Looking for advice moving forward in Spanish

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buylow12
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Looking for advice moving forward in Spanish

Postby buylow12 » Sat Dec 17, 2016 4:11 am

Right now I can easily understand spanish news, sports, documentaries, and translated american movies and shows but still struggle with things like native spanish sitcoms. I speak with my mexican Italki tutor 6 times a week for 30 minutes and we talk about everything from day to day activities and weather to politics, history, culture, travel fairly easily. However I still have to ask for words somewhat regularly sometimes even words that I have known for a while now. On top of that I have been doing 3 or 4 GLOSS exercises a week(I'm at 2+ now), I read about a chapter a day from "El Ultimo Argumento de Los Reyes"(I've read the series in english before and have already read the other two books in spanish) and it's difficult enough that I still need to look up say 2 to 3 words on each page. I also watch TV and documentaries in spanish daily. I had been going through FSI Basic Spanish but gave up at about unit 37 as I felt like it was taking more time than it was worth and it felt quite easy at my current level.

So I feel like my main weakness at this point is my vocabulary and of course my active vocabulary is lower than my passive. I also have noticed a tendency not to use the preterite enough and I definitely still need work on the subjunctive, especially the imperfect. My speech has become much more fluid but I could certainly improve on that but I also tend to kind of stop and think in english when I speak too.

I'm going to be taking a break from studying during the holidays and then will be in Ecuador for 5 weeks traveling starting in January and will also not be studying then. I plan to continue to read but that's probably it. However when I get back I want to have a plan going forward. My thoughts are to increase my conversation practice to an hour 6 days a week or maybe even more and to continue with everything else about the same. I used to make note cards with the corrections and words from my tutor but gave up because it was taking so much time to make the cards. However I'm thinking I'll just copy and past it into excel as is and generate cards that way so it'll be much more efficient.

I would say I'm a solid B1 on the cusp of B2 and would like some advice on my plan going forward and if there is anything I should add, subtract, or modify.

Thanks,
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Re: Looking for advice moving forward in Spanish

Postby James29 » Sun Dec 18, 2016 6:35 pm

It sounds like you are higher than a B1 to me.

I wish I could give you some advice, but I'm doing basically the same things you are doing. That being said, there are two things that come to mind. One would be listening to an audio book while following along with the text. I find doing this every now and then really helps "bring everything together." Also, the gramatica de uso del espanol series of grammar books is fabulous and could/would be a good way to efficiently get the more advanced grammar you are looking for.
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Re: Looking for advice moving forward in Spanish

Postby tarvos » Sun Dec 18, 2016 7:10 pm

More reading. You need all the immersion you can get. Going to Ecuador will help you out.
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Re: Looking for advice moving forward in Spanish

Postby Cavesa » Sun Dec 18, 2016 8:34 pm

I think you are on the right path, you just need to go further. More time spent watching tv series, movies, and other stuff. More books. More practice. More everything. You are definitely past the lower levels, which can be gained pretty fast. The progress takes more time now, in order to be noticeable.

Particularily when it comes to listening and reading (as you are getting quite a big dose of the other activities), I think you might be staying within your comfort zone too much. How much have you tried listening to the original shows? Of course you are gonna be lost during the first episode, that is normal, but many people give up at this point. Get started with something, dive into it, and be patient. About reading: It can be extremely helpful. But one chapter a day is not much, truth be told.
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Re: Looking for advice moving forward in Spanish

Postby tarvos » Sun Dec 18, 2016 9:54 pm

I agree with Cavesa. The amount of effort you spend on Spanish will help you maintain your level - even improve at a very slow rate - but if you desire a quicker improvement, you have to up your game.

Tens of pages of reading are not enough. Hundreds are better. Thousands are best. In any language we speak well, we have listened to and read thousands of pages and hours of material. I have just started a new Spanish fantasy book which is about 800 pages long, and if I read a chapter a day I wouldn't finish it for the next three months and I'd give up somewere halfway. I haven't set a goal of how many pages I want to finish each day, but I've managed 84 pages today and if I continue at this rate I will be finished somewhere next week, freeing up my hands to read another book already. I've done that before, and if you get used to reading more (and once you start doing so you'll also find you start reading much faster) you will get a bigger vocabulary, understand more and get used to more and different vocabulary. At your level, you should be consuming Spanish in more massive amounts and increase the volume of your intake. If you only miss a couple words per page, that is good enough.

For activation, I recommend active writing exercises and presentations with a very strict teacher (if your current one is lazy about mistakes, get somebody else) where you are punished for every single error you make. At the advanced levels, it's the tiny things that give you away - and it's those things you want to work on.

I recommend searching out specific grammar books to work on tenses you have trouble with, such as the subjunctive. I feel like the preterite is used more in written than in spoken language, but that may also be because I have lived in Spain where the compound form is more prevalent.

If you feel like you are stuck, the trick is to change tactics and approach your task from another angle. Probably you've exhausted the options you have to move forward in your current situation. Sometimes you actually have a different lock on the door impeding your advance and you have to find another key, or at least a lockpick, to move on.
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Re: Looking for advice moving forward in Spanish

Postby buylow12 » Mon Dec 19, 2016 2:34 am

Well I appreciate you saying it sounds like I'm above B1, I just wanted to be conservative as I haven't taken any tests or anything. I haven't tried LR yet although it has occurred to me. I wasn't able to find an audio book for any of Joe Abercrombie's books which is what I'm working through right now. I also have "el Señor de los Anillos" which I haven't read in english before and surely there is a spanish audio book for that. I've heard of the gramatica de uso del espanol and actually have a copy, I think I'll work that in.

It seems like everyone agrees that I need to read more so I'm definitely going to give that a go. Since I won't be doing any studying over the holiday's or while in Ecuador I should definitely get some more reading done. Previously while traveling in Southeast Asia and Mexico this year I did find I got more reading done than while in the States. While in the States I definitely find I waste too much time reading on Reddit, maybe if I could find something similar in Spanish I'd get more reading done. I'd really like to hear any suggestions for something like that.

As far as listening goes over the past three months I've been doing steady work on GLOSS and have noticed marked improvement. I feel it works better than watching TV because I really have to focus on it and I can listen to short clips 5 or 10 times plus they have transcripts for all of them which I read and listen too once I've completed all the exercises. It just seems much more intensive than TV and I feel like I've had a huge improvement since I started it.

I watched the first season of "El Cartel de Los Sapos" maybe six months ago and found it very challenging. I remember there being a lot of slang. I watched "Club de Cuervos" sometime after that and found that easier but still didn't catch everything. Since then I haven't tried a series, I tend to either watch documentaries on YouTube(I much prefer documentaries to other television) or I just cut on Telexitos and watch whatever is on but the majority of that is translated stuff. Honestly when I get back I think I might give the second season of "El Cartel de Los Sapos" a go as my listening comprehension is much better than before for sure.

As far as immersion and traveling go the two months I spent in Mexico I actually felt like I used less Spanish than when in the States because I was just speaking spanish when in towns and taking care of business and wasn't doing any studying other than reading. However we were camping in Baja most of the time and so either by ourselves or with other travelers except when going into town for supplies and whatnot. This trip in Ecuador we'll be backpacking so I think I'll spend more time in town speaking spanish but I still doubt it'll be as much as I do when I'm in the States.

The only writing I've been doing lately has been in the GLOSS exercies so maybe that is something I should spend more time on. My tutor I wouldn't call strict but he certainly corrects every mistake I make and also types the corrections out in Skype. I really like the guy but have considered adding someone else just to hear a different voice.

I have a book that is entirely devoted to exercises on the subjunctive and I had been working through it before I went to Asia but kind of gave up on it to focus more on listening comprehension before my trip to Ecuador. I should probably get back at that. That's funny I feel like I use the compound forms too much, maybe I'm just being self conscious or critical but I do think I read the preterite is used more in Latin America than Spain.

I actually do feel like I've been making decent progress I just wanted to see if there is something I'm missing or something I should change up. I, just like anyone else, want to maximize the progress for the effort put in. I've been impressed with my improvements using GLOSS and am definitely planning on finishing up with that. It sounds like everyone agrees on more reading so I'm going to try to add more of that in. I find I can only spend two or maybe three hours actively working on spanish each day(I don't count watching TV). That's not everyday either as I get much less done when my wife isn't at work. When she was working nights I was really getting a lot of spanish done, lol. I think adding some grammar back in would be a good idea too. I do notice that after my conversation practice each day I find myself really thinking in spanish and that's why I'm thinking of adding more time to that.

It's crazy two years ago when I started I would have considered myself fluent at this point, and other people do, but I still feel like I have a ways to go to be happy with it. At some point I really want to transition to learning french, lol. I'm hoping another three months intense studying when I return from Ecuador will get me to that point.

Anyways after that novel....thanks for all the suggestions.
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Re: Looking for advice moving forward in Spanish

Postby sfuqua » Mon Dec 19, 2016 3:46 am

If I might be so presumptuous as to give advice to someone who is already doing very well in Spanish :D , let me sing the song of listening and reading things that you don't completely understand. There is nothing that beats hundreds of hours of listening to Spanish and thousands and thousands of pages of reading. If you enjoy movies and books, you can stop worrying about how much you understand. Many things can be done to help comprehension, from parallel bilingual books to popup dictionaries, but the main thing is to get something that you can read well enough to enjoy, and then read it. Imperfecct comprehension just needs to be pushed through.
For me, I needed to tell myself that I was going to watch a season of a telenovela without understanding it and several hundred pages of of a novel with limited comprehension, and, well before I reached a thousand pages or a hundred hours, my Spanish was transformed.
Pushing past your comfort zone can work wonders. If you hate movies/TV and reading, by all means do something else, but I love them, reading in particular. I bet those two or three word you don't know each page will soon be one word every two or three pages...

I simply could not believe that I improved so fast. I was probably about your level or a little below when I started...\,
I hate to sound like I know what I'm talking about, but extensive reading and listening/watching was such a nice experience that I can't stop recommending it :D
In a few months, I'm hoping to recreate the same experience with French.
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buylow12
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Re: Looking for advice moving forward in Spanish

Postby buylow12 » Mon Dec 19, 2016 7:44 am

I'm certainly open to suggestions from someone who clearly has a lot more experience with language learning than myself, this being my first. I do love to read(at one point I was averaging thousands pages a month, in english...) and certainly have plenty of spanish material to dig into. I've got all kinds of good SciFi and fantasy books in spanish I can plow through. I guess I just need to focus a little more on it. I've certainly seen a lot of improvement as I've worked my way through the first two books and half of the third book of The First Law Trilogy but that's still probably only 1500 pages or so total. I also read El Príncipe de la Niebla before I got into The First Law Trilogy when there was a group reading it on here but found it was just too simple for me to enjoy, it's clearly aimed at middle/high school kids. I made it about 95% of the way through and decided I'd rather struggle with the more difficult First Law Trilogy whose plot and characters I love. I'd also love any suggestions as to a spanish news aggregator and community similar to reddit as lord knows I spend way too much time on there.

As far as TV and movies, who doesn't like them :) I think maybe I should switch from watching Telexitos which shows mostly translated shows and movies to Telemundo which shows more original spanish content. I usually just leave Telexitos playing all day. I'd be lying though if I said I enjoyed the soap operas and what not that Telemundo seems to air a lot. Are you aware of any spanish language historical dramas? Maybe something related to the spanish conquest of the Americas, the Mexican-American war, the Spanish Civil war , or something along those lines. I think I might find that more up my alley. I do enjoy some of the drug kingpin type dramas too but I can only take so much of that.
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Re: Looking for advice moving forward in Spanish

Postby Spoonary » Wed Dec 21, 2016 7:56 pm

If you can get hold of it, El Tiempo Entre Costuras is a pretty well done series, and has definite historical undertones. The book is also pretty good, if you don't mind a bit of romance... ;)
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Re: Looking for advice moving forward in Spanish

Postby Systematiker » Wed Dec 21, 2016 8:15 pm

Spoonary wrote:If you can get hold of it, El Tiempo Entre Costuras is a pretty well done series, and has definite historical undertones. The book is also pretty good, if you don't mind a bit of romance... ;)


The series is on Netflix in the US, I watched it earlier this year. It also has pretty accurate Spanish subtitles.
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