Luke's very confused Spanish Learning Log

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luke
Brown Belt
Posts: 1304
Joined: Fri Aug 07, 2015 9:09 pm
Languages: English (N). Spanish (advancing), Esperanto (B1), French
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=16948
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Re: Luke's very confused Spanish Learning Log

Postby luke » Thu Oct 17, 2024 5:22 pm

luke wrote:Was looking at a Dialang thread and saw this Instituto Cervantes placement test.

http://pruebadenivel.cervantes.es/

Curso B1.3 - B1-4 de AVE Global
Según esta prueba, su nivel de español se sitúa entre
los cursos B1.3 - B1.4 de AVE Global.

It had a vocabulary part, a reading part, and a listening part.

I didn't time the test, and apparently the test didn't time me, but it was more than 10 minutes and probably a good bit less than 30 minutes. Maybe 15-20 minutes.

That was on July 21, 2021.

I took a proficiency test today on cesvantes.es. It took about 45 minutes. This one had 4 parts, including the 3 mentioned above.

My new score:
Curso C1.1 - C1-2 de AVE Global
Según esta prueba, su nivel de español se sitúa entre
los cursos C1.1 - C1.2 de AVE Global.
15 x
: 7082 / 8000 8000 páginas - Lectura
: 4798 / 7300 FSI Basic Spanish Anki
: 2925 / 4992 Anki 4992 Palabras frequentes
: 58 / 100 Écouter le français - 100 heures

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Le Baron
Black Belt - 4th Dan
Posts: 4294
Joined: Mon Jan 18, 2021 5:14 pm
Languages: English (N), Ones I speak : French, Dutch, German. Ones I'm trying to speak : Spanish, Swahili.
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Re: Luke's very confused Spanish Learning Log

Postby Le Baron » Thu Oct 17, 2024 8:27 pm

That's excellent.
3 x
Privileged lord.

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luke
Brown Belt
Posts: 1304
Joined: Fri Aug 07, 2015 9:09 pm
Languages: English (N). Spanish (advancing), Esperanto (B1), French
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=16948
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Re: Luke's very confused Spanish Learning Log

Postby luke » Sat Dec 14, 2024 9:50 am

García Márquez track
In an effort to continue growing my Spanish around Cien años de soledad, I went through La casa grande by Álvaro Cepeda Samudio. Cepeda was a friend of Gabriel García Márquez. The book is about the masacre de las bananeras (banana plantation masacre), which is also part of Cien años de soledad. It's written from the perspective of several of the personajes of the book, similar to La hojarasca.

I listened to Mario Vargas Llosa - García Márquez: Historia de un deicidio again. It's a really great book that analyzes pretty much everything Gabo wrote up through 1971. Over 600 pages.

I also listened to various short stories and novels by Gabo since the last post and have been reading some of them too.

: 106 / 106 La casa grande - Álvaro Cepeda
: 779 / 779 Mario Vargas Llosa - García Márquez: Historia de un deicidio 2x

FSI winding down
I just finished up a dual review of FSI Basic Spanish volume 4. I plan to down-regulate FSI for some time to focus on other things:

: 10 / 10 FSI Vol4 review 5x
: 4500 / 7300 FSI Anki

Reading
Continuing to keep track of reading as I find piling up pages read is helpful:

: 7001 / 7000 7000 pages - Reading

iTalki conversations
ITalki conversations have been nice for bringing Spanish alive in my life and are getting me to focus on a new phase of my language development. I've done 8 of them so far.

: 8 / 10 iTalki convos

New Phase - talking to myself and shadowing books
Talking to myself was my university trick for becoming fluent in French. I had a traumatic experience with a French prof and abandoned this method, but think it's a good thing to return to now. E.G., describing the environment and saying things either out loud or to myself that I might say to another person.

Shadowing audiobooks will replace FSI time while driving.
11 x
: 7082 / 8000 8000 páginas - Lectura
: 4798 / 7300 FSI Basic Spanish Anki
: 2925 / 4992 Anki 4992 Palabras frequentes
: 58 / 100 Écouter le français - 100 heures

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luke
Brown Belt
Posts: 1304
Joined: Fri Aug 07, 2015 9:09 pm
Languages: English (N). Spanish (advancing), Esperanto (B1), French
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=16948
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Re: Luke's very confused Spanish Learning Log

Postby luke » Fri Jan 24, 2025 11:46 pm

Wrapping up some goals
I finished a long audiobook and had my tenth iTalki conversation since my last post.
: 22 / 22 Globalismo - Agustín Laje
: 10 / 10 iTalki convos in Spanish

Further input
I'm trying to watch more videos in Spanish on topics of interest to keep making long-term progress.
: 7061 / 8000 8000 pages - Reading

Some Anki for maintenance
I've got daily goals of about 8 minutes of the amazing FSI Anki deck and 10 minutes of the top 5000 words to keep making progress on those long term goals.
: 4639 / 7300 FSI Anki
: 2770 / 4992 Anki 4992 Palabras frequentes

French listening
I've become interested in dusting off my French. I re-read some of the Listen-Reading documents and am adapting that approach to my current life habits. I have some books I'm familiar with in English and Spanish and I've been using them for Listening while working out, driving, sitting in the sauna, etc.

I also picked up Cent ans de solitude from Audible. It is well performed. I've been listening to it along with my personal Spanish-English parallel text. I've listened to 12 of the 20 chapters.

My initial goal is to refresh French. I still understand pretty well. If I can get to what the creator of Listen-Reading called "Natural Listening", I'll be quite content. Natural Listening is being able to listen to "new content" and understand it without additional help.

I think of my approach as using Listen-Reading because I'm using a parallel text or I'm listening to something that I'm so familiar with that I don't really need written support. It is re-training my ear for French.
: 8 / 50 Écouter le français.
8 x
: 7082 / 8000 8000 páginas - Lectura
: 4798 / 7300 FSI Basic Spanish Anki
: 2925 / 4992 Anki 4992 Palabras frequentes
: 58 / 100 Écouter le français - 100 heures

DaveAgain
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2217
Joined: Mon Aug 27, 2018 11:26 am
Languages: English (native), French & German (learning).
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... &start=200
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Re: Luke's very confused Spanish Learning Log

Postby DaveAgain » Sat Jan 25, 2025 12:46 pm

Threre's a radio documentary series I like called "toute une vie", they have an episode on Mr Marquez that might interest you: Gabriel Garcia Marquez, légende de la littérature.
1 x

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luke
Brown Belt
Posts: 1304
Joined: Fri Aug 07, 2015 9:09 pm
Languages: English (N). Spanish (advancing), Esperanto (B1), French
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=16948
x 3852

Re: Luke's very confused Spanish Learning Log

Postby luke » Sun Jan 26, 2025 8:51 am

DaveAgain wrote:Threre's a radio documentary series I like called "toute une vie", they have an episode on Mr Marquez that might interest you: Gabriel Garcia Marquez, légende de la littérature.

Thank you. That's precisely the type of content that I find useful.

On another topic, I recently bought Olly Richards, 101 Conversations in Mexican Spanish. It was very inexpensive on Audible. A little over 2 hours of a story told in conversations using some of the slang and the accents of Mexico. I recently had an iTalki session with a Mexican tutor and she pointed out that Mexico is a big country and there are a lot of different accents. The local library has the eBook, which has made this leg of study easy to systematize. I've been putting the new words or phrases in Anki.
7 x
: 7082 / 8000 8000 páginas - Lectura
: 4798 / 7300 FSI Basic Spanish Anki
: 2925 / 4992 Anki 4992 Palabras frequentes
: 58 / 100 Écouter le français - 100 heures


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