Throwing Mud at the Wall - Beginner Spanish

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FeoGringo
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Re: Throwing Mud at the Wall - Beginner Spanish

Postby FeoGringo » Mon Sep 20, 2021 12:10 pm

I've been watching the Mexican novela "Médicos - línea de vida" without subtitles. It's a soap opera-ish medical drama, more Grey's Anatomy than ER. It's always hard to rate your own comprehension of audio material but I'd say I'm hovering in the low 80% for the first few episodes I've watched. I've even been able to predict lines of dialogue before they're said.

For example: the previous night, the wife and husband have a fight, she kicks her husband out of the house, the next morning she comes home to find her husband back in the house...I figure the wife is probably going to say something like "Que haces aqui?" and I was right. This may seem inconsequential but I think it's a sign of progress. I can often do this with my native English, depends on how predictable the writing of the TV show is!
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FeoGringo
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Re: Throwing Mud at the Wall - Beginner Spanish

Postby FeoGringo » Thu Nov 11, 2021 12:25 am

Tried out an episode of Radio Ambulante - Los Gigantes del Lago. Suprisingly understood 98% (a few animal names I was unfamiliar with)...of the first 5 minutes, then comprehension dipped. But still was surprising and enjoyable to literally understand nearly everything for that small slice of the episode.
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FeoGringo
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Re: Throwing Mud at the Wall - Beginner Spanish

Postby FeoGringo » Mon Nov 15, 2021 11:47 pm

Listening comprehension is interesting. I still consider myself a beginner (and don't really care about labels one way or another, just my actual abilities) but the ebb and flow of comprehension is very jarring. I watch one series and I'm understanding a majority of it. I watch a different series and I understand very little. I've had conversations in Spanish with clients at work, even one phone conversation, and I'll understand pretty much everything. The next day, another client will come in, and I will have difficulty understanding.

I know this can be chalked up to varying accents and probably still not having enough overall exposure. I am sure I still have heaps of progress left to make with my comprehension. I also wonder if my output is betraying me or helping me depending on your point of view. Maybe clients sense that I am learning and are modulating speed and/or complexity of language when speaking with me. I'm not sure this is the case though, as I don't feel they are speaking slow but who knows.

It is a strange feeling to one day feel you're understanding and the next day you're facing a wall of noise. I hope, with time, the days where I'm understanding outweigh the wall of noise days.
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FeoGringo
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Re: Throwing Mud at the Wall - Beginner Spanish

Postby FeoGringo » Mon Dec 06, 2021 1:22 am

Still lazing away with my Spanish. I've started back up with Language Transfer, I'm in the mid 20s lesson numbers and nothing quite new yet. I do want to eventually start FSI but I'll wait til I finish Language Transfer. I must sound like a broken record if I go back to read my earlier posts in this log.

LISTENING COMPRENHENSION
I revisited El Dragon and understand a lot (without subtitles) my first run through was with Spanish subtitles I wish there was a way to go back and see what I understood from it when I started. I also revisited a show from the Dominican Republic which was a complete blur of sound for me a year ago. Now...it's still tough, but I can make out a lot more and I understand more of the marked features of Dominican Spanish so I'm making out a decent bit.

The Youtuber VAGABOOM is now pretty easy for me.

I think vocab is one of the rate limiting factors, and I'm going to start to use RadioAmbulante as a listening and reading exercise to start to expand my vocabulary.

I just did the Online Diagnosic Assessment from DLI for Spanish Listening and they have me at a 2 on their scale. I'm sure I'm lower than this as some of the audio clips in the assessment were pretty difficult for me.

I probably need to vary my listening materials. Maybe finally add some Spanish news as iguanamon often suggests on here. I also think things like cooking tutorials on youtube (probably the first Spanish videos I watched when I started this journey), other how-to tutorials and even things like apartment tours/real estate on Youtube is kind of an untapped source of listening materials. Depends on your enjoyment of the subject matter, but you'll have nailed down a ton of vocab relating to the home after watching some apartment and house tour videos. Anything where they are going out of their way to explain (and also with the help of visual clues and context) makes for good - what the kids these days are calling - comprehensible input.
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FeoGringo
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Re: Throwing Mud at the Wall - Beginner Spanish

Postby FeoGringo » Sat Dec 11, 2021 11:55 pm

Just found a promising YouTube channel to get exposure to other accents. The channel is called "ExtranjerosXelmundO". Each video is around 30 minutes where they interview someone who has moved to Mexico. There are a lot of guests who are non-native speakers (I would obviously personally avoid these myself) but plenty of other videos have people from Puerto Rico, The Dominican Republic, Argentina, Costa Rica and other places.
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FeoGringo
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Re: Throwing Mud at the Wall - Beginner Spanish

Postby FeoGringo » Sun Dec 19, 2021 3:26 pm

Hmm, I had grand plans to do some intensive listening with Subs2SRS and Anki. I was able to make it work in the past although I didn't like the format template of Subs2SRS. But now I can't even make it work, despite uninstalling Anki and subs2SRS and reinstalling both and trying to follow the instructions that are floating around.

However Subs2SRS by itself is not bad, granted you have the audio file and matched subs - You have bite sized audio tracks for any show or movie. If you want to make cards for specific lines in a show, watch the show, make note of the time stamp, and its easy enough to scroll through the subs2srs files and make a quick few cards.

This is still all time consuming and may just be a distraction from other things I should be focusing on. But was always intrigued by emk's Spanish experiment.
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iguanamon
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Re: Throwing Mud at the Wall - Beginner Spanish

Postby iguanamon » Sun Dec 19, 2021 4:29 pm

I agree that subs2srs has tremendous potential. The biggest problem with it is that it is not user friendly, especially for non-programmers like myself. If it were "out of the box ready" for windows users it could have the potential to be a game changer for many learners who struggle with courses and/or want comprehensible material to accompany courses... but... it's just not easy for non-programmers to install and use. That's a shame.
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FeoGringo
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Re: Throwing Mud at the Wall - Beginner Spanish

Postby FeoGringo » Fri Dec 24, 2021 4:33 pm

Well I finally got subs2srs to work. I'm working through Distrito Salvaje and have been reviewing the first episode. Subs2srs with Anki is fun, for me anyway. Repeat the audio as much as you want (yes I know you could do that with Audacity or another program), read and listen repeatedly to a single sentence. Then there is also really examining what I'm hearing as well as the English translation because some of these English subtitles are laughably bad. I know there are various reasons translations are far from perfect. Even the Spanish subtitles seem to be adding words that were dropped by the speaker in the actual show. Anyway, the other thing I can easily do is partially cover my computer screen and try to transcribe what I'm hearing and check with the card. So there's a decent amount of flexibility here in terms of what I can do with a subs2srs deck. But this seems like the perfect way for me to do some intensive listening (while on the side getting more input from extensive watching and listening of shows, podcasts, youtube etc.).

Distrito Salvaje is a Colombian show, and I remember reading in a few places that Colombian Spanish is some of the most neutral and clear Spanish around. So far, I'm finding with this show that it really depends on the actor (and all of the actors might not even be Colombian). Also, I always thought the use of "usted" was one of formality and that you typically use it with someone older than you. But in this TV show, they seem to use it just like "tu". A character uses usted with his son, and a grandmother uses usted with her grandson. Is this a Colombian thing?
Last edited by FeoGringo on Sat Dec 25, 2021 2:40 am, edited 1 time in total.
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luke
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Re: Throwing Mud at the Wall - Beginner Spanish

Postby luke » Fri Dec 24, 2021 10:14 pm

FeoGringo wrote:A character uses usted with his son, and a grandmother uses usted with her grandson. Is this a Colombian thing?

I have a coworker from Columbia. That's the rule he used. Everyone is usted. Everyone is respected.
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FeoGringo
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Re: Throwing Mud at the Wall - Beginner Spanish

Postby FeoGringo » Sat Dec 25, 2021 2:39 am

luke wrote:
FeoGringo wrote:A character uses usted with his son, and a grandmother uses usted with her grandson. Is this a Colombian thing?

I have a coworker from Columbia. That's the rule he used. Everyone is usted. Everyone is respected.


"Everyone is usted. Everyone is respected", if only it was like that everywhere...
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