Isn't it Romantic? SCMT learns Spanish and French

[SCMT]

I've been on a bit of a movie binge in Spanish, it seems. I finished the third movie in the Batzán trilogy. I liked it, and I feel like I should go back through it with a fine tooth comb to pick up all of the language I missed, but I haven't and probably won't, at least for most of it. I'm also about 90% trhough the Spanish spy movie El hombre de las mil caras, and I am going to have to watch this one again. The speech is so fast and the plot is so complicated that I've missed important parts of the story. Castillian Spanish moves so rapidly sometimes that I can't catch the subtitles, which is yet another problem with having to rely on them. Maybe my ear is trained differently now, and maybe it is the strange accent, but it seems much faster than the Mexican Spanish to which I have become accustomed.

I also finished episode 2 of Casa de las Flores season 3 and discussed it with my conversation tutor. There was an assignment to pick out 5 interesting or strange phrases to discuss. My main tutor and I watched a video and discussed Mexico's independence day, which was last week. I still need more regular conversation practice.

I finished PMP Intermediate Grammar chapter 7, which was about verbs that are reflexive or are sometimes reflexive. It was helpful and a little more difficult than expected in places, especially when having to choose whether to use the reflexive form or not. I read the news in Spanish several times.

[SCMT]

Well, my tutors' time slots on italki are filling up again. The last time this happened, it was because schools were cancelled and some mother booked 3 lessons every day for her 3 kids. Stupid coronavirus. I did have a session with my conversation tutor where we discussed the insane world of Casa de las Flores, episode 3. We also went over a few general language learning things, like why it was difficult to transition from subtitles and why movies from Spain were still above my ability. I do wish I could find the opportunity to spend just a couple of weeks immersed in the language so I could force myself to level up, but that isn't going to happen anytime soon, so I will just have to settle for the daily grind while I pause and rewind to make sure I catch the words at the bottom of the screen. I have given Casa de las Flores episode 4 a first viewing.

I'm still plugging away at PMP Intermediate grammar. I finished unit 8, and am in the middle of unit 9, which is on idiomatic espressions using dar, estar, and hacer. Some of these are familiar, but most are new to me, and most do not translate into English well. I think I'm going to have to study them as vocabulary outside of the exercises to ever get them to stick, so I may try Iversen's 3 word list or flash cards or something. They are very useful, and I assume common, although many of them I don't recall having encountered in my reading or watching. Estar a caer? Darse por vencido? I dunno...hard for me in the "fill in the blank" format in the book, but they seem to be good things to know.

I watched a little bit of news and listened to a little bit of podcast sometime this week, but not enough. I read news articles most days. I should start a new book.

[SCMT]

The past week has been fall break here, and with the kids out of school and a bit of travel on the agenda, my schedule of language learning and posting to my log is a little off. I had lessons sometime with my italki buddies, although the days and topics have run together during my holiday. I'm pretty sure I discussed the most recent episode of Casa de las Flores.

I started a new book on my travels, Los Mares del Sur by Manuel Vazquex Montalban. It's a murder mystery set in Spain involving an eccentric and possibly alcoholic detective. The first chapter, sort of a background action scene that serves as as a kind of preface, was very difficult to follow, with lots of different usages and vocabulary, but once the story settled in to present day, things are going pretty smoothly. I think I like it.

I am about halfway through Chapter 11 of PMP Intermediate Spanish Grammar. I went back through all of the new, difficult, or unusual vocabulary and phrases in the workbook so far and made flashcards out of them, I'd guess about 30 in total, which seems like a good vein to mine. I haven't reviewed anything yet, but I did make the flashcards.

Probably the best interaction I've had in Spanish for a while was with an Uber driver that picked my family up while on vacation. We talked in Spanish for over 1/2 an hour, and I enjoyed it so much that I called the same guy to pick us up for an airport trip later and spoke another 40 minutes or so. I tipped him well, so it wasn't a free lesson, exactly, but I did feel pretty good about having over an hour of impromptu conversation about everyday things completely in the target language. I don't know where that puts me on the CEFR scale, and I won't allege that my Spanish was anywhere close to perfect, but I'm one hell of a lot better than I was when I started this project. Florencio was also a very nice guy.

I have read news in Spanish and watched news in Spanish a few times, also.

[jeff_lindqvist]

Probably the best interaction I've had in Spanish for a while was with an Uber driver that picked my family up while on vacation. We talked in Spanish for over 1/2 an hour, and I enjoyed it so much that I called the same guy to pick us up for an airport trip later and spoke another 40 minutes or so. I tipped him well, so it wasn't a free lesson, exactly, but I did feel pretty good about having over an hour of impromptu conversation about everyday things completely in the target language. I don't know where that puts me on the CEFR scale, and I won't allege that my Spanish was anywhere close to perfect, but I'm one hell of a lot better than I was when I started this project. Florencio was also a very nice guy.

Wow, well done! That must have felt great! Forget about CEFR. More than 15 years after I finished high school, I had my first conversation in Spanish - also for one hour. To this day, I have no idea how I was able to pull that off.

[SCMT]

Wow, well done! That must have felt great! Forget about CEFR. More than 15 years after I finished high school, I had my first conversation in Spanish - also for one hour. To this day, I have no idea how I was able to pull that off.

Thanks, it did feel good! Most if the discussion was about activities in the area, travel plans, family, background, etc., But I'm proud of being able to sustain the conversation pretty well, from what I could judge.

It helped that my driver was nice, patient, and knew I was a learner, but it's still a notch on my belt!

[SCMT]

I started to open a new thread to ask this question but figured it might not be received by the world at large as I intended, so I'll just add it to my log and hope the audience is amused, helpful, or some combination of both. The fact is that my eye is starting to wander again, and while I have no intention of diverting my attention from Spanish, most of my "study" at this point is reading news or books, watching TV or movies, listening to podcasts, and having the occasional conversation as the opportunity presents itself. And the fact is that I like the steep ramp in learning that I experienced in the beginning stages. I liked the coursework, the Assimil, the vocabulary study, and the breakthrough of finally understanding why something is done a particular way in the language. I miss the discovery of new things that level A-something presents while I have almost forgotten the frustration that level A-something can present.

So I'm thinking of going dabbling into other things again, at least for a while, and I think I can do it without giving up much if any of my current Spanish activity. Maybe I could use the chance to study a different language as a motivator, a reward for finishing my PMP grammar book or something similar. Anyway, there are 3 candidate languages in which I have interest, none of which present any actual foreseeable need to speak for me, but all of which I would like to learn to a reasonable level before someday my soul leaves this earthly realm. So that's a long winded way of asking for advice on a sideline project of playing around with either:

French: I studied this for a couple of years in high school, and after placing out of 1st year French I completed 2nd year in college. I have never been conversant in it. I like the language, and between school and the similarity to Spanish, I should have a really good head start. The downside is that I do not want to screw up my Spanish through interference by a similar language before it is solid enough to handle it, and every now and then I will let a French word or concept slip into my Spanish already. Still, it might be the leading contender because of ease.

Japanese: My last sideline involved Japanese, or at least kanji. I played around with Remembering the Kanji for a couple of months before abandoning it. Trying to adjust to a new writing system was hard in a different manner than I imagined; I mean, I spent some time with the language, and I couldn't say hello or order a salad or ask directions to the train station or anything. And after my study started to slip, i kind of decided that if I didn't have time to really dig into Japanese then it probably wasn't helping much to do it as a secondary project. But I still am attracted to the language and the culture. The fact that it is so alien is very interesting to me, a different way of thinking and organizing and presenting thoughts that i would like to learn. And maybe it would go better if I started with kana, or a good course, and a little review of the kanji I met before. It was very difficult the first time because I had no grounding at all in the language, but now I have a small grain of sand to stand on. Would that help?

German: Somewhere between French and Japanese on the familiarity spectrum, I have just enough German to compliment someone on their sneeze. But the writing and media are compelling, and in my mind it is still a language of the intelligentsia. The grammar and vocabulary, from what I can tell, are comfortable and weird for a native Englisher at the same time. Like Japanese, it isn't a language which I ever think I would try to develop to the point of being able to conduct business in it, but to read Thomas Mann or be rude to a Swiss waiter in his own language are both things I'd like to be able to do one day. And unlike French, I don't think I would be tripping over it while trying to speak Spanish very often.

So please give any wisdom or advice you think pertinent to my studies. I might ignore it, argue with it, or adopt it, but I will appreciate it fully.



tl;dr: help SCMT pick a new language to begin learning, preferably from the list above

[SCMT]

I have had one lesson with my main italki tutor (I have a conversation today with the other.) We had a discussion around a theme, the internet--what I was doing when I first got connected, how I supervise my kids activities, privacy, and other related topics. It was fun, and it actually felt good to stretch my Spanish muscle after not really having a conversation in the language for over a week. Also, much of the discussion was in past tenses, and I think I handled preterite and imperfect not terribly. As a sideline, we also discussed some changes she has made in her lesson plans, introductory video, and general strategy in order to focus on intermediate and advanced students. According to her, her retention rate for new students becoming regulars is very high for intermediate+, but she is lucky if she has 1 in 10 beginners continue after the first lesson or package of lessons. My guess is that this is not unusual and is probably reflective of beginning language learners as a whole, but I don't know.

I watched Casa de las Flores episode 5. It's the topic of my italki later today. I have also read news in Spanish pretty much every day, and i have watched CNNe a time or two. I am still reading Los Mares del Sur, and I like it, although it's a little stereotypical of the hokey noir detective story, where the eccentric gumshoe goes around interviewing people until, I'm sure, he will cleverly piece all of the info together into an exciting revelation. The characters are interesting, there is a good bit of humor, and the reading level seems about right for me. Kindle tells me I'm 27% finished, which means nothing other than it is a number I can use for this log to make sure I'm progressing. The format is terrible on kindle, with a long introduction, extensive notes at the end, and no chapter breaks, so the one thing I know is that I'm not 27% complete.

I think I have 1 exercise left in PMP Int Gram Chapter 12. I still haven't reviewed the flashcards I made from it yet, but they are right there in a neat stack whenever the urge strikes me.

On the recommendation of iguanamon somewhere, I also got a copy of Breaking out of Beginner's Spanish*, which i started yesterday. I'm breezing through it without heavy study (I don't think it's meant for heavy study, anyway.) I know studying about Spanish isn't the same as studying in Spanish, but I think there is a place for this. For instance, in explaining levels of formality, like when to use tu or usted, it suggests comparing this to a situation in English where you would call a person Mr. or Mrs. That's a different, and more clear, way of thinking about than I have been using, where I basically default to usted until it becomes evident I shouldn't. So I think there are some tidbits of stuff to be found in it, and it's an enjoyable read.

As for my wandering eye, I think I am going to take a stab at French. It looks like I am going to finish my Spanish TV show, my grammar book, and maybe my novel within the next few weeks, and it looks like as clean of a break as any to flirt with a new language. I'd like to see how much I remember from my schooling and how much of a head start I seem to have with a related language. I won't stop studying Spanish, but I will devote part of my brain power elsewhere and see where it goes. That's the plan for today, anyway.

*Edit: the book, of course, is Breaking out of Beginner's Spanishh by J. Keenan. I made the adjustment above, even though breaking out of intermediate Spanish is really what I'd like to do.

[SCMT]

I had one session with tutors over the past week, and it was a conversation about Casa de las Flores episode 5. I have watched #6, and we are supposed to talk about it in my next lesson (today? I need to check.) My teacher asked me to take note of "set phrases" in the episode, so I have a list of 4 or 5 ways of expressing things in Spanish that look like set phrases to me and are different than the way things are said in English.

I didn't make as much progress in my detective novel as I'd like. Kindle tells me I'm 32% through, which is more than the 27% i had last week, but not much. I have a habit of reading it just before bed, which sometimes means I spend a lot of time reading it with my eyes closed, which makes for slow going. I have kept up my habit of reading news in Spanish almost daily, and I watched CNNe once or twice while exercising.

I finished Chapter 13 of PMP intermediate grammar, which was on the preterite. I am comfortable with the tense (my usual mistake is overusing it in place of imperfect,) but I need more work with irregular verbs like saber/querrer/poner/poder, so maybe I will dig up thses chapters in Shaum's or GdUdE or find some online exercises. I did review my flashcards of phrases from the book once.

I've started the planning stages for French, but that's all. I figure I need a course, a grammar, a listening resource, and a conversation partner, and I think I have a pretty good idea about those resources. I also need a method for vocabulary acquisition, and i'm less sure about that. I used goldlist for Spanish and wasn't completely happy with it. My experience with flashcards from my Spanish grammar has reminded me how much I hate flashcards. I played with anki for Japanese kanji and am not in love with that method either. I might try Iversen's 3 column lists, or maybe get one of the vocab workbooks from PMP or Schaum's and see how that works, but I'd really like to put enough French in my head to get reading independently as quickly as possible and absorb vocab that way, and I'd love any suggestions as to how to get there asap. Maybe the words are hidden away in my brain somewhere leftover from school or crossreferenced with Spanish, but we'll see. Anyway, I'm not going to start study until after I finish my Spanish grammar workbook and maybe my novel, so that gives me a couple of weeks to figure it out.

[SCMT]

I had a pretty good week of Spanish study, all things considered.

I had a session with my main tutor; we discussed Halloween and watched a video about some Italians that are running a bank, but rather than storing and lending against money, they are using cheese. There was a good bit of new vocabulary, between discussions of clowns and fairy princesses and then interest, mortgages, and the processes that cause parmesean to age well, and it was fun. I also had a conversation session with my other tutor where we discussed Casa de las Flores 6. I have watched 7 twice and will discuss it in my next session. I can follow the plot without a lot of problem, but there is still a good bit of detail I miss without subtitles.

I have a few thoughts on a couple of resources I have been using:

First, my PMP Intermediate Grammar book I think has been terrific. It's organized in a way that makes sense to me, the explanations are clear, and the exercises are generally well done. There are a few throw away exercises: "mark the following questions true or false as they apply to your life," but I've really enjoyed going through it, and I think it has helped me progress in two ways: it has provided good practice on grammar points as any competent grammar workbook should, and it has identified weaknesses that i need to go back and shore up. I will post a list of them later, as I have just finished chapter 15 of 20 and there may be more, but so far I have about 5 things that using the book has highlighted as weaknesses, and I plan to go back and work on them with other resources. I have both Shaum's and the first two Grammatica de Uso books for plenty of practice, but if somebody asked me to recommend the one grammar they should get to learn Spanish, I would suggest PMP.

Second, I have been working my way through Breaking out of Beginner's Spanish, and there really is some good stuff in this book. The most recent chapter, for example, listed 64 Spanish verbs that are trouble for English speakers, with about a paragraph explaining what's going on with each of them. There is basic stuff like figuring out ser and estar, but better to me is the discussion of the more subtle usage of verbs that are common and used differently in Spanish, like caer and andar. I'm sure I will forget and relearn and check back many times, but this really is a good resource for addressing some of the struggles an English speaker is likely to encounter with the Spanish language. Thanks again to Iguanamon for the recommendation.

I am now 48% through Los Mares del Sur, thanks mainly to a good chunk of reading on a lazy Sunday. I can tell I am reading it faster than before, as I suppose I'm getting used to the language. I do find myself translating in my head sometimes, especially in difficult passages.

I listened to elexplicador once and have watched news in Spanish a couple of times. I am very thankful that CNNe isn't quite dominated by US election coverage. I read a whole bunch of news articles on ElPais and BBCmundo's websites.

I don't know when i will start French. I intend to actually set a study plan for it and not just dabble, even though it will be a secondary language, so I feel like I need a clean starting point. I have a list of resources that i'd like to use to begin that I will post here for reference and scrutiny when the time is right. A thread title change might be in order, too, but it isn't time yet

[MorkTheFiddle]

Just spent the last hour or so reading through your whole log. Your plans and your followup and the extent of the materials you have studied impress and inspire me very much. Some of your recommendations I want to follow up on myself: alanxelmundo, "Las batallas en el desierto," by Jose Emilio Pacheco, Toc Toc and El Guardian Invisible. A peek at alanxelmunco makes it look intriging, though the flow goes too fast for me without the subs. In the next few days I'll be looking at the others.

As for Club Dumas, congratulations for grinding it out. Me, I bailed less than halfway through. Quite boring.

I read The Old Man and the Sea in the original, and I'll be curious about your reaction to it if you ever go back to it and finish.

As for a couple of suggestions, although I liked Cien Años de Soledad so much that I read it three or four times and listened to it three or four times (the latter, in part to improve my listening skills), none of García Márquez's other novels appeal to me. His short stories, though, are a different kettle of fish. "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" and "El coronel no tiene quien le escriba" are just two of his many fine stories and novellas. Anyway, these are just little suggestions (that you don't really seem to need.)

Et bien, bonne chance avec le français !