Jmar257's Language Log (ES, FR, DE) - Super Challenge, Assimil, and more

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jmar257
Green Belt
Posts: 268
Joined: Tue Apr 07, 2020 2:41 pm
Location: USA
Languages: English (N), español (Intermediate), français (Lower Intermediate), deutsch (beginner)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... hp?t=15645
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Re: Jmar257's Language Log (ES, FR, DE) - Super Challenge, Assimil, and more

Postby jmar257 » Tue Jun 08, 2021 1:39 pm

ES: Finished El Camino Difícil, going to return to Historia de la lengua española and the French books. On a whim started casually reading through lessons of Spanish Without Toil, solely because I've heard how good of a course it is and wanted to see. Read lessons 1-8 yesterday and quite enjoyed it, and boy does it start off heavy for someone who would never have seen Spanish. Also my pdf version has brown pages and not too high a resolution so it's tough on the eyes. Going to do the same for French Without Toil.

FR: Bit of a delay but I finally finished Lupin, just in time for Part 2 to come out this Friday. Looking forward to it

DE: Did lesson 20 of Assimil GWE this morning, tomorrow is a review lesson plus reading over (and listening) to 15-20. I've inputted (but not seen all) up to lesson 18 into Anki. Started GWOT, but have only gotten through the first lesson and put it into Anki, which of course didn't take long.
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Feel free to give me corrections in any of my target languages!

jmar257
Green Belt
Posts: 268
Joined: Tue Apr 07, 2020 2:41 pm
Location: USA
Languages: English (N), español (Intermediate), français (Lower Intermediate), deutsch (beginner)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... hp?t=15645
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Re: Jmar257's Language Log (ES, FR, DE) - Super Challenge, Assimil, and more

Postby jmar257 » Thu Jun 17, 2021 3:30 pm

Not a ton to update this go-around. I haven't really been reading a ton, for whatever reason after blasting through El Camino Difícil I just haven't been feeling it. Whereas in the past I'd force myself to anyway, I've gotten to the point where I just roll with it--the desire will return, and I'm enjoying being more active and working out more lately (probably due to the nice weather). The upside is we're now back in the office one day a week, so I've been getting a ton of listening done that day and should be catching up on my SCs on that front.

DE: Only real specific language update. I did lesson 25 of GWE this morning, officially a quarter of the way through the passive wave, and it was pretty tough compared to some of the previous ones. I'll definitely be going back and reviewing this one. Also, another downside, the audio I have for this course is missing lessons 23-26 and I'm not sure why, nor have I been able to find the missing ones online. I just glanced at the calendar out of curiosity, and according to this very log I started German with Ease 26 days ago--and I'm on lesson 25. Not too bad considering I've been out of town a couple of weekends between and will be busy this weekend and not doing any courses. Mildly annoying considering the good start I had to give myself wiggle room, but then again life is to be lived and who cares if I finish the course a few weeks later? It's not like I have an exam planned or anything. As for GWOT, I'm on lesson 9. Still quite easy, I've just been slacking on doing these during the day when working from home (because I've been actually doing work, the horror). That said, the lag on this (and on typing GWE lessons into Anki--I've done through 19) will only serve as extra reviews.

All in all, life ain't too bad. I wish I had more time for languages, but sometimes things fall by the wayside temporarily. The fact that I still get an Assimil lesson done first thing keeps me moving a bit, however. I'm going to go for a run.
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Feel free to give me corrections in any of my target languages!

jmar257
Green Belt
Posts: 268
Joined: Tue Apr 07, 2020 2:41 pm
Location: USA
Languages: English (N), español (Intermediate), français (Lower Intermediate), deutsch (beginner)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... hp?t=15645
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Re: Jmar257's Language Log (ES, FR, DE) - Super Challenge, Assimil, and more

Postby jmar257 » Sat Jan 08, 2022 3:03 pm

So uh...it's been a while. No worries, I haven't been totally neglecting language study, I just kept putting off posting in my log but now I have a Super Challenge to recap.

ES:
The Super Challenge really helped my Spanish, I feel as if most contemporary fiction I could pick up and read with no problems now. Non-fiction will be a little harder, but that can be rectified by reading more of it (which is the plan going forward). Podcasts saved me in terms of keeping up with the challenge, but I feel like I actually got more out of TV shows, in that words and phrases stuck with me more and I paid more attention when sucked into a TV show. I got burned out a bit early this fall and ended up moving (i.e., finding a place and then the act of moving) towards the end that kind of screwed me over in terms of finishing the challenge, despite having a good lead on what was required at one point. Such is life, I still feel like I benefited greatly from this challenge and will be doing it again. I feel like the next step to really level up my Spanish is going to be speaking practice, so I've attended one meetup.com Spanish exchange group and plan on doing these frequently, as well as integrating iTalki for some more targeted practice. I did a Spanish vocab quiz a year ago with the idea of seeing how I scored/improved at the end, and I actually took it 6 months ago as well. Both times I scored less than I did originally, but there's no way in hell my Spanish vocabulary has decreased in that time. So I must've got really lucky guessing the first time, since there was no "I don't know" option. Just shows the fallibility of some of these online assessments, and it kind of sucks because I wanted to see some kind of real metric of improvement. Ah well, I can absolutely read better and understand spoken Spanish better, so whatever.

Spanish Reading: 4,952 pages (99%)
Spanish Watching: 8,744 minutes (97%)

Books read:
En La Mira
Pablo Escobar: Mi Padre
Huérfano X
Infiltrado: Una novela de acción, suspense e intriga
Africanus: El hijo del cónsul
Historia de la lengua española*
El Camino Difícil
Hábitos Átomicos
El Atraco
El Espía Inglés
La Viuda Negra*


FR:
My French is still kind of rough, it's probably close to where my Spanish was when I started the SC in terms of reading comprehension. I'm leaning towards joining the next SC (will definitely do more in the future, immediate next is the question) but will probably do it for Romance language family so I don't have to sweat hitting X number of pages in Spanish when I want to read French (although I will probably do the lion's share of it in French, I just want an excuse to not neglect Spanish). I still miss a decent bit of French when listening to TV shows, even with subtitles, but I can follow along fine. I've actually been watching more YouTube in French since the SC ended too, because I'm not worried about wasting time (i.e., videos under 10 minutes, or skipping around a longer video and wondering if I should count it), I can just enjoy the French.

French Reading: 2,192 (88%)
French Watching: 4,326 (96%)

Books read:
Elle Savait (Gone Tomorrow)
61 Heures
Da Vinci Code - version française
Napoléon - Chant du Depart*
Les Dents du Tigre

*Not finished by the end of the challenge

DE:
I'm on lesson 68 in GWE and 33 in GWOT. So progress slowed a bit but I'm getting back into the groove of things...consistency really is important, coming back after a couple of weeks with no German at all besides Anki was pretty rough. Now that I can read German without feeling like I'm spending time away from SCs I think reading an easy graded reader or two in German should help me get a better feel for the language, and I already own a few so I'll probably fit that in the next few weeks.

What's next?
I kind of touched on it above, but I want to put it all in one section so I can see what I'm trying to put on my plate all at once. I have a couple of Spanish books to finish up and one French book that I've been reading in my leisure time, but I think especially Spanish reading will be taking a backseat for a while (or--I just need harder books?). I also want to do some reading in English without feeling guilty :lol: . Anyway, for Spanish the focus from here on out will be speaking--to my Puerto Rican coworker, on meetup.com exchanges, and iTalki lessons. French I need to resume FSI (actually started reviewing an old lesson yesterday) and focus on reading, and German I have two Assimil's I need to focus on as well as get some graded readers in. And eventually FSI, but that's a ways off. Now I just need to figure out which of French and German I want to emphasize, as I keep switching back and forth...

So:
Very passive: Spanish (occasional reading/watching, try to do at least 2 iTalki/meetup sessions a month, preferably iTalki but meetup ones are easy to jump into at a minute's notice)
Semi-active (i.e., can read in downtime and not feel like I'm neglecting it): French
Active (i.e., not at the level where passive study is really possible/profitable): German

I think my mornings will still be dedicated to German Assimil lessons, but I may switch that to French FSI. Unsure at this juncture, but part of the reason I paused FSI was to get more French reading under my belt, and I feel like I could still stand to do that before really focusing on FSI again. We'll see...

Maybe with the SC over I'll have more exciting things to post and will update more regularly.
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Feel free to give me corrections in any of my target languages!

jmar257
Green Belt
Posts: 268
Joined: Tue Apr 07, 2020 2:41 pm
Location: USA
Languages: English (N), español (Intermediate), français (Lower Intermediate), deutsch (beginner)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... hp?t=15645
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Re: Jmar257's Language Log (ES, FR, DE) - Super Challenge, Assimil, and more

Postby jmar257 » Fri Mar 04, 2022 6:40 pm

New update, going out of the usual order because Spanish will be the longest section.

FR: Started Mort ou Vif, a translation of a Tom Clancy book. I have never actually read a Clancy book in English, but have read several in translation. I've also just started playing The Witcher 2, and I am pretty sure I'm gonna switch that to French so I feel less guilty spending time on it. Want to replay Witcher 3 at some point and will definitely do that in French. I also went to an IRL French meetup the other week, it was pretty fun. We didn't speak as much French as I'd hoped, but there's several good French speakers and it seems the group is going to be more active so I will keep going to these.

DE: Have been very shaky with Assimil, but I did do a lesson today. I also started an easy reader on Kindle and can already tell what little I've read has helped just familiarize the language more to my brain. I think part of the reason (besides time) I have been slacking is some of the lessons have become daunting, especially with time off in between. I think getting some easy reading in will help me prevent that from being the case.

ES: First little bit is that I had an iTalki lesson last weekend, and I really enjoyed it. The teacher actually had a lesson planned out for conversational practice, which I wasn't sure I'd like but it pushed my out of my comfort zone where I kind of stayed in previous lessons. So I got to use new vocab and he helped me form sentences in ways I could circumlocute but doing this helps me expand my abilities. Will be booking a lesson with this guy again, although I don't know when.

Now, the fun part: I went to Mexico City about a month ago for a 3 day weekend. Very spur of the moment, so I didn't plan a ton but I had a lot of fun. The Uber from the airport (which was $7, and my most expensive one the whole trip--very nice) gave me a great chance to warm up speaking Spanish. The driver actually asked me how long I'd been there (guessing he assumed I'd lived since I was obviously just at the airport?) and he was a bit surprised when I said it was my first time. I didn't really have difficulty talking to him, I talked about travels, languages, etc. My sort-of goal was an Iversen-esque monolingual trip, although I'll get to that in a bit. I booked my hotel pretty last minute, and they didn't have a record of the reservation. I was able to handle that in Spanish, which was nice. I'm going to break this up by day, not sure if it'll look the cleanest but at least it won't be one monster paragraph.

Day one: I walked to a bakery to get coffee + pain au chocolat (I'm a sucker for those, and don't like long/big breakfasts), then walked to the Angel de la Independencia and got some pictures. Ubered to the Centro Histórico and killed some time walking around before visiting the Palacio de Bellas Artes (where I messed up putting my PIN in the ATM and had to call my bank to let them know I'm traveling and to unlock my card). Bellas Artes wasn't really my cup of tea, the architecture was incredible but I'm not much of an art guy so the murals didn't interest me much. Afterwards I walked around the Centro Histórico again, an area which I really enjoyed. I ubered to the Plaza de Tres Culturas, which didn't interest me much either. Then I went to Mercado Roma, which was really fun. I had a mezcal flight and had to use a mixture of English/Spanish to communicate because the music and ambient noise made it pretty hard to understand one of the bartenders. I stumbled upon a whiskey and cigar bar when wandering upstairs, which is basically a Siren song for me. So I lounged on their rooftop bar area and ended up meeting another American who was interested in powerlifting and gave me some recommendations for stuff to see and do--of course, in English. But I had fun meeting the guy and talking to him. From there I went to Parque Mexico and walked around, got churros and another coffee. On the American's advice I went to the Monumento a la Revolución, which had a museum and was really cool to hang around (especially seeing the lights at night). I bought some stuff from the people selling goods around there and found a casino and gambled for a bit. Won some money, it felt cool stacking 100 chip until I realized they were about $5 per :lol: One of the guys who I was speaking with in Spanish switched to English, he had gone to an international school so we chatted a bit in English there and he gave me some more tips of where to go/stay away from. I only gambled for an hour; I wasn't in CDMX to see to see the interior of a casino, after all. When I left the sun had set and I got to see the Monumento lit up. For whatever reason there were no Ubers near me and the walk was only a mile (generally under a mile I walked) and I saw families about, so I decided to walk back to my hotel. Passed some sketchy streets but I was fine--probably not smart but I'm a big dude and there were generally cops around the city. Mistakenly thought there were bars near my hotel but only restaurants, so I bought a couple beers and sat in my room and went to bed.

Day two: Same breakfast, I like the simplicity and quickness of it vs. wasting time finding a new place. Don't worry, the rest of the time I ate local food, including Greek-inspired tacos al pastor and I tried Casa de Toño. I went to La Lagunilla, a flea market and bought some books in Spanish as well as some knock off Ray Bans (but hey, they had the logo, and were like $2.50 or something). I got some other things as well but a lot of the market was furniture, home goods, clothes, etc. Very cool to walk through, and I met this one proprietor who for whatever reason decided to tell me who had met Hugo Sanchez and had traveled to Europe to see him play in his prime. He showed me photos and ticket stubs and gave me his business card, so I thought that was cool. I had planned to see the natural history museum on this day because it was going to rain (which was a short, light drizzle) but of course it's closed on Sundays. Like I said, this was very last minute. I spent the day wandering around some of the same stuff as before, so it wasn't as exciting as I'd hoped. Still fun.

Day three: Same breakfast routine, headed to the airport and did that Covid test so I could get back into the US.

All in all very fun trip, I want to go back. I've traveled abroad before but this was the first time I could do more than small talk in the local language and it definitely added to the trip. Connecting with Uber drivers and getting tips on where to go/what to do, people tend to open up more, that guy showing me his photos with a soccer star (whom I only know because I looked into why they kept using the full name for the Hugo Sanchez in Club de Cuervos). I work for an airline and can fly standby for free(/cheap when it's international, as there's some taxes), and this trip was literally planned the day I flew out. So it doesn't feel too bad if I skip some things I wanted to do, hopefully I can return again soon and do more trips like this as countries open up (or at least make it less onerous to get in/out).
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MorkTheFiddle
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2113
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 8:59 pm
Location: North Texas USA
Languages: English (N). Read (only) French and Spanish. Studying Ancient Greek. Studying a bit of Latin. Once studied Old Norse. Dabbled in Catalan, Provençal and Italian.
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 11#p133911
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Re: Jmar257's Language Log (ES, FR, DE) - Super Challenge, Assimil, and more

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Fri Mar 04, 2022 7:30 pm

Clearly you had a great time. Congratulations on being able to use your Spanish and make it work for you. Splendid post! Let's have more.
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