Hank's Adventure in Spanish (Now with 100% more Welsh!)

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Hank
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Re: Hank's Adventure in Spanish (Now with 100% more Welsh!)

Postby Hank » Mon Aug 14, 2017 3:37 pm

Español

Recibí mi pasaporte. Ahora puedo planear el cruce a México. Probablemente vamos a viajar en enero. Viajar a México en invierno parece una buena idea. No me gusta el clima frío. Espero que tiene clima calor en México en enero.

Casi he terminado Sinsajo. Espero que el fin del libro es bueno. No quiero que la personaje principal muere, or algo así. Por escritores, estoy seguro que es difícil de terminar un libro, pero he leyendo muchos finales malos. Realmente me gusta la serie entera. Voy a extrañar los personajes. Parecen mis amigos. Por el próximo libro voy a leer Cien años de soledad.

Vi unos pocos capitulos de El hotel de los secretos. He viendo casi la mitad de la serie. Quiero terminarla antes de Netflix cancelarla. No sé que voy a ver despues de El hotel de los secretos. Es posible que nada. No he encontrado programas de televisión interesantes. Escucho a Radio Ambulante cuando voy a mi trabajo y veo Sábado Futbolero cuando recuerdo.

Gymraeg

Welsh is still in the early, fun stages for me. Lots of little victories make it exciting. I'm starting to recognize the grammar, at least in broad terms. I'm picking up some vocabulary as well.

I was pretty frustrated with Duolingo. Their review algorithm is way too fast at this point, which is annoying. It would take forever just to finish the reviews because there are so many. I still wanted to do some of the grammar related reviews, but I just hated doing them. It occurred to me that my biggest issue was the parts where the horrible, computerized voice would give you a sentence that you were supposed to type. Not only does the voice pronounce words incorrectly, it's terribly difficult to understand. I was just typing random letters and hoping I would remember what the sentence was the next time it came around, usually taking three or more tries. I found out that you can turn that off. Not only am I doing some of the reviews now, but the lack of frustration is making them much more effective.

I'm still plugging along with SSiW. Some days it seems to click fairly well, but some days I feel like I'm wasting my time. I understand why they do it, but I wish they didn't have the big, long sentences that you're supposed to translate. "I wanted to say something, but I forgot to say what the young man wanted me to say last night." It's hard to even remember the sentence when I'm trying to translate! Overall I'm happy with it, even though I'm not sure if it's the most efficient way for me to learn. The first section of lessons is free, but I discovered that you have to pay for the second and third sections. It isn't expensive, only something like 5 pounds per month, but I'm not sure if I'm going to continue after the free stuff. If I do it will mainly just be to support the website.

I finished my first book in Welsh Coed i Brenin. It's a "novel for Welsh learners" so I'm not going to add it to the official list of books that I have read. It was very simply written and very short, but I learned a lot and it still feels like an accomplishment. The guy who wrote it also has another "novel for Welsh learners" which I bought. I must be doing something right because this one has been much easier to read. I ordered James and the Giant Peach in Welsh for my first "real" book. When I was looking at it on Amazon I noticed that it didn't list a translator. After some research I found out that Roald Dahl was born in Wales, so maybe the book was originally written in Welsh. I try to read at least one news story every day, but they're still far above my level.

The guy who started SSiW, Aran Jones, wrote a book about his experiences learning Welsh called Some Sex and a Hill. I bought it and read it. It was very enjoyable and very funny. There is a lot of political commentary in there which I found very interesting.
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Hank
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Re: Hank's Adventure in Spanish (Now with 100% more Welsh!)

Postby Hank » Fri Aug 25, 2017 12:09 am

Español

Ahora estoy leyendo Cien años de soledad. Por el momento lo me gusta mucho. Tiene muchas palabras desconocidas, pero no es una sorpresa para mi. El autor es de Colombia. No estoy buscando todas las palabras desconocidas en Google Translate. Normalmente solo cuando no puedo entender una frase o un párrafo. Espero que la historia no tiene sentido, como los otros libros de autores latinoamericanos que he leyendo. (No sé como se dice "I expect that the story won't have a point" en español.) ¡Demasiados personajes! Es difícil de recordar todos los personajes.

Necesito sugerencias por mi libro siguiente. Me gusta libros de acción y cienca ficción, pero todas las sugerencias son bienvenidas.

Compré dos billetes por el cruce de México. El precio no era tan caro. Es como una semana en un hotel. No sé como las empresas de crucero ganen dinero suficiente. Ahora necesito comprar billetes por el avión. Es posible que mis padres van a ir con nosotros. ¡Espero que sí!

Cymraeg (I know I spelled this incorrectly in my last post. Stupid mutations! :lol:)

Helo. Bore da.

I'm still using Duolingo, but mostly just to finish it. I still like it and I'm still learning from it, but I don't feel like it's helpful enough at this point to warrant a lot of time.

I seem to be retaining the lessons from SSiW pretty well some days, but other days it feels like I can't remember a lot of the earlier lessons. I know that's normal, though. It probably has a lot to do with concentration. Overall it seems to be working well for me. Surprisingly well, in fact. It's always weird and exciting when they give you a sentence to translate and I blurt something out thinking "that can't be right" but usually it is. I'm almost done with the free lessons. At this point I think I'm going to subscribe and continue. On the SSiW forum they're wanting us to push Say Something in Spanish, so I'll mention it here. :lol: If it's as good as SSiW then I think it's well worth the time for a Spanish beginner.

I finally received James a'r Eirinen Wlanog Enfawr (James and the Giant Peach). I was getting a little impatient. Even though I have ordered a number of books from Book Depository I forgot that they are in Europe. I think it's funny that eirinen wlanog (peach) translates directly as "wooly plum". There is a translator listed on the book cover, so I guess it was originally written in English. Kind of disappointing. I had totally forgotten how difficult it is to read in a language where you don't have much vocabulary. I'll get through it, though. It seems like by the end of La telaraña de Carlota, the first chapter book I read in Spanish, I was doing decently well. It's a struggle right now, but every paragraph feels like an accomplishment.

I can't wait until my Welsh level is where my Spanish level is!

Hwyl
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Re: Hank's Adventure in Spanish (Now with 100% more Welsh!)

Postby Querneus » Fri Aug 25, 2017 1:06 am

Hank wrote:Espero que la historia no tiene sentido, [...] (No sé como se dice "I expect that the story won't have a point" en español.)

Anticipo que la historia no tendrá mucho sentido.
No creo que la historia vaya a tener propósito alguno.
Veo venir que la trama no va a tener ninguna dirección clara.

El problema de usar esperar en esta oración es que esperar también significa 'to hope', especialmente cuando va seguida de oración subordinada: esperar que algo pase 'to hope that something happens'. Espero que la historia no tenga sentido 'Hopefully the story won't make any sense'.
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Hank
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Re: Hank's Adventure in Spanish (Now with 100% more Welsh!)

Postby Hank » Sun Aug 27, 2017 12:48 am

Serafín wrote:
Hank wrote:Espero que la historia no tiene sentido, [...] (No sé como se dice "I expect that the story won't have a point" en español.)

Anticipo que la historia no tendrá mucho sentido.
No creo que la historia vaya a tener propósito alguno.
Veo venir que la trama no va a tener ninguna dirección clara.

El problema de usar esperar en esta oración es que esperar también significa 'to hope', especialmente cuando va seguida de oración subordinada: esperar que algo pase 'to hope that something happens'. Espero que la historia no tenga sentido 'Hopefully the story won't make any sense'.


Gracias por la ayuda.
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Hank
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Re: Hank's Adventure in Spanish (Now with 100% more Welsh!)

Postby Hank » Thu Oct 05, 2017 12:38 am

Español

No he escrito en mucho tiempo. :oops:

¡El Jueves siguiente voy a ver la banda Queens of the Stone Age! Es una de mis bandas favoritas. Hace unos pocos años tuve billetes de ver la banda, pero el concerto fue cancellado. :(

Era de vacaciones un par de semanas y no leo o estudio mucho.

Todavía estoy leyendo Cien años de soledad. En la tienda de libros leí un poco de La Espía por Paulo Coelho. Lo parece interesante. Es posible que voy a comprar esto libro. Compré el libro El Pistolero por Stephen King. He leyendo toda la Torre Oscuro serie en inglés. La me gusta mucho. Normalmente no me gustan los libros de Stephen King.

No veía mucho de El hotel de los secretos. Quiero ver la serie entera. He viendo más de la mitad. Necesito empezar a verlo otra vez. Escuchaba a unos pocos capitulos de Radio Ambulante. La nueva temporada empezó hace dos semanas.

Cymraeg

Welsh is brutal. For a while I was convinced that it isn't really any harder than Spanish and that I had just lost the emotional connection with my struggles in learning Spanish, making Welsh seem harder. I've decided that...once again...Welsh is brutal. :lol: The grammar is easy enough to understand. The vocabulary, on the other hand, seems like someone face-rolled on a computer keyboard and called it a language.

I'm making progress, though.

I quit using SSiW. I could come up with a lot of reasons, but the truth is I'm just weird about stuff sometimes. I just lost interest in it and it wasn't fun anymore. I'm not going to force myself to do something hobby related if it isn't fun. That's really too bad because SSiW is a great tool.

I was making good progress with Duolingo Welsh until I was "randomly selected" (I would say "randomly forced") to try out Duolingo Welsh 2.0 and had to start over. Annoying, but no big deal.

I'm still working on James and the Giant Peach. It's slow going but every now and then I can read a sentence and get the gist without having to look up a bunch of words, which feels like a huge accomplishment. I bought Alice in Wonderland for my next book. I still try to read a news story on BBC Cymru every day. On rare occasions I can get the gist of a story without looking up a bunch of words.
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Re: Hank's Adventure in Spanish (Now with 100% more Welsh!)

Postby Hank » Sat Oct 07, 2017 4:19 pm

This morning I had one of those fun little victories that makes language learning so fun.

The Welsh soccer team is making an unlikely run in the qualifiers for the World Cup. I was thinking about that this morning on the way home from work and came up with: Mae'r tîm Cymreig yn mynd i chwarae yn y Cwpan y Byd pêl-droed. The Welsh team is going to play in the soccer World Cup. Google Translate said it was good. As we're all familiar with Google Translate, that doesn't necessarily mean the sentence is correct but it means it's at least probably understandable.

Pretty cool!
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Re: Hank's Adventure in Spanish (Now with 100% more Welsh!)

Postby Hank » Tue Nov 07, 2017 2:57 am

Español

¡Hola mis amigos!

¡Por fin terminé Cien años de soledad! Fui confundido con todos los personajes, pero lo me gusta. Ahora estoy leyendo El pistolero por Stephen King. He leído este libro en inglés. Compré el libro La espía por Paulo Coehlo. Es un libro de ficción histórica sobre Mata Hari. No he visto El hotel de los secretos. Escucho a Radio Ambulante cuando voy a mi trabajo. Es tarde, estoy cansado y es difícil de escribir en español. :lol:

Cymraeg

Helo!

My Welsh studies are going well. I had a breakthrough today and reading suddenly became much easier. It's weird how that works. It's the first time in a while that I feel like I'm actually making progress. I'm getting close to finishing James a'r Eirinen Wlanog Enfawr. It's not a great book but Welsh makes it interesting. I'm still not sure if it was originally written in Welsh or English. I thought it listed a translator on the cover but it turns out that's the illustrator. I think it's probably safe to assume English, but it would be cool if it were originally written in Welsh. In an article on BBC Cymru I read about a Welsh, science fiction book called Wythnos yng Nghymru Fydd (A Week in the Wales That Will Be). I found it on Amazon and ordered a copy. I'm sure it's way over my head. My listening comprehension is still very poor, but that's to be expected at this point. I have done some listening, but I can only understand the occasional word. I'm still doing my Duolingo lessons every day. I have been trying to form simple sentences. Sometimes I can come up with what I want to say. Unfortunately it's difficult to tell how correct they are because Google Translate doesn't handle Welsh very well. I'm still having a blast and looking forward to being at a decent level.

Hwyl!
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Re: Hank's Adventure in Spanish (Now with 100% more Welsh!)

Postby Hank » Wed Nov 22, 2017 2:59 am

Español

Normalmente cuando compro algo de Amazon.com, escribo una crítica. Compré el libro El pistolero de Amazon y quería escribir una crítica. Tiene sentido de escribir en español. Amazon rechazó la crítica. ¿Porque fue en español? No sé. Escribí otras críticas en inglés este día. Pero si es la verdad esto no tiene sentido. El libro es en español. La crítica debería ser en español ¿no? Creo que antes he escrito críticas en español y no tuve problemas.

Leí El pistolero en inglés hace muchos años. Leí toda la serie. La me gusta mucho pero no estoy seguro si voy a leerla en español. Es muy larga y a veces es un poco aburrido. Sin embargo es una buena historia.

Cymraeg

Dw i wedi gwblhau James a'r Eirinen Wlanog Enfawr. Dw i'n dechrau darllen Anturiaethau Alys yng Ngwlad Hud. I finished James and the Giant Peach. I started reading Alice in Wonderland. I'm not totally sure that the second sentence is correct, but I think it would be understandable. The more literal translation would be: Alice's Adventures in a Magic Country.

James and the Giant Peach wasn't great, but I learned a lot from it. I may read more Roald Dahl books in Welsh because there are quite a few of them and I haven't found a great deal of other children's books in Welsh that aren't picture books. At first reading this book was a real struggle but it was much easier at the end. Alice in Wonderland was published in 1865. I'm a little concerned about reading a book written in 1865 while I'm learning. I don't want to be using old language while I'm trying to speak. "Verily I say unto thee, a great pox has befallen our land." :lol: It doesn't seem too bad, though. I can occasionally get the gist of news stories which is pretty exciting. I'm definitely making progress.
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Re: Hank's Adventure in Spanish (Now with 100% more Welsh!)

Postby Hank » Thu Dec 14, 2017 1:31 am

Español

Normalmente cuando penso en escribiendo en mi registro, no quiero escribir en español. No es realmente difícil (también estoy seguro que mis escrituras no son totalmente correctas :lol: ). Lo que es difícil es quiero escribir sobre temas diferentes y no sé que debería escribir. Normalmente solo escribo sobre libros y programas de televisión. Muy aburrido. Pero, cuando leo el registro de Iverson siento vergüenza. Él escribe en muchas idiomas. No sé si sus escrituras son totalmente correctas, no he aprendido todas sus idiomas, pero escribe en muchas idiomas diferentes. Necesito ser muy parecido de él.

Ahora tengo una programa de televisión favorita en español. 100 Mexicanos Dijieron Es cómo Family Feud de los Estados Unidos. Muy divertido. Normalmente entiendo los concursantes, pero a veces no entiendo que significa las respuestas. Nuestras culturas son muy diferentes. Es muy divertido cuando intento de responder a las preguntas en español.

Cymraeg

I've decided that Anturiaethau Alys yng Ngwlad Hud wasn't a good choice for a learner. The English is old fashioned and the Welsh translation is hard to decifer at times. I'm going to stick with it, though. I don't think it's doing any damage, but I'm sure it could be more helpful. I'm more than halfway through. I ordered the first Harry Potter book in Welsh. I have never read it other than a few pages in Spanish while I was waiting for my wife at the bookstore. I found a website about video games, board games, and geek stuff in Welsh called fideo wyth and a site for learners called Parallel.Cymru which posts articles and interviews in Welsh and English side by side. I'm learning a lot of weather related terms from BBC Cymru. I guess Wales has been getting hit by a big snowstorm over the last few days.

One thing that I wished that I had done differently when I was learning Spanish was to start really working on listening comprehension earlier. I check out S4C clic sometimes and see what I can comprehend. Usually not much. My plan is to start using S4C clic with subtitles in the near future. That way I can get some listening practice and also vocabulary practice.

Dw i'n moyn ysgrifennu yn Cymraeg ond nid oes gen i'r geirfa!
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Re: Hank's Adventure in Spanish (Now with 100% more Welsh!)

Postby Hank » Mon Dec 18, 2017 2:59 pm

I have hit a bit of a roadblock with my listening comprehension plan. The plan was to use S4C clic with subtitles, but apparently S4C clic doesn't have Welsh subtitles any longer. Or maybe they only have Welsh subtitles on certain videos. The three or four that I looked at only had English subtitles. :x BBC Radio Cymru has a section for learners with part of a transcript of the podcasts, but it's only certain sections. Not the whole thing. :x

BBC Wales has an audio "soap opera for learners" with transcripts. The audio quality is terrible. It sounds like it was recorded on a cheap, hand held tape recorder. I guess this is my best option for now. There are more than 80 episodes. The first episode is 22 minutes long, so as long as I can understand the actors I should get some good listening practice out of it.

I tried a little experiment to see how much I could glean from listening to Welsh audio with English subtitles. I picked up a few spoken words that I can translate from English to Welsh, but I didn't work very hard at it or for very long. This seems like it would be inefficient, but maybe it will work. Probably better than nothing.

And finally, I think I made a mistake on my one sentence of Welsh from my last post. I think it should be "Dw i'n moyn ysgrifennu yn Gymraeg...". It might be yng Nghymraeg, but I don't think so. I'm not sure where something like yng Nghymraeg would come into play, but I have seen mutations like that. I also probably spelled that incorrectly. Stupid mutations! :lol:

Anyway, progress is being made. #thumbsup
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