BOLIO's Spanish log

[BOLIO]

México was great. Always feels like home regardless of which part we visit. Next time I may want to check out the Pacific side in a beach town called Puerto Escondido. We have heard many nice things from our friends who live in Mexico. Also, the Mérida and Campeche area has an interest for me.

Spanish is rolling along. I have never felt more comfortable but also very aware of how far I need to travel. If I could recall 100% of what I know when I need to know it then life would be fairly smooth in Spanish. For example, I woke up last night remembering a conversation I had in Spanish from yesterday and I thought "Why didn't I say this word or use this phrase when I know it?"

I know it will never be perfect but my goal is not perfection but relaxation. Comfortably and effortlessly (for me and the other speaker) speaking this beautiful language. That is the level I am searching for and if time permits, will achieve.

I have been wanting to start Russian for a while but keep putting it off to strengthen my Spanish. I am finding myself having more and more contact with Portugués. French too. Are they calling me or am I just more aware of my language surroundings? Speaking of that, in Mexico we met many Hebrew speaking people....maybe 30-40. Very interesting and beautiful sounding language to me.

Watched a couple of interesting to me movies on Netflix. The first is El hombre de las mil caras (Smoke and Mirrors). It is the loosely based story of Francisco Paes. He was a spy type or facilitator for political figures(money laundering, arms dealer, etc). I liked it.

Next was El Fin de ETA. I am embarrassed to say I knew next to nothing about this group and their violent acts against the Spanish government. They negotiated a "peace treaty" between the group and the government. Very interesting.

The last was The Chosen. It is the story of the man who killed Leon Trotsky while he was exiled in Mexico. Again, I knew a little of Trotsky as one of the original Politburo and his influence in regards to the Revolution in 1917...but not too much. Also, I knew less than zero about his murder.

That's it for now. Enjoy your studies.

BOLIO

[BOLIO]

It has been a while but I have been around the message board. Just not my own log. Well, things are advancing nicely in my Spanish life. I read, listen and speak every day. Still reading The Count of Montecristo and I am liking it. It is above me but I move forward. I take extended breaks with other books. Now I am reading La Muerte de Artemio Cruz. It still has challenging vocabulary for me but not as heavy as the other.

Rtve.es is still a big listening friend of mine. Sadly, they have blocked El Ministerio del Tiempo and I cannot watch the current season or the former seasons either. Netflix is a daily thing as well. I watch every documentary I can get my hands on. I am not much for the super violence or sex romps so I have to be kind of selective. I wish they would give us US customers a full international option. I would pay more for it.

Speaking and listening still trails my reading but I feel it improving. I am more relaxed. I don't shut down from overload. Feels good. Every day I use it. I really would like to get to a professional level in Spanish. When I see coworkers who are native speakers or are truly bilingual it makes me want it more. When will it be? No idea. But I continue to move forward.

My log is kind of boring but it is therapeutic for me. I can look back over the years and see the progress. Especially when I look at HTLAL. On a side note, it looks like my dream of going to Spain is actually going to happen. Probably early spring. I want to see it all.

All the best,

BOLIO

[James29]

I'm starting to feel like I may have that "professional level" you are talking about. It is something that just seems to happen slowly over time. Like so many other things with the language it doesn't just "click." I think you are going about it exactly right. My reading is definitely ahead of my other skills and my comprehension is now probably ahead of my speaking. I think that is definitely the way to progress toward our goals. The thing that seems to hold me back professionally is the comprehension.

[BOLIO]

I have been asked to help someone learn Spanish. The cool part is it is my teenage child. My kid wants to learn after watching me these last three years.

I am doing something very different than I used for myself. I am starting with graded material in Spanish with audio. We are using children stories, short text/dialogues and young teen stuff from the beginning. My kid had one Spanish class in high school two years ago. It went about like most accounts you hear about...nothing great.

Program for now.

Cover about two pages or around 400 words completely. Completely means read intensively the entire article.

Then create word list. More accurately would be to say phrase or structure list. Sometimes individual words but normally sentence fragments.

Then read article three times while listening to audio. This is the end of the morning session.

Through the day, listen to the article 10 more times without text.

Night session = Imitate native speaker on recording by reading along (Shadowing article for as many times as possible in 10 minutes for accent and production).

We will worry about writing later.

It is not overwhelming or taxing.


As for my studies, I have really been working on production and listening. I went back last night and looked at my Assimil with Ease course. I remember really hating the choppy feel of that course and I did not like the attempt at humor at all. The truth is I never internalized that course and in hindsight I reallly wasted my time with it. I would use Assimil again but would take a longer approach with it and use something else with it. I would follow the instructions in the Dutch course to a "T" and really work to make it my own.

BOLIO

[BOLIO]

It has been a while since I updated my log. Nothing earth shattering to add. I was thinking this morning, in spanish, how nice the language has become to me. I have mostly enjoyed the entire process with a few days of incredible frustration thrown in. But now I am really feeling the language.

It is still not perfect. We have a friend who is from the coastal area of Ecuador who I cannot understand to the point it is laughable. I have to have him slow down and talk to me like he is a five year old robot. Anyway, my wife corrected me yesterday after an encounter with our friend. She said that she could see my face tense up and the strain come over me. We laughed because it is true. I don't know why I do this with this guy. The thing is all of our friends say he is the easiest to understand. Maybe it is the tone, volume of his voice or the fact that he does not move his mouth. I don't know but everyone loves the guy and says he is hilarious. Weird that I cannot understand him very well.

Our group of friends has really expanded in the last six months. We talk with friends from Cuba, Venezuela, Argentina, Peru, Spain , El Salvador, Honduras and of course Mexico on a weekly basis. It really is fun and I am getting exposed to many different accents.

Wanderlust creeps in from time to time. I try to keep it at bay. Portuguese and French make the most sense and my area has plenty of native speakers to visit with while learning. I really imagine myself speaking both of these within the next five years. I see it plain as day.

Russian is a fascination of mine from way back.

Mandarin makes the most sense from a logical standpoint due to the sheer number of speakers globally, business opportunities and as a lover of history their history would be fascinating to read about in Chinese.

But the most exotic to me is Arabic. I cannot tell you why but it is alluring. We were recently invited by a local couple to visit them in Cairo when their house is finished being built. They said it will be between 18-24 months before they will be able to have guests outside of their family who live in other parts of the world (Greece, Colombia and Germany of all places). 24 months of side study with the Egyptian dialect... it would be fascinating.

Oh well back to reality and off to work. Enjoy your studies.

BOLIO

[BOLIO]

Where does the time go?

While I have not been updating my log, my spanish activities have increased greatly. I am reading Los Miserables right now and it is enjoyable but feels very much like El Conde de Montecristo.

I watch 100% of my television and movies in Spanish now and feel it helps me greatly. I continue to notice real advancement in this area. I speak every day with my spouse and friends in Spanish. It is still not my dominant language as far as the volume of my speaking due to my work but it is increasing daily.

I even get a chance to write the occasional email in Spanish. I am very happy with my progress in the last six months. I am amazed at how much self talk I am doing internally with Spanish. I have made myself do it in the past but now it is coming more naturally and I just find myself doing it. Very nice.

Hope all is well with everyone and your studies.

BOLIO

[James29]

Where does the time go?

While I have not been updating my log, my spanish activities have increased greatly. I am reading Los Miserables right now and it is enjoyable but feels very much like El Conde de Montecristo.

I watch 100% of my television and movies in Spanish now and feel it helps me greatly. I continue to notice real advancement in this area. I speak every day with my spouse and friends in Spanish. It is still not my dominant language as far as the volume of my speaking due to my work but it is increasing daily.

I even get a chance to write the occasional email in Spanish. I am very happy with my progress in the last six months. I am amazed at how much self talk I am doing internally with Spanish. I have made myself do it in the past but now it is coming more naturally and I just find myself doing it. Very nice.

Hope all is well with everyone and your studies.

BOLIO

It is good to have you back, Bolio. Congratulations on your success. Which version of Los Miserables are you reading? I have the translation by María Teresa Gallego Urrutia on my list. I don't think I'll even start it for quite a while but it is definitely something I'll read when I am ready to tackle another major project.

[BOLIO]

Where does the time go?

While I have not been updating my log, my spanish activities have increased greatly. I am reading Los Miserables right now and it is enjoyable but feels very much like El Conde de Montecristo.

I watch 100% of my television and movies in Spanish now and feel it helps me greatly. I continue to notice real advancement in this area. I speak every day with my spouse and friends in Spanish. It is still not my dominant language as far as the volume of my speaking due to my work but it is increasing daily.

I even get a chance to write the occasional email in Spanish. I am very happy with my progress in the last six months. I am amazed at how much self talk I am doing internally with Spanish. I have made myself do it in the past but now it is coming more naturally and I just find myself doing it. Very nice.

Hope all is well with everyone and your studies.

BOLIO

It is good to have you back, Bolio. Congratulations on your success. Which version of Los Miserables are you reading? I have the translation by María Teresa Gallego Urrutia on my list. I don't think I'll even start it for quite a while but it is definitely something I'll read when I am ready to tackle another major project.

Hey James!

It is through the Penguin Clásicos. It says the translation is by Nemesio Fernandez-Cuesta. I like the story in English and if I ever learn French to a high level, this would be one I would want to read along with the Count of Monte Cristo. I hope you are well James. After these years of following and chasing your success, it does me good to see you still working on language learning.

You and Iguanamon have been mentors of mine as well as many others here and on HTLAL. It has changed my life and will continue to do so. Thank you.

[BOLIO]

Hello everyone!

I am pushing along with Los Miserables. I have to take a break from it every couple of days. It is turning into a more love able “Assimil ” for me. Let me explain. A few years ago, Assimil was my first course. I liked it well enough at the beginning but as time went on, I wanted to set it on fire. I do not feel this way about the book yet but it is becoming more about completion vs enjoying the story.

On my “days off”, I read easier stuff like Dan Brown novels, websites, short stories and many of the classics that are in the public domain(Old man and the sea or other shorter stories that I know well in English).

Each day I consistently get humbled. Not to derail anything but this weekend I was asked to give a public prayer at a gathering of 150 people(It was a family get together for a young couple having a baby). It went well. But it really made me think. Many people thanked me and were amazed a “gringo” was giving a public prayer in front of so many people and that it sounded really heart felt. However the best compliment was this older lady who said she was amazed when she opened her eyes and saw I was white. She said that she could not tell if was American when she was listening. It was nice.

So, I think I have typed these words a 100 times since starting my Spanish journey: “ Listening is my weakest skill.” This weekend was no different. There were people there from a few different countries but the majority are from Mexico. However, that did not keep me from being confused and missing some of the dialogues when we were visiting in large groups. I’m not going to lie. Embarrassingly, some of it was from lack of vocabulary. That was disheartening. But the majority was from not clearly understanding the spoken word. Especially when people were telling stories while laughing or excitedly.

I know the answer is more vocabulary and more listening. Which brings me to my mini-challenge:

Read 500 pages and listen to 60 hours of audiobooks in 30 days. The only thing is that the cannot be done with the same books. So no L2/L2 L-R for this experiment. Zero words will be looked up(no. I really mean it this time). All extensive. All the time.

I do write little stories from time to time. It is like self talk subjects but I just put them down on paper. I get all the practice I want in Spanish conversation. Whenever I do start an L3, I am fortunate to live in a place I can find people to talk with be it in Portuguese, French, Russian or Mandarin ( all are on my hit list).

Anyway, good day to you all. As always, thanks for all the insight from the board!

BOLIO

[reineke]

I think you should listen to a variety of voices from different countries. That means TV/Youtube.