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 » Sat Aug 07, 2021 6:52 pm

Let us just pay a moment of respect to the author of the joke in the image above: the late Mr Bob Monkhouse. Improv comedian extraordinaire and multi-talent.

Another couple of his:

"They all laughed when I said I was going to be a comedian...well, they're not laughing now."

"The awkward part about an orgy is that afterwards you're not too sure who to thank." :lol:

Ahem...normal service will resume shortly.
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luke
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Re: Luke's very confused Spanish Learning Log

Postby luke » Tue Aug 10, 2021 5:32 pm

Mexican Slang plus Graffiti

I've been using an Anki deck for Mexican Slang:

https://ankiweb.net/shared/info/709530261

I'd always been curious where the words and phrases came from. Today I discovered the book the deck came from is on my bookshelf.

Image

I like the book. The authors use a few characters to indicate who might say these things. Carlos Colegiano (someone from school) says "modern and hip, but not offensive" stuff, whereas Beto Boca de Basura (trash mouth) uses "street talk and rude expressions". There are other characters too.

Groseras (rude language) are pretty obvious. But it's helpful to know if, "you fell for it", or "cough up the dough" might be said by someone like you or by someone you don't want to be like.

Anyway, the book resource helps when I want to understand more about the phrases in the deck.

The deck is decent for reviewing the book. I add 1 card per day in Anki.
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 Aug 16, 2021 11:27 am

Finished my second Listen-Reading trip through Cien años de soledad this morning using audio from Con Kepa Amuchastegui youtube channel, which is the best narration I've heard of this book.

My One hundred years of solitude paperback is well used. The spine reinforced with a strong tape, passages highlighted from watching Jesus G. Maestro's 20 episodes on the book where he uses his Crítica de la razón literaria methodology to examine the book over the course 20 hours. Some months ago, I'd highlighted the parts that he quotes. Over the course of 20 hours, he quoted a fair bit in his analysis. I did the same highlighting in my Spanish book as well.

In the English book this time through, I also took to making an annotation on the generation of the estirpe (lineage). That was helpful for keeping me focused and also helpful because certain names and generations show up over and over through the course of the book. The timeline is not linear. It's as if all time is connected, past, present, future. Also, as with any language, but particularly with Spanish, he, she, may refer to various people, and since they are flexible words, all characters at different times.

So on that little bit, Aureliano, the final character in the book gets a small 6 by his name. Coronel Aureliano Buendia was 2. Aureliano Segundo 4, and Aureliano último (Babilonia), 7. There are also 17 sons of the coronel who have the annotation 3.17 (they're all named Aureliano). There are other characters with similar names, but even characters who have unique names, like Fernanda (4) and Santa Sofia de la Piedad (3) got their numbers. There, the generation annotation is helpful as a quick reminder where they come from, where they fit in, who they married, etc. Most of the generation annotations are in a light green.

Also made annotations with the episode names that Kepa used in red.

At the beginning of most chapters, I'd summarized the major things that happen in the chapter in a previous Listen-Read.

Even has page numbers to quickly switch between the Spanish and English.

So in these Listen-Readings, there's always something going on using the book. Perhaps Listen-Reading might be stretching it, as sometimes certain things, like noting page numbers was a little distracting. But noting generations was always helpful for keeping me engaged. The page numbers have come in handy though, as there were a couple episodes where it seems Kepa got an episode out of order or jumped forward then back.

Thinking next I'll use Professor Arguelles Listen-Reading trick where the audio is in English and the Reading is in Spanish. I've found that technique helpful for keeping me engaged and have used it to push my reading rate with other stuff. Not so interested in pushing my reading rate for the next trip through Cien años, but the adjusting the audio speed can be the trick to keep me on the edge of my seat, rather than drifting off.

Yesterday, re-found Los Secretos de Cien Años de Soledad: Una Aproximación Estilométrica para la Investigación en Psicolingüística by Jorge Iván Vélez. With some of our talk recently about measuring difficulty of podcasts, it was newly interesting. When I first looked at the paper many months ago, there was some comfort in the graphs that show the chapters of the novel range from difícil to muy difícil and that most of most difficult chapters come at the end. So, from a psychological perspective, it was helpful to know, "you're doing the same reps, but it's heavier weight". Also it was helpful to know chapters 11 and 12 are a lot harder than the earlier chapters and that the three after those will be a bit easier. So, less thoughts of, "this is just too hard" and give up.
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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luke
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Re: Luke's very confused Spanish Learning Log

Postby luke » Thu Aug 19, 2021 12:55 am

Have shifted Cien años de soledad Listen-Reading to Spanish-Spanish with this third pass through the Con Kepa Amuchastegui audio. Have had the audio speed set at 140% and shadowed a bit, and 160% for just reading. Did 3 chapters today, which is close to 2 hours with the Kepa audio at 120-160%.

All the Listen-Reading threads and my effort at translating some of the original documents from Polish to English with Mr. Google's help has given me a better understanding of the system and some new enthusiasm for making it a bigger part of what I do.

Last night I started Listen-Reading El señor Presidente in Spanish-Spanish. The first real chapter in the audible audio is an essay by Mario Vargas Llosa. I felt my comprehension was very good. I think essays are easier than novels, in general. Llosa talked about Asturias' style and word choice and that it liberally uses regional slang, which will probably add some challenge to the novel itself.

El señor Presidente got on my bookshelf for several reasons. Audible has audio. Asturias got one of the prizes from the dynamite guy, Nobel, and apparently this book was important in that. When I was in 8th grade, I had a really good Spanish teacher. I think she was from Asturias' country and assigned the book for us to read. 2nd year public middle school. I don't remember having much luck with the book at the time, but of course recognized a lot of words and had the unexpected delight of understanding some sentences. That teacher didn't get enough respect. You know how kids can be when they're about 12. Anyway, the class was pretty much all in Spanish, she was young and enthusiastic and wanted to teach her native tongue. Fiery.

So it's on my list. I watched a bit of the movie a while back and it was pretty dark. It's only about 10 hours of audio, so shouldn't be too daunting. I have the translation too. When I started trying to listen-read the book a few months ago, it was frustrating, as the translation was not very literal.

Have had a little less enthusiasm for FSI over the last couple days. Probably too much time on the forum and investigating L-R. If I use that life raft analogy, it will be good to have FSI nearby and in good shape, even if the centerpiece of my program shifts for a while.

I also have El amor en los tiempos del cólera by Gabriel García Márquez and at this moment, am feeling the pull in that direction, rather than Asturias. A love story (I think) instead of a war story.
Last edited by luke on Thu Aug 19, 2021 1:17 am, edited 1 time in total.
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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Re: Luke's very confused Spanish Learning Log

Postby Le Baron » Thu Aug 19, 2021 1:15 am

I see you are quite invested in L-R, considering the above posts. I hope anything I have said in the other thread hasn't come across as denigrating of the idea or the person originally promoting it (not that my sceptical opinion carries all that much weight anyway!).

I generally read your log, so it's of interest to me what can be gained from it as a tool.
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Re: Luke's very confused Spanish Learning Log

Postby luke » Thu Aug 19, 2021 8:27 am

Le Baron wrote:I see you are quite invested in L-R, considering the above posts.

I think more excited, enthused, motivated, interested, curious, etc, than invested, per se. I'm not an academic or in the business of language learning, so, "invested", to me, is sort of off track. But you may see something I don't. I'm certain you do. Everybody sees things that others don't.

I'm back on Don Quijote. Listen-Read the first couple chapters last night. I've got the Fusion Reader from a long time ago, not sure if it's even still available. It presents DQ as parallel text with one of the good public domain translations. It has the nice feature of highlighting both sides of the work phrase by phrase. So, a lot of times, even less than a full sentence. This is perfect for Listen-Reading as it's very easy to jump from original to translation for word here and there or vice-versa.

Also watched a few of the Don Quijote online videos from that MOOC I mentioned a few weeks back.

One of the L-R pros is its flexibility. Just in the last twelve hours I've considered 3 different books. All 3 have at least some pull on me. I've actually done a bit of all 3, or 4, if we include Cien años. Which am I ending up with? The 2 that have the biggest pull.

As far as efficiency and all that debate stuff; one person runs, another plays soccer or football, another lifts weights, somebody does triathalons, lots of people ride bikes and walk, etc. Most are not professional athletes. Many are not even competitive. For some, it's pure pleasure, others, they know it's good for them, others want to improve themselves, a few are competitive. I'm not the competitive type. I'm more of a seeker of truth and understanding.

Taking it to another level, like work, for instance, where there are often bosses, etc. Arguing with someone who doesn't know what's going on, has never "done it", doesn't want to "do it" - really just wants the reward of other people's labor - can be exasperating.

But taking it back to the only thing we might can have some dominion over, ourselves, there one can find the strength to continue towards the light they see, on the path they choose, for the destiny they seek.

I don't know who all is an academic here, or who's a professional in some way with respect to language learning, and who's a hobbyist who dreams the impossible dream, and it's not really that important. I would liken it to a rock musician and a classical musician arguing over music. Silly. They're both musicians. They like different music, but in music itself, they are united. There are producers, who may want to change the musician's music for "popularity" or "sales" and they might help in that, but in the music, if they are not sensitive to what really is the pull, not the mass pull, but the inner pull, they can bring on the dissolution of what really matters, and dreams of dissolution do not inspire.

But back to your personal experiment with L-R. Choose a book you can really get engaged in and a great narrator. That's not an easy task, but it is one of the most important. When a father checks the tires before a long trip, or a mother does what a mother does to make sure their child will be safe and comfortable in a new situation, it's because they care about you. They want you to succeed. They want you to succeed at being yourself. It's not about them. It's about you. You matter.
Last edited by luke on Mon Aug 23, 2021 5:05 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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Re: Luke's very confused Spanish Learning Log

Postby luke » Fri Aug 20, 2021 9:22 pm


I finished this book of Steve's today and it is excellent. It's only about 100 pages and only took about 2 hours to read. I think that says something for the clarity of his exposition and the undeniability (from my perspective) of his theses.

So, highly recommended to anyone who is trying to figure out "what do I need to do". The beauty is that it's not prescriptive, but rather holistic.

A lot of the thinking below is influenced by the book above and thinking about Listen-Reading in general.

Cien años de soledad
Listen-Read a couple more chapters today. Spanish-Spanish for the most part, but used an electronic parallel text. (this is my first trip through with the parallel text). Added in a couple "titles" from Con Kepa's audio. Fixed a few typos in the text. Found a missing sentence or two in the audio.

Overall, finding just "focusing on the story" is more engaging that "fixing stuff", but there's nothing wrong with fixing stuff. (edited a couple mp3s too).

Did a fair bit of shadowing or rather "reading simultaneously" with the audio. You can do that with the book. Shadowing can be done without the book, because you're just repeating what you hear. But today was mostly text and audio. (I brought the book to a Dr's appointment and just read what was coming while I waited).

Also did some 140% speed audio. Not much shadowing at that speed. It's just harder to speak that fast for a long time. 100% is fairly easy with this narrator, although unusual or unknown words may trip me up a bit.

My biggest aha is that I can go through the book sequentially using different techniques during the same "run" (trip through the book). That is, shadow a bit. Look at details and rewind when an interesting part of the story isn't clear. Go through some at 140% just Listen-Reading. That's generally the most pleasant thing to do. The audio is about 20 hours, btw.

Things that would slow down the pace but are potential future activities include looking up questionable bits of grammar. The Real Academia Española (RAE) edition has a glossary and name reference. I can read parts out loud like I'm telling the story (without audio, so it's all me). Definitely should do that for the odd sentence that got left out of the audio. I could write down tiny portions and translate bits. Could to little "oral recaps" of what I just read. Or "oral pre-caps" for what I read yesterday or up to this point.

I don't want to create a huge "system" and "plan". I like simple plans. (which may seem odd based on the wall of text I'm writing). The simple plan is, just go through the book from beginning to end. The new variation is that a single trip doesn't have to be limited to a single technique.

Varying techniques keeps things interesting in the moment. Forward progress doesn't have to delayed by doing everything all at once. I'm sure Lao-Tsu said that more profoundly and succinctly a long time ago.

Random FSI replacement drills
Had my first go at the "random replacement drill" memory stick while running a few errands. This was maybe 20-30 minutes in total, 3-4 different errand legs (mini trips) in the car.

Takeways:
1) Drills from unit 34 came up and they were not particularly difficult. Yeah! :) (I'm officially still finishing unit 25 of 55)
2) Need a separate memory stick, as "random" on my player means "anything on the stick", rather than "anything in this folder".
3) This is "practice", not learning per se. Advanced drills that come up and throw me for a loop may encourage me to glance at the manual and see what's going on and that might be a good thing.
4) Learning may be a byproduct of this endeavor, but it's automaticity, or "mastery" as Steve calls it, that I'm after.
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Re: Luke's very confused Spanish Learning Log

Postby luke » Fri Aug 27, 2021 1:44 am

Mixing it up
Finished my 1st trip though Cien años de soledad with an electronic parallel text. I like the parallel text.

: 20 / 20 Cien años de soledad (3x)

(3x) there means 3 times with the Con Kepa Amuchastegui audio.

I enjoy futzing with learning materials. The futzing in the e-text was things like, split multi-sentence segments into smaller pieces, correct a typo here and there, add some subtitles, re-ordered a bit of the audio that had been read out-of-order.

Ooh, and there was a word, almanaque that was translated as "calendar" and I thought "almanac" is probably what the author really meant, in the context of the story, so I'm improving the translation, even if it's only been one word so far :)

un viaje - road trip
I'm going to visit family and that means 30 hours or more in the car over the course of a couple of weeks. Time to mix it up.

emFaSIzing FSI
We got the "random replacement drill" stick. That's 4 hours 13 minutes of random fun. Thinking I'll alternate between the "random" and "sequential" sticks.

The "sequential" stick has 3 tracks:
1) unit 26 - 30 - would like to make a get most of the way through 27 over the next couple weeks. 27 is a big one.
2) dialog - "listen" and "repeat" folders. Not emphasizing this on the trip, but they don't take a lot of study investment to notch off another "unit". (finished 41 of 55)
3) illustrations - same - not emphasizing, maybe will do a bit. (finished 35 of 55)

Both illustrations and dialog tracks are helped by the manual, since they are ahead of the sequential track. Time on the road doesn't help since I'm not that good of a driver.

So, for the near term, spending more time with units 26, 27 and the "random replacement experiment".

Anki don't got a home
Anki's not mobile for me. I've been easing up on new cards for a while. Only added 1 or 2 cards per day to my main decks over the last several. There will be a stack when I get back.

Don Quijote
Started Don Quijote with the Fusion Reader parallel text and a great recording. I think the mp3s came from the Cervantes Institute a long time ago. Just took a peek at the website, as I was going to give a link, but no fish. Finished chapter 7 of the first book. Will read los molinas de viento (windmills) before I go, but thinking - intermission - and maybe restart when I come back. (or maybe will jump in Cien again).

But for the trip, El Quijote is looking good. That's the 2 book graded reader from Anaya with 2 CDs. CDs for the car on the way up. The readers are fun. It's been about 2 months since I last read them. Will see if they are easier and more enjoyable this time. That's one way I'm lucky. Re-reading something I like isn't boring. It just keeps getting more interesting and intricate over time.


Future Fantasies
Have been thinking a little bit about, what milestones might I want to hit to have a better comfort level when I try to mingle with the natives again? Here are some ideas I've had:
  • Cordura Artificial and his other channel - young, smart, thoughtful Mexican - these are not yet at the "no effort" to understand level. That's where I'd like to be on this and the next few channels I mention.
  • Tri-Line He's an artist and seems to put a lot of production effort into his work and talks fast and covers interesting topics.
  • Alivinsch - Interesting young Mexican musician - he tries to entertain and does a good job.
  • Librera de Valentina - She's the book lady. Talks fast. Mexican. Interesting. Smart. Very good diction, so not as hard to understand as one might expect for such a fast, spontaneous talker. Maybe that's because she's a good reader.

I need a series of some sort too. Actual dialogs with humans interacting, instead of just sharing their thoughts. Don't know what that might be.

When I was feeling good, thought, maybe visit the natives after FSI units 30, 37, 45, 50, 55. (about every 2-3 months)

Then started thinking the cultural divide is pretty steep too, so, well that brought in the series idea, which should be taken up to "almost no effort", rather than "can hardly understand". A series might be relatively closer to "real life" than the one-man-one-woman-shows I'm usually drawn to.

But the speaking part of the equation isn't a big driver at the moment. The lit is. That's helpful. It's easier to handle a book than deal with people.

Oh, so in these less confident times, thinking, should at least be able to burn through replacement drills with automaticity if not have the pretty much the whole FSI course down. It's really after unit 45 that the past subjunctive gets drilled. Talking often involves the past and Spanish likes its subjective. There seems to be more past than future sometimes. ;)
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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Re: Luke's very confused Spanish Learning Log

Postby jeffers » Fri Aug 27, 2021 8:49 am

I'm not familiar with Fusion reader (there are so many tools talked about!) Could you explain briefly what it is and how you set it up?
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Re: Luke's very confused Spanish Learning Log

Postby luke » Fri Aug 27, 2021 10:22 am

jeffers wrote:I'm not familiar with Fusion reader (there are so many tools talked about!) Could you explain briefly what it is and how you set it up?

Hey jeffers,

Fusion E-Reader is an executable Windows file. That a link has a screenshot that looks exactly like what I have. You can change the color theme, etc.

I'm generally not a fan of downloaded software because of the possibility of viruses, etc, but I took a chance chance.


I downloaded it about 8-10 years ago. It says 2007 in the corner. The "about" says it's version 5.0. There's a link in one of the drop down menus to what was the site, but that's been squatted on.

The parallel texts seem to be a proprietary format for public domain literature.

It does "text to voice", but that's not a good idea when there are good recordings of what you want to listen to.

Easy to navigate <down arrow> <up arrow> and a few buttons.

They had some other books and languages too.

Pretty amazing the way it works. Cervantes uses a lot of long sentences with lots of clauses. The software splits sentences (highlighting) in chunks that are smaller than a sentence, but may include several clauses. It's not just splitting at the comma or colon or period. It does the periods for sure, but it's better than that.

So, better user interface than the normal two column spreadsheet or word document that is more common.

Downsides: it's a .exe. Proprietary file format.

This is my favorite Don Quijote narrator through Apple Podcast:
https://podcasts.apple.com/es/podcast/d ... 1341501122

It has this blurb about the origin if someone wants to find it in a non-podcast format:
La mejor obra de la historia en formato mp3, ofrecida por el Departamento de Educación y Cultura del Gobierno de Aragón.
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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