Luke's very confused Spanish Learning Log

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Le Baron
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Re: Luke's very confused Spanish Learning Log

Postby Le Baron » Tue Jul 13, 2021 9:00 pm

luke wrote: It says:

Your Spanish Vocabulary Size is: 13582
★★ Top 23.41%
Your vocabulary size is like that of a 18-year-old teenager in Spain!

:shock:

That's great then, right? I'd want them to specify though if they mean an 18 year-old Spanish farmer in an isolated rural hamlet or an 18 year-old applying to university to study Spanish literature...

Though either one has a vastly greater Spanish vocabulary than I have right now. :)
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Re: Luke's very confused Spanish Learning Log

Postby luke » Wed Jul 14, 2021 12:26 am

Le Baron wrote:
luke wrote:Your vocabulary size is like that of a 18-year-old teenager in Spain!

That's great then, right? I'd want them to specify though if they mean an 18 year-old Spanish farmer in an isolated rural hamlet or an 18 year-old applying to university to study Spanish literature...

I figured the makers of the test were making a social commentary on how dumb the kids are these days.

I just haven't met any of these dumb kids.

The test didn't even include LOL, FWIW. :shock:
Last edited by luke on Wed Jul 14, 2021 12:28 am, edited 4 times in total.
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Re: Luke's very confused Spanish Learning Log

Postby luke » Sat Jul 17, 2021 7:02 pm

Hearing Aids
I got hearing aids this week. I'm not particularly deaf, but in certain environments and certain audio ranges, I need help.

My experience in meeting with Native Speakers on Wednesday and Friday this week was better than usual, as far as understanding things.

Hearing aids don't solve the whole listening problem, but they do make a noticeable difference.

Speaking of "problem", as opposed to "issue", I came across this great video:

- Vocabulario para ser Exitoso - Steve Jobs doblado

Was hoping that would show that guy from The 70's Show who stars in it, but still learning.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAXOTyjATZ0 - Vocabulario para ser Exitoso - Steve Jobs doblado

Anki Ultimate Spanish Conjugation deck
Just finished haber, the second verb in the deck for the first time. 58 cards. Took over an hour, according to Anki stats.

Interestingly, this was day 6 overall and there were 0 cards in the queue before adding the new verb, which was fortunate.

Thinking I need additional strategies to start getting more exposure to the forms I haven't explicitly studied. (vosotros, various subjuctives, future, etc). I'm on unit 21 in FSI Basic Spanish and there are a few more verb units before the 1/2 way point of the course. Subjunctive is mainly drilled in the 2nd half.

Along the lines of "additional strategies", looking at a verb table came to mind. From looking at the haber verb table, there wasn't a pattern like, all past tenses or all subjunctive tenses start with "hub". There are patterns, but they aren't as logical as I'd have liked to have seen.

So, a more realistic "additional approach" may be to hit the FSI "presentation of pattern" sections of the manuals and audio. Think that's worth a try.

I glanced at tomorrow's prognostication and it looks challenging. Probably good that I took advantage of the "0 cards in queue" and "extra day" Sunday to have more time to revisit those cards that finally got to the "see you tomorrow" stage.

Rapid Listen/Reading
Tried something sort of new yesterday. I have a few books that I know the contents of or subject quite well in audio + text. I listened to a couple chapters at 140% speed. (40% faster than normal). The voice was still pretty clear. This was with the Audible app. Too fast to shadow, but not too fast to read. This is helpful for racking up "pages read". May not be the same as having no audio and reading, but it's 40% faster than normal and makes the text more interesting and reintroduces some words I get from context but don't explicitly know.

Vocab - The News
I buckled for a couple three days and listened to a 15 minute news program with a transcript. My thoughts were that some of the vocabulary in the Anki Frequency Dictionary deck probably come more from normal channels, as opposed to literary masterpieces. Thinking here that when I have extra time that I want to give to Spanish doing something different, this will support normal vocab stuff. It does have the negative aspect of most News is bad news. ;) But thanks, Le Baron, for making that suggestion a few weeks back.
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Re: Luke's very confused Spanish Learning Log

Postby rdearman » Sat Jul 17, 2021 10:25 pm

To embed the video you need to out all the stuff after the v= part and remove the rest. I edited it for you. :D
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Re: Luke's very confused Spanish Learning Log

Postby luke » Sat Jul 17, 2021 11:00 pm

Making some notes for my plan to use FSI Basic Spanish "presentation of pattern" drills to ease the "day one shock" of the Anki Spanish Ultimate Conjugation deck.

FSI Basic Spanish presents verbs in groups. There are a lot of irregular present tense verbs that are gradually introduced in units 1 - 23. The course has 55 units.

Since I'm working on finishing unit 21, I'm not going to layout where the present tense shows up in the course, but suffice it to say that unit 23 mainly drills irregular present tense verbs.

27.21 - Imperative (Imperative and subjunctive have the same conjugation for several persons).
31.21 - Past Progressive
36.21 - Present Subjunctive
37.21 - Present Subjunctive
38.21 - Present Subjunctive
40.21 - Present Subjunctive
41.21 - Present Subjunctive
42.21 - Present Subjunctive
44.21 - Irregular -do forms (past participle)
45.21 - Past Perfect (indirectly covered in Anki deck)
47.21.1 - Past Subjunctive
47.21.2 - Present Perfect and Past Perfect Subjunctives (indirectly covered by Anki deck)
48.21.1 - Conditional and Conditional Perfect
49.21 - Future and Future Perfect
50.21.1 - Past Subjunctive
50.21.2 - Past Subjunctive
51.21.1 - Indicative and Subjunctive
51.21.2 - Future and Conditional
51.21.3 - Passive Construction (why not?)
53.21.1 - Irregular -ndo forms
53.21.3 - Vosotros forms
54.21.3 - Vos forms

Hm. So that's not all of the "presentation of pattern" sections, but it covers most of the verb conjugation presentations.

FSI Basic Spanish uses "presentation of pattern" to introduce whatever grammatical concept they are going to drill next. Many of the "patterns" get introduced gradually in earlier drills and dialogs, but they are drilled in a very specific way that makes it seem you don't have to know what's going on to do them properly. Example, they introduce poder conguations in such a way that you don't realize puedo, puedes, puede, pueden are actually irregular. That is, they postpone using podemos, or if they use it, they don't make you change the "person number" in the drill and you may not realize, "same verb, something different is going on". What you do learn is, "I can". Then in a later drill, possibly, "We can". In that "we can" drill, all the forms will be things we can do.

We can wash the red car. We can clean the white car. We can sell the white car. We can sell a white car. We can sell a white house. We can sell a white horse.

That's why FSI can be fun at times.

But it's got thinking maybe I'll hit all of those hijos de la..., I mean "presentations of pattern" in a parallel run at FSI. That is, don't give up on the unit per week progress I've been making, but see if doing the dialogs and presentations of patterns capture my interest. Fortunately, I'm already familiar with most of the dialogs from when I focused on the course about 15 years ago.

One final point. I've heard a few different polyglots say you have to get to a certain level, approximately C1 to not lose it all if you quit using the language for a number of years. Should have kept going just a little bit longer back in the day. Somewhere I heard, "don't quit before the miracle". I guess they were referring to C1. (whether you tested for it or just have most of those capabilities). :)

P.S. Alternatives
Could suspend the Future Subjunctive, Vos, and Vosotros to make "day one" with the conjugation deck less brutal. They are toughest cards for me. Would have to do a little arithmetic when adding a new verb, but that's easier than learning unfamiliar conjugations.

Could develop an interest in grammar videos in Spanish, particularly those that cover the subjunctive, conditional, etc.

Could let the Anki conjugation deck slide. It puts a heavy weight on the "learning" strand. That time might be better used just focusing on FSI as designed and Anki for vocabulary.

Will see what tomorrow feels like with the Anki Conjugation deck.

The next day... A beautiful thing happened. Nothing has appeared in the Ultimate Conjugation queue. Not sure if that's a setting like, "the day starts at 8am or later" or just divine intervention. I generally have my Anki day start at midnight. I tend to go to bed early and get up early. But if the queue reappears, and I'm really hoping it doesn't, I'll definitely filter out Future Subjunctive, Vos, and Vosotros for now. :)
Last edited by luke on Sun Jul 18, 2021 11:01 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Luke's very confused Spanish Learning Log

Postby luke » Sat Jul 17, 2021 11:02 pm

rdearman wrote:To embed the video you need to out all the stuff after the v= part and remove the rest. I edited it for you. :D

Thank you! You are the Man. The AdminMan. Much appreciated.

Now you can see why it takes me so long to learn things. Have trouble reading the fine manual.

I like the pizzazz you've added!
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Re: Luke's very confused Spanish Learning Log

Postby luke » Sun Jul 18, 2021 9:13 pm

Somehow found the Spanish Around YouTube channel, which may have been through Kraut or a Professor Google, or maybe it was just the magic of YouTube.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClSd_O ... o_lbtJ1uJw

The channel has a lot of great, relatively short videos. Appears to be the creation of some Mexicans in Mexico.

One of the fantastic things about this channel is they often do tiny interviews of people in the street and ask a simple question or two, which is the theme of the video. These are interesting topics.

You see the man, women, young person on the street, you get their response, their perspective. You get a feel for their age, circumstances, and what sort of human being they might be, all of which is very helpful, as sometimes language choices morph in time and place.

Here is a great one that I was just wondering about: TÚ vs. USTED: When & how to use them! | Street Spanish 36

Note, despite the title in English, the content is almost exclusively in Spanish.



Other things I like is that most of the speakers are in Mexico, which is form of Spanish I've been hearing most from real live people. Many are from Mexico, so there is the accent thing, word selection, etc. You're getting spontaneous answers.

I'm certain the creators do a good bit of editing, as the content is high-quality and the sound is good. Highly recommended.
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Re: Luke's very confused Spanish Learning Log

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Sun Jul 18, 2021 9:58 pm

What a great resource! →Subscribed.
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Re: Luke's very confused Spanish Learning Log

Postby luke » Tue Jul 20, 2021 3:41 pm

Doh! Closed the wrong tab and the post went poof! I need a new mouse.

Lýdia Machová – The Power of Setting Priorities in Language Learning - CC English/Español


I watched this a while back and read the Spanish subtitles today.

Briefly:
Priority - Improve comprehension and conversation with native speakers in 3 months.

Methods:
FSI Preview - understand and be able to repeat dialogs and illustrations (presentations of pattern) for units 23 - 55 (of 55)
Create Language Islands for: Familia, Trabajo, Alimentación (family, work, food)

De-emphasizing:
FSI Basic Spanish unit per week pace. Hoping I can do it and everything else though.
Don Quijote del siglo XXI- finish 3rd run through RTVE at a leasurely pace. (about 85% through now)
Cien años de soledad - finish the fantastic ConKepaAmuchastegui's YouTube series. (In chapter 20 of 20 already).
Anki Frequency Dictionary 5000 - 10 minutes, rather than 15 or more.
Anki FSI Basic Spanish - 5 minutes, rather than 10.
No new card on the auxiliary Anki decks.
Remove "Learn Spanish in your Car" from my thumb drive. I'd mixed this in with FSI units covering the same grammar points.
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Re: Luke's very confused Spanish Learning Log

Postby luke » Thu Jul 22, 2021 3:20 am

Was looking at a Dialang thread and saw this Instituto Cervantes placement test.

http://pruebadenivel.cervantes.es/exam.php?id=17

Curso B1.3 - B1-4 de AVE Global
Según esta prueba, su nivel de español se sitúa entre
los cursos B1.3 - B1.4 de AVE Global.

It had a vocabulary part, a reading part, and a listening part.

I didn't realize they split courses for CEFR into so many sublevels.

I didn't time the test, and apparently the test didn't time me, but it was more than 10 minutes and probably a good bit less than 30 minutes. Maybe 15-20 minutes. It's late and I'm finally getting sleepy.

For posterity, here's another self evaluation test that was mentioned in the Dialang thread (ECL Examination System):
https://eclexam.eu/sample-test-spanish/
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