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 (Team Spanish TAC 2016)

Postby Hank » Thu Apr 28, 2016 5:06 pm

Ayer fui a la oficina del doctor. No había visitado esta doctora antes. Mi doctor anterior se trasladó a una ciudad diferente. Leí mi libro cuando estaba en la sala de espera. La doctora nueva es muy amable e inteligente. Me gustó mi doctor anterior pero también me gusta mi doctora nueva. Ella dijo que mi salud es muy bien.

Esta mañana desayuné con mi padre. Comí huevos, tocina, papas fritas y galletas con salsa. También tomaba mucho café. Mi padre y yo desayunamos juntos casi todas las semanas. Comemos en un café llamada Sheila's Place. Hay otros restaurantes en mi pueblo pero Sheila's Place es mi café favorito por desayunar. Es un café muy popular en mi pueblo. Desgraciadamente el almuerzo en Sheila's Place no es muy bueno.

Memrise- I didn't do very many lessons this week. I just didn't have the urge.

Reading- I'm making good progress with Insurgente. I feel like I'm moving along at a very quick pace. It almost seems like I read faster in Spanish, but it may just be that I'm putting in more time because reading in Spanish is really fun. The articles on http://latino.foxnews.com/espanol/index.html all seem kind of depressing. I'd like it if they had more happy news stories. It's terribly interesting to read about Mexican and South American nations through their native news stories.

Listening- I'm still making progress with my listening skills, but I still have a long way to go. I went through all of William (Mexico/beginner) lessons on http://www.spanishlistening.org/ and started on Olga (Mexico/intermediate). She's cute as she can be. I have been able to comprehend a lot of what she is saying before I read the transcript. I'm understanding Despierta América much better. I still struggle with understanding telenovelas but I'm seeing improvement here as well. I have been reading the thread about whether or not TV is a good way to improve listening comprehension. There are some really good ideas in that thread. I think I'm going to pick a telenovela on Netflix and listen intensively. Pausing and replaying until I can fully understand what is being said. I'm itching to be able to watch El hotel de los secretos without subtitles and being able to follow along well.

Output- I didn't mess with HelloTalk, but I have been doing more writing. Preterite vs Imperfect and conjugations are starting to make more sense to me but I'm still not terribly comfortable with it. I did chat online a little bit with my friend from Argentina. At some point I need to start working on speaking.

Deutsch- I can't remember if I did any Language Transfer lessons this week. I almost had the urge to start the Duolingo lessons, but I want to work on my Spanish output and listening more.
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Hank
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Re: Hank's Adventure in Spanish (Team Spanish TAC 2016)

Postby Hank » Mon May 02, 2016 12:45 am

I started on my intensive, telenovela, listening experience today. Listen, rewind, listen, rewind, turn on subtitles, read, turn off subtitles, rewind, listen. I chose La reina del sur because it was the only telenovela on Netflix that I recognized and I know it was popular. I wanted to choose a show that has somewhat current language, and one that I'm not necessarily terribly interested in because I don't want to practice on a show that I am interested in, like El hotel de los secretos, and not enjoy it because of all the rewinding. I want to save the good shows until I can comfortably follow along. I think it went fairly well. Towards the end of the episode I had spells where I could follow along fairly well without having to turn on the subtitles. Especially when Teresa was doing most of the talking.

As far as the show itself goes, I think the adage "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all" applies. :lol: I think I'll be able to muddle through as a learning experience, though.

It was funny. My wife couldn't figure out why I was watching a Spanish language program with Spanish subtitles. I had to explain to her that I can read it, I just can't understand it when it's spoken.
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Hank
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Re: Hank's Adventure in Spanish (Team Spanish TAC 2016)

Postby Hank » Fri May 06, 2016 3:23 pm

¡Hola a todos!

It occurred to me that I sometimes forget why I'm learning Spanish. I get too wrapped up in the learning aspect and don't really just have fun with the language. Not that I'm not enjoying the process, but I'm not learning just to learn. I have been taking some time just to enjoy the language. Reading without worrying about the words I miss and watching without concentrating so hard on understanding the spoken language. I'm going to start doing this more regularly. I know I have a long way to go, but I'm really excited about how far I have come. It's time to just kick back and enjoy the language a little bit.

I didn't do any Memrise or Language Transfer German lessons this week. I'm going to drop them from my learning plan unless/until I pick them up again. The urge to start seriously learning German is getting stronger. I'm going to try and hold off until at least August. I want to get my Spanish listening comprehension and output to a more comfortable level before I start dividing my language learning time.

Reading- I finished Insurgente. My updated list of books that I have read in Spanish:

La telaraña de Carlota
Stormbreaker
Cajas de cartón
Divergente
Insurgente

I guess it seems kind of silly to update my list every time I finish a book, but let's face it...I'm bragging. :lol: Leal the final book of the Divergent Series arrived yesterday. I want my next book to be originally written in Spanish. Preferably Latin American Spanish. I have a few books that seem interesting written down.

I became interested in the Divergent story after seeing a little bit of one of the movies. After finishing the first book I told my wife that I would like to see the movie. She ordered the DVD from Netflix, but there was a mixup somewhere along the way and we received the second movie. We were able to stream the first movie from another site, but it seemed like a shame to send the other one back without watching it. I asked her to keep it until Saturday so I could try to finish the book. I had around 80 pages left. I managed to finish it yesterday. I don't think I have read 80 pages in one day in my life!

Listening- I finished Olga's lessons on Spanish Listening, and randomly listened to a few others. I started intensively watching La reina del sur on Netflix. I have watched the first three episodes. The third episode I watched for fun without much rewinding. I followed along well enough that I wasn't totally lost. I wasn't terribly impressed with the first episode, but I can see the show growing on me. My telenovela listening comprehension is slowly improving. There are a couple of characters that I have a hard time understanding, and it's difficult when any of the characters are whispering. Hopefully by the end of the series I'll be able to following along well. I think I'll be able to.

Output- I did a few writings and posted them on Lang-8. I'm trying to move away from "caveman" Spanish and trying to express myself more eloquently. I know I have the vocabulary to do it, but putting that vocabulary to use is another story. I made a ton of mistakes. That's why we practice, though. I wrote more this week, but I still need to do it more regularly. I ought to make a more serious effort with HelloTalk. Does the forum's personal message function work? If so, and if anyone is interested, I think it would be fun to chat with my fellow forumites in Spanish. If anyone is up for it send me a PM.

My wife and I are headed out of town next week. I'm going to bring my book and my iPad, but I'm not sure how much studying I'll get done. I'm hoping to find a big bookstore and see if there's anything interesting or useful there.
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Hank
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Re: Hank's Adventure in Spanish (Team Spanish TAC 2016)

Postby Hank » Thu May 12, 2016 8:38 pm

Esta semana no tengo una buena actualización de mi diario. He regresado de mi viaje. No estudié mucho. Tal vez leí dos capítulos de mi libro. Estoy cansado y me duele el estómago porque comí demasiada comida rica y rara. Fue divertido, pero estoy feliz para ser en casa.
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Hank
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Re: Hank's Adventure in Spanish (Team Spanish TAC 2016)

Postby Hank » Mon May 16, 2016 4:07 pm

Someone (iguanamon maybe?) posted this article in another thread. http://www.languagesurfer.com/2013/11/2 ... t-results/ In the article the author says he took an online assessment from Cervantes Institute and he gives a link to the assessment. I thought that sounded like fun, so I gave it a shot. It rated me at B1.1-B1.2. While I understand that an online assessment isn't as accurate as an actual assessment, I'm pretty tickled with my result.

The assessment is all multiple choice or true/false and there is no output portion. I was most concerned with the audio portion, because I know that listening comprehension is my weakest skill. I understood the recording fairly well, though.

It took less than half an hour. Give it a try. It's fun!
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Re: Hank's Adventure in Spanish (Team Spanish TAC 2016)

Postby Tomás » Mon May 16, 2016 5:53 pm

Hank wrote:Someone (iguanamon maybe?) posted this article in another thread. http://www.languagesurfer.com/2013/11/2 ... t-results/ In the article the author says he took an online assessment from Cervantes Institute and he gives a link to the assessment. I thought that sounded like fun, so I gave it a shot. It rated me at B1.1-B1.2. While I understand that an online assessment isn't as accurate as an actual assessment, I'm pretty tickled with my result.

The assessment is all multiple choice or true/false and there is no output portion. I was most concerned with the audio portion, because I know that listening comprehension is my weakest skill. I understood the recording fairly well, though.

It took less than half an hour. Give it a try. It's fun!


Another option is the DELE site itself where you can take the actual practice tests for each level.
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Hank
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Re: Hank's Adventure in Spanish (Team Spanish TAC 2016)

Postby Hank » Thu May 19, 2016 3:06 pm

After a few days out of town, I'm somewhat getting back into my study routine. My wife is still on vacation, and I have been trying to keep her entertained, so I haven't studied as much as I usually do.

Reading- I'm still reading Leal. I'm enjoying the book. It's always kind of a letdown after I finish a book series that I enjoy. It's kind of like losing a good friend. :cry: I think my next book is going to be El beso de la mujer araña por Manuel Puig. It seems like an interesting story, and the few pages that I can read on the Amazon website seem fairly comprehensible.

I'm still reading news stories as well. For some reason, Fox News Latino is more difficult to read than some of the other news sites. I'm not sure why. I looked at a few other Latin American news options and found a few and I can comprehend the stories much better that FNL. It's kind of weird.

Listening- This week was kind of hit and miss with my listening comprehension. A week with almost no listening seems to have affected me. I watched one episode of La reina del sur and started another. It's going slowly, and I generally still have to rewind a few times to understand what's being said. Occasionally I can get the gist of what's being said without rewinding, but it's rare. I watched a couple of episodes of Vecinos and followed along fairly well without subtitles. At least getting a broad idea of what was being said. I watched a couple of fútbol matches from Liga MX and watched Despierta América most mornings that I was home. My listening comprehension is definitely improving. It was fun to watch Vecinos and be able to follow along as well as I did. I'm really looking forward to be able to comprehend telenovelas without working so hard at it.

Output- None. :? I want to write, but I just don't know what to write about. I had an idea, though. The Spanish Listening website that I have been using has a lot of topics that seem conversational. The short videos are based around a question: "What do you like to do?", "What food do you like?", etc. I'm planning on picking a topic and writing a response. That's my plan anyway. I haven't done very well with regular output. :lol:

I'm thinking of ordering the Gramática de uso del español books. I want to work on grammar from an output standpoint. Do you think this would be helpful at an intermediate-ish level?
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Re: Hank's Adventure in Spanish (Team Spanish TAC 2016)

Postby Spoonary » Thu May 19, 2016 5:49 pm

Hank wrote:I think my next book is going to be El beso de la mujer araña por Manuel Puig. It seems like an interesting story, and the few pages that I can read on the Amazon website seem fairly comprehensible.

One from my reading list, eh? :P I had to translate a bit of that book into English for one of my assignments at uni and I have wanted to read it ever since but I just never got around to it. You reading it before me will make me want to pick it up too but I think I should probably finish La casa de los espíritus first :? Anyway, I hope you enjoy it :D
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Hank
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Re: Hank's Adventure in Spanish (Team Spanish TAC 2016)

Postby Hank » Fri May 20, 2016 2:17 am

Spoonary wrote:
Hank wrote:I think my next book is going to be El beso de la mujer araña por Manuel Puig. It seems like an interesting story, and the few pages that I can read on the Amazon website seem fairly comprehensible.

One from my reading list, eh? :P I had to translate a bit of that book into English for one of my assignments at uni and I have wanted to read it ever since but I just never got around to it. You reading it before me will make me want to pick it up too but I think I should probably finish La casa de los espíritus first :? Anyway, I hope you enjoy it :D


Hoy compré El beso de la mujer araña en Amazon.com. Debería llegar la próxima semana. No escribé spoilers para ti. :lol: Pero te diré cómo es. También compré Apocalipsis Z en Amazon.com, pero el libro esta en España. Otro libro de acción. Debería llegar en junio o julio.
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Re: Hank's Adventure in Spanish (Team Spanish TAC 2016)

Postby Spoonary » Fri May 20, 2016 10:08 pm

Hank wrote:Hoy compré El beso de la mujer araña en Amazon.com. Debería llegar la próxima semana. No escribé spoilers para ti. :lol: Pero te diré cómo es. También compré Apocalipsis Z en Amazon.com, pero el libro esta en España. Otro libro de acción. Debería llegar en junio o julio.


Jeje gracias! Así no tendré que dejar de visitar tu log por miedo a los spoilers :P Ooh, a mí Apocalipsis Z me gustó bastante, hasta que llegué al final que era un poco... flojo... Espero que disfrutes tú de ese libro también.
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