Luke's very confused Spanish Learning Log

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luke
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Re: Luke's very confused Spanish Learning Log

Postby luke » Fri Nov 19, 2021 3:23 pm

BeaP wrote:I've read through your log, and needed extreme self-discipline to only bookmark RTVE's Don Quijote, and not start to listen to it right away. (Not making pizza also required extreme self-discipline. I've brought home 10 kilos of flour from Italy. ) I've also refrained from buying the version by Andrés Trapiello. At least for now. Enjoy your vacation, libro amigo.

Thanks for the modern Quijote tip. I'm also restraining now too.

Some 2666 words I looked up yesterday:
zambullierse: to dive
contado: attempt
baldosas: floor tiles
funesta: ill-fated
golosinas: candy
escarbar: to dig
sandeces: nonsense
compungidos: remorseful
mote: nickname
renuente: reluctant
proscenario: theater

I'm enjoying the reading and listening. Listening is harder in that it's easier to lose track of what's going on, such as in everything around that taxi ride, what happened, and all that. I got lost there and had to re-read that section, pp90-111 just to get clearer on WTF.

Listening is easier when Bolaño's just telling the more mundane, this, then that, then this, then that. I'm getting why he selected Baudelaire's epigraph to open the book.

I rewind the audio pretty frequently and usually attribute that to drifting off. The whole taxi ride and whodunit and whydidit sort of escaped me during the walk. I won't say I understand whydunit, other than simple things like immature jealousy and misdirected rage, but at least I'm followed what happened. These more significant pieces develop slowly in the background, so even rewinding 3 or 5 minutes can still not clear up things like that taxi ride.
4 x
: 124 / 124 Cien años de soledad 20x
: 5479 / 5500 5500 pages - Reading
: 51 / 55 FSI Basic Spanish 3x
: 309 / 506 Camino a Macondo

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luke
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Re: Luke's very confused Spanish Learning Log

Postby luke » Sat Nov 20, 2021 11:07 pm

FSI Unit 35 Victory Lap
Every unit of FSI completed feels like and is an accomplishment. Today I wrote 5 pages on the written exercises. Writing is a facet of study that has to help because it doesn't get that much attention. So that one's done and I've been creeping into unit 36 for a couple of days.

Preparing the Road Trip USB Sticks
Road trip starts tomorrow.

Memory stick one is random leftovers from previous trips. It's the FSI replacement (27-49) and variation drills (9-45).

Stick two is non-random:
FSI sequential (full) units 36-43
FSI fluency dialogs 53-55
FSI Illustrations (Basic Sentences) from Platiquemos units 42-55
Cien años de soledad chapters 17-20
Hugo Spanish weeks 6-13

That's more than I can do during this trip, but helps me organize and track.

Books
I'm bringing the two Anaya El Quijote graded readers. They've gotten Anki time lately. Reading is a good way to harvest the fruit of that labor.

The other book is Roberto Bolaño's 2666. Today I'm on page 177 of 1125. Audio is on my phone.
1 x
: 124 / 124 Cien años de soledad 20x
: 5479 / 5500 5500 pages - Reading
: 51 / 55 FSI Basic Spanish 3x
: 309 / 506 Camino a Macondo

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Re: Luke's very confused Spanish Learning Log

Postby Le Baron » Sun Nov 21, 2021 12:00 am

It's always hard to know if you'll take too much (and not cover it all) or too little (which you then fly through quickly). The two books will fill any gap; especially 2666 which might as well be four novels...or 12 for me who tends to go for less painful novellas. Though I don't know how long the road-trip will be?

Agree with you about writing. I tend to focus on it by writing as much as I can. Practise letters to people (which obviously don't get sent), thoughts and little one-paragraph stories which I may even add to later. I already started making youtube comments in Spanish just to push me to write things other eyes will see. When I get ordinary responses not even questioning the Spanish (or even likes!) it bolsters confidence.

Have a good trip and come back fluent. ;)
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Re: Luke's very confused Spanish Learning Log

Postby luke » Sun Nov 21, 2021 9:51 am

Le Baron wrote:It's always hard to know if you'll take too much (and not cover it all) or too little (which you then fly through quickly). The two books will fill any gap; especially 2666 which might as well be four novels...or 12 for me who tends to go for less painful novellas. Though I don't know how long the road-trip will be?

Just to make a distinction about the readings. I have a friend who likes to read Dune, his favorite SciFi novel on a vacation. He can do that based on the time allocation and he likes it.

I'm not planning to finish 2666 during this trip. Just to continue it.

The Quijotes are not that much reading. Not sure what my speed is these days on them, but I'd guess they're less than 4 hours total. Short chapters. It's easy to read a chapter or two in a tiny break, so I do expect to finish that.

As far as the stuff on the memory sticks, that's a bit more like 2666, something that's in progress and I'm not expecting the trip to halt nor bring to completion.

There will be 2 drives of about 14 hours each, so a good bit of time to make some progress. Also, I should be visiting my Mom pretty much every day on this trip, which will include a couple of 25 minute drives. So a lot more time in the car than usual.

Le Baron wrote:Have a good trip and come back fluent. ;)

How can I not?
2 x
: 124 / 124 Cien años de soledad 20x
: 5479 / 5500 5500 pages - Reading
: 51 / 55 FSI Basic Spanish 3x
: 309 / 506 Camino a Macondo

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luke
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Re: Luke's very confused Spanish Learning Log

Postby luke » Mon Nov 22, 2021 3:01 pm

Road trip there...
Listened to the last 4 chapters...

: 20 / 20 Cien años de soledad (6x)

Lots of FSI replacement drills, some variation drills, somewhat less of the sequential FSI track.

Also listened to some Hugo in 3 months, 2666, and most of the last 1/2 of the Assimil Using Spanish course.

Started El Quijote this morning. Didn't have my reading glasses and didn't want to distrurb anyone by leaving the house, but have read the first 70 pages of the first book.
5 x
: 124 / 124 Cien años de soledad 20x
: 5479 / 5500 5500 pages - Reading
: 51 / 55 FSI Basic Spanish 3x
: 309 / 506 Camino a Macondo

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luke
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Re: Luke's very confused Spanish Learning Log

Postby luke » Sun Nov 28, 2021 4:04 pm

I finished the second book of Roberto Bolaño's 2666 this morning. It's the shortest of the 5.

I found myself wondering, what's the big arc of this story? There's a lot of details and a few characters, but the action comes at a slower pace.

As I approached the end of book 2, La parte de Amalfitano, I thought I'd check what the wikipedia article has to say. The Spanish 2666, article is marked as an articulo destacado (outstanding page). I read through that this morning. Good background. The book has won several prizes. The "arguments" (summaries) were fairly brief, considering the book's 1119 pages. I'm glad I did that. There are a few quite effusive reviews. For challenging literature, I've found more effort to be more rewarding.

I'm making sort of average progress on FSI during my visit. Have done more with the Replacement drill and Variation drill tracks than normal. Finished off about 10 drills on the "sequential" track. It's Sunday, I might should be beginning the reading/written exercises. We'll see what the rest of the day brings.

I'm about 1/2 way through the second El Quijote book. Have been listening to one those gurus :) and it came upon me that at some point in the future I may want to read it aloud as narrator.

That same guru, and I use the word for fun because it's been popping up a lot lately around here, has a good video on how he approaches a language with Assimil:



Professor Arguelles approach made me think I've been sort of doing that with Cien años de soledad. E.G., listening when I could hardly understand it, progressing through shadowing and using the parallel text and giving more and more attention to the original language, etc. I haven't shadowed it all the time, but I see similarities in what I've done and what he does and also the benefit of not getting bored with the material as there's still more left on the table for tomorrow.

That long prelude has me thinking my next run as Cien años de soledad will be:
Read the parallel text without the audio. Analyze whatever seems unclear at the time. (this is a goal when he talks about reading the notes and explanations).

Not sure if I'll do a narrative pass without the audio. It might still be good to have Kepa Amuchastegui at my side:



But that will wait until I return...
6 x
: 124 / 124 Cien años de soledad 20x
: 5479 / 5500 5500 pages - Reading
: 51 / 55 FSI Basic Spanish 3x
: 309 / 506 Camino a Macondo

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luke
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Re: Luke's very confused Spanish Learning Log

Postby luke » Mon Nov 29, 2021 8:14 pm

36, 36, 36!
The written exercises in FSI unit 36 ended up being 3 pages today. On something Le Baron said in another thread, sometimes I think just the writing itself does some good, even if I don't review it. It's definitely more like school work, which I haven't had to grind through for quite some time.

Going to visit Mom today, so unit 37 drills will start getting more attention today. It's got some not so difficult drills on the subjunctive. They're "not so difficult" because the changes required to do the drill are fairly simple. I think these would be considered "transformation" drills. I did pretty good on them over the last 2 days, but have left them on the memory stick because I got a couple incorrect, but more so because they teach a myriad of phrases that can precede the subjunctive. Better to get a big dose in these 5 minute drills and have them be easy than drift a long time not realizing the subjunctive gets used after many phrases that at first glance aren't so obvious.

I've been doing a bit of replacements, variations, presentations of patterns, and dialog drills in the morning. I'm on the final dialogue, 55, which is shorter than a lot of the previous ones and has a nice happy ending.

It's interesting the juxtaposition of the graded El Quijote and the Roberto Bolaño 2666 novel. Linguistically, El Quijote is more challenging. Some of it is vos and vosotros and some of it is the more archaic constructions that Cervantes uses. Also see now that I should have studied the future tense, which FSI doesn't cover until units 49 and 52, as it's not used frequently in Latin America. I'm looking at it now though. Making some progress on both books each day. El Quijote should finish up in the next day or so.
6 x
: 124 / 124 Cien años de soledad 20x
: 5479 / 5500 5500 pages - Reading
: 51 / 55 FSI Basic Spanish 3x
: 309 / 506 Camino a Macondo

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Re: Luke's very confused Spanish Learning Log

Postby BeaP » Tue Nov 30, 2021 6:42 am

I've also been dealing with the subjunctive. I'm putting here a link to the videos I've been watching. They are below your level, but if you're tired, they can be a good alternative. This guy has a unique kind of humour, but if you happen to like it, he's quite engaging, and I've found watching his stuff very effective. The funniest ones are 10, 14 and 20.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnNH-ry7VPzHAau6VzPxBkfnDas1bG9qN
2 x

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luke
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Re: Luke's very confused Spanish Learning Log

Postby luke » Wed Dec 01, 2021 12:52 pm

BeaP wrote:I've also been dealing with the subjunctive. I'm putting here a link to the videos I've been watching. This guy has a unique kind of humour, but if you happen to like it, he's quite engaging, and I've found watching his stuff very effective. The funniest ones are 10, 14 and 20.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnNH-ry7VPzHAau6VzPxBkfnDas1bG9qN

Thank you! I watched number 10 yesterday. It was funny and engaging. It reminds me of an FSI phrase, ¡Juan y sus ideas!

I'm down to a single book now, 2666. It does seem to lower stress level by keeping the number of tracks down, so one book at a time makes sense on that, especially when they're ginormous or my goals with them lofty. :)

I'll finish up the FSI Dialogues track tomorrow. I want to review la boda de Jose y Carmen one more time.

After this trip, I'll dial down the attention on FSI replacement and variation drills so the FSI Presentation of Pattern (ilustraciones) get more attention. Moving ahead there takes more time and probably merits more attention.

And then keep the FSI sequential track going. So with FSI, it will be the sequential track and a preview or review track, (plus Anki).
4 x
: 124 / 124 Cien años de soledad 20x
: 5479 / 5500 5500 pages - Reading
: 51 / 55 FSI Basic Spanish 3x
: 309 / 506 Camino a Macondo

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luke
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Re: Luke's very confused Spanish Learning Log

Postby luke » Sun Dec 05, 2021 4:41 pm

So what have I learned or done lately?

Got back from my trip. During the drive back, did a good bit of FSI Variation drills. Some FSI sequential drills. CD2 of Assimil Using Spanish. Some radio. The audio from Hugo Spanish in 3 Months (CD 3 of 3). Finished book 3 of 5 of 2666.

I'm going to do another visit again in a couple weeks, so thinking of relatively short interim activities/goals.

While I'm thinking about it, these are some current bars:
: 456 / 1119 2666 de Roberto Bolaño
: 36 / 55 FSI Basic Spanish
: 365 / 365 Anaya El Quijote (4th time)
: 3842 / 4000 Leyendo 4000 páginas desde junio 14, 2021
: 13 / 13 Hugo Spanish in 3 Months (overview)
: 1 / 20 Cien años de soledad (7x)
: 45 / 45 Club de Cuervos
: 263 / 439 Anki el_quijote - mature cards - from the Anaya books
: 3883 / 9790 Anki 5000 - mature cards
: 1518 / 7245 Anki FSI mature cards
: 55 / 55 FSI Dialogs (2x)
: 43 / 55 FSI PoP (Illustrations)
: 30 / 49 FSI Replacements
: 12 / 42 FSI Variations
: 96 / 96 Quijote del siglo XXI (4x)

Cien años de soledad is back in the game. Listened to the Gustavo Bonfigli audible recording of chapter 1 on my walk this morning. Made some notes about words that weren't clear. Put those into an Anki deck this morning. 19 * 2 = 38 tarjetas. That's not every word that was a bit questionable, but most of the ones that made the story less clear and vibrant. I'm hoping to continue this practice between now and my next road trip, meaning, I'd like to listen to the 20 chapters in the next couple of weeks and make notes for vocabulary cards. :lol:

FSI is still on unit 37. AllSubNoDub was kind enough to ask about plans a while back. Keeping with that FSI plan, I don't have to get beyond unit 37 in 2021, so I'm close to reaching that goal. (5/8 way through the course).

2666 is going on the back burner. During yesterday's walk, started book 4. I wasn't enjoying it. That made me switch to Cien años chapter 15, which is where the Gustavo Bonfigli happened to be and I liked it a lot. That led me to the idea of carrying a notebook, since there weren't that many unknown words. And it's more fun, and I need some of that.

Towards the end of today's walk, started talking to myself, recapping the story as told in chapter 1 to myself. That gave me the idea that when I turn to a "just read it" run, I want to pay particular attention to the space and time transitions. Or maybe that's for the time after with a new copy - the one that has paintings in it and a larger font than the RAE edition.

Lastly, I'm tempted to run through Hugo in 3 Months again - a second run - trying to put some grammar and other approach to my studies. That also has some vosotros, which will be handy for my next off-site visit, where I'm thinking analyze the Anaya El Quijote.

Teango has his 3 day projects. I'm looking at 2 week projects.

Lessons learned from fifty years of theory and practice wrote:Learners’ needs change over time. Learning is more efficient when the focus is on providing each learner with what he or she needs in order to learn right now, not on teaching a preset curriculum. A flexible language program adapts to learner traits so as to minimize weaknesses and maximize learning strengths for particular learners. Some learners demonstrate higher “aptitudes” in one style of language program than in another.

There is the need for changes of pace in long-term language training.

Motivation, self-discipline, and power of concentration may be equally or more important than cognitive aptitude.

Some kind of explicit grammar instruction helps most people to learn efficiently. Some focus on an overview of the grammatical system appears to make language learning more efficient by creating awareness of form(s) so that learners can attend to them when they are ready.

Immersion experiences appear to have the greatest payoff above the S-2 level (Speaking at B1/B2 level).

Experience at FSI indicates unequivocally that the amount of time spent in reading, listening to, and interacting in the language has a close relationship to the learner’s ability to use that language professionally.

For knowledge of one language to be a real advantage in learning another, however, it needs to be at a significant level. An interagency group determined recently that this kind of advantage takes effect at a three-level proficiency or better (B2/C1).

Language learning may also be affected by whether the learners possess an overt declarative knowledge of salient linguistic and grammatical concepts. It appears increasingly clear that such knowledge helps many learners to be able to progress faster and more surely, and that lack of that knowledge can slow them down. Knowing such concepts increases the accessibility of such resources as reference grammars, textbooks, and dictionaries, and also serves an important purpose in making adult learners aware of types of language phenomena to watch for.

We see individuals on a regular basis who know exactly what they have to do in order to learn a new language. Some of them are so good that they are truly astonishing, and they are each different. Earl Stevick emphasized this point in his 1989 book, Success with Foreign Languages, by describing seven such superb learners— each with different learning approaches. Programs at FSI need to be flexible enough to make it possible for each learner to progress as rapidly as he or she is able. We have found the following adult learning axiom to be revealing: “If an adult tells you that he needs something in order to learn, the chances are very good that he’s right.”

Lesson 7. The importance of “automaticity” in building learner skill and confidence in speaking and reading a language is more important than has been recognized by the SLA field over the last two decades.

In order to perform higher order communicative skills—such as participating in social conversations and other such job-related uses of the target language—our students must produce spontaneously and accurately the relevant grammatical structures and routines of the language.

Adults need to read considerable amounts of “easy” material in order to build up stamina and to automatize processing skills.
Successful language learning requires “stretching” learners some of the time through “i+1”- type tasks. Yet it is also important to build up processing skills by varying the pace and giving learners some tasks that they can perform easily. This is particularly important in intensive programs, where students are constantly confronted with new structures and vocabulary to learn.

Those are my notes from https://howlearnspanish.com/wp-content/ ... 999_07.pdf
7 x
: 124 / 124 Cien años de soledad 20x
: 5479 / 5500 5500 pages - Reading
: 51 / 55 FSI Basic Spanish 3x
: 309 / 506 Camino a Macondo


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