting better.

My Spanish is really on "auto-pilot" now. I am definitely doing enough to maintain it and even improve it, but I'm not actively "studying." I do eventually need to make a push and work through the C level grammar book. That might happen in the summer when I plan to spend a bit less time running.

French:

My French kick is continuing. I have fallen into the pattern of doing about 45 minutes on Saturday and Sunday mornings before I run and then about 15-20 minutes Monday and Friday mornings after I run. I'm working through French for Reading by Sandberg. What an amazing way to learn French. I've spoken about this book before. If someone wants to learn how to read French this is definitely the way.

I don't seem to have lost too much French in my time off. I forget some words that I had known previously, but they come back pretty fast. The structure/grammar of French seems to make pretty good sense - I think of it as basically a drunken form of Spanish and that makes everything make sense. Vocabulary is quite easy because I can draw on both English and Spanish. I don't have any short-term desire to use French actively which is good because I have zero active skills at this point.

My general plan has always to get my French to a level where I can read books which I find enjoyable. If I can get to a point where I can read the Alex Rider series that would be great. Then, I'd like to be able to enjoy dubbed TV. I'd love to have my second step be to successfully watch a show like "The Long Long Holiday" with the original French audio. Then, when I feel comfortable both reading fairly easy books and watching dubbed TV I'd like to make a push in speaking/conversations until I can get to the point where I feel like I can actively participate in the local meetup and have one on one conversations with exchange partners. That's it. Those are my basic goals. So, in general terms I'd probably like to get to a high B1 level in reading and listening and a regular/low B1 level in conversations.

Who knows how long this French kick will last. If I quit again that will be fine. I don't think I'll ever quit Spanish and it is pretty cool to see that even at my low level in French I won't totally lose it if I quit again for a while.
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Re: James29's Spanish (and sometimes French) Log

Postby James29 » Sat Jan 21, 2017 9:52 pm

This was kind of a lost week so I am going to put it behind me and move on. I was pretty sick for a few days so I skipped three days of running and just worked instead. When I feel sick it just does not feel as good to work on language learning. I still managed to watch a few episodes of Celia and listen to the news in Spanish in the morning. The morning news is basically automatic and things don't feel right if I don't get my daily dose of VOA news.

I also managed to go to a meetup. That was pretty nice. There have not been many natives lately, but the quality of Spanish is pretty high. I might be traveling a bit tomorrow and am thinking of hitting the meetup in the city where I might end up.

I had a couple skype exchanges this week. I have not done this for a while.

I managed to work a couple days on French for Reading. My problem with this book is that French is not my first foreign language and I am just not motivated to feel the pain. I think I will have to just do easy things in French if I am ever going to learn it.

Anyway, the bad week for languages is now behind me and I feel good about the upcoming week.
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Re: James29's Spanish (and sometimes French) Log

Postby James29 » Sun Jan 29, 2017 12:22 pm

Well, I wrote a blog entry yesterday but the website ate it. Not too much to report this week. I'm just watching Celia while I run and listening to the VOA news on my drive to work. I am getting more accustomed to the accents in Celia and not having much difficulty at all. I'm on the treadmill six hours during the week watching Celia and then I run outside on the weekends. Things like the news are basically as easy as English now. Every now and then there will be a word I have never heard and I'll immediately know what it means through context.

I like Celia. Celia seems like an amazing person. I like this type of story much better than the "shoot-em up" type drug dealing telenovela.

I have not had much time for anything other than work lately. This is the busiest time of year and we are doing well. So, all I'm doing is fitting in my Spanish into places where I am doing something else (running on treadmill or driving to work).

Hopefully I'm maintaining my Spanish. For the first time I feel like I am slipping a bit. With reading books I always felt like I was advancing. I'm not so sure with just audio input.

I have not had time for meetups or any conversation exchanges. However, yesterday I heard a family speaking in Spanish at the market and I could immediately tell they were from Spain. We had a nice chat. I felt totally comfortable speaking with them. They work here in high level business jobs so I'd presume their English is very good, but we spoke in Spanish. I've noticed that natives do not seem bothered at all by my Spanish anymore.

I was traveling for work to a nearby city and stopped for lunch at a Mexican restaurant. I saw a bunch of employees that used to work at the Mexican restaurant that was near my old building. It was pretty cool to see their faces light up and launch into Spanish when they saw me. It turns out that their restaurant closed and many of them got jobs at this other restaurant. There was part of the conversation I had trouble with.

The basic conversation was that they were saying their old restaurant closed because the landlord charged them too much. They knew that the same guy owned my old building (the one next to their old restaurant) and they were asking if I left my building because he was charging me too much rent also. They knew that their landlord owned my old building. The problem came in explaining to them that in actuality a different person owned the building when I was there and when I left the building my previous landlord sold the building to their landlord. The good news is that I was able to get them to understand their mistaken assumption.

Well, I'm going to stick with basically getting a bit of Spanish in for a while until things settle down. French will always be there when I want to pick her up again.
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Re: James29's Spanish (and sometimes French) Log

Postby James29 » Sat Feb 04, 2017 8:31 pm

I'm going to do a quick log update because I'll be working and doing Super Bowl things tomorrow.

Spanish is just chugging along. I'm basically just watching netflix in Spanish when I run on my treadmill. This week I logged in about of 6.5 hours of Spanish time on the treadmill. I usually watch Celia but occasionally I'm in the mood for something else. I like some of the netflix originals and watch one of those episodes every now and then (like the Marvel series or F is for Family). I do my long runs out side on the weekends so I have pretty much been skipping Spanish on the weekends.

I am also listening to VOA news every morning. I've been driving more for work so I've been logging in more time listening to VOA.

I went to a meetup this week. Nice time but nothing too interesting.

I had a brief skype talk with an old partner. I am quite pleased that my language exchange partners from years ago are still friends and we still keep in touch. I should be a better friend and keep in touch more often instead of just when it is convenient for me.

I feel like my Spanish might be getting worse now that I am not reading. I am searching for words more often and I cannot think of words that I am certain I know. In May I'll probably start doing some more reading. I really enjoy using the Kindle.

French is simply out of my life for now. Maybe I'll pick it up again when things normalize. I'd love to be able to watch netflix in French. That would be perfect. Unfortunately, my French is only at a basic level for reading and that's about it.

Well, not much will change this week.
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Re: James29's Spanish (and sometimes French) Log

Postby James29 » Sun Feb 12, 2017 12:11 pm

Well, I am continuing with Spanish as just part of my regular life. I'm not really tracking what I am doing anymore. I am running every morning on the treadmill and watching Netflix in Spanish. This week I watched a bunch of episodes of Celia (she just arrived in NYC) and a bunch of the episodes of the various Marvel/Netflix original series. I'm working my way through Jessica Jones and Daredevil.

I feel as though my Spanish is not progressing with just watching TV. My understanding is likely getting better. It is simple to understand the Marvel shows (they are dubbed) and I don't really have any problem understanding Celia, but I feel like I'm losing some vocabulary. I notice that when I do have conversations with natives (not as often now) I am reaching/struggling for a word that I know I know. I think reading on a daily basis really helped as it caused me to cover so much more vocabulary on a daily basis. Plus, I think seeing the words in text helped. I am not complaining at all, but noticing something that I've never felt before.

I am also listening to the VOA news every morning. This is so "easy" that I think I could improve more if I listened to something else. I forget how long I've been doing this but it has been a long time now. I am so used to news related vocabulary and the speakers that it sounds as easy as English to me. There are, of course, interviews with bad connections or with guests with tricky accents that cause some problems for me, but, in general, this is pretty easy. Just because it is easy does not mean I'm going to change. It is a nice part of my day when I get in my car and head for work listening to (yesterday's) news in Spanish.

I had a nice dinner with some Spanish speakers this week. It was nice. We had many small-talk type conversations in Spanish. I also spoke with a customer in Spanish for a fairly long conversation on the phone. That was nice.

I got a bit back into French. I spent probably two hours this weekend working through some sections of Sandberg's French for Reading. I think this will be my strategy... just spend some time on French whenever I feel like it. I like learning French. I am not forgetting too much even though I leave it for weeks/months at a time. It is a bit frustrating because I can tell that if I could just put together the motivation to stick with it for a few solid months I would be able to get to a decent reading level. That would be nice.

My problem with French right now is that I don't have much free time and French is "hard" for me while Spanish is "easy" and relaxing. I'm really not going to worry about French and I'll just let it happen at whatever pace it happens.

Well, that's it for now. Next week will probably just be more of the same.
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Re: James29's Spanish (and sometimes French) Log

Postby reineke » Sun Feb 12, 2017 2:58 pm

James, I like reading your log even when you're not studying anything.
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James29
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Re: James29's Spanish (and sometimes French) Log

Postby James29 » Sat Feb 18, 2017 7:06 pm

Thanks, Reineke. I try to update my log weekly as a way to just keep myself honest. I do it mostly for myself as a way to self-report on my progress. If it is interesting to others that is great.

Spanish

This week was really more of the same with Spanish. Not much else new. I'm just watching Netflix in Spanish while I run on the treadmill. I logged in almost seven hours during the week. I'm watching Celia, Jessica Jones and Daredevil. In many ways I miss reading.

I am also listening to the VOA news every morning. I'm going to work after running now so it takes me longer to get to work in the morning with all the traffic. This does not really bother me much because I can get in a bit extra Spanish on the commute.

I did not go to any meetups this week. I'm busy with many other things this time of year.

French

I picked up French again. I seem to have fallen into a nice habit of doing French on the weekend. On the weekend I run more miles so I like to eat an actual breakfast when I get up. After I eat breakfast I work on French for a while. It is nice because the house is nice and quiet. I am working through Sandberg's French for Reading. Today I finished chapter 11. I think this is my third time through these chapters, but it might be my second. I could go back and look at my log, but don't really care. I am getting a ton out of it. It is a great resource. I have worked through chapters 1-11 three times and 12 and 13 twice. I have never gotten to anything after chapter 13. I'm going to finish off chapters 12 and 13 and then I'll figure out what to do next.

I noticed that Assimil was really working well. It was super simple to just do one quick lesson every morning. I got halfway through it and then decided to do something else. That's when I quit French the last time. Maybe I'll go back to Assimil.

I am also watching "parlez-moi" on youtube. I have watched the first four episodes a few times. I really like it. The host goes through the basic vocabulary of the skit and then you watch the skit. It is always a cheesy skit with a clown who is a total goofball. Then at the end of the episode you watch the whole skit non-stop and can understand everything. It is a pretty cool feeling. It must be from the 70s or 80s and I believe it is from Quebec. I really like it because the episodes are short/simple/easy/etc. And, Quebec French is my preferred French. I must say that the videos are actually pretty easy for me at this level which is nice. Hopefully they will stay just as entertaining and I'll keep watching the program.

General

I'm not really sure what I want to do with my languages other than just enjoy them. My Spanish is at a good enough level that I don't feel the real need to "study" unless something comes up where I need it at a higher level. I would like to spend some time going through a C level grammar as I have not worked with grammar for quite a while.

French is really on again / off again all the time. This does not really bother me. I think what will happen is I will find something that I get hooked on and it will become part of my life like Spanish did. I don't know what it will be. Maybe I'll just keep starting and quitting again every few months. I do like the idea of bumping up my French to a level where I can actually use it. Getting to a solid B1-ish level would be cool for traveling, reading, etc. It should not be too hard to get there if I put my mind to it.
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