Cenwalh's Spanish Conquista

[Cenwalh]

My other half asked me if it would be possible for her to learn Spanish just by absorbing it. It got me thinking, is that doable in a reasonable time frame with the materials available?

Let's lay out some assumptions: the person learning is a total beginner (as in they know less than 50 words/phrases; it's probably impossible to be an English speaker in the modern world and not know "hola" or "gracias") and they would absorb Spanish only by watching/listening to comprehensible input that's already available (so no cross-talk).

So how do you start? Well you need comprehensible input. This has to be in video form because an English speaker doesn't have all that many recognisable cognates and has nothing to relate pure audio to. The only truly beginner comprehensible input for Spanish that I've found is DreamingSpanish. So the learner needs enough video comprehensible input from DreamingSpanish (and possibly TV cartoons after a point) to be able to get to an "intermediate" level where audio can be understood without every noun/adjective/verb being drawn or demonstrated.

So how long does it take to get there? If we use the equation given a few posts ago then we can start to investigate. As that post mentioned the equation was born out of a comprehensible input school in Thailand, AUA. According to them it takes 400 hours on average for a westerner to move to intermediate classes, so all we need to do is shove that in the equation, do some jigging for Spanish and we get a result of 160 hours of beginner comprehensible input to get to intermediate level.

Is this possible? Well DreamingSpanish has 6 hours of "super beginner" videos and 40 hours of "beginner" videos which are both of that style. So 46 hours vs 160... How about cartoons? Everyone knows Peppa Pig is super easy, and Pocoyo too. Well the former presents 18 hours and the latter about 16. We've only got to 80 hours of possible input and we're already using native TV and that's not to mention the hundreds more hours to pass intermediate level into being able to understand normal natives having normal conversations (double, triple or quadruple the 160 hour mark). Is there more input? Sure, but it's hard to come by and there are only a few hours here and there.

All this to say that within a reasonable time frame I don't think it's very easy to learn Spanish this way without some super effort to watch hundreds and hundreds of hours of TV/videos that aren't comprehensible, and I think a learner would very much struggle to stay motivated doing that. I like to talk about how comprehensible input is great, but I had already learnt like a traditional learner, I already had a base. I think it would be very difficult for someone to get here from scratch solely comprehensible input, although I do very much recommend it when you can watch an "intermediate" type learner video.

[StringerBell]

Hi Cenwalh, I just wanted to say that I read your whole log and really enjoyed seeing the way you display data, track your progress, and ponder about big questions! It seems like you've made some amazing strides and I find reading your entries to be inspiring. Please keep updating!

[Cenwalh]

Hi Cenwalh, I just wanted to say that I read your whole log and really enjoyed seeing the way you display data, track your progress, and ponder about big questions! It seems like you've made some amazing strides and I find reading your entries to be inspiring. Please keep updating!

Thanks for the message, StringerBell!

It's interesting you mention data and tracking progress as these are the two parts that interest me the most looking back and reading others' logs, but as of late I've been terrible at them. When September ends I'm going to try and compile together all the data I can for the month to see how it's really gone.

[Cenwalh]

So a summary of September in hours of active audiovisual Spanish consumption:

• Podcasts: 33 hours
• Audiobooks: 20 hours
• Youtube: 14 hours
• TV: 4 hours
• Total: 71 hours

So not a bad result at around 2.4 hours per day!

I'd like next month to be able to track progress per day which I neglected to do this month, but at least I managed to track it at all. I'd like to consume more TV but I just find it less arduous to listen to things or watch Youtube as the former is convenient for commuting and the latter when I have 10 minutes here and there. My IFTTT rule to track Youtube missed around 1 in 4 videos, but that doesn't really matter because most videos have a date attached.

In addition to the above, content consumed includes all the Youtube videos I started and didn't finish (also ones I forgot to like), and consumption of news, although I don't imagine that they would have contributed much.

[Cenwalh]

Quick half month update:

I'm maintaining over 2 hours per day which is nice, although visual content has completely gone down the pan. I've also started following Spanish content on social media which I've never done before and I'm unsure will be of much use, but it's nice to have some variety. I'm also slowly trying to phase out some learning stuff that presents no challenge and so have dropped Español con Juan. Juan has no doubt been an incredible help for me and I'll miss his bubbly (slightly mad) personality dearly, but as he's said himself in recent podcasts and emails, there's a time to move on if we want to keep learning and that time for me is now. I think I'll drop Dreaming Spanish in the not too distant future too, but I'm keeping it for now because it's nice to have something easy when I'm tired. Pablo also talks about super everyday things that don't really appear in podcasts or books so it serves as an important learning tool still.

I'm currently halfway through Algo tan sencillo como estar contigo which is the third and final book in the trilogy of books I'm listening to on Audible. I've really enjoyed them, and would definitely recommend them for someone who's not quite ready for a full adult novel yet (like me). It's been ever such a long time since I've listened/read to a series of books like I have these.

I recently went to France which sent quite the message that I have lost nigh on all French ability that I gained in school which is kinda sad. Ah well. Maybe on day I'll take it on after Spanish, but it's never really called to me. No languages really do to be honest. Apart from a stint of wanting to learn Catalan, I've never really suffered from wanderlust like so many on this forum.

[Bex]

I've just finished reading your log.... when I should be studying

Looks like we're following the same path, although you've used Anki I lot more than I have. Funnily enough I was even considering downloading your deck the other day.

You even both love stats, I have multiple pages on Excel

Great log, I'll be following with interest.

[Cenwalh]

I've just finished reading your log.... when I should be studying

Looks like we're following the same path, although you've used Anki I lot more than I have. Funnily enough I was even considering downloading your deck the other day.

You even both love stats, I have multiple pages on Excel

Great log, I'll be following with interest.

Isn't that the way? Although I've been inspired by many members so I think there's no harm in reading logs.

Thanks for dropping by, and tune in for even more detailed stats...

[Cenwalh]

Well, I promised more detailed stats and I have them; here's my month's review:

I think I've hit the limit of what I can do in a month whilst working full time and revising for professional exams (I passed another the other day, yay...).

Audiobooks
I finished the series I was listening to on Audible and then smashed out the Spanish translation of Thirteen Reasons Why (notable for being a series on Netflix in English). It was a strange listen because the narrators (two of them, which makes sense if you know the book) spoke in an Iberian Spanish accent, but their script (the translated book) is definitely written in Latin American Spanish which ended up sounding a bit strange. Anyway, I enjoyed the story and finished that too.

I then wanted to start the Spanish translation of Northern Lights (known as The Golden Compass in North America), and I bought the whole series on Audible. Unfortunately after 10 minutes I had understood almost nothing, so I decided to give up and come back to it another time. I've bought a different book to listen to in the meantime.

Podcasts
I've continued smashing out the psychology podcast I was listening to and have listened to about 70 episodes now. I've also listened to a few documentary podcasts from RTVE. I am still using learners podcasts though as when I'm tired and in busy streets I just can't concentrate on some of the heavier stuff. That's why I mostly listen to fictional audiobooks, because they're just more engaging.

Other
Visual content almost died completely, but I made a real effort near the end of the month to watch some TV consisting of documentaries on RTVE, and a drama called Cuéntame cómo pasó which has bare episodes so I might carry on watching that for a while.

Stats

Cumulative hours consumed throughout the month:

Cumulative Spanish content consumption in October 2019.PNG

I managed fairly linear progress and ended up on 76.5 hours in total. It's fun seeing how the the rate of change corresponds to life events.

You'll note that some of the categories don't seem to be used. I put them in my spreadsheet as placeholders for when I do use them which I should do at some point.

September compared to October:

September vs October hours consumed by media type if each month had 31 days (September restated).PNG

I took September's hours, added the Youtube videos I hadn't counted from September, and then added 1/30th to September as if it too had 31 days so they can be compared. It's quite sad seeing that drop off in visual content, but oh well.

This gives a total of 74.1 hours in September (with 31 days) vs 76.5 in October, a mild improvement, but very much the limit.

Attentive readers might note that September and October's hours added together almost make 150 hours (148.4 hours with actual September data) which is the films component of the super challenge! Of course reading is nowhere to be seen, so I guess the whole thing would take me 4 months at this rate.

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I have some thoughts on things, but I think I'll leave them for another day because this post is already quite big.

[Cenwalh]

It's recently irked me that I haven't been getting enough visual input. I figured that concrete nouns and visual descriptions would be best learnt in a visual way, and perhaps even the rest of the language too. I'm conflicted though. Audio only input seems to be more dialogue heavy which means of course that I'm receiving more input. Visual content on the other hand gives us stimuli to relate the language too which should help build vocabulary.

Thus I set out to search for how language is acquired in blind vs sighted children. Does being blind hinder the little language learners? I'm afraid to report back that I'm yet to reach a conclusion on that front. As Anderson et al wrote in their 1993 study The impact of input: language acquisition in the visually impaired:

Untangling the relative contributions of visual and lingustic input is not an easy or straightforward matter.

Various studies have found that blind children receive different, sometimes lower quality, input than their sighted counterparts which makes it hard to compare. How can we say they're worse at acquiring when they're just not receiving the right input?

How about twins, one of whom is blind and the other isn't? That ought to be a good comparison, right? Fortunately it's been studied by M. Pérez-Pereira and J. Castro who looked at two Spanish twins (not identical). Their two studies are interesting and seem to point to learning not being slowed by lack of visual stimulus, although the way the twins use language is quite different. The blind

Therefore, the blind child does not seem to have a retarded language development, but a different one.

What does this mean for me and other input focused learners? No doubt, our development isn't the same as a blind child (or any other child). We do not have a caregiver who points things out and describes them on demand. What it does mean for me though is that as long as I'm getting some visual input, I'm probably going to do OK, and abstract language is likely to not be a problem.

[Cenwalh]

Watching TV is hard. Rather, watching series is hard. I find my comprehension on non-fictional TV of interest to be pretty good, but watching Cuéntame cómo pasó (CCP) is different. I can follow the plot without issue, but it's some little things they say that I completely miss, and some of the characters like some of the young kids and the older people I find quite hard to understand.

Any time people ask about the topic, the advice given by members is always to just watch lots of a series and it will become as easy as watching TV in your native language. I'm sure that's true, but it takes so much effort persevering through the difficulty to get there when one only has so much time to dedicate to the task and there are other, easier things one could consume. That said, I'm determined to stick to CCP for around 50 hours to see how it goes. After all, it is entertaining even if I miss some stuff.

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I've made good progress on visual content which has accounted for roughly half of November's totals so far.