Spanish Tapas log

[eido]

I am still not satisfied with my listening comprehension, so I'll continue to focus on that. Is it just me, or do you also find Spanish challenging to understand by ear?

When I first started working on listening comprehension, yes. But now I listen pretty fluently. I will say though, that some of the nuances get lost because I parse the language a bit differently than it's meant to be. But for the most part I get 95% gist, 80% perfect parse. I would advise you to watch for that as someone that's at a bit of a lower level than me.

For me it at the beginning was the speed and the slurring despite me listening to Standard South American Spanish dubs. I just wasn't used to the velocity nor the different language yet, because I hadn't worked on it.

Is there something you'd enjoy watching or listening to more than what you already work with? Maybe you'd have better results then.

[tungemål]

I intend to go through the 60 mini-stories on Lingq for listening practice. 60 stories is actually more than you'd think, allthough they are short. So far I have listened to 22 of them. These short stories are rather boring, but that doesn't matter, in fact it is kind of therapeutic to listen to them, with all the repetitions. Today I encountered a word I didn't know, but I decided not to try to learn it. How often do you need to be able to say "sneeze"?

[tungemål]

These days I am busy at work, since I work as a teacher and we start up again now. I'll try to fit some language learning in between. My plan for the coming weeks to improve listening comprehension:
- go through the 60 mini-stories on Lingq (intensive listening)
- go through once more the videos on VideoEle (intensive listening)
- Listen to radio podcasts from Rtve. (extensive listening)

In addition I've started a new book that is really interesting, and that I'll continue with when I've got time.

[tungemål]

I am at episode 37 of the Lingq mini stories. Anyone else doing these stories? I like them. But, I remember Steve Kaufmann describing these as "beginner material". I think they go way past beginner. All the verb forms are eventually explored, and as you know there are a lot of those in Spanish. The vocabulary is already known to me, so in that way they are easy, but I have to consentrate to follow the all the different verb forms, and that is of course good.

[blackcoffee]

Hi, Can you say more about how you use the VideoELE videos for intensive listening?

I watched a few of them and they look like they would be very helpful. I feel like I got most of what they are saying in the B1, and found the A2 pretty easy. I think it would be a good exercise for me to do the A2 ones as dictation - write down what I hear and then check the accuracy using the subtitles.

(I'm not sure when, exactly, I'll get around to this, though.)

How do you use them?

[tungemål]

Hi, Can you say more about how you use the VideoELE videos for intensive listening?

I watched a few of them and they look like they would be very helpful. I feel like I got most of what they are saying in the B1, and found the A2 pretty easy. I think it would be a good exercise for me to do the A2 ones as dictation - write down what I hear and then check the accuracy using the subtitles.

(I'm not sure when, exactly, I'll get around to this, though.)

How do you use them?

I have mostly done this:
1 - watch the video without subtitles. Don't stop it even if you don't understand everything.
2 - watch the video again, with subtitles. Pausing and looking up unknown words. Make sure I understand the grammatical forms that are used. I put the new words in Anki.
3 - watch the video without subtitles again, maybe another day, hoping I can follow everything this time.

I like these videoes because they got subtitles, and they give interesting insight into spanish culture.

[blackcoffee]

Thanks!

I think these videos are really well done to help language learners. From the ones I sampled, the audio is clear, the video goes nicely with what the audio is saying, the subtitles are accurate,and there seems to be a variety of interesting content. I definitely need to go back and watch more.

[tungemål]

Short note on language confusion: even though I've known these words for years, I still mix up spanish alto and german alt. That is, I sometimes read alto as meaning old. Maybe they are easily confused because they are both adjectives.

[Dagane]

Short note on language confusion: even though I've known these words for years, I still mix up spanish alto and german alt. That is, I sometimes read alto as meaning old. Maybe they are easily confused because they are both adjectives.

You're not the only one confusing those two words. I once read that old Spanish scholars made the same mistake, and that's why we say "Alta Edad Media" and "Baja Edad Media" in Spanish. It's simply a bad but popular translation.

[tungemål]

Dagane: That is interesting and can become confusing, because in English "high middle ages" refer to the period 1000-1250. So in Spanish that period would be called baja edad media, while alta edad media would be the earlier period.

"sea como fuere"
I encountered the future subjunctive in a text - it is very rare and I am quite certain that is the first time I see that form. It is probably only used in certain expressions.