Sfuqua 2015-2016 July Log

[Cavesa]

I love this log! Congratulations to the reading progress!

Thanks for sharing the experience with Pimsleur, it was an interesting read. My main struggle with Pimsleur (Swedish, total beginner trying a few lessons out) was not seeing the writen representation and therefore not knowing what exactly are some of the words. At some points, it felt like when I was a child, couldn't understand English and therefore sang nonsense that sounded more or less like the lyrics.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nIwrgAnx6Q8 this is a good example of such an approach I was worried about drilling utter nonsence in Pimsleur. And I wasn't retaining much, compared to having both the writen and oral part of the language at hand. But it is good to know Pimsleur is not as easy as it looks, based on the beginnings.

I am not emk but I dare to react as another zealous extensive reader: Vocabulary learnt and practices through the means of extensive learneg transfers to the other skills of course. I've noticed many listening comprehension problems are actually vocabulary problems and reading can be a steps towards fixing that. But the transfer from passive to active vocabulary is a more complicated matter.

I read 27 pages today sitting in the mall while the lovely females in my family shopped for shoes.

Sounds great!

[emk]

In my experience, extensive reading makes a huge difference. A few million words, and boom. I think that most people who get stuck around B1 do so because they're just not reading enough.

...
@emk - I am sure you are right. And you have kindly shared with us in the past here and in HTLAL a lot of detail about your own history of reading improvement. But I have a nagging feeling / question in my mind: Does this only help with vocabulary for reading?

Put another way: If, in addition to reading comprehension, you also want to improve your listening comprehension, don't you also have to get in a ton of listening (to native output)? Or will that (or should that) come "free"?

Excellent question! I can only answer based on my own experience, though, and from observing the French students who joined HTLAL just after my big push. This is not scientific.

As far as I can tell, the easiest and quickest way to get out of the B levels and into the C levels (at least in terms of comprehension) is to do two things:

1. Read a million words or so of anything which interests you. This allows you to work at your own pace, slowing down or skipping stuff as desired. And it's a great source of vocabulary: Books use more words than TV.
2. Watch entire TV series straight through, preferably multiple seasons at a time. This helps build listening comprehension skills, and it also helps transfer reading knowledge over to listening.

Basically, as far as I can tell, pretty much every B1 student who does these two things boosts their comprehension up towards the C levels.

There is also the interesting, perhaps thorny, question of turning passive vocabulary into active vocabulary, but that is probably a whole other subject / thread.

I'm probably a terrible person to ask about that, because I get to speak French every day at home. But I strongly suspect that (a) strong comprehension makes it much easier to improve active skills, but also that (b) most people actually need a fair bit of speaking practice to turn their comprehension skills into active skills. In my personal experience, Krashen's absolutely correct that massive input is essential, but he's wrong in saying that input is enough by itself.

[sfuqua]

Well I continue to be consistently inconsistent.
I quit Pimsleur, and two days later I decided I would continue it. I'm just going to work on it a half hour a day and stop/skip it whenever I feel like it. I'm not out to memorize it; I'm using it to replace the Spanish homelife I don't have. Maybe if I finish it or get tired of it, I can go on and do Platiquemos or something else.

I am about half sick today and yesterday, so I haven't been thinking much about Spanish; just reading a little here and there. I realized earlier today that I had read about 70 pages of various books, and that I have finished my first "big book", La Caída de los Gigantes, 1360 pages. Melodrama with a clear historical setting. I'm not sure where to go next with my reading; there are thousands of pages to read from the last two of Follett's century trilogy, but I also have discovered that I am capable to reading some original Spanish literature. I read for pleasure mostly to have adventures that I cannot have in real life; moving into original Spanish literature may be a way to do this. On the other hand, while translation sometimes can "dumb down" a book, the books are translated for native speakers to read. I don't think there are any wrong decisions here; I've got a long, long way to go to 10000 pages reading and 10000 words listening. I did a quick 40 page run into the second one of the Follett trilogy, El invierno del Mundo, and yes, it would go quickly. I dipped into Harry Potter for a chapter, and I actually liked it more than I did when I tried it earlier. I think that I'm a little overly familiar with the first three books of the series, and that they were a little too difficult for me to read easily enough to like them. So young Potter is an option. I also looked at some of Gabriel García Marquez's nonfiction, and there is no real problem there. I took a look at a couple of other books, and there wasn't really any problem with them either, and I realized, yet again, how fast I am improving on this diet of 15-25 pages of Spanish a day... This works fast; it doesn't give you daily positive reinforcement; on the contrary, bad days can happen at any time. But it works fast measured in weeks.

I also have been thinking what emk and others have said, that Krashen is right about comprehensible input, but that active practice is needed to activate the language, to move your passive knowledge into active knowledge. My active skills are pathetic compared to my passive skills. I bet that in a few months I'm going have passive Spanish skills beyond my passive skills in either Samoan or Tagalog on my best days in either language. At the same time, my active skills in Spanish are probably going to be at about the B1 level, if you are generous. I answer too slowly. I make mistakes that I recognize the second they are out of my mouth, which tend to choke off the next sentence. I answer in the most ridiculous, flowery, literary sentences where a simple "Sí" would have been appropriate. I think I could make a great tourist, and I think I might be fun for a patient Spanish speaker to talk to, if I had something to say that they really wanted to know, but I'm way beyond this in reading (and to a lesser extent, listening)...

The reason is clear, I bet I haven't had two hours of actual, regular conversation with Spanish speakers since I started studying. In Samoa, I studied a month or so, and then just started talking to everyone with my very imperfect Samoan. I was so lonely I had to; nobody spoke English. In the Philippines, after a couple of months in country, in a wave of longing, I just started talking to the breathtakingly beautiful travel agent I was buying tickets from. She thought I was funny; we went out to the movies; later that evening she taught some new, high interest vocabulary. I spoke Tagalog all the time in Manila from then on.

As a shy, "mature", happily married, part time student of Spanish with a tiring job, it is unsurprising that I haven't had this communication breakthrough yet. My Skype partners disappear, or I am the partner who disappears. Students and I only speak a few lines of Spanish back and forth (there is usually somebody who is English only in the conversation). Talking to the construction workers at our apartment doesn't go much beyond, "Buenos días "

My point is, my active Spanish is exactly where my other languages were at a similar point in my active practice of those languages. My part time schedule, and lack of travel opportunities, and cheapness about hiring online tutors limit how fast this part of my Spanish is going to improve. I really think that you need some practice trying to make up sentences that you want to say, and then saying them to a Spanish speaker in order to move to any sort of advanced speaking level. Drills and shadowing are not exactly the same thing. I have thousands of words and a substantial grammatical understanding of the language in my head, and I think that it all would start coming out pretty fast with the right opportunity. I am incredibly far ahead passively compared to where I was when I started speaking in my other languages. I think getting my speaking up to the level of my reading/listening is a question of 10s of hours, not 100s.

Right now, the focus is on passive knowledge (with a little Pimsleur for spice). I would love to have a sudden breakthrough in speaking, but I'm not really expecting it.

[James29]

Great post, Steve. Congratulations on finishing the Follett book. I have been eyeing that book for a while and have passed it over every time for simply being too thick. That is quite a major accomplishment. I'd be interested to hear how much you liked it. Would you recommend it to someone who does not read/like much fiction? After finishing it do you feel like you will read the follow up? I do like history, but I have never read any Follett so I am kind of on the fence about diving into such a major book.

Regarding your active skills, you sound very much like me. I've got the same things going on in my life and rarely have opportunities to have real conversations. The only real speaking practice I ever get is at my weekly meetup. I also get two or three phone calls a month at work in Spanish. I complain about how useful my meetup is, but, one thing is for sure, is that it does keep my speaking flowing a bit. If you have a local meetup I suggest you give it a try. Even if it is all people like me and you who are learning the language it could be quite helpful and enjoyable for you. I don't think you need too much speaking to really have your Spanish flowing fluently out of your mouth.

[sfuqua]

I think there is a big difference between part time learners and immersed learners.


Part time learners learn basics and then move on. They move to "harder" things and don't continue to practice "easy" things.

Full time learners have no choice but to continue to do "easy" things over and over again, and they need to push themselves to keep moving into "harder" things.

Something like extensive reading gives a part time learner at least a little bit of immersion.

[garyb]

I think there is a big difference between part time learners and immersed learners.

Part time learners learn basics and then move on. They move to "harder" things and don't continue to practice "easy" things.

Full time learners have no choice but to continue to do "easy" things over and over again, and they need to push themselves to keep moving into "harder" things.

I agree that this is a very important difference and one that isn't mentioned much. Indeed, many part-time learners seem to work on "advanced" things yet their basics aren't that solid. And many people in immersion get by well but don't advance beyond that point.

In the first case I think the main reason is just that if you don't use the language in real life enough you're not aware of the gaps in your knowledge. I always get a shock when I visit the country and realise that there are many quite simple things that I don't know just because I've never had to know them, like what to say when I go into a shop or a bank. I'd understand these interactions, but participating in one is a whole different story. Also, the "harder" things like exotic vocabulary and expressions can seem a lot more exciting than solidifying the foundations, and studying them makes you feel like you have a higher level, so they're often more attractive to a part-time learner.

Sadly I don't think there's a true substitute for the real thing, and input is important but certainly isn't enough. I think that the best we can do is to speak with natives when possible and visit the country when possible. Even that is often easier said than done as you acknowledge.

In the second case, it's just the old fact that immersion isn't magical and you also need desire and effort if you want to keep advancing.

[sfuqua]

When you're a self directed learner, you have to be both teacher and student.

Right now, me the teacher is a little annoyed at me the student.

I got off rhythm for a few days there; I'm not sure why. I was doing Pimsleur a half hour or so in the car daily, not really paying attention to whether I finished a lesson or not, just doing something that made me make up sentences. It was working; when I quit for a couple of days, I missed it.
Since it was working, I decided to change it to Platiquemos for a couple of days.

I was making good progress and enjoying myself with the Century Trilogy by Follett, so I changed to García-Márquez's hardest book.

Well, I didn't make as much progress for a while as I should. I can read and enjoy _El amor en los tiempos del colera_, but I have to shift down into a very low gear and hit the popup way more than usual. 5-10 pages is a good day's work. I suppose that I could just stay in low gear and eventually speed up when my vocabulary increases, and my experience says that it would happen faster than it seems like at first. However, the academic literature is full of arguments that a learner needs a big, big diet of "easy" material. It's probably better to save GGM for later; maybe after couple of million words.

Platiquemos, well I could just use it in 30 minute bites, like I've been using Pimsleur. Of course I didn't do that; I spent about 2 hours a day on it for a couple of days... I missed a day of reading... Uh, this isn't the goal; this isn't the prize.

I'm on a long trail to 10000 pages. I few side trips are inevitable, but this was not a very satisfying one.

Eye back on the prize. We're at 1700 pages of the 10000. At some point here, I've got to restart my telenovela habit, maybe on my phone...

[Teango]

Congratulations on finishing "La Caída de los Gigantes", sfuqua - that's a big achievement! I'm looking forward to following your progress across all 10,000 steps of the trail. Which novel do you have lined up next (apologies by the way if I missed that in a previous post)?

@Cavesa
Your "O Fortuna Misheard Lyrics" link made my day (how did I ever miss this one!?)

[sfuqua]

Ignore this random ramble; it is only peripherally about language learning...

I just have to talk about Gabriel García Márquez.
His fiction is still pretty hard for me. His nonfiction is readable... I just

I know that some people find his writing annoyingly thick and difficult. Let me tell you what I see, as if anybody cares. I've tried to describe this to my father, and I know I failed with him, but...

Reading GGM's fiction means that you are going to see uncommon words frequently. If you know them, they will wrench the meaning of the sentence in an unexpected directions. If you have to popup the word, it will take longer and you may have to reread. When the words fall into place in your brain, you will find that rather than the word being strange or odd, it is exactly the right word to push the meaning of the whole sentence into a deeper, more profound direction. Several sentences in a row can blow you out of your mind. Stoned, hallucinatory , but completely, wonderfully awake.

His plots and the ideas he proposes as "normal" are sometimes strange and offensive. But just stay in for the ride, you may eventually find that in fact he has revealed something about human nature, and sometimes, rather frighteningly, he will show you something about yourself... If it's one of his great works, you may find your head spinning as the book ties together in the end.

I find reading GGM to be like listening to Bach. So often, when I listen to Bach his melodies lead me in unexpected directions, directions which no normal mortal would choose, but which he shows are actually better directions, strange, achingly beautiful directions.

For me, Bach and GGM change the definition of human. YMMV.

Sorry about my ramble, but I love his writing. I have many more great Spanish writing authors I haven't read a word of yet.

[sfuqua]

Thanks for the nice words, Teango.

After my gush about GGM, I guess I should do some of GGM's nonfiction and seem if it can get me up to a point where I can read his fiction at faster than 80 wpm (mostly slowed by looking up words).

If it doesn't click, I'll go back to Follett's trilogy. I have another 2600 pages there to read. I also have his Middle Ages duo, which are another 2200 pages. I'm pretty familiar with his, and his translator's idiolect, and I loved the Middle Ages books in English.

I actually read 47 pages of Harry Potter today; it was much more fun that when I tried Potter earlier. I've read the first three Harry Potters (in English) to multiple children; by the fourth one they could read it by themselves, and they asked Dad to move one to reading something else at bedtime so they could race ahead on their own. HP reads fast; I can cruise at about 150 wpm with them, although I do see some words I don't know. The academics seem to think that this is the sort of book one should be reading, at least for difficulty level. I bet I could rip through HP at warp speed by the end, although I know that the later books get harder.

Harry Potter taught my kids to read novels in English; it would be appropriate if he taught me to read Spanish.