A Million More: Cenwalh's Next Conquesta
Posted: Sun Jan 12, 2020 10:50 am
[Originally titled A Million Sentences: Cenwalh's 2020 Conquista]
Welcome to my belated Spanish 2020 and beyond log.
Previous log here.
I had no intentions of starting a new log for each year when I started my previous log, but I have done so because when people open up my old log, they are greeted with someone mainly obsessed with Anki. This no longer reflects my learning style or beliefs about methodology as I am attempting to learn Spanish solely via input.
I'm also changing my medium/long term goal from one of hours to one of sentences consumed. The reason I have done this is that I was finding myself watching things on Youtube search as gaming streams that whilst they are important at a level lower than mine because of their comprehensibility, they have quite a low amount of actual speaking in them. Therefore an hour of content consumed in one medium does not have the same benefit as in another medium. Having started this input only Spanish learning in July 2019, a "back of a napkin" calculation says I have reached almost 400,000 sentences. I plan to calculate this more accurately at some point - I am just really busy at the moment. This also gives me freedom to speed up or slow down content as necessary and not feel guilty that the time spent consuming isn't the same as the number I write down.
Current level: I've done a few tests on the internet recently to get a rough estimate of my level. I know they're not DELE or SIELE, but they're what I have access to. They all put me as either B2 or C1. That's a great level, but it's worth noting that I can't actually speak Spanish, so that's a level for understanding and being able to recognise what grammar "feels right" to me in a grammar type test (just like in English I suppose).
Goals for 2020: I want to hit 1,000,000 sentences. For reference 1,000,000 sentences is about 5 super challenges* if the book part is an adult novel without pictures and the film part is high density audiobooks, or about 7 super challenges if the sentence density is half that - and a lot of content is lower density still.
Why one million? I've seen the number mentioned a few times such as on the Antimoon website, this inspiring video, and other places. Plus it's a nice round number. 100,000 seems too few, and 10 million seems unachievable, so a million is a nice middle ground. Who knows what it'll bring?
Curve ball: I've started up Catalan again as a non-serious side language. As I mentioned in my previous log, my other half started learning Spanish, and the start of learning a language is pretty fun, so I'm having a go with Catalan. This is also partly to motivate her as we're about the same level, although I have a significant leg up having learnt quite a bit of Spanish.
*Number of SCs = 1,000,000 sentences/(100 books x 50 pages each x 250 words per page/17.5 words per sentence + 100 films x 1.5 hours each x 1,000 sentences per hour in high density audio)
Welcome to my belated Spanish 2020 and beyond log.
Previous log here.
I had no intentions of starting a new log for each year when I started my previous log, but I have done so because when people open up my old log, they are greeted with someone mainly obsessed with Anki. This no longer reflects my learning style or beliefs about methodology as I am attempting to learn Spanish solely via input.
I'm also changing my medium/long term goal from one of hours to one of sentences consumed. The reason I have done this is that I was finding myself watching things on Youtube search as gaming streams that whilst they are important at a level lower than mine because of their comprehensibility, they have quite a low amount of actual speaking in them. Therefore an hour of content consumed in one medium does not have the same benefit as in another medium. Having started this input only Spanish learning in July 2019, a "back of a napkin" calculation says I have reached almost 400,000 sentences. I plan to calculate this more accurately at some point - I am just really busy at the moment. This also gives me freedom to speed up or slow down content as necessary and not feel guilty that the time spent consuming isn't the same as the number I write down.
Current level: I've done a few tests on the internet recently to get a rough estimate of my level. I know they're not DELE or SIELE, but they're what I have access to. They all put me as either B2 or C1. That's a great level, but it's worth noting that I can't actually speak Spanish, so that's a level for understanding and being able to recognise what grammar "feels right" to me in a grammar type test (just like in English I suppose).
Goals for 2020: I want to hit 1,000,000 sentences. For reference 1,000,000 sentences is about 5 super challenges* if the book part is an adult novel without pictures and the film part is high density audiobooks, or about 7 super challenges if the sentence density is half that - and a lot of content is lower density still.
Why one million? I've seen the number mentioned a few times such as on the Antimoon website, this inspiring video, and other places. Plus it's a nice round number. 100,000 seems too few, and 10 million seems unachievable, so a million is a nice middle ground. Who knows what it'll bring?
Curve ball: I've started up Catalan again as a non-serious side language. As I mentioned in my previous log, my other half started learning Spanish, and the start of learning a language is pretty fun, so I'm having a go with Catalan. This is also partly to motivate her as we're about the same level, although I have a significant leg up having learnt quite a bit of Spanish.
*Number of SCs = 1,000,000 sentences/(100 books x 50 pages each x 250 words per page/17.5 words per sentence + 100 films x 1.5 hours each x 1,000 sentences per hour in high density audio)