Walt's Spanish log

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greatSchism
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Walt's Spanish log

Postby greatSchism » Mon Aug 30, 2021 3:00 am

FSI Spanish is my focus for the next few months, so I'm starting a new journal. When I tried to do it a few years ago, I quickly ran out of steam since it was much more advanced than I expected. Earlier this month, I re-started it from scratch. For the past year, I have been using Glossika with the listen and repeat method (200+ hours and 77556 reps) and 1-2 hours of week iTalki. I like many things about Glossika, but the website is always busy on my commute every morning. Also, I had to use Spanish Audio only because it became too frustrating to listen to the English portion. It is impossible to know which of the 10 words with the same meaning will be used. For example, “the house is very big” would translate as the “La casa es enorme,” “La casa es gigante” or “La casa es muy grande.”

I am at level B1, but I anticipate that the lessons will become more difficult at some point. To date, I have completed the first 12 units of FSI Spanish without encountering any new grammar or vocabulary. Although, I have learned new sentence structures:

“¿Qué le parece si...”
“Creo que me conviene...”
“En fin, ya está listo..”

Today I started l unit 13, and I will listen to it a few times tomorrow since I have a few-hour flight. In general, I like the speed and repetition of the course. I have also reviewed the Anki FSI Spanish deck, read a bit on lingq, and did vocab on the Spanishdict iPhone app. With the Spanishdict iPhone app, I love that I can use voice recognition instead of typing. It is fairly accurate.
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greatSchism
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Re: Walt's Spanish log

Postby greatSchism » Tue Aug 31, 2021 12:04 am

Today I continued working on Unit 13. I am listening to the audio on Apple Music https://music.apple.com/us/album/lesson-13-14-they-go-to-a-party/1198899446?i=1198899669

I also have the ebook, which I mainly use when I am on my MacBook.
https://books.apple.com/us/book/fsi-spanish-basic-course-level-1/id1021999641

After I finished doing the drills silently, I Listed to unit 14 dialogue to get an idea of what's ahead.

I also watched a free in-flight movie. It was an Argentine romcom, which was ok, but I didn’t have high expectations. https://m.imdb.com/title/tt11827806/?ref_=ext_shr_lnk
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greatSchism
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Re: Walt's Spanish log

Postby greatSchism » Tue Aug 31, 2021 11:27 pm

Today I continued working on unit 13 spending one hour doing the drills in the morning and another 20 minutes this afternoon while taking a walk. Due to my lack of rhythm and cadence today, I will spend more time on the replacement and variation drill tomorrow.

Is Gordita supposed to be a term of endearment? There's an air of "chubby chaser" about them.

Estoy esperando a mi gordita.
Juan va a llevar a aquella gordita.

This one is the best:

Sí, a la gordita. No es muy bonita pero a mí me gusta mucho.
She is chubby. She is not pretty but I like her a lot.

I doubt a normal person would have said this in conversation back in the 1950s. It is too weird.
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jackb
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Re: Walt's Spanish log

Postby jackb » Wed Sep 01, 2021 4:22 pm

That's a fair amount of time to have used Glossika. How far did it get you? I know you said B1, but the CEFR levels don't have much meaning to me as I haven't taken one and don't plan to. For example, could you watch the movie you linked to without subtitles? Can you speak fluidly about every day topics? I'm thinking of using it for Spanish soon and I'm curious.

Is Gordita supposed to be a term of endearment? There's an air of "chubby chaser" about them.


A number of people have mentioned this specific line in the past. It's clearly from a different time. There was nothing like this in the FSI French though.
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greatSchism
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Re: Walt's Spanish log

Postby greatSchism » Wed Sep 01, 2021 8:34 pm

jackb wrote:That's a fair amount of time to have used Glossika. How far did it get you? I know you said B1, but the CEFR levels don't have much meaning to me as I haven't taken one and don't plan to. For example, could you watch the movie you linked to without subtitles? Can you speak fluidly about every day topics? I'm thinking of using it for Spanish soon and I'm curious.


I am only at B1 on Glossika because, in the beginning, I would review tons of sentences. My method was to listen to the sentences and repeat them while I was doing mundane tasks like mowing the grass or driving. So, my focus was not 100%. As far as watching a movie without subtitles, it would really depend on the movie. I usually use subtitles.

Luisito Comunica, a YouTuber, I can understand most of what he says without subtitles. https://youtu.be/UDu7sowIrzE

I can speak about everyday topics. While I think I speak clearly half of the time, I have moments where I sound like a caveman. I am hoping that FSI will help me smooth out some of the rough edges, and give me more "go to" sentences patterns that are useful.

Is Gordita supposed to be a term of endearment? There's an air of "chubby chaser" about them.


A number of people have mentioned this specific line in the past. It's clearly from a different time. There was nothing like this in the FSI French though.
Last edited by greatSchism on Wed Sep 01, 2021 10:50 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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greatSchism
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Re: Walt's Spanish log

Postby greatSchism » Wed Sep 01, 2021 8:44 pm

Today I spent one-hour doing replacement and variation drills for unit 13 and did the first few sections of unit 14. On my afternoon walk, I listened to the replacement and variation drills for unit 13 again. So, far unit 14 is pretty easy. I will spend the next 1-2 days doing the replacement and variation drills.
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greatSchism
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Re: Walt's Spanish log

Postby greatSchism » Thu Sep 02, 2021 8:12 pm

Unit 14 was easy, and I was able to finish it without too much difficulty. Tomorrow I am traveling back to NJ and hope to finish unit 15.

There was a downpour this afternoon, so instead of going for a walk, I watched part of the second episode of Valeria on Netflix. I watched it with subtitles, and I only understood in real-time about 30% of what they are saying, even with subtitles. The episode was filled with many new colloquial expressions and vocabulary words, so I need to sort through what's worth learning.

Here are a few phrases:

Yo cogería ese curro
"Hola, soy una pringada".
Tienes un morro...
Asaltacunas.
Gracias, amiga. Creo que me las apañaré.
Tía, me ha puesto muchísimo.
Tienes un morro...
DiCaprio hecho una bola es deprimente.
Se fue cuando se dio cuenta del marrón que era ser madre.
que tengo lío
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iguanamon
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Re: Walt's Spanish log

Postby iguanamon » Thu Sep 02, 2021 9:24 pm

First, welcome to the forum, Walt. You are on a good path by doing FSI Spanish Basic.

I always advise learners to take advantage of every advantage they can when learning a language. While using netflix to watch native series can be very helpful to learners, this series seems to be above your level. It may help you more to do some more listening, perhaps the news or videos on a subject you know well, before tackling a series from Spain with all the slang that is present in natural Castillian speech... with which you aren't familiar.

To become familiar with it, I would advise reading some contemporary Iberian Spanish novels. You can then look up words, even slang words at your leisure. This will help you be more familiar with colloquial speech. Look for books with a lot of dialog. If Spain is your country of interest, translated contemporary novels from English translated in Spain can help. Especially books with a lot of dialog. One of the sites I use when I get flummoxed by a bit of slang is tuBabel.com. You can search by inputing the word in the search box and all the countries' flags will appear next to a definition in formal Spanish... or you can search by specific country.

Let's take a look at the word "asaltacunas".
Here's what tubabel has to say:
tuBabel.com wrote:asaltacunas = persona que entabla una relación amorosa con alguien mucho más joven- España

If we take this compound word apart we see two words- "asalta"- from "asaltar"- one of the definitions means "to rob" in English. Then, there's the other word "cuna", which means "cradle" in English... so... un "asaltacunas" is what we would call a "cradle robber" in American English- generally meaning an older person in a love relationship with a much younger adult person, a wide age disparity between partners. Sometimes, google images can be helpful.

The phrase "Hola, soy una pringada" is not slang, per-se. You can find the word defined in the RAE dictionary as
RAE dictionary wrote: Persona que se deja engañar fácilmente.

Which means: "A person who lets theirself get fooled/tricked easily" or in colloquial English as the wordreference.com dictionarysays
wordreference.com wrote:a "sucker"; gullible; a loser; a chump

Of course, context is very important when deciding which definition is most appropriate. A good idea would be to save these three sites as favorites.

I don't want to discourage you. Training listening takes time and effort. I'd probably come back to this show after more study, and more listening to/watching content that is more comprehensible at this stage in your learning. Then, you will have more of a foundation to really make good use out of it. Even then, no matter how much of a foundation you may have, it will still be difficult to parse colloquial and slang language, as it is for me now with Catalan, but the tools I've listed can help you to decipher it in Spanish. ¡Suerte!
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greatSchism
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Re: Walt's Spanish log

Postby greatSchism » Fri Sep 03, 2021 12:46 am

Thank you for recommending tuBabel.com and the other websites.

iguanamon wrote:If Spain is your country of interest, translated contemporary novels from English translated in Spain can help. Especially books with a lot of dialog.


Mexico is my country of interest, not Spain. However, there are many series and movies on Netflix that are in Iberian Spanish that I have watched mainly because they are entertaining.

iguanamon wrote:I don't want to discourage you. Training listening takes time and effort. I'd probably come back to this show after more study and listening to/watching content that is more comprehensible at this stage in your learning.


I found this episode of Valeria hard to understand because of some slang and vocab. I wouldn't consider this episode to be comprehensible input for me. I watched it on my laptop with Language Reactor, which used to be called Learning Langauges with Netflix, and I had to rewind it and peek at the English translation far too many times. The show is fun, like a Spanish version of Sex in the city.

Tomorrow, I will start "La casa de papel temporada 5", although it will be for entertainment. After "La casa de papel" I will have to find a good Mexican series with comprehensible input to binge on.

I really like these Mexican series:
Monarca
Club de Cuervos
La Casa de Las Flores
Desenfrenadas
¿Quién Mató a Sara?
Ingobernable
Luis Miguel, La Serie
Made in Mexico
Narcos
No te puedes esconder
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greatSchism
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Re: Walt's Spanish log

Postby greatSchism » Sat Sep 04, 2021 2:35 am

I was traveling today so I made the most of it. I listened to chapter 15 and 16, without any drillng. Tomorrow morning I’m going to start chapter 15 drills. I also finished "Todo Esta Jodido: Un libro sobre la esperanza", which was interesting and written on my level.
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