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 » Sun Jul 03, 2022 10:28 pm

Completed FSI Basic Spanish
I just finished writing the answers to reading exercise of the last unit of FSI. :)

Some reflections:

FSI Basic Spanish comes in 4 volumes. They introduce reading gradually. Volume 2 has very short readings about the family of a diplomat that recently moved to Surlandia, a mythical country in Latin America. Volume 3 readings are a little longer. In Volume 4, the readings are several pages and vary from governmental reports, to narratives, to short stories, to editorials.

One of the outstanding things in the course are the subtle tips, suggestions, and cultural acclimatizations for the student. E.G., Finding a place to live, finding a language exchange partner, getting out and talking, reading short stories as a first step towards novels, etc.

I imagine I'll circle back to the course, but for the moment, just want to enjoy the good feeling of having done it. In the meantime, there's the great FSI Basic Spanish deck from Ankiweb to keep me company.

: 55 / 55 FSI Basic Spanish

Diego Ruzzarin podcasts are magic
: 17 / 101 Count von counting Ruzzarin

I'm 17 podcasts into this little project and it's super helpful. They range from 20-90 minutes. Some are monologues. Others are Diego and a group of smart friends discussing thought-provoking topics. I find new sentences popping in my head.

Upon reflection, I may have made faster progress if I'd focused more on podcasts than audiobooks.

Gramática de uso del español
I bought the B1-B2 book quite some time ago and never really started it. Now I will put a dent in it. Lesson 1 was about articles (el, la). I learned la clienta to go along with el cliente, which was not clear in a recent FSI lesson.

Many say studying grammar helps so I'm going to give it a try.

Preparing for a Road Trip
I'll be visiting family in about a week. The "narrate out loud" of El Quijote will be finished before then.

: 328 / 365 Anaya El Quijote (6x)
: 207 / 1001 1001 Youtubes y podcasts y libros

For the drive, I'm thinking podcasts, maybe El coronel no tiene quien le escriba and a few short stories on the Camino a Macondo, and something with very short snippets, like some random FSI drills.
16 x
: 124 / 124 Cien años de soledad 20x
: 5479 / 5500 5500 pages - Reading
: 51 / 55 FSI Basic Spanish 3x
: 309 / 506 Camino a Macondo

desafiar
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Re: Luke's very confused Spanish Learning Log

Postby desafiar » Mon Jul 04, 2022 2:51 am

That's a great achievement finishing FSI. Having done that, do you feel the effort and time spend offered good value for what you gained?
3 x

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luke
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Re: Luke's very confused Spanish Learning Log

Postby luke » Mon Jul 04, 2022 2:43 pm

desafiar wrote:That's a great achievement finishing FSI. Having done that, do you feel the effort and time spend offered good value for what you gained?

Thank you. Yes, I think it has been worth it. I'm one of those who needs to do in order to learn.

If I could counsel myself, I'd have done FSI Programmatic Spanish first, not because it's a better course or has better drills. It doesn't. What Programmatic does better is break things into tiny chunks and slowly and gradually put them together. That's how I prefer to learn and understand things.

But FSI Basic Spanish has better drills, can be done away from the desk a lot of the time, and is more comprehensive.

So, I would have done FSI Programmatic Spanish first. It's shorter. After Programmatic, I would have followed up with FSI Basic Spanish.

I came across a video this morning and can see how I can apply Bartosz Czekała's Deep Learning To Accelerate Grammar Acquisition technique to the FSI Basic Spanish deck from Ankiweb:



I tried it this morning. Each card takes more time, but is more thorough.

Here's an example prompt and response from the FSI deck:
Este libro es mío.
Estos libros son míos.

In his presentation, he suggests making up about 10 examples per card. Using the prompt above, one could improvise:

Esta casa es mía.
Estas casas son mías.
Este regalo es mío.
Estos regalos son míos.
Esa casa es tuya.
Esas casas son tuyas.
, etc.

I'm thinking I can use this and not rush into a full or partial course review. The review will just be part of my daily Anki.

I'm also going to change the FSI deck to present new cards randomly. That means new cards can come from any unit. I've had the deck set to "sequential", so cards came in the order of units. Now that I've covered everything, random will bring more variety to the spaced repetition.

My goal won't be to get through the deck as fast as possible. It will be just to spend a certain amount of time each day with these random improvisational reviews.

Learned some new things about Anki
You can display the SRS multiplier in the Anki explorer screen:
explorar-20220704.png

Each card has an "information" history:
info-20220704.png

With my deck settings - which are fairly standard - when a hard card gets down to a 130% multiplier (the lowest), the multiplier will not go up even if the card is "Good".

With respect to the "multiplier", the four standard Anki buttons mean:
1 Didn't know (reduce multiplier and show the card again today)
2 Hard (reduce multiplier a little)
3 Good (don't change multiplier)
4 Easy (increase multiplier a little)

If "Didn't know" and "Hard" were a persistent condition, the card eventually gets to a 130% multiplier. E.G., you saw it after 10 days, you'll see it again in 13 days, etc.

The revelation was, even if you repeatedly use the "Good" button, the multiplier will stay 130%. I.E., it won't gradually start to climb to 135%, 140%, etc.

So, I'm going to get more liberal with the "Easy" button for those cards that are fairly easy and may have fallen into the 130% abyss.
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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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MorkTheFiddle
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Re: Luke's very confused Spanish Learning Log

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Mon Jul 04, 2022 5:46 pm

Definitely inspirational, Luke. Wow!
2 x
Many things which are false are transmitted from book to book, and gain credit in the world. -- attributed to Samuel Johnson

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luke
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Re: Luke's very confused Spanish Learning Log

Postby luke » Thu Jul 07, 2022 3:00 pm

With some feedback from the How many resources do you use? thread, I'm sinking...



I'm sinking I will set aside Assimil Using Spanish for a bit. It wasn't on my progress bar, but if it had been, it would look like this today:

: 7 / 60 Assimil Using Spanish

I'm liking the course. I enjoy reading the notes and thinking, "yeah, I know that now", whereas, in the past it may have been, "how am I supposed to learn a grammatical construction from a note"?

But focus.

Lýdia Machová has several good videos on YouTube, particularly in the Polyglot Gathering channel. In one she talks about setting a small number of priorities for a brief period of time. That is, 2 or 3 priorities for 6-12 weeks. That way, you get the excitement that you're actually making progress, as opposed to spreading yourself thin and making slower progress in more areas.

Using Spanish was in the baño slot, and maybe it will stay there a bit - informally - as we can't do its replacement in the shower.

What is the replacement? Reading my written-out vocabulary from Anki. That will support my Anki, Cien años de soledad, and take another task off my plate.

Speaking of "off my plate", I just completed another enjoyable read of El Quijote:

: 365 / 365 Anaya El Quijote (6x)

The next one might should also come off the list, not because I'm not going to continue doing it, but rather, that I should do more extensive reading and figure out clever ways to incorporate FSI reviews in with my study:

: 242 / 1001 1001 Youtubes y podcasts y libros

So, it's coming off.

And if Assimil shows up in the progress bars, you'll understand how fickle I can be.
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

FeoGringo
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Re: Luke's very confused Spanish Learning Log

Postby FeoGringo » Sat Jul 16, 2022 9:11 pm

luke wrote:Completed FSI Basic Spanish
I just finished writing the answers to reading exercise of the last unit of FSI...

I imagine I'll circle back to the course, but for the moment, just want to enjoy the good feeling of having done it. In the meantime, there's the great FSI Basic Spanish deck from Ankiweb to keep me company.


Congrats! That's quite the achievement. Your log is always one I look to for inspiration. And it's mostly whispering to me "FeoGringo, you should start doing FSI Basic!"
1 x

desafiar
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Re: Luke's very confused Spanish Learning Log

Postby desafiar » Sun Jul 17, 2022 4:58 am

Sticks hand up.

What are you doing with Cien años de soledad (11x), and Anaya El Quijote (6x)? Do the 11x and 6x refer to the number of times you've read through them?
1 x

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luke
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Re: Luke's very confused Spanish Learning Log

Postby luke » Sun Jul 17, 2022 11:55 am

desafiar wrote:What are you doing with Cien años de soledad (11x), and Anaya El Quijote (6x)? Do the 11x and 6x refer to the number of times you've read through them?

11x and 6x are "runs" or "journeys through the work".

Some variations with El Quijote have included:
Reading it.
Listening to the incomplete audio.
Reading and making note of the difficult words and creating Anki cards for them.
Studying those cards over the course of probably a year now.
Reading out loud.
Reading out loud trying to be a good narrator.

Cien años de soledad has been a much more ambitious project. It has included:
A myriad of Listen-Reading approaches, narrators, note making, etc.
Listening.
Shadowing.
Personalizing a parallel text.
Anki cards to help make clear whatever isn't yet.
Reading out loud telling the story.

So, focusing on the journey, as opposed to the destination.

Neither of the books above are mentioned in the following video, but I do think the professor/father doing the presentation is right on the money:


Very specifically, if the image 51:16 into the video seems like, "yes, that could be one of the best experiences of my life", then you'll understand my journey.
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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Re: Luke's very confused Spanish Learning Log

Postby Le Baron » Sun Jul 17, 2022 3:42 pm

I had what would be called a 'classical education'. Though as time moves on from when this was what people used to have, it gets more and more difficult. As 1) more works were discovered and 2) the existing works given robust exegeses or critique, 3) completely re-interpreted in middle-era 'great books'. Time doesn't change, but not only the books increase, the understanding and analysis of the books increases. For example, I don't find Aquinas's book relevant except as history and as a shaky pedestal supporting rigid Catholic doctrine. So more 'history of philosophy' than philosophy and with a distinct narrative. So there is some argument against just 'reading the great books' predicated on the view that they contain the core, universal concerns. Some of what is in them is just wrong or questionable enough to make parts of them irrelevant.

I have great respect for Plato's works. His five dialogues on the trial and death of Socrates are something I read so long ago, and have re-read many times since, that I have an emotional attachement to them. However there is content in Plato I think has had a deleterious effect upon subsequent thought, generating quite a lot of derivative metaphysical claptrap. His theory of forms. All the 'great game changers' in the middle period in the video are just 'Christian squabbles'; that already rest on what they take to be an implicit fundamental truth, so again not really philosophy at all in the classical sense for me. Even a basic timeline of thought should inform a person that what they think (as a e.g. a Catholic such as in the video) isn't just a pure, untouched message. Unless they are determined to be ideological. Often even reading the classics doesn't penetrate this mindset.

If I can be so bold the video has a U.S. perspective on 'classical' thought since neo-classicism - or the rediscovery of antiquity - reflects the period when the U.S. was formed and is thus seen as reflecting a sort of fundamental truth about that notion of a 'good society'. Even though the contrasting residue of European 'Christian squabbles' was also imported wholesale alongside it. The fellow in the video seems to me more trying to persuade people to just read books at source as opposed to 'Cliff's Notes', which is something I've seen a lot in online discussions. There's a tendency in the U.S. to think that everyone else (in Europe, in Asia) is reading great books and the U.S. is only reading 'bluff' books to pass exams. Is this even entirely true?

Also the idea seems to be that all these books exist in a sort of value-free thought universe, but many of them belong to the thought narratives out of which they emerged. Like Hobbes he mentions, which is a product of fear of chaotic social collapse without authority; or the Communist Manifesto (which he notably doesn't mention) being essentially the same origin, but opposite conclusion. When he gets to the '5 values of reading the classics' his first one seems strange. For half the video he said all these had fundamental human truths and that they were 'great' precisely because they persisted through time, so 'rediscovering' the ideas must mean they actually haven't persisted through time at all. And that for lack of being able to come up with ideas people are seduced by ones which for some reason fell out of favour, rightly or wrongly. Although I like his 'value of strangeness'. And around the 40-minute mark he does have an interesting discussion about the effects of culture and other viewpoints altering perceptions. Though this itself jars with his final words 'The View'...'the', definite article.

This probably addresses none of the questions as to whether the books assist with Spanish, I just wanted to address some of the video. I hope that's okay on your log?!
4 x

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luke
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Re: Luke's very confused Spanish Learning Log

Postby luke » Sun Jul 17, 2022 10:13 pm

Le Baron wrote:'The View'...'the', definite article.

I'll draw your attention to 1:56 in this video to perhaps shed some light on the varied uses of the definite article and how it can be used to personalize a situation. ;)
3 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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