BOLIO's Spanish log

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BOLIO
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Re: BOLIO's Spanish log

Postby BOLIO » Tue Mar 21, 2017 3:14 pm

I don't remember when my mother took away my pacifier but I must have felt like I do right now. I have made the decision to stop all subtitles and I feel a bit naked or exposed right now.

In addition, I have stopped all listening while reading the text. I still read but I read for a couple of hours and then follow up with the audio. After reading leosmith's posts regarding listening, I think I am going to actually reverse the process. I will listen to several chapters of my book and then go back and read it.

I hope this works. Last night I watched 3 hours of a show from Spain called Velvet. I have enjoyed it but I have had the subtitles on the whole time. Last night it was enjoyable but I missed so much. I am trusting the process.

I have read 600 pages in the last two weeks. I have watched / listened to 46 hours in 15 days. It has been very productive but I need to really focus on separating the two skills. Both need improving but listening has to jump up to my reading level.

I know some are saying now, stop reading and just listen...but reading is fun and I can't stop.

We will see. Russian is going to happen sooner than later. I might be making a mistake but I'll live with it. 45-60 minutes of my 3-4 hours I am doing a day should not cripple my Spanish progress.

All the best,

BOLIO
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Allison
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Re: BOLIO's Spanish log

Postby Allison » Tue Mar 21, 2017 5:31 pm

I know how intimidating and destabilizing getting rid of subtitles can be so I want to add a word of encouragement. From how you say you're trusting the process and keeping the things you enjoy, it sounds like you have a good approach.
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James29
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Re: BOLIO's Spanish log

Postby James29 » Wed Mar 22, 2017 12:25 pm

BOLIO wrote:I don't remember when my mother took away my pacifier but I must have felt like I do right now. I have made the decision to stop all subtitles and I feel a bit naked or exposed right now.

In addition, I have stopped all listening while reading the text. I still read but I read for a couple of hours and then follow up with the audio. After reading leosmith's posts regarding listening, I think I am going to actually reverse the process. I will listen to several chapters of my book and then go back and read it.

I hope this works. Last night I watched 3 hours of a show from Spain called Velvet. I have enjoyed it but I have had the subtitles on the whole time. Last night it was enjoyable but I missed so much. I am trusting the process.

I have read 600 pages in the last two weeks. I have watched / listened to 46 hours in 15 days. It has been very productive but I need to really focus on separating the two skills. Both need improving but listening has to jump up to my reading level.

I know some are saying now, stop reading and just listen...but reading is fun and I can't stop.

We will see. Russian is going to happen sooner than later. I might be making a mistake but I'll live with it. 45-60 minutes of my 3-4 hours I am doing a day should not cripple my Spanish progress.

All the best,

BOLIO


That's a lot of reading and listening. Good for you. I found that reading helped my listening quite a bit, but it did not work the other way around. So, in order to advance, I prefer reading more and that will drag along my listening. Unfortunately, right now I'm only watching TV and not reading much.
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BOLIO
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Re: BOLIO's Spanish log

Postby BOLIO » Fri Apr 14, 2017 12:07 pm

Listen and read....Listen and Read...nothing too exciting but I am still doing quite a bit of both. I have watch several movies both originals and dubbed. I have started reading both El Conde de Montecristo and El Símbolo Perdido. I am reading both at the same time. I often do this when reading in English as well. The two levels are very different and Dan Brown's book can give me a bit of a mental break from the very descriptive and thorough language of El Conde. I am not pretending that there are no unknown words in the Brown novel because there are but just not as many.

I have also been working on my conversational skills. I find it sad that what many do first I seem to do last. Small talk can sometimes make me anxious. I don't know if it is because it has a tendency to fall into a relaxed ( for the other speaker) vocabulary filled with slang or if it is because the speach is less formal and sometimes more abbreviated and not enunciated like more formal speech. Who knows? All I know is I need to spend more time on it.

Spain is out the window. I do have a consolation prize...my old friend Mexico. Headed to the Yucatán and will be visiting The chitzen itza pyramid. I have been to many Mayan ruins but My family has never been... So why not this one first? That will be fun and interesting. The rest of the time I will be trying to live very "native" like. There will be no resorts during our time there. It will be fun. Maybe Spain will happen next year.

All the Best,

BOLIO
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Reminder to myself: Perfection is useless and harmful. Just keep moving forward.

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BOLIO
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Re: BOLIO's Spanish log

Postby BOLIO » Fri May 05, 2017 8:10 pm

Hola mi gente!

Well, México is just around the corner. I need a break from work and there are worse places to take a break than the sandy beaches of Mexico.

My little listening experiment has come to an end. I have over 240 hours of listening in the last 100 days. What are my conclusions? I need a thousand more hours to become a truly proficient and effortless listener. I probably need 500 hours of speaking / shadowing to become more automatic in my speech and the shadowing will continue to improve my accent...which is actually improving.

I told a friend the other day that had I known it would have taken this much work and I was such a poor student, I don't know I would have started this little journey. But, I am here and I am glad I did.

I had another meeting at work in Spanish. It was myself and another advisor in a 100% meeting in Spanish. The other advisor did all the heavy lifting in the meeting but I was able to add to the conversation and I understood all of it. The speech was more formal and clearly spoken which you would think that would cause me pause but it is quite the opposite. Casual, fast, relaxed and slang speech causes me anxiety right now. But it was a great experience. One day it will be a large part of my work and that motivates me.

Hope all is well with everyone and their studies...

BOLIO
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Reminder to myself: Perfection is useless and harmful. Just keep moving forward.

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blaurebell
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Re: BOLIO's Spanish log

Postby blaurebell » Sat May 06, 2017 9:29 am

BOLIO wrote:My little listening experiment has come to an end. I have over 240 hours of listening in the last 100 days. What are my conclusions? I need a thousand more hours to become a truly proficient and effortless listener.


I often feel like that too and I have already 725h of listening under my belt :roll: Lately I've been wondering whether I actually need to read more to improve my listening comprehension, since part of it simply seems to be a vocabulary issue.
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Re: BOLIO's Spanish log

Postby James29 » Sat May 06, 2017 9:30 pm

Sandy beaches in Mexico! Now, that is motivating!

blaurebell wrote:
BOLIO wrote:My little listening experiment has come to an end. I have over 240 hours of listening in the last 100 days. What are my conclusions? I need a thousand more hours to become a truly proficient and effortless listener.


I often feel like that too and I have already 725h of listening under my belt :roll: Lately I've been wondering whether I actually need to read more to improve my listening comprehension, since part of it simply seems to be a vocabulary issue.


I think reading is a HUGE part (if not the most important part) of developing listening skills. Once the vocabulary is acquired it is pretty easy. I have found it almost useless to try to learn vocabulary through listening only.
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blaurebell
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Re: BOLIO's Spanish log

Postby blaurebell » Sun May 07, 2017 10:38 am

James29 wrote:I think reading is a HUGE part (if not the most important part) of developing listening skills. Once the vocabulary is acquired it is pretty easy. I have found it almost useless to try to learn vocabulary through listening only.


I usually don't even start listening until I've read 5000 pages. My guess would be that under 20,000 pages I can't expect C1 listening, even if I listen for 1000h!
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: 100 / 116 GdUdE B
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James29
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Re: BOLIO's Spanish log

Postby James29 » Sun May 07, 2017 11:28 am

blaurebell wrote:
James29 wrote:I think reading is a HUGE part (if not the most important part) of developing listening skills. Once the vocabulary is acquired it is pretty easy. I have found it almost useless to try to learn vocabulary through listening only.


I usually don't even start listening until I've read 5000 pages. My guess would be that under 20,000 pages I can't expect C1 listening, even if I listen for 1000h!


I think that is pretty accurate. My experience with Spanish is similar. I'm hoping I won't have to do as much with French. The marginal value of an hour of listening is much more if followed by an extensive amount of reading.
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BOLIO
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Re: BOLIO's Spanish log

Postby BOLIO » Sun May 28, 2017 11:41 pm

So I am hanging out in México and thought I would update my log while I am on the beach. :D

Ok, first and foremost, I am getting real close to being able to tell people that I speak Spanish. Do I pick wrong verb forms sometimes? Yes. Do I have to create work around for vocabulary that momentarily leaves me? Yeah. But have I conversed 100 % in Spanish with the locals for the last week? Yep.

It is the most relaxed and comfortable I have felt in the language. We have many friends who live here in Mexico that do not speak English. A true blessing for me while we are here.

More interactions. More reading. More listening.

Shout out to Iguanamon, James29, Crush Iversen, Tarvos, Tastyonions and many, MANY more for the help over the years. The hard work is paying off.

All the best,

BOLIO
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Reminder to myself: Perfection is useless and harmful. Just keep moving forward.


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