CarlyD's Spanish and German Log

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CarlyD
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Re: CarlyD's Spanish and German Log

Postby CarlyD » Tue Jul 26, 2016 5:50 am

I've realized that I don't post much when there's not a 6 Week Challenge going on. :P

During the 6 weeks "off" I've continued to plug through my grammar workbook, talk as much as possible and watch tv. Fortunately, I do keep a daily journal so when the next challenge starts Aug. 1st I'll go back through and see if anything qualified to be logged for the Super Challenge (I don't think so--no movies watched.)

I've actually spent more time on German lately--all this mess going on over there and I keep going to local newspaper sites to see what they're reporting. Sadly, I've learned three ways to say "rampage."

I'd finally decided to spring for the money to take a formal Spanish class--the place had moved all the way downtown and I didn't fancy the drive, but the classes were in the daytime, which would work. I took the placement test--and the classes I qualified for are all either night classes or get out right at rush hour. I'll look again in the fall.

I'm continuing with the grammar workbook until the 6WC officially starts.
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2024 15,000 pages Reading Challenge--pages: 1180 / 15000

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CarlyD
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Re: CarlyD's Spanish and German Log

Postby CarlyD » Sun Aug 07, 2016 7:37 pm

Still working on Spanish--wanting to move back to German. :?

I watched Men in Black in Spanish last night. OMG--it was horrible. I only made it through the first 60 minutes--the only thing that kept me that long was having to struggle to understand. It might have helped if they'd found people with much better speaking voices for the two main characters, but probably not a lot.
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Re: CarlyD's Spanish and German Log

Postby arthaey » Mon Aug 08, 2016 5:07 am

CarlyD wrote:I watched Men in Black in Spanish last night. OMG--it was horrible. I only made it through the first 60 minutes--the only thing that kept me that long was having to struggle to understand.

It's always so disappointing to run into dubbing that's that bad!

If you're familiar with the sci-fi show "Firefly", I anti-recommend the Spanish dub. They lost all of the fun of Whedon's dialog, which is most of the point!
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CarlyD
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Re: CarlyD's Spanish and German Log

Postby CarlyD » Tue Aug 09, 2016 5:02 pm

6 Week Challenge:

I'm on Chapter 10 of my textbook--there's on 13 chapters, so hoping to finish the book by the end of the challenge. Really need to do more work on verbs though.

Super Challenge (Double Spanish, regular German)

I just last night finished my 3rd Spanish book--only 197 left to go. :o I actually have a fairly large new stack of Spanish books that I found used, so I'm finishing up my current one, then will start on the several new mysteries.

I was wavering on switching back to German, so I had to sit down and think about what my actual goals are.

Spanish:
1. Hold current conversations with local people, help English learners in person and online
2. Follow tv and internet news stories
3. Watch and understand several detective shows
4. Read books and magazines

German:
1. (Genealogy) Understand websites and search for information
2. Read and understand internet news stories
3. Read Facebook posts, knitting site posts, knitting patterns
4. Respond to Facebook and knitting site posts

So I don't have a huge intention to actually talk to anyone in German and have limited availability to watch anything other than Youtube. I'm mostly looking for a reading/writing capability--so maybe B1?
In Spanish, I think I'm looking for around C1 if I'm going to follow the fairly quick conversations on tv.

So my issue seems to be--I love German, but I use Spanish.

I'm going to try to stay at my 6WC level for as long as possible through the rest of the year and see what kind of serious progress I can make in Spanish. If I can test out at a firm B1, then I'll switch back to German for the Spring.
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CarlyD
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Re: CarlyD's Spanish and German Log

Postby CarlyD » Sat Aug 13, 2016 12:34 am

That huuuuge blip on my SC graph is 5 whole books. Looks kind of small, but I'm thrilled with them. And I swear book #5 was a teensy bit easier than book #1. Just 195 to go now. :o

I found that Kindle Unlimited has a huge number of high beginner-low intermediate Spanish books, with most being mysteries. I need to keep plugging away with the regular books I already have and then plan to start checking those out.

Progress Report:

6WC
* just finishing Chapter 10 in the textbook, on track to finish the book (well, maybe) by the end of the challenge. (15 chapters)
* using my new flashcard system (the Leitner method) every day now, and it's working great.
* still doing Memrise every day--anywhere from 20 to 45 minutes.

Super Challenge
* I've set up the next 4 books to read from my bookcase--the goal was every day, the reality is 2 or 3 times a week
* I have several movies/shows DVR'd ready to go. Some are too hard for me, which is frustrating.

I've been avidly following the language notebook thread and looking to clean up my mess of notebooks. I really want to try one of the really nice ones, but I'm leery to spend that kind of money if I won't stick with it. I discovered that my local Barnes & Noble carries the Miquelrius notebooks and they seem to get really good reviews. I'm going to try one and if I really use it, I'll look into getting the nicer ones.
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CarlyD
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Re: CarlyD's Spanish and German Log

Postby CarlyD » Sat Aug 13, 2016 9:44 pm

Ok, the Miquelrius notebook is really nice. 8x11, grid rule, 298 pages (I numbered them last night while watching the latest 420 Olympic swimming matches--will they ever end?) They do make a 6x5 one, but that store only had the regular rule ones, not the grid ones. They have plain solid color covers.

So far I've set up the index, listed all my resources for both Spanish (51 books) and German (57 books). I'm doing a section for all the challenges--I'm wondering if seeing the various 6 Week Challenges side by side will show me a pattern or how I can improve. I'm not sure what else to put in it--I'd rather leave most of it empty than fill it with stuff I regret wasting paper on. It has 6 sections, each with a different color edge, which is nice.

I'm still going to be using my cheap 5-section notebooks for when I do textbook exercises or whatever, as I don't usually refer back to them.

For actual language notes--I finished chapter 10 in my textbook, and am finally doing the tip about the dictionary that I posted about earlier. Every word I look up in the dictionary and copy to my vocabulary (flash cards, Anki, etc.) I am underlining the word in yellow. I was already making a small pencil checkmark next to each word I looked up which was very helpful because if was looking it up for the 2nd or 3rd time--why wasn't it on a flashcard?
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CarlyD
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Re: CarlyD's Spanish and German Log

Postby CarlyD » Tue Aug 16, 2016 5:09 am

Today was the first day of some work on my house that's supposed to be done by late Thursday. I'm exhausted and barely made it through my Memrise. No reading today, no movies. I did do my textbook and vocabulary box early this morning.

So the plan for the rest of the week is textbook and vocab first thing in the morning--that can happen whether I have electricity or not, whether I have internet access or not. Everything else I'll just do the best I can and pick back up this weekend--assuming they're actually done by then.

Although I guess it's a sign of how well you know Spanish if you can produce the right words when you're too tired to think. Considering how many I got wrong, apparently not well.
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CarlyD
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Re: CarlyD's Spanish and German Log

Postby CarlyD » Wed Aug 17, 2016 7:07 am

Totally crazy day. I got up super early to get my textbook pages, vocab box and Memrise done before the workers arrived around 9.

They didn't show. So I started reading a Spanish ebook--and waited--and read. I finished the book (53 pages) and the workers finally showed up at 2.

My only issues with the book was that it was about a Costa Rican family and I kept hitting nouns that I didn't recognize and weren't in my dictionary. I'm going to check my regional book to see if they're local to Costa Rica.

Wonder what time they'll show up tomorrow--and how many hours of Spanish I'll end up with? :P
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CarlyD
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Re: CarlyD's Spanish and German Log

Postby CarlyD » Wed Aug 17, 2016 11:28 pm

Today is my birthday--or as Memrise puts it--Tengo....años.

I barely got one exercise done in my textbook as I've been out shopping most of the day. And now I'm tired. (It's harder now that I'm .... years old.)

Tonight, Memrise definitely so I don't lose my streak. Hopefully some reading and tv.

Tomorrow the huge bulk of the work on my house--hoping for the best and a good couple hours of study time. Otherwise, I'll make it up the next morning.

Now I'm off to go through grammar books to see why I made those le vs. lo errors.
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2024 15,000 pages Reading Challenge--pages: 1180 / 15000

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CarlyD
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Re: CarlyD's Spanish and German Log

Postby CarlyD » Fri Aug 19, 2016 11:37 pm

Ok, everything is done. I managed 20 minutes yesterday morning and there's been nothing since. I don't even want to know where I've fallen on the Bot site.

I'm still exhausted so I might not start again until tomorrow. Maybe I'll set out my current fiction book for tonight, just in case. :D
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