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 » Wed Feb 10, 2021 6:30 pm

Back again, I've been extremely lazy with my learning but somehow I am still making progress. I have noticed some small "wins" in my comprehension progress:
- understanding 90% a customer and employee having a Spanish conversation in a store
- understanding parts of conversations at work
- revisiting a random scene in a bodega from an Ed Norton movie (Pride and Glory) and understanding a lot more of what the native speakers are saying in Spanish
- understanding a very easy question directed at me and responding automatically without thinking (surprising to me, only because speaking is completely on the back burner and my focus is on listening comprehension)

I am still watching El Dragon (mostly Mexican accent, but the lead and at least one other actor is Argentinian although, to my beginner ears, not the porteno accent), and I have been dabbling with La Nina (Columbian) and I find the rate of speech so much faster than El Dragon. I've also looked for some Puerto Rican and Dominican Republic YouTube content creators (my area of the US has a lot of speakers from Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic in addition to Mexico and Central America).

I'm wondering if it is good to be exposing myself to so many accents all at once or really narrow my content to mostly one accent before branching out. Maybe more experienced learners would be able to weigh in if one approach is more efficient than the other.

If I ever get myself out of procrastination mode my more structured plan would look something like this:
- Extensive listening practice (either content from many different countries, or narrowed down to just one or two)
- Intensive listening practice (taking short clips of the content, and really dissecting them, perhaps listening several times sped up with the Audacity program), repeated listening, transcribing, filling in the gaps with vocab)
- Maybe getting my feet wet with Anki, and making audio sentence cards with audio clip on the front and the Spanish written out on the back
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FeoGringo
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Re: Throwing Mud at the Wall - Beginner Spanish

Postby FeoGringo » Fri Mar 12, 2021 12:21 am

I had another successful work related Spanish experience today. Granted I had questions all typed up on paper. But I was able to understand all of the clients responses without issue. So I'll take that as a mini listening comprehension milestone.
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FeoGringo
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Re: Throwing Mud at the Wall - Beginner Spanish

Postby FeoGringo » Mon Mar 22, 2021 3:31 pm

Yesterday was pretty productive - I watched four of the most recent YouTube videos uploaded to VAGABOOM's channel. Can any native speakers confirm - is his Spanish accent strange? (I may have asked this before, I just want to know as I enjoy his videos and could see working my way through all his uploads for input exposure but I'd avoid it if his accent is not quite right). The only reason I ask about the accent is I believe his mom is Italian, dad is from Spain, grew up in Switzerland and is married to a Mexican woman and lives in Mexico with wife, kid, and mother in law.

I also watched another episode of El Dragon with Spanish subtitles. And then, even though listening is my focus, I watched one of Ten Minute Spanish's Youtube videos of pronunciation. I might try to work through one of his videos per day, they seem pretty good for describing Spanish pronunciation.

I think I've been getting caught in a bit of analysis paralysis. I would love to have a near native accent (I don't care about being mistaken for a native speaker) but simply for clarity and ease of communication. I've been thinking about what makes an accent sound strange to the ears of a native speaker - overall prosody, syllabic stress on words, vowel sounds. I'm sure there are more than those. I assume it also has to do with a second language learner trying to approximate the sounds of the target language from sounds in their native language and connected to this is actual sound production, mouth, lips, tongue position when making the sounds.

I'm also torn about really focusing on content from a specific country (I know even within a country accents vary and that especially in TV and movies - A "Mexican" show or movie might have actors and actresses from other countries). But I would like to be able to understand a wide variety of accents. Just unsure if it's better to just expose myself to a bunch all at once or focus on one and then move on to another.

First things first is getting on a more structured schedule. I'm making progress in listening comprehension it's just very slow.

Comments and suggestions are always appreciated from any unfortunate souls who are actually reading my log :lol:
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MorkTheFiddle
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Re: Throwing Mud at the Wall - Beginner Spanish

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Mon Mar 22, 2021 5:49 pm

FeoGringo wrote:Yesterday was pretty productive - I watched four of the most recent YouTube videos uploaded to VAGABOOM's channel. Can any native speakers confirm - is his Spanish accent strange?
Thanks for introducing me to this channel. Not a native speaker, so can't answer your question about his accent.
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Verde
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Re: Throwing Mud at the Wall - Beginner Spanish

Postby Verde » Tue Mar 23, 2021 7:18 pm

FeoGringo wrote:...
- I watched four of the most recent YouTube videos uploaded to VAGABOOM's channel. Can any native speakers confirm - is his Spanish accent strange? (I may have asked this before, I just want to know as I enjoy his videos and could see working my way through all his uploads for input exposure but I'd avoid it if his accent is not quite right)....
...


First of all, congratulations on your Spanish journey.
About his accent, have no worries, it doesn't sound strange at all to me.

Keep it up.
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FeoGringo
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Re: Throwing Mud at the Wall - Beginner Spanish

Postby FeoGringo » Tue Mar 23, 2021 9:44 pm

MorkTheFiddle wrote:
FeoGringo wrote:Yesterday was pretty productive - I watched four of the most recent YouTube videos uploaded to VAGABOOM's channel. Can any native speakers confirm - is his Spanish accent strange?
Thanks for introducing me to this channel. Not a native speaker, so can't answer your question about his accent.


I enjoy his videos, I hope you do too! He has quite a lot of followers on his Youtube channel so he must be doing something right.
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FeoGringo
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Re: Throwing Mud at the Wall - Beginner Spanish

Postby FeoGringo » Tue Mar 23, 2021 9:56 pm

Tried something different (just add it to the list of the things I am doing in a random manner).

I found English and Spanish subtitle files for the next episode of El Dragón that is in my Netflix queue, opened up both files lined them up. Read the the Spanish subtitles - I've gotten decent enough at getting the gist when I read subtitles. When I come across something I am unsure of I look at the English subtitle (which I know is usually far from accurate) and check the Spanish sentence in SpanishDict or Reverso Context. I went through the entire episode's subtitles this way. Then I watched the episode with Spanish subtitles. This was fairly time consuming but made for better enjoyment and comprehension of the episode.

Then I decided to check out La Casa de Flores and rewatch the first episode (I think I watched the first episode over a year ago when I started dabbling in my lazy method of watching Netflix and other things to learn some Spanish). Even after a year I remembered the general story. I watched the episode with no subtitles and my comprehension was decent enough although I couldn't give you a percentage. It was good enough that I was catching some of the jokes in the episode even laughed out loud near the very end of the first episode. The rate of speech sometimes seems slower than El Dragón which might explain the increased comprehension. Either way it was nice to be able to catch full phrases here and there sin subtítulos.
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FeoGringo
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Re: Throwing Mud at the Wall - Beginner Spanish

Postby FeoGringo » Tue Mar 23, 2021 10:04 pm

Verde wrote:
FeoGringo wrote:...
- I watched four of the most recent YouTube videos uploaded to VAGABOOM's channel. Can any native speakers confirm - is his Spanish accent strange? (I may have asked this before, I just want to know as I enjoy his videos and could see working my way through all his uploads for input exposure but I'd avoid it if his accent is not quite right)....
...


First of all, congratulations on your Spanish journey.
About his accent, have no worries, it doesn't sound strange at all to me.

Keep it up.


Thank you! And thank you for confirming his accent isn't strange!
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FeoGringo
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Re: Throwing Mud at the Wall - Beginner Spanish

Postby FeoGringo » Wed Mar 24, 2021 4:17 pm

I'm going to binge watch the rest of La Casa de Flores. I'm on episode 3 but just realizing something was bothering me about the way Paulina talks, it seems very slow and stilted (like exaggerated breaks between syllables). I googled it and found out I was definitely not the only one who noticed this (and it relates to the character). If nothing else it makes her dialogue the easiest to understand.
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FeoGringo
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Re: Throwing Mud at the Wall - Beginner Spanish

Postby FeoGringo » Wed Apr 21, 2021 1:46 pm

Time for an essay on my language learning thoughts:

I'd say for the past year I've been very lazily dipping my toes into the Spanish world. Basically focusing on input with native content. I initially dabbled with Destinos but found it too slow moving and boring. So the only thing I've been consistent with is watching El Dragon on Netflix (mostly with Spanish subtitles on) as well as some videos on YouTube and a few Instagram accounts. I also occasionally text in Spanish with a native speaking friend. That's about it. My ability to read Spanish subtitles and at the very least gist the meaning is good. While watching a Spanish Netflix show with my girlfriend with English subtitles, I'm able to focus on the spoken language and notice to myself "hey they didn't say XYZ they actually said ABC". So I suppose that's something.

I definitely feel like I've made some progress and have documented a few of those mini milestones in this log. I know it will take years to reach a high level, and that you are always learning and that there is no finish line. But I also feel that this meandering lazy approach is terribly inefficient.

So it's time for me to reassess and be honest with myself. I probably am not a false beginner (although I'm not even sure what the accepted definition of that is). Based on a few free online placement tests I am A0 or A1.

I took the receptive vocabulary test from https://itt-leipzig.de/?lang=en and got 58% on it, a decent amount of words I recognized, but a lot I was guessing.

My Spanish language goals:
1) to understand native content and everyday conversations native speakers might have
2) be able to comfortably speak with native speakers at a high level

I am still somewhat preoccupied with not sounding like a gringo and doing my best to have good pronunciation, I know I will not ever be mistaken for a native but I want to be able to speak clearly and understood by natives where accent and pronunciation are not a roadblock or distraction.

To that end I still am caught up in the ideas of a silent period, Krashen and the AJATT/MIA/Refold method and that maybe it is better to really hold off on output until my listening comprehension is at a high level.

But my interest has also been renewed in tackling FSI Spanish, which kind of goes counter to the Krashen/MIA/Refold approach. And while it sounds like dedicated study with FSI would drill a lot of grammar structures into my brain and give some automaticity to my output, will it also fossilize poor pronunciation - especially when I can't roll that double r to save my life.

But it's definitely clear I need a base and some grounding in the basics. So here's my rough plan:

PHASE 1
1.) Language Transfer - 3 Lessons a Day (I believe there are around 90 lessons all relatively short in length)
2.) Ten Minute Spanish - Youtube Channel - 1 video a day (there are currently 30 videos on this guy's channel with most videos focusing on an individual phoneme)
3.) Spanish4Texas Fondamentos - working through the exercises in the schedule they recommend
4.) Continue to watch native content - Netflix shows and youtube videos with Spanish subtitles
5.) Maybe revisit and work my way through Destinos

PHASE 2
1.) The pronunciation modules from FSI Programmatic
2.) Maybe Anki deck with all the words from that receptive vocab test
3.) Maybe work through some of the extensive StudySpanish.com website
4.) Continue watching native content with Spanish subtitles

PHASE 3
1.) Start tackling FSI Spanish (I may have to read the numerous threads on here on the merits of Programmatic vs Basic, it seems like the consensus is Basic is more structured but I am still unclear if there is a proper order if one were to tackle both - Programmatic first and then Basic or the other way around?)
2.) Continue watching native content with no subtitles
3.) Intensive listening working with audio with transcripts, transcribing what I hear to test my listening.

That's my very rough plan. I'm hoping my first two phases will give me a good base and adequately prepare me for diving into FSI.

Any comments/advice/criticism? I'm always interested in hearing other members thoughts.
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