- Recursión: 284 pages
- Dubbed movies on Netflix: Twilight Saga 1-5, Kung Fu Panda, Star Trek (2009)
- Siempre bruja: Season 2, episodes 7 and 8
- Diarios de vampiros: Season 3, episodes 7-11
- Andes magicos: Season 2, episodes 1 and 2
- Anki and Ella every day
- Podcasts, youtube, various news articles
Reading
The thought of Como polvo en el viento was such a turn off that I just wasn't reading at all and instead watched lots of easy dubbed Netflix. After watching all of the Twilight Saga, I considered the differences in my approaches to reading and listening. By Super Challenge metrics, I have watched far more than I have read, over 2x the watching challenge but only 1x the reading challenge.
Going into the challenge I thought of myself as more of a reader and dreaded the film portion. What happened? Well, because I’m more of a reader, I have pushed increasing reading level at a faster pace because I’m impatient to read better. Instead, this has backfired and led to taking longer breaks from reading because it can feel excruciating -- either because my pace is slower than I’d like or because I’m forcing myself through materials I dislike. In English, I would have finished Como polvo en el viento despite hating it because it would have taken an hour or two. In Spanish, I was looking at 6 hours at best if I could manage to focus (unlikely).
So what will I do with this information? I am going to dial back on reading difficulty. A lot. Plus I'm going to start abandoning books if I find myself procrastinating reading. I hate abandoning Como polvo en el viento almost 80% of the way through it, but it's for the best. I started reading Recursión, and I feel like I am flying through it in comparison. Stuff is actually happening! Even if the language is easier, I'm still exposing myself to vocabulary at a faster rate than I can add to Anki, and I'm getting more exposure to words and phrases I already "know."
Thoughts on vocabulary
Speaking of words I “know,” I love that I’m constantly learning alternative meanings/usages for words I thought I knew. For example:
- Bahía: I thought bahía was strictly a bay as in a body of water, but it seems it can also be used in the sense of cargo bay.
- Orden: I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to realize orden can be masculine or feminine and has different meanings depending on gender.
- Galón: I thought it was just gallon, but it can also be a military stripe or a decorative ribbon / braid.
- Haz: I’d exclusively seen haz in the context of “haz de luz” or “hazlo” to mean “beam of light” or “do it”, but it also means a bundle.
This is a good reminder that even though I “know” X # of words in Anki, that generally means I only know one meaning for each word, not nearly all the nuances that I learn from reading and other sources. I’ve seen debates where people argue for Anki or reading, but it’s not an either/or situation. The combination of both does a very good job enforcing word recognition for me.
I guess all this to say that I’m dialing everything back a notch or two and going for sheer quantity over “quality” because I think it will lead to more engagement and ingraining concepts that I already “know” but haven’t completely absorbed. I’ve said before that I like a lot of repetition.
Polyglot Fitness Challenge
I realized I haven’t set goals in a while. I’ve just been trying to “be healthier” in small steps and am starting to get back into it. For August, I’d like to go to the gym at least 15 times, read at least 1000 pages of Spanish, and watch 50 hours of Netflix in Spanish. Maybe I should also get back on the 1000 pushups per month goal, but I haven’t done any so far this month so will start with 750 for the remaining 3 weeks.