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 » Fri Nov 25, 2016 3:37 am

Mi perro llamada Fritz está enfermo. Estoy triste. Me preocupo por él. Mi perro previo murió el año pasado. Era viejo y a él me extraño mucho. No quiero que este perro murió. Es un buen perro y está joven. Mi chihuahua llamada Spike está viejo, pero está saludable. Tiene más de diez o once años. ¡Cree que está muy vicioso!

I'm still plugging along with Despertar Contigo and Fundación por Isaac Asimov. Since I don't watch every episode of Despertar Contigo I miss some plot twists. It's always an adventure when I miss an episode or two and come back and see what has happened. I'm starting to be able to understand Cindy much better, but Christian and Wilson (I would have never guessed his name was Wilson since they pronounce it Gweeson :lol:) are still mostly incomprehensible. Pablo is a struggle to comprehend sometimes. The actor who plays him is from Colombia, and I have had trouble with the Colombian accent in the past so that may be a factor. Everyone else is pretty comprehensible unless there's a lot of noise or music in the background. I'm enjoying Fundación and I bought the next two books in the series.

A few days ago at work we stopped at a restaurant to get lunch, and in front of the business next door there were a couple of people that were handing our religious materials in Spanish. I really wanted to go try out my meager output skills with them, but I didn't really have the time.

I was in a store buying a soda pop today, and there was a latino gentleman with his young daughter in there. He was speaking to his daughter in Spanish. My wife gave me a little kick to make sure I noticed. :lol: I understood what he was saying, which is really cool and a boost to my confidence. I guess my studies are paying off.
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Hank
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Re: Hank's Adventure in Spanish (Team Spanish TAC 2016)

Postby Hank » Tue Dec 06, 2016 12:39 am

Hoy mi perro y yo fuimos al veterinario. El veterinario decía que probablemente Fritz tiene dolor en su espalda. Dio medicina a Fritz. ¡Siente mucho major! Estoy aliviado.

Terminé Fundación. Está un libro extraño, pero me gustaba. Empiezo a leer el segundo libro de la serie Fundación e Imperio. Espero que no está tan extraño. :lol:

Estoy un poco aborrato con Despertar Contigo. No es una sorpresa. Normalmente no me gusta viendo la televisión. Voy a tratar a continuar a ver el programa, pero no sé. Me gusta la historia. Es emocionante que puedo entender a las personajes. Esta semana ví algo de fútbol mexicano. Todavía no tengo un equipo favorito.
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Hank
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Re: Hank's Adventure in Spanish (Team Spanish TAC 2016)

Postby Hank » Sun Dec 18, 2016 4:20 am

The power went out at my house this afternoon. Right in the middle of a race on the Need For Speed video game! :x With no Google Translate, I decided it would be a good time to test my reading comprehension with Fundación e Imperio. It wasn't bad at all. There were a few words that I didn't comprehend, but probably not more than two or three per page. Most of the unknown words were adjectives. I was forced to figure out at least a vague definition of some words based on context. I'm really terrible at that. I don't mind intensive reading because I want to learn every Spanish word that I can, but it's good to check my progress occasionally.

I decided to read to my wife after a while. I have done this a few times before. She likes to come up with definitions for Spanish words that sound similar to English words. It's funny. After a couple of paragraphs, I decided to translate what I was reading so that she could understand. Well...let's be honest...I was trying to impress her with my mad Spanish skills. :lol: It was terribly difficult to translate the Spanish into some kind of natural sounding English.
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Hank
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Re: Hank's Adventure in Spanish (Team Spanish TAC 2016)

Postby Hank » Mon Jan 02, 2017 10:53 pm

I guess I'm a little late for an end of year update/reflection on my progress, but whatever. My log my rules. :lol:

I definitely don't think I reached my goal of being "good at Spanish". At this point I think I would classify my Spanish ability as "not too shabby".

I read 11 books in Spanish in 2016 (plus two books in English). That's probably not too far away from the number of books I have read since college. It's amazing to me to look back and see how far I have advanced with reading. The first chapter book I read, La telaraña de Carlota, was brutally hard for me. At this point I can read extensively when I want to and not miss much except for adjectives. I still mostly do intensive reading, because it doesn't bother me and I want to improve.

My listening comprehension has improved greatly, but I still have much room for improvement. At the start of the year I could kind of get the gist of some commercials. Now, for the most part, I can watch television and keep up with what's going on. I still have a lot of difficulty understanding the dialogue when someone is angry or in a noisy environment like a nightclub. I'm getting the hang of the Colombian accent because two of the main actors on Despertar Contigo are Colombian.

I still need a ton of work on output. Whether or not this is going to happen is another question. :lol: I had some conversations on HelloTalk that went fairly well, but it takes a lot of thought and it isn't fluid at all. I feel like since my listening comprehension has improved I'm better able to formulate what I want to say more quickly. Maybe those things aren't related, but they sure seem like they are. The two things that I believe would help me most are verb conjugation study and reading/hearing more conversational Spanish. I'm learning a lot of words from science fiction/action books that just aren't going to be very useful in day to day conversations. I have been trying to pay attention to phrasing when I read and watch TV.

All in all I'm terribly happy with my progress, and most importantly I'm still having fun. Maybe I'll be "good at Spanish" by 2018.

On to current events.

I kind of lost my motivation to do much of anything hobby related late in the year. This is fairly normal. I don't know if the cold weather gets me down or less daylight or what. I still watched Spanish language TV regularly even though I usually didn't really feel like it, but my time spent reading dropped way off. I'm feeling the itch to hit it hard again, though. I have been reading more than usual and I'm wanting to improve my output. Suddenly I'm excited for Spanish again.

Despertar Contigo will be ending this week or next. It's an interesting show and I really appreciate the humor. It seems like most of the other telenovelas that I have watched have been totally serious. I think it's cool that I followed the entire run. I can pretty much understand all the characters on the show except for Christian. I'm getting better with him. I think if I had another couple of months to listen to him I could figure him out as well as the other characters, but I guess I'm not going to get that opportunity. I haven't heard what's going to replace Despertar Contigo in the time slot. I hope it's a good one.

I'm still plugging along with Fundación e Imperio. I'm still enjoying it even though the story jumps around a lot and there are too many characters with weird names. It makes it kind of difficult to keep track of who is doing what and where. I want to read some nonfiction once I'm done with Trilogía de la Fundación.

¡Feliz Año Nuevo!
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M23
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Re: Hank's Adventure in Spanish (Team Spanish TAC 2016)

Postby M23 » Tue Jan 03, 2017 6:52 am

Hank wrote:I'm learning a lot of words from science fiction/action books that just aren't going to be very useful in day to day conversations.


If I were in your shoes I would find a native speaker who likes action/science fiction and chat with them about it. You will be able to work on talking about the plot to a film or book - which is pretty hard to do - without having to lay the groundwork as far as vocabulary goes. Getting better at nerding out about sci-fi in another language will help you strengthen other skills that will translate to having other conversations that you might consider more "useful" in your daily life.
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Hank
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Re: Hank's Adventure in Spanish (Team Spanish TAC 2016)

Postby Hank » Thu Jan 05, 2017 2:14 am

M23 wrote:
Hank wrote:I'm learning a lot of words from science fiction/action books that just aren't going to be very useful in day to day conversations.


If I were in your shoes I would find a native speaker who likes action/science fiction and chat with them about it. You will be able to work on talking about the plot to a film or book - which is pretty hard to do - without having to lay the groundwork as far as vocabulary goes. Getting better at nerding out about sci-fi in another language will help you strengthen other skills that will translate to having other conversations that you might consider more "useful" in your daily life.


That's a good idea. I actually have an internet friend from Argentina that I met through a video gaming group. My wife calls them my "Nerd Herd". :lol: I have chatted with her a bit, but posting on her Facebook page makes me nervous. Her English is far better than my Spanish, and I don't want to accidentally say something inappropriate. I ought to make it a point to chat with her more.
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Hank
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Re: Hank's Adventure in Spanish

Postby Hank » Fri Jan 27, 2017 3:04 am

I was hoping to get to test out my Spanish at work the other day. We got dispatched for a motor vehicle accident, and the comments from dispatch mentioned a "language barrier". My mind was racing trying to make sure I could communicate in Spanish all the things I would need to say to a person that was involved in an MVA. When we arrived, the patient in question was a soft spoken Asian. :( Her English was a little broken, but I wouldn't consider it a language barrier.

Things are still going well with Spanish.

I finished Fundación e Imperio and started Segunda Fundación. Only 200 more pages and I will be finished with the series. I started reading a book about Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán while waiting for my wife at Barnes and Noble and decided to buy it, so that one will be next. Barnes and Noble is a good place to test my comprehension. My wife can spend hours in there!

Despertar Contigo is coming to an end, which is too bad because I have been enjoying it. I still get excited about being able to follow along.
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Hank
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Re: Hank's Adventure in Spanish

Postby Hank » Sat Feb 04, 2017 3:16 pm

Terminé La Trilogía de la Fundación. Me gusta, pero probablemente no lo recomendo. Demasiado personajes con nombres extraño. También, Asimov explicó cosas en una manera muy extraño. Muchas de estas cosas no tiene sentido. Extraños giros en la historia.

Compré el libro Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzman: El Varón de la Droga. Quiero leer algo de no ficción. El Chapo es muy interesante para mi. He viendo muchas noticias sobre él. Muchas personas le gustan. El gobierno de México parece no gusta El Chapo, pero no estoy seguro. Creo que el gobiero le temen.

La telenovela Despertar Contigo ha terminando. :( Estoy tratando de ver más televisión en español. Creo que televisión Méxicana es muy ayudante. Ahora comunicación es más sencillo y puedo entender muchas más personajes y personas. ¡Es divertido que tengo poder de entender televisión Méxicana!

Probablemente esta escritura no es tan correcto. Queria escribir con no ayuda de Google Translate. Pues, sólo un poco de ayuda. :oops:
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reineke
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Re: Hank's Adventure in Spanish

Postby reineke » Sat Feb 04, 2017 4:14 pm

Eh... for what it's worth... Don't do the Google translate thing. Force yourself to create grammatical sentences. Pay attention to grammatical gender. It will take time and effort, but that"s ok. It may sound strange coming from me, but consult a dictionary and a grammar.
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Hank
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Re: Hank's Adventure in Spanish

Postby Hank » Sun Feb 05, 2017 2:28 am

reineke wrote:Eh... for what it's worth... Don't do the Google translate thing. Force yourself to create grammatical sentences. Pay attention to grammatical gender. It will take time and effort, but that"s ok. It may sound strange coming from me, but consult a dictionary and a grammar.


Estoy de acuerdo. Cuando utilizo Google Translate, siento mucho más comodo. "¿Esta frase tiene sentido? ¡Tengo que consultar Google Translate!" Necesito escribir y hablar más, y no uso Google Translate. Debería usar Google Translate sólo como un diccionario.
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