Clara's Spanish Log

Continue or start your personal language log here, including logs for challenge participants
clara
Yellow Belt
Posts: 96
Joined: Fri Dec 04, 2020 4:46 am
Languages: English (N), Spanish (intermediate)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... hp?t=16333
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Re: Clara's Spanish Log

Postby clara » Sat Sep 25, 2021 4:11 pm

September 19 to 24

  • La hija de la española: 48% (+16 pages)
  • Leal: 36% (177 pages)
  • How It Ends (película)
  • Toy Boy Season 1, episodes 4 and 5
  • Anki and Ella every day
  • Lengalia: 1.5 hours
  • Podcasts, youtube, various news articles
  • Conversation: 3 hours

Polyglot Fitness Challenge - current progress on September goals

  • Gym: 16 / 15 sessions
  • Read Spanish: 1469 / 1000 pages
  • Focused Study: 390 / 600 minutes

There’s not much to report for the past few days. I’m slowly making progress with La hija de la española and started Leal, the third and last installment of the Divergente series. Neither book is grabbing me, and I find myself looking at other books to figure out what to read next. Fitness is going well, I've started back up with strength training and have been sore but excited to get back on the wagon. I don't think I'll make my Focused Study goal for this month, but I've made progress on establishing a habit of using Lengalia a little bit every day or two, so I'm happy with that.

I'm less than 600 pages away from completing the double reading super challenge. If I finish Leal, La hija de la española, and Como polvo en el viento, that would do it. Or I might start reading something else, we'll see.
8 x
Spanish Goals
22/23 SC Films: 438 / 18000 438 / 18000 minutes
22/23 SC Books: 6454 / 10000 6454 / 10000 pages
2022 Reading: 8061 / 8000 8061 / 10000 8000 pages

clara
Yellow Belt
Posts: 96
Joined: Fri Dec 04, 2020 4:46 am
Languages: English (N), Spanish (intermediate)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... hp?t=16333
x 457

Re: Clara's Spanish Log

Postby clara » Fri Oct 01, 2021 6:21 am

September 25 to 30

  • La hija de la española: Finished! (+116 pages)
  • Leal: +9% (+44 pages)
  • Invisible: Started and finished! (304 pages - print version must have had huge type)
  • Toy Boy Episode 6
  • Desenfranadas Episode 1
  • Control Z Episode 1
  • Anki and Ella every day
  • Lengalia: 1 hour
  • Intensive listening: 1 hour
  • Podcasts, youtube, various news articles
  • Conversation: 1.5 hours

Polyglot Fitness Challenge

September stats:

  • Gym: 22 / 15 sessions
  • Read Spanish: 1933 / 1000 pages
  • Focused Study: 510 / 600 minutes

September went well. I fell short on Focused Study, but I’ve developed a plan for going forward. I read a lot but don’t think I’ll be keeping up that pace. For October, I will set the following goals:

  • 15 gym sessions
  • Read 1000 pages of Spanish (This will mean completing the double Super Challenge!)
  • Complete 50 sections of Lengalia exercises
  • Practice intensive listening comprehension: Go over 4 short but challenging audios of ~10 minutes each until I understand completely word for word

Reading

La hija de la española picked up the pace. The beginning had a bit of background with lots of flashbacks, some of which added to the story and others felt superfluous. The plot had a few too many convenient coincidences, but I liked the emotional insight of the characters. I’d recommend it to anyone who wants to read a novel set in present-day Venezuela. The main draw is seeing life amidst a politically charged backdrop.

I reached a frustrating point in Leal where the characters seem to be drifting aimlessly for no good reason. The first book of the series, while nonsensical, had good pacing. The second book went a bit off the rails while the narrator suffered from PTSD due to events of the first book and feels depressingly hopeless until she finally pulls herself together for the last third. The final book is really slow. The characters have finally made it to a place where they can answer so many questions from throughout the series, but instead they spend a lot of time wandering aimlessly, and of course the relationships become increasingly dysfunctional. The “action” feels inconsequential, and I’m having a hard time reading it.

Instead of reading more of Delirio or Como polvo en el viento, I started and finished Invisible, a YA novel by Spanish writer Eloy Moreno. The beginning is a bit confusing where the point of view shifts between several characters, none of whom are named until about a quarter of the way in. It also switches between 1st and 3rd person narration which is confusing because 1st person is only used for one particular character, but the author also writes about that character in the 3rd person at times. The perspective changes every few paragraphs and alternates between past and present, with the present tense sometimes used for things that occurred in the past. I know I often tune out on exactly what tense / perspective is being used since it’s usually clear from context, but this book kept me on my toes with respect to that while everything else was at a very easy level. Vocabulary, idiomatic language, and sentence structure are pan comido ( a piece of cake).

Intensive listening

I wasn’t sure exactly what I meant by “intensive listening” when I wrote it as a possible activity, I just knew I wanted to step up the difficulty of my listening practice and to re-listen to things until I really “get it”. I think one good step would be to listen to more multi-person podcasts where the format is more of a discussion among several people vs a single narrator, but the podcasts of this type that I’ve found are very long, and I’m not sure I want to commit to listening to a 45+ minute podcast multiple times.

Instead, I found this summary of Divergente which is pretty funny and covers some of my complaints about the series. The speed and Argentinian accent make it just challenging enough, so I watched it multiple times until I understood it word for word, marking about 15 words/phrases I still couldn’t make out to review with my tutor. There were a few sentences that took me several re-listens to grasp every word, like this one at 8:32: “Por otro lado Naomi prohibió que la gente vaya más alla del muro.” Prohibió was said so fast I could barely make it out, and the Argentinian accent on vaya más alla threw me off. Overall it felt like a pretty good exercise for listening comprehension. Plus I learned a few words: pibe / piba, cogote, chapar, milico, desbaratar, plastilina.



Grammar and everything else

I finished all the exercises I wanted to do in the B levels of Lengalia and plan to start going through C1, skipping lessons 1-3. I’ve kept up with daily Anki and Ella but am still not adding new words to Anki.

I came across a reference to "la nueva carne" de Cronenberg, and now I'm itching to rewatch Videodrome or Existenz, but I haven't found a source for Spanish dubbed versions. Any tips on where to find them, preferably through streaming? I'd rather pay through some official channel than watch pirated content.
8 x
Spanish Goals
22/23 SC Films: 438 / 18000 438 / 18000 minutes
22/23 SC Books: 6454 / 10000 6454 / 10000 pages
2022 Reading: 8061 / 8000 8061 / 10000 8000 pages

clara
Yellow Belt
Posts: 96
Joined: Fri Dec 04, 2020 4:46 am
Languages: English (N), Spanish (intermediate)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... hp?t=16333
x 457

Re: Clara's Spanish Log

Postby clara » Sat Oct 02, 2021 7:04 pm

I went over the video about Divergente with my tutor, and it was a very enlightening exercise! I probably shouldn't be, but I was really surprised by how effortlessly my tutor understood everything on the first go. I've categorized the words/phrases I couldn't make out in the video:

6 words/phrases I should have recognized but were said very quickly:

  1. me quedo acá quietita
  2. que la abre
  3. agarra
  4. hubiese resuelto
  5. ya era
  6. la historia

4 words/phrases I didn't know:

  1. una bocha de tiempo: a lot of time
  2. mejor me hago la boluda: In this context, I better play dumb
  3. posta: The Argentinian way of saying la neta in Mexico
  4. soretón: augmentative of sorete which means mierda in Argentina

4 words/phrases I sort of know but didn't expect in the given context:

  1. cae: I heard correctly but thought I was mistaken. Apparently caer can be used to mean llegar in Argentina.
  2. se autoboicoteó: I didn't know that boicotear has a broader meaning in Spanish than boycott does in English. It is to prevent or hinder the realization of an act or process, not necessarily by refusing to purchase goods or services.
  3. Eso puso de los pelos a (character): This scared (character). I've seen variations of this phrase before but didn't put it together here.
  4. que se amigan: Didn't realize amigar was a verb but it "makes sense"

And there was one word that my tutor didn't know, and we didn't find any results through Google. He thinks it must be some sort of inside joke within that particular YT channel.
8 x
Spanish Goals
22/23 SC Films: 438 / 18000 438 / 18000 minutes
22/23 SC Books: 6454 / 10000 6454 / 10000 pages
2022 Reading: 8061 / 8000 8061 / 10000 8000 pages

clara
Yellow Belt
Posts: 96
Joined: Fri Dec 04, 2020 4:46 am
Languages: English (N), Spanish (intermediate)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... hp?t=16333
x 457

Re: Clara's Spanish Log

Postby clara » Thu Oct 07, 2021 7:04 pm

October 1 to 6

  • Leal: Finished. (+271 pages)
  • La carne: 70% (168 pages)
  • Control Z Episodes 1.2 - 1.4
  • Anki and Ella every day
  • Lengalia: 19 exercises
  • Podcasts, youtube, various news articles
  • Conversation: 1.5 hours

Polyglot Fitness Challenge - Progress on October goals

  • Gym sessions: 3 / 15
  • Read Spanish: 346 / 1000 pages
  • Lengalia exercises: 19 / 50
  • Intensive listening comprehension: 0 / 4

I’ve injured a tendon in one of my fingers, so I am easing off the gym, especially climbing, for a few weeks.

Reading is going well. I finally finished Leal and started La carne, a novel by Spanish author Rosa Montero. I enjoyed her book La buena suerte and thought I would try another.

I’m slowly but surely making progress in Lengalia, trying to do at least one set of exercises every day. So far, I’ve done 19 out of 26 in C1 Level 4: Indicativo vs Subjuntivo 2. The first 10, I did pretty quickly all in one go, but the later sets are taking more time.

For intensive listening, I started a video as an intensive listening exercise, this time transcribing it which is very time consuming. I’d like to finish the transcription for this video but probably won’t make a habit of transcribing.

I’m keeping up with Anki and Ella and watched a few more episodes of Control Z. I’m still feeling a bit Netflixed out from my August binge, but I’d like to get into some native series. I’ve been struggling to do that for a while now.
5 x
Spanish Goals
22/23 SC Films: 438 / 18000 438 / 18000 minutes
22/23 SC Books: 6454 / 10000 6454 / 10000 pages
2022 Reading: 8061 / 8000 8061 / 10000 8000 pages

clara
Yellow Belt
Posts: 96
Joined: Fri Dec 04, 2020 4:46 am
Languages: English (N), Spanish (intermediate)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... hp?t=16333
x 457

Re: Clara's Spanish Log

Postby clara » Mon Oct 11, 2021 1:26 am

October 7 to 9

  • La carne: Finished!
  • Como polvo en el viento: +20 pages
  • Divergente (película): Finished (found the second half dubbed on YT)
  • Anki and Ella every day
  • Lengalia: 16 exercises
  • Podcasts, youtube, various news articles
  • Conversation: 1.5 hours

Polyglot Fitness Challenge - Progress on October goals

  • Gym sessions: 4 / 15
  • Read Spanish: 531 / 1000 pages
  • Lengalia exercises: 35 / 50
  • Intensive listening comprehension: 0 / 4

I’m going to be inundated by visiting family members for a week starting later today, so I wanted to do a quick update before I’m too busy. I forgot to take that into account when making my intensive listening goal - that might not happen this month, but I think I should be able to get a little bit of fluff reading in if I can just decide on a book. La reina del sur or Maze runner caught my eye, but I feel I’ve been burned by longer books (*cough* Como polvo en el viento *cough*) and am not sure I want to commit to 500+ pages. That doesn’t sound long, but I’ve been sticking with 2-300 page books lately, and most of those have felt 30-50 pages longer than necessary.

I finished La carne and am trying to power through the last 20% of Como polvo en el viento. If I read just 1% per day, I’ll finish it by the end of the month. Including pages from unfinished books, I’ve completed the Double Super Challenge, but if I exclude partial readings, I’m still about 300 pages short. I’ll probably do a write-up of how I feel about my progress from the challenge in a later update. The very quick recap would be that my reading level has improved immensely, but there’s still room for improvement especially with vocabulary and speed. I haven’t timed my reading speed recently, but I’d guess it’s around 30 pages per hour for something like La carne or Como polvo en el viento (modern native Spanish language literature) with 0.5-2.5 unknown words per page. I marked slightly over one unknown word per page in La carne and just over 1.5 in La hija de la española.

Anki and Ella are going as usual. I’m down to about 15 minutes of daily Anki reviews, and I want to get that down to 10 minutes. I’m keeping up with Lengalia, though my big spurt was from doing a lot of the easier por vs para exercises.

I’ve been listening to pop music with a retro feel and like Esteman in particular. He's Colombian and sings very clearly.



8 x
Spanish Goals
22/23 SC Films: 438 / 18000 438 / 18000 minutes
22/23 SC Books: 6454 / 10000 6454 / 10000 pages
2022 Reading: 8061 / 8000 8061 / 10000 8000 pages

greatSchism
Yellow Belt
Posts: 78
Joined: Wed Mar 27, 2019 2:13 pm
Languages: English (N), Spanish (B1)
Studied but inactive: German (A2), Hungarian (A2), and French (A1)
x 209

Re: Clara's Spanish Log

Postby greatSchism » Mon Oct 11, 2021 12:40 pm

clara wrote:

I’ve been listening to pop music with a retro feel and like Esteman in particular. He's Colombian and sings very clearly.






Thanks for sharing these videos. I have never heard of Esteman. I watched a few of his videos and think they are good. You are right the songs have a retro feel, and reminded me of Jamiroquai.
2 x

clara
Yellow Belt
Posts: 96
Joined: Fri Dec 04, 2020 4:46 am
Languages: English (N), Spanish (intermediate)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... hp?t=16333
x 457

Re: Clara's Spanish Log

Postby clara » Mon Oct 18, 2021 4:47 pm

October 10 to 17

  • Como polvo en el viento: +87 pages
  • Anki and Ella every day
  • Lengalia: 4 exercises

Polyglot Fitness Challenge - Progress on October goals

  • Gym sessions: 7 / 15
  • Read Spanish: 618 / 1000 pages
  • Lengalia exercises: 39 / 50
  • Intensive listening comprehension: 0 / 4

As expected, a bare bones kind of week due to intense visiting family activity. I didn’t get a chance to listen to Spanish at all really, and just kept up with the 365 challenge by doing Anki, Ella, and reading at least 10 pages of Como polvo en el viento per day. I'm in the very final stretch where "secrets" will surely be revealed, and I can't help but feel that nothing could be revealed that will justify the length of this book. It is 4x longer than it needed to be.
8 x
Spanish Goals
22/23 SC Films: 438 / 18000 438 / 18000 minutes
22/23 SC Books: 6454 / 10000 6454 / 10000 pages
2022 Reading: 8061 / 8000 8061 / 10000 8000 pages

clara
Yellow Belt
Posts: 96
Joined: Fri Dec 04, 2020 4:46 am
Languages: English (N), Spanish (intermediate)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... hp?t=16333
x 457

Re: Clara's Spanish Log

Postby clara » Sat Jan 01, 2022 8:12 pm

It's been a while since I last updated this log. I finished Como polvo en el viento and the Double Super Challenge back in October and decided to take a little break. I haven't touched Anki since late October, and I don't miss it! I do come across words I've forgotten that I know are in my Anki deck, but it's actually pretty rare, definitely not enough to justify the amount of time I was spending on it.

I've barely watched anything on Netflix since my last update, but I've started and finished a few books: La selección, Gente normal, La anomalía, Un verdor terrible, and El consentimiento. I'm currently reading Pequeños fuegos por todas partes and Temporada de huracanes.

Grammar study has mostly gone out the window, but I'm hoping to revive it soon.

I don't plan to join any challenges this year except for maybe the next Super Challenge. I feel a bit disappointed with my performance with the Polyglot Fitness Challenge and the 365 Day Challenge, and I'm looking forward to less tracking and more going with the flow in 2022. I'd like to read 10k pages in 2022, but I am on break from Netflix for a while. I am sick of TV!
10 x
Spanish Goals
22/23 SC Films: 438 / 18000 438 / 18000 minutes
22/23 SC Books: 6454 / 10000 6454 / 10000 pages
2022 Reading: 8061 / 8000 8061 / 10000 8000 pages

clara
Yellow Belt
Posts: 96
Joined: Fri Dec 04, 2020 4:46 am
Languages: English (N), Spanish (intermediate)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... hp?t=16333
x 457

Re: Clara's Spanish Log

Postby clara » Tue Jan 04, 2022 5:50 pm

2020/21 Double Super Challenge Recap

Books

  1. Crepúsculo by Stephanie Meyer (English, 512pp)
  2. Sol de medianoche by Stephanie Meyer (English, 540pp)
  3. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline (English, 480pp)
  4. Armada by Ernest Cline (English, 432pp)
  5. El juego de Ender by Orson Scott Card (English, 368pp)
  6. Zona peligrosa by Lee Child (English, 528pp)
  7. Gambito de dama by Walter Trevis (English, 320pp)
  8. El príncipe de la niebla by Carlos Ruiz Zafón (Spain, 238pp)
  9. El ruido de las cosas al caer by Juan Gabriel Vásquez (Colombia, 272pp)
  10. La vida invisible de Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab (English, 504pp)
  11. El hombre que cayó en la Tierra by Walter Trevis (English, 224pp)
  12. La ciudad de las bestias by Isabel Allende (Chile, 304pp)
  13. Proyecto Hail Mary by Andy Weir (English, 406pp)
  14. Reina roja by Juan Gómez-Jurado (Spain, 568pp)
  15. La buena suerte by Rosa Montero (Spain, 320pp)
  16. Como polvo en el viento by Leonardo Padura (Cuba, 672pp)
  17. Recursión by Blake Crouch (English, 360pp)
  18. Los caídos by Carlos Manuel Álvarez (Cuba, 136pp)
  19. La mitad evanescente by Brit Bennet (English, 352pp)
  20. La conspiración de la Señora Parrish by Liv Constantine (English, 416pp)
  21. Divergente by Veronica Roth (English, 464pp)
  22. Cuatro by Veronica Roth (English, 256pp)
  23. La hija de la española by Karina Sainz Borgo (Venezuela, 224pp)
  24. Insurgente by Veronica Roth (English, 464pp)
  25. Leal by Veronica Roth (English , 492pp)
  26. Invisible by Eloy Moreno (Spain, 304pp)
  27. La carne by Rosa Montero (Spain, 240pp)
  28. La selección by Kiera Cass (English, 240pp)
  29. Gente normal by Sally Rooney (English, 256pp)
  30. La anomalía by Hervé Le Tellier (French, 366pp)
  31. El verdor terrible by Benjamín Lababut (Chile, 213pp)
  32. El consentamiento by Vanessa Springora (French, 200pp)

Total number of pages read: 11,671 (or 233 "books")


Reading Stats

  • Number of books translated from English: 19
  • Number of books translated from French: 2
  • Number of books natively written in Spanish: 11
  • Average number of pages per book: 365

  • Books I didn’t like: La conspiración de la Señora Parrish, Como polvo en el viento
  • Favorite books, translated: El hombre que cayó en la tierra, La anomalía
  • Favorite books, originally in Spanish: La buena suerte, Los caídos
  • Books that were great for learning: Gente Normal for tense shifts and Invisible for POV shifts


Thoughts on Reading

I started learning Spanish from absolute zero in July of 2020, and I signed up for the Super Challenge when I joined this forum. I read 5 books in 2020, starting with Crepúsculo (Twilight) because it was the most repetitive book I recalled ever reading in English so I thought it would make a good learning book. I went from knowing nothing to being an excruciatingly slow reader by the end of 2020. I had to look up a lot of words, stuck to translated works I was already familiar with, needed frequent breaks, missed tons of details, and still probably didn’t really understand everything.

In 2021, I read 27 books. Now I’m able to read contemporary novels originally written in Spanish, encounter much fewer unknown words (averaging ½ to 5 unknown words per page depending on the book), read at a tolerable speed (though still nowhere near as quickly as in English), can read for hours at a time, and notice enough details to occasionally pick up on typos. Overall, the Super Challenge was a huge success for me.

I’m still not where I want to be with reading. I miss lots of nuance, and there’s always more vocabulary / phrases to learn. I rely more on context than I should, instead of explicit verbiage – for example, sometimes I don’t notice verb tense shifts until something happens in an unexpected order, and I go back and see there was a flashback in past tense. The book I’m currently reading, Temporada de huracanes, has a lot of stream of consciousness that shifts tense as well as perspective within the same long run-on sentence with unmarked dialogue and flashbacks, and I have to pay extra attention.

I suspect progress will be slower from here on out, and that I’ll reach my desired level somewhere around the 100 book mark (actual books, not SC “books”). I want to read faster and get to the point where shifts in tense or POV feel obvious, and there’s always more vocabulary and idioms to master. The good thing is that the more I read, the faster I can read and the more enjoyable it gets. It’s like the gift that keeps on giving. Highly recommended!!!



Series and Films

  • 87:30 Flash
  • 73:23 Flecha
  • 56:21 Diarios de Vampiros
  • 29:49 La Casa de Papel
  • 24:56 Viajeros
  • 15:32 Carbono Alterado
  • 15:21 Sobreviviente Designado
  • 15:17 Distrito Salvaje
  • 11:29 How to Get Away with Murder
  • 11:22 Siempre Bruja
  • 10:06 Twilight Saga
  • 09:24 El Dragón
  • 07:01 Bolívar
  • 06:52 Toy Boy
  • 06:18 Divergent Series
  • 05:37 The Blacklist
  • 04:19 La Ley secreta
  • 04:01 Ocean's 11 and 12
  • 03:28 Russian Doll
  • 03:04 Kung Fu Panda
  • 02:49 Sense8
  • 02:23 Startup
  • 02:07 Star Trek (2009 film)
  • 02:00 The Social Network
  • 01:53 How It Ends
  • 01:44 Luis Miguel
  • 01:44 Mi Obra Maestra
  • 01:17 7 Años
  • 00:58 Ozark
  • 00:54 Las Chicas del Cable
  • 00:52 Living With Yourself
  • 00:49 Los favoritos de Midas
  • 00:47 Andes Magicos
  • 00:40 Quien mato a Sara?
  • 00:32 El Vecino

Total time: 422:39


Thoughts on Films

Again, I started at zero in July 2020. As I progressed, listening comprehension felt weak for me compared to the other skills, and I thought I had been working decently at it. It wasn’t until I read about other people’s experiences listening to hundreds of hours for the Super Challenge or binge watching series that I realized I simply needed a LOT more quantity. I tracked how much I was listening to, and it was actually fairly paltry. Despite not being a television fan, I started watching a LOT, mainly through Netflix.

The first 150 hours led to great improvement in my listening comprehension, but I knew I was only scratching the surface. I reached a point where I could easily understand clear “neutral” language like dubs or news, but native series are still challenging for me. I just don’t have the localized vocabulary necessary to keep up, and I have a very hard time picking up new vocabulary from hearing it. I do much better with reading for vocabulary acquisition.

Overall, the Super Challenge has been amazing for my listening comprehension, but I still feel pretty far away from where I want to be. In terms of improvement, podcasts like How to Spanish seemed very difficult to me when I started, but now I think it’s “too easy” with obviously slow and enunciated speech. I watch Noticias Telemundo without much difficulty except for the occasional mask-wearing guest with muffled speech. Te lo resumo así nomás seemed challenging not too long ago, but after watching a few videos I’ve picked up some slang and common jokes and mostly understand it, though I definitely miss bits here and there.

My plan going forward is to (a) take a break from Netflix for at least another month, (b) listen to audiobooks for a change of pace and a “denser” listening experience, and (c) sign up for the next Super Challenge. I think I’ll need to watch hundreds more hours to get where I want to be, but I don't have a set goal for 2022.
14 x
Spanish Goals
22/23 SC Films: 438 / 18000 438 / 18000 minutes
22/23 SC Books: 6454 / 10000 6454 / 10000 pages
2022 Reading: 8061 / 8000 8061 / 10000 8000 pages

Caromarlyse
Green Belt
Posts: 387
Joined: Fri Dec 06, 2019 2:31 pm
Languages: English (N), French (C1-ish), German (B2/C1-ish), Russian (B1-ish), Portuguese (B1-ish), Welsh (complete beginner), Spanish (in hibernation)
(All levels estimates and given as a guide only)
x 1611

Re: Clara's Spanish Log

Postby Caromarlyse » Wed Jan 05, 2022 8:24 am

That was a great post! You seem to have done fantastically well. I'm excited to do the super challenge officially this time round, and your post was very motivational.

I was interested in what you said about not being a television fan, because I'm with you on that one. As a result, I've never managed to watch loads of TL series (except on rare occasions when I actually get into it, which has only happened when I've been able to watch with someone else as a social thing - though the language learning takeaway is then poor as there are then always English subtitles). Did you just push yourself to do it, despite not really enjoying it? If so, did you find you got more enjoyment out of it as you progressed? Did you view watching Netflix as a kind of desk study thing, or were you able to get into the habit of watching as a form of entertainment? I can't decide whether I just accept that I work with my own personality and preferences, or whether I'd like the benefits I could get out of trying to force a different approach.
6 x


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