Spanish (10/2/21-10/8/21): 8 hours 12 minutes
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A few thoughts.
Current:
(Note: For the below, I fully understand 100% of the storyline at all times, only needing to grab the translation a handful of times because of some crazy, run on, Rowling-esque construction. I'm specifically talking about unknown words, including words I could probably guess through context but are fuzzy.)
For HP1, I kept looking up all unknowns, marking them, then inputting them into Anki at the end of the chapter. Because of repetition of vocab, writing style, etc. (and mainly rust), I went from ~95% comprehension to ~98% extremely quickly (like a few pages really). As I continued, I went to 98%-99% and instead of inputting unknowns into Anki at that point, I just powered through by just marking them and doing on-the-spot lookups. It was also extremely helpful that I was able to get into a flow state since I didn't have as much school work.
There was a small break and then I started HP2 and school kicked in. I have heard that HP2 is a lot harder than HP1, but I was really shocked that my comprehension took such a hit. I basically immediately dropped back down to between 95%-97%. Only after about a quarter of the way through the book am I just now getting to above 98% comprehension again. I can't really explain why. I think if I had stuck with it and memorized all the vocabulary from HP1 instead just on-the-spot lookups, this would have helped a lot since I know I've seen some of this vocab before. So I'm sticking with this method this time.
TL;DR: If you can read for long stretches and keep it up, you probably don't have to intentionally memorize much (or any) vocabulary or do as many lookups. If you can only grab the book in snatches here and there, then Anki is going to be your friend; a lot of time will go to Anki, but this is easier to break up. I'm going to continue doing the latter for now.
When my schedule frees up, I'll revisit extensive reading.
Future Reading:
I had talked about the GoT series, but I think I would be better served going through some easier material first.
I find these statistics extremely interesting. It seems to me I would be very well served to read through some Jane Austen, Narnia, and Twilight. I also plan to hit up quite a few series on this list; number of distinct words aren't given, unfortunately. I believe at that point, I will have more time to extensively read.
I've been looking for something like blinkist or sparknotes for Spanish. I found }getabstract. Also available in other languages. It focuses a lot on non-fiction, but there are some classics on there. I think this could boost my extensive reading success and I trust it more than a lot of the fan curated wikis. Also, probably a good way to gauge if I'll even enjoy a book.
I also haven't forgotten about DLI GLOSS. Looking at a few of the 3+ and 4 texts is always quite humbling lol. A lot of news and Wikipedia articles are an absolute breeze compared to these. I'm always shocked how easy news articles and opinion pieces that pop up into my Google feed are after slogging through novels, especially on familiar topics. Here's an interesting one for language learners. DLI GLOSS is on another level and not exactly made for light-hearted entertainment.
Future Other:
- I feel like Español en Uso was made for me lol. The description fits me well and I like a lot of Why Not Spanish?'s YT videos.
- I'm also extremely tempted by Baselang, for after I'm satisfied with my reading comprehension and vocab level.
- I rather like the Venezuelan accent. It's just close enough to standard LA, and other dialects that I'm interested in, to not cause issues with resource materials, but has many of the same features that I struggle with in other, more disparate dialects. It's also quite beautiful.
- "Activating" a language through italki can get expensive if you plan on going at it really hard! The number of lessons is unlimited and the teachers are generally of higher quality relative to the money.
- Since I approached Spanish in a much less structured way than German, I think I probably have gaps in some of the basic stuff. The structured content forces you to at least review these. I struggle with basic things like ordinal numbers, arithmetic, spelling out loud/saying acronyms, because I have given them zero attention.
- A lot of the specialization courses are right up my alley.
- I just found out that the DELE program is now free to the Real World subscribers. Wow. I think I'm sold.
- FSI Basic Spanish. It's just so thorough. I know this would fill in a lot of gaps and also provide the automaticity that I need. I may start memorizing just the dialogues now (as recommended in the original course), then thoroughly go through the full course later.
We shall see. I should have the time to come up with a detailed curriculum for next year during my long winter break away from school and work.