Cenwalh's Spanish Conquista

[Cenwalh]

I've had some time to reflect on my learning process and why I've had a sudden jump in comprehension. First and foremost is the jump (about 1,000 words) of vocabulary in the last few weeks, but on my process itself I think I know why it's working for me and I want to walk through the process of a new word that I learn as I see it:

1. word appears in Anki frequency deck as translation of the English, learn its rough meaning
2. word appears in book, get to see the context in which it's used, get to have a second to think about its meaning if I can't make sense of it instantly because it's static text
3. hear word in video or podcast, process automatically
4. word appears in cloze deletion, have to produce it in the right context with the right grammatical construction

I think in this way my vocab is being cemented pretty quickly (although as mentioned I'm not doing steps 1 and 4 much at the moment), and we can see the word go from awareness to understanding with conscious thought to unconsciously understanding and production (although arguably step 1 is also production, but it's more rote than cloze).

I think steps 2 and 3 work well because reading content tends to have a higher variety of words in it so I'm more likely to encounter new words there first.

This week I've been watching a few "made for natives" Spanish YouTube videos and following along which is exciting as well!

[Cenwalh]

My break's not going so well, I am back to actively pushing through Anki, and also I added back in all the verbs which has meant it's just been days of learning verbs in one word flashcards which is getting on my nerves.

I finished Charlie y la fábrica de chocolate and I started a new graded reader, Fantasmas del pasado which is graded B1, but I'm not sure about that because I'm finding it really easy (perhaps 1 unknown word per page (as displayed on my Kindle, I'm aware that this is a bad measurement)). I'm about 90% of the way through, will probably finish it today. I'm not really sure what to read next, I'll probably analyse some written for native texts and choose the easiest, or I might read Fernández's final book (graded B2), Una chica triste which given how easy this B1 reader is, should be doable. We'll see. I don't know how reasonable a target this is, but I'd like to have read 5,000+ pages of Spanish books before going to Spain again in 2020.

I'm still watching Dreaming Spanish, and I love Jaime Altozano and CdeCiencia on YouTube, really binge watched the former. I've fallen a bit behind with Hoy Hablamos, but I'm sure I'll catch up.

Also... I gave into myself and started Catalan on Duolingo. I'm finding that the audio is poor and it's very much a "text first" approach which is what really held me back in Spanish with understanding for so long, so I'll have to find something else, but for now it's enough... I think. I would love to be able to understand it because it's such a beautiful language. I am aware that it is likely not helping the conquista, but I can't help myself - love is love.

Erratic Anki (can clearly see where I was sticking to my "break"):

Erratic Anki 20190506.PNG

[Cenwalh]

Today I had the most "flunked" reviews on Anki that I've ever had - probably because I'm not consuming enough Spanish material at the moment - and it's really stressful because I've got a professional exam on Thursday and I need to revise for that, not tend to a ballooning Anki Spanish deck.

Feeling a lot of pressure right now

[Cenwalh]

I'm having a bit of a crisis. How much do I know? It's at least 4,400 lemmas (from the Anki deck, assuming I haven't forgotten anything which of course I have), but I of course know many cognates, and I have likely picked up other words from reading and listening. But what does it mean?

I started Una chica triste (graded B2) and am finding it easy - too easy. It shouldn't be this easy if I'm rating myself A2 should it? Should there be more or less unknowns than one word on a page? I thought perhaps it was graded too high, so I read previews of other B2 graded books by Paco Ardit on Amazon and similarly found them easy, only missing a word or two. And yet, I'm clearly not at a B2 level. Whilst I find Euronews OK to read, I can't hack El País, and I wouldn't be able to just watch a movie in Spanish without subtitles and enjoy it. I suspect the issue is that these graded readers have not been analysed for vocabulary to determine their level, but then is that even the point of the levels?

What are these levels? Who decides them? Can one even put oneself on the scale if they're seeking to only be passive for the time being? I suspect the answer to that last one is probably not.

I feel so close to being able to read native text, and yet I will likely need to double my vocabulary in order to do that, which is just a crazy increase. Perhaps I should continue with learning lemmas after the 5,000 is over, but solely do Spanish to English (it is currently the other way around) to speed up learning them as this will surely be easier.

[Cenwalh]

I had my exam which means I don't have to study that until I get my results in a few months, so more time can be spent on Spanish!

I lost a 16 day streak on the Duolingo Catalan from Spanish course which is a bit sad, but is an opportunity to reflect that I have actually learnt almost nothing from it...

Since I started listening to podcasts a few weeks ago, I've clocked up a fair few hours which I'm proud of because I don't get all that much opportunity to listen to them. I used to commute solo for 2 hours a day which would have been an opportunity, but I now mainly commute with my better half which is bad for Spanish learning, but also very nice, so I'm not going to spend all of it with headphones in (just some).

Podcasts .PNG

Little to no reading this week though which isn't ideal. I must force some reading time here and there.

[Cenwalh]

I've had some weeks off updating this log for a few reasons, not least of which because I've been in Italy for 10 days. I learnt some rudimentary Italian to help with being a tourist, but nothing more. I did find knowledge of Spanish helped a bit with signs etc in Italian, but not really for long form comprehension, and not at all for when people spoke to me.

Since my last update my reading has continued to be almost non-existent apart from Euronews and occasionally BBC Mundo. As I was busy on holiday, I only reviewed Anki instead of having new cards - I didn't want to take my time away from the fun! I have vastly increased my listening time though which is nice. I'm not sure whether I should keep listening to these podcasts or find something a bit more challenging, but for the moment I think it's OK.

In other news I bought the Assimil course El Catalán sin esfuerzo from Amazon France for a few Euros, although I haven't started it and I'm trying to concentrate on Spanish for a while.

Some pics:
Podcast listening tracker:

Podcasts .PNG

Recent Anki stats:

Anki.png

[Cenwalh]

I finished the 5,000 lemmas deck!

Honestly, I feel empty, like I've been drained of motivation. For all the talk of input being more important, this deck gave me numbers, a target, and now I don't have that. I'm not sure what I will do from here. I have a list of the top lemmas from hundreds of books, but I haven't given them translations or compared them to my current deck yet - maybe I never will. Anyway, it is certainly a milestone and I hope to keep learning.

In other news, little reading going on but I am managing some per day so that's good.

[Cenwalh]

So it's been a month. I didn't come to post this because it was exactly a month, it's a coincidence. I promised myself that I'd finish that cursed book before posting again and here I am a month later, and finally I've... Not finished it still, but I'm 90% of the way through. That's not to say I've dropped Spanish. My podcast listening time for example stands at 2 days and 13 hours which is a decent chunk. I've been averaging about 5 hours per week I'd say, but I can't remember when I started so that could be wrong.

I've bought a Spanish teen romantic fiction novel which is not really my style, but it was on Audible (so few Spanish books in my range of comprehensibility are on Audible) and it looks pretty easy so I'm looking forward to it. I'll probably read a chapter then listen to it and so on. Fun fact, if I read all of it, it will be the longest book I've ever actually read (530 pages), including in English! I don't know if I can blame dyslexia or not, but when books get long I always listen to them as an audiobook rather than actually read them. With Spanish though, I want to take the time to get a feel for the written language and a book seems a good way to do this. Also I'm hoping that because of the consistent orthography in Spanish, it might eventually be easier than reading English... Who knows.

I passed the exam I spoke about a few months ago which is great, but also means I've now started the next level of this qualification which means more studying boring stuff and less on Spanish.

A lot of text, not a lot of studying. Back to it!

[Bex]

Which podcast tracker do you use? I've been looking but unable to find one for ages.

[Cenwalh]

Which podcast tracker do you use? I've been looking but unable to find one for ages.

I use Podcast Addict on Android and it has statistics buried in the settings. Conveniently it also has an option to backup and restore which meant I didn't lose progress when I changed my phone.