Luke's very confused Spanish Learning Log

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BeaP
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Re: Luke's very confused Spanish Learning Log

Postby BeaP » Wed Feb 23, 2022 4:30 pm

It's interesting that you've posted this card with the mule. Today I've been trying to write an essay on urban transport and learned the parts of a car. You method is much more romantic and if these are the words that are useful in your everyday life, I might even envy you. ;)
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Re: Luke's very confused Spanish Learning Log

Postby luke » Wed Feb 23, 2022 10:29 pm

BeaP wrote:It's interesting that you've posted this card with the mule. Today I've been trying to write an essay on urban transport and learned the parts of a car. You method is much more romantic and if these are the words that are useful in your everyday life, I might even envy you. ;)

I can't predict the future, but the deer in the field, el azulejo en el cielo, y los petirrojos en los arboles, todos agradecen, que un animal de dos pies, también le dé respecto a su hermano, el mulo.

luke wrote:Teó = God
Filo = Love

Pero quince días después el general Teófilo Vargas fue despedazado a machetazos en una emboscada y el coronel Aureliano Buendía asumió el mando central.

A little clarification. El nombre, "Teófilo" me parece "Theodore", lover of God.

Below are the lines that introduce General Teófilo Vargas. He sounds like he will be a fantastic character:

Gabo wrote:En medio de aquella muchedumbre abigarrada, cuyas diferencias de criterio estuvieron a punto de provocar una explosión interna, se destacaba una autoridad tenebrosa: el general Teófilo Vargas.
In the midst of that jumbled crowd, whose differences of values were at the point of causing an internal explosion, standing out was a shadowy authority: General Teófilo Vargas.

Era un indio puro, montaraz, analfabeto, dotado de una malicia taciturna y una vocación mesiánica que suscitaba en sus hombres un fanatismo demente.
He was pure Indian, untamed, illiterate, endowed with a taciturn malice and a messianic vocation that aroused in his men a demented fanaticism.

The part I quote earlier, with the machetes, is from the same page. Gabo creates this outstanding character, and with no compunction, lets him meet his maker immediately.

Imagine your name is "Vargas". A huge character has just stepped on the stage bearing your apellido. Hope is soaring. Before you finish the page, Gabito has already let him go. He served his purpose, propelled the story forward, drove the colonel deeper into himself, alone.
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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Re: Luke's very confused Spanish Learning Log

Postby luke » Sat Feb 26, 2022 1:22 am

el pronóstico
Acabo de cumplir capítulo 9 de Cien años de soledad, y el pronóstico es así:
prognOstico.png


Hay 6 subcapítulos en capítulo 9, y voy a repasar cada uno en la próxima semana. Espero que el siguiente pronóstico no me parezca tan deslumbrante a medida que pasan los próximos días.

También cumplí capítulo nueve en el paseo de hoy. Cambié el narativo al Gustavo Bonfigli. Él no habla tan rápido, y su voz me gusta. Metí la velocidad de la grabación a 90%. Fue bastante agradable. Me sentía el propio narador.

Creo que voy a terminar unidad 47 de FSI este fin de semana. Dos ejercicios quedan.

Estoy escuchando los creativos:


Finalmente, he vuelto a leer El Quijote II. De eso, viene dos cosas buenas:
1) Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra le gustó usar los pronombres relativos, como "lo que", "las que", etcetera, los cuales he sido estudiando en unidad 53, donde estoy aprendiendolos con las ilustraciones en el curso basico de FSI.
2) Como español, se usa "vosotros", y también "vos", los que también estudio en unidad 53 de FSI. "Vos" vendrá en unidad 54.

Que les vayan bien, amigos.

how 'bout a translation?
I just completed chapter 9 in Cien años de soledad and the forecast looks like this: (image above)

There are 6 subchapters in chapter 9, and I am going to review each one over the coming week. I hope that the following forecast doesn't loom so enormous as the coming days pass.

I also completed chapter nine on my walk today. I changed the narrator to Gustavo Bonfigli. He doesn't speak as fast and I like his voice. I set the speed of the recording to 90%. It was rather pleasant. I was feeling like I was the narrator.

I believe I'm going to finish unit 47 of FSI this weekend. Two exercises remain.

I'm listening to the creatives: (link to youtube above)

Finally, I've returned to reading El Quijote II. From that, come two good things:
1) Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra liked to use relative pronouns, like "lo que", "las que", etc., which I have been studying in unit 53, where I have been learning them with the illustrations in FSI Basic Spanish.
2) As a Spaniard, he uses "vosotros", and also "vos", which I'm also studying in unit 53 of FSI. "Vos" will come in unit 54.

I hope it's going well with you all, my friends.
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: 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 luke » Sun Feb 27, 2022 1:34 pm

camino a macondo
Camino a Macondo es un libro, aparentamente de los cuentitos, cuentos, y novelas que Gabo escribió antes de Cien anos de soledad. No lo tengo, pero he encontrado el indice y un video: PRIMERAS impresiones "Camino a Macondo": ¡La GÉNESIS de Cien años de soledad!



Key:
No fueron publicado antes de este libro
Todos los cuentos
Novelas

Primeros textos
La casa de los Buendía, 41
La hija del coronel, 44
El hijo del coronel, 47
El regreso de Meme, 50

Monólogo de Isabel viendo llover en Macondo, 52
Un hombre viene bajo la lluvia, 60
Un día después del sábado, 65


La hojarasca 88

El coronel no tiene quien le escriba 194


Los funerales de la Mamá Grande
La siesta del martes, 263
Un día de éstos, 271
En este pueblo no hay ladrones, 274
La prodigiosa tarde de Baltazar, 302
La viuda de Montiel, 310
Rosas artificiales, 317
Los funerales de la Mamá Grande, 323


La mala hora 364

Entonces, son diez los cuentos que se encuentran dentro de Todos los cuentos. Pienso que el orden de Camino de Macondo podría ser útil, como orden para leerlos, mientras no estoy listo comprometerme a una tarea más grande.

what?
There's a new Gabo book out there. Amazon doesn't have the hardcover in stock at the moment, and Audible hasn't done a recording yet, but, Camino a Macondo looks very interesting. There's a prologue, four previously unpublished short stories, ten previously published short stories, and three novellas. I'm thinking this is the order they were written, based on some dates in Todos los cuentos.

I've been thinking I need to simply read more. I like the digestibility and lower commitment level of going after the short stories, since I have 10 of them, and I've been dipping into 8 of those 10, and also thought reading would be the next useful step for the short stories in Los funerales de la Mamá Grande.
Edited to update format of contents of Camino a Macondo
Last edited by luke on Fri Apr 29, 2022 1:05 am, edited 1 time in total.
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: 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 luke » Tue Mar 01, 2022 5:16 am

Los dos cuentos primeros de arriba, acabo de leer y escuchar y notar palabras desconocidas.

Monólogo de Isabel viendo llover en Macondo cuenta el relato de Isabel, encinta, y sus pensamientos durante una larga lluvia.



Un hombre viene bajo la lluvia cuenta un relato, noche de lluvia, dos mujeres, una en una silla de rodillas, la otra, dió una botella de menta a un hombre desconocido, no Noel, su hijo, o hermano, que salió hasta mucho tiempo. Recuerdos de papá Laurel y su escopeta, quien rechazó el título del capitán del coronel Aureliano Buendía, porque solo la usó para defender sus conejos.

Estoy leyendo intensivamente el capítulo nueve de Cien años de soledad por segunda vez. He añadido unas cartas nuevas a Anki hoy y ayer, pero no tantas.

Escuché y narré capítulo 13 durante el paseo de hoy.
Edited to remove broken youtube link.
Last edited by luke on Fri Apr 29, 2022 1:09 am, edited 1 time in total.
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: 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 luke » Wed Mar 02, 2022 1:29 am

acabo de estudiar unidad 47 de FSI Basic Spanish
Había sido pensando que terminaré unidad 47 hace unos días, porque había escrito los ejercicios finales de la unidad, pero algunos ejercicios orales fueron bastante difíciles.

las barras del progreso
: 47 / 124 Cien años de soledad (9x)
: 47 / 55 FSI Basic Spanish
: 52 / 55 FSI Illustrations

Qué hice hoy?
Las cartas de Anki, por supuesto. Hay tres días más en el repaso / releyo del capítulo 9. He encontrado un ritmo que me funcióna. No sé si eso sea la manera de decir lo que quisiera decir. Voy a darles un traducción abajo. 53 minutos me dice Anki.

Paseo dos veces. El primero, escuché y narré capítulo 14 de Cien años de soledad. Úrsula está envejeciendo. Meme devolvió de su formación y tuvo amigos y un novio, Maurcio Babilonia. Fernanda, la madre de Meme, ha hecho un malísimo a ese hombre. Sé donde Meme va a ir mañana.

Siete venados me encantaron durante el segundo paseo. Escuché y narré el tercer cuento en Camino a Macondo, Un día después del sábado. Fue largo, más de una hora a 85% velocidad. Lo entendí bastante bien.

Con FSI, hice unos estudios de vosotros, etc.

Leí Los azotes de Sancho de El Quijote II, y fue una diversión agradable.

Let's hear that again in English, por favor

I just finished studying unit 47 of FSI Basic Spanish
I had been thinking I was going to finish unit 47 a few days ago, because I had written the final exercises of the unit, but some of the oral exercises were rather difficult.

What did I do today?
Anki cards, of course. There are three more days in the review / reread of chapter 9. I've found a rhythm that works for me. I don't know that that's the right way to say what I would like to say. I will give you all a translation below. Anki says I spent 53 minutes chez Anki.

I took two walks. On the first, I listened to and narrated chapter 14 of One Hundred Years of Solitude. Úrsula is getting old. Meme returned from her formation and had friends and a boyfriend, Mauricio Babilonia. Fernanda, Meme's mother, has done a big evil to that fellow. I know where Meme is going to go tomorrow.

Seven deer enchanted me during the second walk. I listened and narrated the third short story from Road to Macondo, One day after Saturday. It was long, more than an hour at 85% speed. I understood it pretty well.

With FSI, I did some studying of vosotros, etc.

I read The lashes of Sancho from the Anaya book El Quijote II, and it was funny.

This was the background listen:
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: 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 luke » Mon Mar 07, 2022 10:30 pm

what have I been doing?
In a post above on this page, I mentioned Camino a Macondo. I've been following along with the story order above. That means I've done some study on those first 3 short stories in the Primeros Textos section. The two shorter stories I read more than once and listened to a couple of times. The longer story I may have only read once, but listened to it at least twice.

That brings up, La hojarasca, which I downloaded from Audible and began this morning. It was tough going, just listening. So, this afternoon I read a couple of summaries, some web pages on vocabulary, a bit of wikipedia on the Guerra de los Mil Días, etc.

I'm thinking I will listen to it at least twice before I move on to the next novella. Like songs, I find García Márquez stories get better as I know them better.

I'm plugging away at unit 48 of FSI. There are 4 things I'm doing:
1) Drills in the car on the way to the walk.
2) Drills in the bathroom, when shaving, etc.
3) Reading the book and listening to some of the grammar drills or dialogs.
4) Live Lingua "Presentation of Pattern" drills on the way to my car at the end of a walk. Generally, I just do one drill and repeat it if there's extra time.

It may look like a lot, but those are all short sessions.

Anki is a little less cranky
prognOstico-20220307.png


Comparing the current Cien años de soledad prognóstico to the one from about 10 days ago, the "cards forecast for the next 30 days" is about the same, but the curve has flattened. 10 days ago, I would see 1/2 of the month's cards in the next 3 days. Now it's 7 days to see 1/2 of the forecasted cards for the month.

I added a few cards, but not many over the last 10 days or so. I want to hold off on adding cards for another week or two. Below is the forecast the "Collection" of decks, meaning all decks that have cards due in the next 30 days:

prognOstico-20220307-collection.png


That shows I'll see over 1/2 of all the decks in the next 11 days. As far as the forecast goes, if I only trickle in a few cards for about 2 weeks, the collection's daily time commitment should come down a lot. This next stat shows the daily time commitment has dropped. ("Tiempo" checked). I'd like to see it below 30 minutes before enthusiasm gets me adding cards and into trouble again.
collection_repasos-20220307.png


Anki afficionados know this, but as the days go by, the "forecasted" cards, once "done", just move later in the forecast, which is why after 10 days of adding maybe 80 cards in total, (mostly from FSI and Frequency decks), the "forecast for the next 30 days" got flatter, but the total cards for the 30 days is still stubborn.

Oh, I used Spanish for Reading a bit to hit the conditional from another angle. FSI unit 48 is about the conditional, perfect conditional, and periphrastic conditional.

I finished listening/narrating Cien años on my walk yesterday, so I bumped up the count in my signature to (10x).
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: 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 luke » Wed Mar 09, 2022 7:50 pm

3 or 4 ideas


coursera lands on the road to Macondo
I found a great course on coursera called Camino a Macondo. It has some good videos, texts, examples of student work, etc. I went through most of the videos and texts for La hojarasca last night. Compelling. That led me to idea 1:

1) Start La Hojarasca again fresh, now that you've got a better idea what's going on.

I was about 2 hours into the audiobook and I started over at the beginning. SOOO much easier this time. Not perfect, but not near the mental drifting as had found myself in.

This led me to a theory. We know 98% vocabulary coverage is suggested by Paul Nation and Professor Arguelles for extensive reading. Professor Arguelles talks about "losing the thread of the story", when comprehension is 97% or less. Rather than thinking explicitly of vocabulary coverage for keeping interest, the "scaffolding of the story" may be a substitute for keeping the reader hooked.

There are practical reasons why academics use 98%: It's a number, so it's measurable and testable. Using the 98% rule means that any book in the student's interest that's in this range is within their reach. There doesn't have to be an academic or student summary to get the student started.

It also crossed my mind that Cervantes used this a bit with his one liner introduction in Don Quixote to help the reader understand what's going to happen. Other writers are fond of doing this too.

But if the student has a summary or other helpers for comprehension, they can decide to tackle tougher stories, even if vocabulary coverage is below 98%.. I'm not saying I recommend this, but it is what I often do.

Kraut's article about the role of declarative memory, (versus procedural) gave me 2 ideas:

2) Make a table of difficult grammar constructions or verb endings or whatever you're not clear on.
3) Write the difficult vocabulary words
from Anki. This can be done while saying them out loud. (I had just been saying them out loud, often several times to get them to stick). This is a little like scriptoreum, in that the writing and speaking are synchronized.

What was that 4th idea again?
Oh yeah.

4) If you have multiple electronic texts, you can search more than one book to help you decide if a word is "worth" adding to your vocabulary acquisition system.

What that means is, rather than just searching Cien años de soledad and seeing, "only used once here", I can search other e-texts by Gabo to see if the word might show up in other things I'm reading or planning to read.

By the way, I started extensively reading Cien años de soledad a couple days ago. I'm on chapter 4 now. That's what led me to insight #4 above. There are some words I don't know and haven't Ankified. I started searching those other e-texts to see if they're worth adding right now, even if they might only be used once in 100 Years of Solitude. All I can say about it is, this "filter" has saved me from adding words to Anki. I've added none. I've only been using this idea since this morning, but since I'm trying to be judicious and not overload Anki, it has been a decisive help. I can still look up the word and look at some pictures of it.

You get the picture.
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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Re: Luke's very confused Spanish Learning Log

Postby SpanishInput » Thu Mar 10, 2022 1:08 am

I'm actually happy to see that you're tackling Spanish language literature, Luke. A week ago I was killing time in a mall waiting for some friends and ended up buying three anthologies of short stories from Latin American authors. It's been a loooong time since I've read anything from Latam authors. I'm enjoying it. :)
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Re: Luke's very confused Spanish Learning Log

Postby luke » Sun Mar 13, 2022 5:23 pm

SpanishInput wrote:A week ago I was killing time in a mall waiting for some friends and ended up buying three anthologies of short stories from Latin American authors. It's been a loooong time since I've read anything from Latam authors. I'm enjoying it. :)

Very cool. You probably got some great stuff.

Issues and answers for current my study program

Anki load
A couple days ago I found two branches of Anki cards that never got into the rotation. There were 42 cards for El Quijote about a dozen for Cien años de soledad. I couldn't help but add them to their proper decks.

Daily Anki load is high and it's hard to resist adding cards. I've been intensively (chap 9 of 20) and extensively reading Cien años de soledad (chap 5) and liberally adding words to Anki. I've also been reading a chapter or two per day in El Quijote II, which I suspended before I finished it the last time I was visiting family some months ago because extensively reading Cien años was more fun.

El Quijote is important for several reasons:
1) I've invested a good number of hours in my personal Anki deck for it. Some of the vocabulary is not very common and needs deliberate reinforcement.
2) It's good to finish things that I start.
3) El Quijote provides a preview of the more challenging Don Quixote works.
4) Vos and vosotros are coming up in FSI and have been touched on in my FSI grammar track. They need support too. Gabo hardly uses them. FSI doesn't teach them until the very end of the course.

Solution for Anki load
*) Continue a chapter or two per day in El Quijote. That will help the El Quijote deck as well as give support to Vos, Vosotros, and relative pronouns, as well as background for the Big Quixote.
*) Follow-up El Quijote with El Quijote del siglo XXI.

Benefits
Besides those already mentioned, I've also invested a fair bit of time in El Quijote del siglo XXI and it's enjoyable. It will help keep me from adding Cien años cards to Anki for a week or so. That will help lower my daily Anki time commitment.

FSIdeas
I conceptualize my current FSI study as the top two tracks in my progress bars:

: 47 / 55 FSI Basic Spanish (sequential)
: 53 / 55 FSI Illustrations - Presentations of Pattern
: 47 / 124 Cien años de soledad (10x)
: 2 / 12 La hojarasca (2x)

I've been in unit 48 of 55 of FSI sequential for about two weeks. I'm on unit 54 of 55 of the FSI Illustrations.

FSI Illustrations have been challenging for quite some time. Months. I'm almost at the end of the first complete run. What to do next?

Restart FSI Presentation of Patterns at the beginning - Here's why:
* Psycholinguistics suggests grammar should be recycled and reviewed
* It will be easier the second time through.
* Opportunity to make charts of any fuzzy linguistic points. The FSI manuals have examples. Turn them into something more personal.
* Easy stuff will go quickly and hard stuff with get the attention it needs.

This approach has come together over the last day or so. I'll finish the current run before I restart.
Last edited by luke on Fri Mar 25, 2022 12:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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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