Dbag's Spanish Log..Continued

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DBAG2
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Dbag's Spanish Log..Continued

Postby DBAG2 » Mon Jul 12, 2021 6:00 pm

So, I'm back after a very long hiatus. Some of you may remember me from the old forum, where I used to post prolifically under the name dbag between 2011 and 2015.
I think I dropped of a little while after the migration to the new forum, although I had been posting a lot less in the months leading up to the move.

I kept a regular log (I'll find the link later) in that time, which contributed hugely to my success. One of the things I'm most proud of is how much work I put in, and how consistently during that time. In reality I was a little obsessed with the venture, and studying Spanish every day had become a large part of my lifestyle. I think on average I put in 2.5 to 3 hours a day, and much more if I had nothing else to do in the weekends.

I completed nearly all the courses you would read about on this forum, many of them several times over. Of course the main ones where Assimil with ease and the FSI Basic course. I'm not sure I ever did the last 2 or 3 units actually but I went through every other drill in that course several times over. Actually the course I used was Platiquemos which is a considerably easier to use, cleaned up version of the FSI Basic course.

I also had several trips to Spain and spent 7 weeks spread between Chile and Argentina, where I was able to make many friendships with native speakers.
I then spent a lot of time with native materials, reading several novels and watching several videos. At one point my listening comprehension was my strongest skill.

I'm not too sure exactly when I fell out of the Spanish habit. I think if Spanish speakers were easier to find where I lived I never would have, but you could easily go a year without meeting a Spanish speaker here. So there I was , able to read novels, watch films etc, but without any regular, real life opportunities to practice, so I began to run out of steam a little. It gets difficult at those levels because you have to put in a lot more work for a lot less immediate improvement.

I think I'll leave it there for the moment as its getting on and I feel like nipping out for a walk and stopping for a drink in the pub, but I think I'll pop in later and continue..
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DBAG2
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Re: Dbag's Spanish Log..Continued

Postby DBAG2 » Mon Jul 12, 2021 9:48 pm

Okay, so having had a wander and a couple of beers, I thought I'd pop back in. I was going to write a longer post, but its gotten late as I watched episode 4 of ingobernable on netflix, which I found out about through james29's log. I was pleased to see I could watch it with Spanish subtitles. My comprehension of telenovelas has always been a weak point so I was pleased with this. I spent a long time going through el capo years ago, and would love to find a version with Spanish subtitles.. I always knew roughly what was happening but it was difficult.

So anyway, I will keep this one brief as I need to get to bed, but I will probably post quite a bit in the next few days just to update on my Spanish activities during my hiatus.

Ive decided that I am going to work towards a c1 qualification. It would be good to have an external goal to work towards to stretch my abilities, and it would mean that I would have to study in new ways. I was a bit dismayed to see that you only need to achieve 30% to achieve an apto. Ive never heard of any meaningful exam having such a low pass mark. I am hoping they give you a mark out of 100 as well, because I would like to try and achieve a very high mark.

I turn 38 at the end of the year and would like to achieve this goal before I turn 40, or in my 40th year at the latest. It's difficult to say where I am at at the moment as I am pretty rusty, but things come back very quickly. I had a look at previous papers etc and C1 would definitely stretch me quite a bit, but is very achievable. I think that to get the ball rolling though I will aim to complete a B2 exam sometime next year.

I honestly think that the eventual goal will be to pass a C2 exam. Even looking at those papers I can see that it is a realistic goal, and trying to get there would provide the external stimulus I need in the absence of local Spanish speakers. I don't think I would be satisfied with anything less, and learning a language is one of those things where the more you learn, the more you realize there still is to learn.
Plus with the absence of this kind of work, my Spanish will slowly get weaker and weaker, which would be a great shame considering that I must of put in somewhere in the region of 1000 hours work already!
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iguanamon
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Re: Dbag's Spanish Log..Continued

Postby iguanamon » Tue Jul 13, 2021 1:16 am

Welcome back, Dbag! It's good to see you posting again. I remember you at HTLAL. I think you'll find that your Spanish will come back rather quickly, the more time you spend with it.
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DBAG2
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Re: Dbag's Spanish Log..Continued

Postby DBAG2 » Fri Jul 16, 2021 8:18 pm

Hey Iguanamon, glad you popped in, I actually had a prediction that you would be the first to say hello!

Im really looking forward to catching up with your log. You are right, a few hours spent listening and reading and I am already thinking in Spanish and bursting to have a conversation!

Not that I have been completley idol..I have done a bit here and there and even spent a month in Peru 3 years ago which I will write about soon.

Actually the worst thing about that was that I was no longer thinking in Spanish regularly..that seems to be one of my markers of progress..Im glad that it doesnt take long for my comrehension of native materials to get back up to speed
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DBAG2
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Re: Dbag's Spanish Log..Continued

Postby DBAG2 » Mon Jul 26, 2021 9:08 pm

Its been a busy couple of weeks in more ways than one. The week before last I went through the entire first season of ingobernable and now I'm up to episode 7 of 12 of season 2. I don't really spend much time watching "binge worthy" series or films, but I have been loving it. It reminds me of el capo in many ways, but I haven't looked into whether the same people worked on it or not. The polot twists and even some of the music is very similar.

I have been watching it with Spanish subtitles. One of my previous frustrations was that I could watch the news, documentaries, talks etc with a very high level of comprehension, but films and telenovelas where a different beast altogether. The subtitles on el capo where awful, so I'm pleased to see that I will be able to watch several series that used to be on my list with (fairly) accurate subtitles. I would say my comprehension has been around 95 percent plus, which is very good after a long break.

Ive also been watching loads of espanol con juan on you tube, which is solely in Spanish. I've actually got it on in the background as I write this. That guy just puts so much effort into making useful videos. His playlist on the subjunctive has been very useful so far. He just gives so many examples, all in context. You can't help but learn.

Here is a great example of his work [youtube]https://youtu.be/NopkmFS_Aok[/youtube].
This is a useful example because he also introduces us to Pantomina full which you can view here [youtube]https://youtu.be/uGuh975StL4[/youtube]

These little videos will be a godsend. Very fast, colloqiual Spanish with lots of contractions. The best bit is they are generally only a minute and a half long and have there own subtitles. So you can listen to a sample over and over and look up words you don't know. I'm hoping to get into a bit of a rhythm of doing that each day.

I'm thinking in Spanish much of the day already, walking around with that weird buzz of random Spanish words and phrases all the time. I hate to think what that feeling is like for those who are multilingual.

I popped into the local Kebab shop today and spoke with someone there, a Turkish man. I reflected that he has been living here for years and speaks all the time yet his English, which is fine for small talk, just hasn't really improved. I actually know a lot of non native speakers like that, and of course know a lot of non natives who speak like natives. Moving to the target country definitely isn't a magic bullet, but I wonder what the difference between the two groups is.

I have plenty more to say but will leave it there for now.
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DBAG2
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Re: Dbag's Spanish Log..Continued

Postby DBAG2 » Mon Sep 06, 2021 9:11 am

I'm surprised that it's taken me so long to post another entry here. When I had my first log, I used to post up to 3 times a week and spend hours on the forum. Well this time around, if I have a choice between writing a post here or spending an extra 30 minutes on Spanish, I feel much more inclined to spend time on the latter.

So I finished both seasons of ingobernable pretty quickly. I would say its one of the best Telenovela style programs I have seen. I loved it. With (Spanish) subtitles I would say my comprehension was around 95 to 99 percent at least.
I wish there where more programs with shorter seasons around. I'm always reluctant to start some epic 50 hour long thing. As much as I do enjoy these programs, I am not someone who spends time watching netflix in my own language. Don't get me wrong, over the last 10 years ago I have ended up watching some of the classic series that everyone seems to talk about, but for the most part I prefer either listening to talks or spending my time actually doing something, so most of the time I actively avoid getting sucked into netflix.

That being said, I decided to take on one of my old goals from when I was learning a few years ago, namely Pablo Escobar, el Patron del mal. [youtube]https://youtu.be/Fq5lrpOWy04[/youtube]

Its a real beast of a series coming in at 74 episodes which average around 40 to 45 minutes long. I read that the original had well over 100 episodes and was cut down, which is evident in some places as they don't always follow up on some of the side plots properly.

I had actually started the series 2 or 3 times in the past. Its one of those where the first episode or 2 is okay, these gets boring for a while. I found that i really had to power through maybe 7 or 8 episodes to begin getting sucked in. It well worth sticking with! Boy, there are just so many crazy elements to the story! I won't go into it just now but maybe at a later date.

The series is based on a book called "la parabola de pablo" which I think I will buy at some point, as well as possibly the audio book. The author, whose name escapes me just now, has some other interesting biographies of some of the politicians who where involved at that time, which I really fancy checking out as well.

so somehow I managed to finish the whole series! I would never do that in English. Comprehension of the series was again very high, probably over 90 percent but with a lot of old colombian slang words I had to look up. They also use "vos" conjugations which is easy for me, having sepnt time in Argentina and also with the fact that the majority of the content I used to watch was from Argentina as well.

I will leave it there for now, but I'm not doing too much this week so I'm sure I will have time to pop back in and up date with everything else I've been doing.
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DBAG2
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Re: Dbag's Spanish Log..Continued

Postby DBAG2 » Tue Sep 07, 2021 10:36 am

As well as watching lots of Pablo, I've been busy on other fronts as well. I've been making it a habit to read several articles from el pais and other newspapers in the evening. I've got no set schedule for this, so sometimes it could be one or two articles and other times I could spend most of the night reading.

I do the same with youtube videos as well. I'm not so worried if I finish watching a particular talk and just click around on whatever interests me. This is similar to how I would use the internet in my own language. Last night I watched a speech by Carlos luis Galan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luis_Carlos_Gal%C3%A1n who was one of the politicians assassinated by pablo escobar. I actually found his story really interesting, and I note that the author of "La parabola del pablo" https://www.amazon.co.uk/Parabola-Pablo-Alonso-Salazar/dp/9584201484 has also written a book about him, which I hope to get round to reading sometime.

I also watched a really well balanced discussion on the influence of the bilderberg group https://youtu.be/4kf18NcfRxs. It was held with the journalist Christina martin Jimenez https://www.thinkingheads.com/latam/con ... n-jimenez/ who has a whole bunch of books I would love to read.

I've also managed to have a few conversations! I found someone online to chat to from Peru with very good English. He says my only real problem is pronunciation , which I wholeheartedly agree with . The only problem is that he is looking for me to give lots and lots of corrections and to do the same with me. I've explained that from experience, it is best to let the other person speak without correction,gain confidence, and then cover mistakes made afterwards. I've certainly found that when someone corrects me too much, that it has the opposite of the intended effect and makes it very hard to speak.
The other problem has been finding a decent time to speak. He seemed to want to speak at around 9pm my time, which is just too late to be honest. It means I either have to put aside a whole evenings plans or be up too late speaking in what should be my winding down time.

So for a week or 2 I have put discussions with him on hold, and will have to find a more suitable time to speak with him. At the moment in England we are just about to go into the Autumn and are enjoying our last few, rare nice days, and the last couple of weeks in which it doesn't get dark really early, so I would rather prioritise enjoying making the most of the weather while I can.

I also managed to have a real life conversation in my home time, which has only ever happened once before! Bearing in mind that I live in a small town of only 4500 or so people. I was about to go home and had stopped in one of the pub gardens on the way, when I overheard a girl speaking Spanish on the phone. I waited around for a bit, and noticed that when she went back to speak with her friends she was speaking native level English. Well as you can imagine, I waited around for a while and when she walked past I launched into some Spanish!

I was very surprised to learn that she was actually born and raised in my town, but that her Mother was from Barcelona, so she can speak English, Catalan and Spanish. I had had a few drinks but my Spanish seemed to be flowing very naturally, to the extent that when she invited me to come sit with her English speaking friends, it seemed much more natural to speak with her in Spanish and the rest in English.

She was very complementary about my Spanish and said that she thought I probably spoke better than her..she said she couldn't believe some of the words I was using, had a good accent and used better grammar than her.

Now, as nice as that is, she had native sounding Spanish so I'm sure that's not strictly true, although it was a great confidence boost! It's also an experience I've had before, being perhaps a bit drunk and being able to speak very fluently for long stretches at a time..but it doesn't mean you can always maintain things at that level.

Actually, as a closing thought, I have thought before that I don't always really like formal language exchanges and don't get as much out of them as you would think, and they are really no substitute for just speaking with someone for the sake of it. I suppose it depends a lot on how well you mesh with your language partner?
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greatSchism
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Re: Dbag's Spanish Log..Continued

Postby greatSchism » Tue Sep 07, 2021 11:26 am

I had had a few drinks, but my Spanish seemed to be flowing very naturally

A pint or 2 usually makes conversations flow smoother since you are more relaxed, less self-aware, and having fun. I think the pint or 2 phenomenon works the same with billiards and darts.


formal language exchanges and don't get as much out of them as you would think

I have come to the same conclusion, as each person has their own expectations that sometimes match, but they do not most of the time.
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DBAG2
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Re: Dbag's Spanish Log..Continued

Postby DBAG2 » Thu Sep 09, 2021 6:49 am

I think you are absolutely right on both counts. I remember several times in South America being able to speak fluently all night while drinking, then the same people I was speaking to the night before being surprised when I could hardly speak the next morning!

You are right about the language exchanges as well. Actually this guy has the potential to be a good language exchange partner, but my evenings are generally quite busy at the moment. I'm hoping he will be able to bring things forward to about 7pm, which I think is the latest that I would want to be doing an LE. That why I can either go out afterwards, or, as I'm making a big effort to get into a regular sleep pattern, start winding down properly. If I finish speaking to someone gone 10 o clock then its likely that I wont get to sleep until after midnight.

I read through the thread on the usefulness of LE apps and I'm glad to see that people have the same issues. Rdearman's video on the subject was excellent. One of my major annoyances is that no one ever seems to want to agree to doing a 50 50 split..30 minutes in L1 and 30 minutes in L2 for example. Whenever I've done LE's in the past , I've always tried to get that agreement up front right from the start (because that was something I figured out early on..other wise it becomes a competition).
For some reason though, people just don't seem to ever want to stick to that.

I was in 2 minds about how to feel about this guy the other day actually. We had agreed to do a 50 50 split the morning before, but when it got to speaking, he had prepared some pronunciation exercises for me and wanted to go through those. So on the one hand it was great that he had taken the time to help me out, i found it surprisingly annoying that we weren't sticking to the plan. And also pronunciation drills are something I would much rather go through with a tutor..I'm more looking for someone I can practice actually having a conversation with at this point in time.

On reflection its quite strange, being that I am a very patient guy, that there is something I find very annoying about this guy and I'm not sure quite what it is. On the surface of things he should make a very good LE and is definitely a serious learner..I'll have to give it some thought.
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greatSchism
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Re: Dbag's Spanish Log..Continued

Postby greatSchism » Thu Sep 09, 2021 11:47 am

DBAG2 wrote:Actually this guy has the potential to be a good language exchange partner, but my evenings are generally quite busy at the moment. I'm hoping he will be able to bring things forward to about 7pm, which I think is the latest that I would want to be doing an LE.


I prefer to chat early in the morning, around 7 or 8 am.

DBAG2 wrote:I read through the thread on the usefulness of LE apps and I'm glad to see that people have the same issues. Rdearman's video on the subject was excellent. One of my major annoyances is that no one ever seems to want to agree to doing a 50 50 split..30 minutes in L1 and 30 minutes in L2 for example. Whenever I've done LE's in the past , I've always tried to get that agreement up front right from the start (because that was something I figured out early on..other wise it becomes a competition).
For some reason though, people just don't seem to ever want to stick to that.
.


I also get an agreement upfront, and I will tell them I have an hour and will do 30/30 min in each language with a hard cutoff. Most of us have many things in our lives wanting/needing our attention, so staying on schedule is important or we will never get done all of the other things.
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