Trying to take it easy

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BeaP
Green Belt
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Languages: Hungarian (N), English, German, Spanish, French, Italian
x 1990

Re: Trying to take it easy

Postby BeaP » Wed Dec 15, 2021 3:25 pm

About my listening results from yesterday: I didn't have any mistakes in the first and third task. First task: you listen to a speech, and choose from 12 statements those 5 that are true. Third task: you listen to an interview, and answer 6 multiple choice questions. These two tasks are quite easy for me, I usually score maximum or close to maximum on them. The second task is the most problematic: there's a discussion and you have to decide if 15 statements were told by the woman, by the man or by no-one. I thought I'd understood everything, nevertheless, I made 3 mistakes. How? This is the task that needs the deepest concentration, because the speakers switch several times. Sometimes you need to catch a certain word that changes the meaning of the sentence, and if you're not careful you miss the chance. It also doesn't help that you need to read and listen at the same time. The third task is the worst from this aspect: you have absolutely no time to read the questions in advance, the interview starts immediately after the second task.

I like the Cronómetro book more and more every day. The 2nd mock exam listening is 3 pages, and after that there are 8 pages of exercises, and 2 pages of explanation. This ratio might seem stupid, but it's not. The book makes you analyse the tasks in depth, and it also makes you analyse your own performance. It might be irritating for those who are very goal-oriented and aren't interested in language or the structure of texts at all, but I enjoy doing these exercises. These books are worth checking out for everyone, because they contain a lot of good texts with good exercises for really deep analysis. I have the impression that C2 vocabulary (at least the part that is necessary for the exam) is more limited than most people would think. There's a lot of recurring vocabulary, especially abstract verbs in meanings like: support, highlight, prevent, imply, cause, increase-decrease, aggravate-relieve.

I decided not to work with coursebooks at the moment, partly because I've had enough of Spanish course books, and partly because at this level I think they have a low efficiency. I've read through briefly a couple of them and came to these conclusions:
Nuevo Prisma: A total waste of time and absolute overkill. Things like the parts of a Roman-style church are unnecessary for this exam. I have no idea how the material for this book was picked. The lower levels are very bad as well, but C2 is inconceivable. The workbook is good, because it contains exam-type exercises with solutions. I might use that if I run out of mock exams.
Dominio: Not bad. Reading: extracts from novels with comprehension and vocabulary exercises. Some grammar exercises, clear and concise summaries, good prompts for essay-writing. It contains formal texts, so I might use it later, as DELE C2 is all formal.
Vitamina C1: Moderately interesting, typical communicative book on B2 level without the explanation of the B2 grammar. It tries to be stylish and trendy, and imitates a glossy magazines. For me a typical communicative book is the kind of book that tries to be interesting for everyone, but in reality it's not interesting for anyone.
C de C1: I might use some lessons from this book, as the topics presented in it are very good, any might pop up in the exam. But I mainly use it for collecting topics to search for on El País. It's more intelligent and useful than Vitamina, but it's full of informal language that I don't need.
Tema a tema C: One of the most boring books I've ever seen, with lists of words that are impossible to learn (for me): like 15 synonyms for 'to see' in one exercise.
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BeaP
Green Belt
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Languages: Hungarian (N), English, German, Spanish, French, Italian
x 1990

Re: Trying to take it easy

Postby BeaP » Thu Dec 16, 2021 2:19 pm

I've done Modelo 2 / Prueba 1 from the mock exam book by Ramón Díez Galán.

I like this book, because the topics here are more up-to-date than in Cronómetro or the Edelsa book. I had a feeling that this test was more difficult, but the results contradicted me.

Reading:
Task 1: 12/10
Task 2: 6/4
Task 3: 8/8
Time: 60 min/26 min

Listening:
No mistakes.

I know that I'm not a scientific experiment, but 2 million hours of Spanish TV shows have a clear result.
Takeaway: If I practice a skill, that skill improves, no matter what I do or don't do with word lists, Anki, grammar, course books or youtube lessons. Now I have to speak and write.
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BeaP
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x 1990

Re: Trying to take it easy

Postby BeaP » Fri Dec 17, 2021 2:12 pm

I continued with the oral part of the same Modelo as yesterday. This book has a huge disadvantage: it only gives the solutions to the reading/listening part and the transcriptions. It doesn't offer any help considering the oral or escritura parts, which is unfortunately very common and strange. It wouldn't take a lot of energy and paper to write one or two examples for the writing tasks or write down the transcript of an example for an oral exam. Having examples would be huge help for the independent learner. On the other hand, the writer of this book at least published one video for the first part of this Prueba, that is an example of how this task should be done.

First the candidates get articles and graphics, and have 30 minutes to prepare a presentation based on these resources. You can draw a lot of vocabulary from the articles, so you basically only need to structure your presentation and put C2 level linking words in it. Also I think that there's a very limited number of phrases that needs to be studied in order to get a good score here. Even if you don't know the topic, there are certain C2 expressions that you can use in almost any theoretical discussion.

Here is the video. If you don't have the book, you can stop the video when he shows the texts and read them. There's nothing more, just what he scrolls.



I've already seen another video on the same channel analysing this part of the exam. It also contains the second task, which is a free discussion of the presentation's topic with the examiner, and the third task, which is a discussion based on article headlines. I think here the examiner made a mistake, because he directed the discussion in the B2 range of personal experience, while C2 is theoretical. The girl couldn't show in all three tasks that she's C2, but it wasn't her fault. Here's the task itself from the Cervantes website: https://examenes.cervantes.es/sites/default/files/dele_c2_modelo0.pdf



I'm planning to concentrate on the first task for a couple of weeks, and I think the analysis of graphics can be important here. It will be undoubtedly very important in the written part. I've found some excellent videos on the subject:



Also from the same channel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkzlQU6i6wo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8Pz-ihhxlc

And a great written resource:
https://todoele.net/actividades/comentario-de-graficos-para-el-dele-c2
4 x

BeaP
Green Belt
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x 1990

Re: Trying to take it easy

Postby BeaP » Mon Jan 03, 2022 8:08 am

I didn't study during the holidays, but I could practice my other hobbies, playing boardgames and cooking. We don't have an adult boardgame group, so we mostly play with our children. This time (a little surprisingly for me) Ticket to Ride: Europe and Dixit were the biggest hits. I've finished reading one book in English, Piranesi by Suzanna Clarke. I liked it, but I didn't love it. It started very slowly, I almost abandoned it by the third of the book. After that it suddenly became a real page-turner. It's a clever little book with philosophical topics about art and morals. The problem is that it didn't really provoke thoughts in me. When I finished reading I felt that I needed to press myself to think about the possible message and meanings, and I don't like to work when I read for pleasure. It's about a man who is lost inside a labyrinth filled with statues, and the whole building is regularly washed by the sea and habitated by sea birds. There's only one other person in the labyrinth, and the man doesn't know what's outside or how he came to live here. After a while strange things start to happen and he starts to think that there might be others in the labyrinth. But he doesn't know who is his friend and who is his enemy.

Plans for new year:
I'm planning to learn Spanish (almost) exclusively this year. (I included 'almost', because I can't promise myself not to read anything in French, Italian or German. Who knows what gets published just out of the blue. I'm sure I will read in English.) Most of the time I'd like to work on speaking with the help of El País articles and exercises from grammar books. I choose a topic, collect at least 4-5 articles on it, analyse the articles and try to resume their content in one piece. After that I try to debate with the articles. I do the grammar drills orally to make structures and verb forms more automatic. All these activities need a lot of concentration, so I decided to complement them with reading. My plan is to read (or rather finish reading) 50 books this year, at least 40 of which should be in Spanish. I'm planning to write a detailed post about the way I work with the articles.
My other goal for this year is to fight the consumerist in me. I hate how people (me included) are lured into buying a lot of trash that only makes their productivity worse. I'll only buy a language learning material or a new novel if it's really something outstanding.
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BeaP
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x 1990

Re: Trying to take it easy

Postby BeaP » Fri Jan 07, 2022 2:01 pm

Book 1: Albert Sánchez Piñol: Pandora en el Congo (423 pp.)

I've really had enough of reading trashy novels, but before the Christmas break I thought that I wanted to read something light, and gave this book a chance in spite of all my bad experience with Spanish popular fiction. In the past years there have been a huge amount of novels that I've abandoned, so I didn't have a lot to lose. It turned out to be one of the best novels I've ever read, and I put it without hesitation among my favourites. I only realised after reading like a 100 pages that it's not a novel originally written in Spanish, but a translation from Catalan. I hardly ever read translations, but this book is a real page-turner, so it was clear that I wanted to finish it.

Although I enjoyed this novel immensely, I think it's not for everyone. You either like its style and sense of humour or you don't. It's about a young aspiring writer who finds help to write the stereotypical popular book: a mixture of adventure, sci-fi and romance. This book also plays a crucial role in a murder trial. The life and the thoughts of the young writer alternate with the chapters of the novel, and both reflect and shed a light on the other. The book in the book is a parody and a homage at the same time (to H.G.Wells, Verne, Conrad or Stevenson), and the whole novel is open to an unlimited number of interpretations. In spite of all this, it is not chaotic or pretentious at all. I could hardly stop reading it, I was interested in the story so much. It's a book about books, the role of literature in our lives. And if you're willing to go a step further, it's also about the media, how it shapes our understanding and view of the world.

This book called to my mind El mapa del tiempo by Félix J. Palma, a novel I wanted to like very much. It promised similar things: adventure, romance, homage to H.G.Wells. It even had Wells as a character. It also tried to speak about literature, the role of literature and tales in our lives and the problems of being a writer. It had an excellent style, but as a whole I felt it a huge failure, because it didn't go anywhere. It just tried to speak about these things, but in reality didn't speak about anything, and remained a compilation of fragments, couldn't really be viewed or interpreted as whole. Anyway, I think these two books are kind of brothers, and I liked one of them much more than the other.

The language was pretty easy, though of high standard. I'd say it's perfectly readable with a level of B2. El mapa tel tiempo has a bit harder vocabulary (if I remember well), around C1.
Last edited by BeaP on Sun Jan 16, 2022 7:22 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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DaveAgain
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Re: Trying to take it easy

Postby DaveAgain » Fri Jan 07, 2022 4:06 pm

BeaP wrote:Book 1: Albert Sánchez Piñol: Pandora en el Congo (423 pp.)
The language was pretty easy, though of high standard. I'd say it's perfectly readable with a level of B2.
Very positive review! :-) I looked up the German edition, and the preview does seem very readable.
1 x

BeaP
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x 1990

Re: Trying to take it easy

Postby BeaP » Sun Jan 09, 2022 12:51 pm

Book 2: Alexis Ravelo: La otra vida de Ned Blackbird (184 pp.)

Now, that was quick. I've had this book for a long time on my Kindle. I remember starting it some years ago, but for some reason I didn't like it at that time. Someone on Goodreads mentioned that it was similar to Zafón, so I decided to give the book a second chance. It's not similar to Zafón's novels, but it's really good. It's about a man who escapes from his problematic private life to another city, where he accepts a post as a substitute philosophy professor at a university. He rents a flat, where he finds two trunks filled with the belongings of the previous resident. He's so curious that he starts to investigate the trunks and gets drawn deeper and deeper into a mystery that also affects his own existence. It's not a crime story or a mystery, for me it's a novel about the role of imagination in our life. It's also quite poetic, and reflects on the tendencies we have to create love affairs in our minds, that can never end because we never start a relationship with the other. How we can build whole personalities and relations with our imagination, and whether these kind of things can have a place in our down-to-earth lives. The language wasn't difficult at all, I'd say it's a B2. And this novel is very far from trashy popular novels, so I really recommend it.
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BeaP
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x 1990

Re: Trying to take it easy

Postby BeaP » Fri Jan 14, 2022 10:56 am

Book 3: Alejandro Zambra: Poeta chileno (421 pp.)

At the time of writing this post this novel has 3366 ratings on Goodreads with an average of 4.49. To say that this is outstandingly high is an understatement. It's been translated to only a few languages yet, the English version is about to come out in February. A lot of reviewers say that the novel is 'muy chileno', and I totally agree with that. From a language point of view it's surprisingly easy, around B2. I've found some words that are characteristic of the Spanish of Chile, but there weren't many words like that in the book, their meaning could easily be inferred from the text and they recurred all the time. I looked some words up just so see if I assume their meaning well, but if you're around B2, you don't need to read it glued to a dictionary, it can easily be read for pleasure. On the other hand, I experienced a bit of a culture clash with this book. 'Muy chileno' should rather be understood here in the meaning that it presents the spirit of Chile, and from this aspect for me it fails a bit. I understand why the readers from Latin-America are raving about this, but for me the fun was diminished. I think I understood the jokes, but for me they weren't so funny, because these typical characters and situations are not part of my everyday life. I'm very curious how the reviews will change when more translations come out.

At the beginning of the novel I was very enthusiastic, and I liked it's style very much. Later I realised that it's a representation of something that I call 'pedestrian novel'. One good example I can give you in English-language literature is Rachel Cusk. For me 'pedestrian novels' are novels without stories that try to present the world and sometimes very complex ideas about our being through everyday conversations and anecdotes. They kind of follow the tradition of Chekhov. Nothing really happens in these novels, it's just a bunch of characters doing this and that, going places, having relationships with others, talking about their problems and feelings. (I'll summarise you Three sisters: Three sisters want to go to Moscow. They stay.) A lot of readers love these novels, but I unfortunately don't. The reason is still unclear for me. Somehow I feel that the talent of these writers is wasted on these snippets of mundanity. For example, when I was reading Outline by Cusk, I could literally feel the scents or the tastes of Greece, she's so talented at descriptions. But the endless whining of intellectuals bored me to death. My experience was very similar here, although in both cases the novel has some pages or paragraphs that really impressed me. I don't say that I'm much closer to knowing Chile at he moment, but I've had a taste of it, and I can recommend this novel to those who are interested in it and don't mind the lack of action or suspense. The second major topic in the book is the father-son relationship, which of course can be connected to national traditions, so from this point of view the novel forms a nice whole.

It's a very kind and lyrical novel, that looks at things with understanding and apprehension. Even when it makes fun of something, it never becomes offensive or unsettling. This is very far from the Latin-America of Bolaño, although he's mentioned in the book several times. Just like this song by Los Prisioneros, that I got to know from a very good Mexican movie. In this land of stray dogs and poets Estrechez de corazón seems to be played all the time:

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BeaP
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Re: Trying to take it easy

Postby BeaP » Fri Jan 21, 2022 7:30 am

Oral exam:Topics

Some people say that at a C2 exam anything can be the topic, but my impression is that there are a very limited number of topics that are likely to come up. Moreover, the topics are the same from B2 upwards, just the questions and the required level of formality and vocabulary knowledge change. I think it's a good idea to collect a vocabulary bank for the various topics, so I've started to do that. I use A4 sheets, and put them in separate folders. This way I can add to them later. If I ever think about doing an exam again, I might do it already from B2 to make things easier.

I'm making mind-maps and lists, whatever seems better at the time. I collects single words, phrases and sentences as well. I also write down some sentences that highlight the grammar points that can be useful for the topic. For example: future tenses are important in making predictions about environmental problems.

I've collected the following topics:
1. Covid
This topic is good for everything, because it's effected our lives in every possible way. No matter if I have to discuss education, economy or tourism, covid vocabulary always comes in handy.
2. Education
why is it unsuccessful, digitalisation,
3. Work
unemployment, overworking, working and having a family
4. Media
fake news, influencers, data protection, digital platforms vs TV
5. Culture, art
reading habits, the value of modern art, street art
6. Environment
problems and possible solutions, bikes in the city, holidays
7. Health
Mediterranean diet, exercise habits, sedentary lifestyle
8. Economy
start-ups,

I'll come back later and add to the list.

An example for levels:
B2: informal-formal 50-50: How much do you read in your free time? What's your opinion about the reading habits in your country?
C1: informal-formal 25-75: Based on this diagram what can you tell about reading habits in Spain? Are they similar to yours?
C2: formal 100: Based on the 2 articles and 3 diagrams please present to us the situation of e-books of the market. What's your prediction of the future of e-books? Please justify your opinion.

So the exams goes towards the formal, C2 is all formal, general, theoretical questions are more probable.
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BeaP
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Re: Trying to take it easy

Postby BeaP » Tue Jan 25, 2022 5:15 pm

How I work on the topics

I firmly believe that the best and easiest way to pass a CEFR exam like the DELE is to work through a CEFR course book. You don't need separate grammar books or anything, just the course book. (And of course the mock exams, but I'd day that even these can be less important, as a lot of course books now have exercise for exam preparation and even one mock exam at the end.) Unfortunately for me, this only works up to B2. I think it's also OK at C1 if you're an experienced examinee, but there's no way I can pass C2 with one course book. For Spanish, there's only one course book at this level, Nuevo Prisma, but it's extremely bad, virtually useless. So, what can I do?

I leaf through my CEFR course books from the lower levels, and collect the expressions that I find useful. I don't do any exercises, I just read them. In my experience Difusión books contain the best material, namely Aula Internacional, Bitácora and C de C1. After that I google the topics and El País. I try to read at least 5-6 articles on a topic and collect the expressions from these as well. I also search for the topic on youtube, and watch 3-4 videos.

I don't go through everything connected to a certain topic at one go. I use my preparatory books with the mock exams, and follow their tasks. For example, I'm working through El Cronómetro at the moment. In the second exam the first oral topic is the future of tourism (or mass tourism vs sustainable tourism). Before doing the exercise, I collect some material I can base my presentation on. Later, in other preparatory books, I'm sure this topic or something similar will turn up again. Then I'll read through the expressions I've collected the first time, and add some others. This way I think I can avoid using Anki, and still have the benefits of repetition. I find this way of learning very efficient: repeat what I've already seen and add a little more.
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