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

[M23]

Wow. I had no idea that this was going on... then again all the exchanges I have done have been in the real world through various channels. I tried a site awhile back where you could arrange language exchanges via Skype but that left a bad taste in my mouth so I went the meetup route. Luckily the group I am in has stuff going on all the time - and has plenty of advanced speakers/native speakers around to chat with - so I do not need to go looking online for practice partners.

Best of luck to you, Hank.

[Hank]

I got to thinking about what my expectations were when I started my language learning journey last August. I'm not really sure if I had any. I surely didn't know what I was getting myself into. Starting from zero, I don't think I could have had any real expectations. Maybe just some vague thought of "I wonder if I'm going to be fluent this time next year?" I'm glad I stuck with it, because the first month was just brutal. My strong desire to learn another language is the only thing that carried me through those dark days. Eventually things started clicking and getting easier. Thankfully I found more resources and this forum. I'm very happy with my progress. I think my past self would be tickled if I were to go back in time and tell him/me where we're at 8 months later. I'm sure I could have done a better job at the very beginning, but I just didn't know where to go or what to do.

Memrise- I missed a day this week. Driving a ladder truck is somewhat stressful for me. Driving a ladder truck I'm unfamiliar with in a district I'm unfamiliar with is infinitely worse. I just couldn't bring myself to do any study that day. I have been moving through this more quickly. If I see that I'm comfortable with what is in the upcoming lesson I have been trying to get it done in one day. If it's something new, or I'm a little shaky with, I'll move slower and try to make sure I learn the lesson well.

Reading- I'm really enjoying Divergente. I'm more than halfway through. I have stretches where I don't have to look much up, but there are still some spots that just make no sense. Quite a few of these spots seems weird in the English version as well, though. I'm kind of in a conundrum here. I'm enjoying the story so much that I want to continue the series, but I wonder if I wouldn't be better off to branch out from a learning standpoint. I want to read more material that was originally written in Spanish and I want to read books that aren't action or farm oriented to expose myself to some different grammar and vocabulary. I'm considering continuing the Divergente series in English while I'm reading other works in Spanish. I did this with Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and it worked out fine. I would read it later in the evening when I was too tired to concentrate on Spanish. The trouble with this idea is that Spanish makes reading more interesting. I haven't really decided what to do yet.

Listening- Still working on it. I felt like I wasn't improving, and in fact I felt like I was regressing, for a while, but the past couple of days I seem to have my listening mojo back. I have bookmarked some Spanish podcasts that I'm going to try and work through and see if that helps.

Output- I had a couple of men contact me on HelloTalk, but we haven't really gotten anything going yet other than "Hola. ¿Cómo estás?" type stuff.

Deutsche- The piddling continues. I listened to a couple of Language Transfer lessons and watched some beginner videos on YouTube.

[Hank]

This week was kind of goofy. Work was a pain again, and a couple of annoying twists and turns in other areas. I got a lot of studying done, but not as much as usual. Things ought to calm down, though.

Memrise- I didn't miss a day. It has been good for review and practice. I'm coming up on past tense and future tense, which I'm looking forward to. I could definitely use more practice in these areas. Especially from an output standpoint.

Reading- I should be done with Divergente this week. I have been somewhat abandoning intensive reading because I am enjoying to story so much and I want to find out what's going to happen. I think the last books that I read where I was so interested in the characters was The Dark Tower series by Stephen King. Once I finish Divergente I may have to watch the movie. I ordered both the English and Spanish versions of Insurgente, the second book in the series. As much as I want to branch out, I'm enjoying this story too much to drop it right now. I read a few news articles. I'm very happy with my Spanish reading abilities. It's fun.

Listening- In another thread, someone suggested http://www.spanishlistening.org/ to help with listening comprehension. I decided to give it a try. After a few days of listening to William (Mexico/beginner), I think this website is going to be a big help to my listening comprehension. I'm not really sure how this works, and it doesn't seem like it should work in my mind, but I'm seeing an improvement. I'm even able to better understand Karla Martinez on Despierta América. She speaks extremely quickly.

Output- I didn't do as well this week, but I got some good output done. I'm not the kind of person that likes to chat just to be chatting and after my couple of introductory conversations on HelloTalk I haven't felt like doing it much. Another issue is that I just don't want to chat in English. I know...I'm selfish. People are still contacting me, and I need to motivate myself to find someone with similar interests and see about setting some ground rules so we both can benefit. I think what would be ideal for me is some kind of Spanish forum where I can just drop in and out as I feel like it.

Deutsch- I'm still messing around with LanguageTransfer and watching some beginner videos on YouTube.

[Hank]

Tengo una idea. Estoy seguro que alguien ya tuvo esta idea.

I have been thinking about learning through reading, it's effectiveness, and how to make it more effective. All from a personal standpoint, of course. First of all it seems to be working very well for me, at least from a vocabulary standpoint. I'm not so sure I'm learning much grammar. I have been learning many new words. Many of the words that were unfamiliar at the beginning of Divergente I now comprehend without having to think about it. Some of them I can comprehend if I think about it for a little bit. And some of them just aren't sticking. It's really annoying: "I know I have seen that word a dozen times! Why can't I comprehend?!?!?!?" ("Pulgar"...I'm looking at you!) There are also words that are in the book a few times, or only once or twice, that aren't close to sticking in my brain.

Este es mi plan por Insurgente. I'm going to read with a highlighter pen and highlight the vocabulary that I don't comprehend, and the phrases that don't make sense to me. Later I will transfer those words and phrases to note cards. Then I can review the vocabulary and try to figure out the grammar. Writing on note cards and reviewing them works very well for me. Maybe I should write the entire sentence with the unknowns on a note card? This just occurred to me.

Parece un plan excelente.

[PaleoPaul]

Hi Hank!
Just read through your language log. Great work! I think you are about 3 or 4 months ahead of me but in a somewhat similar situation. Have you tried Italki.com? I tried it when I had only been studying for a month or so and it was too difficult but I'm planning on getting back on there when I have finished A1 and A2 in Memrise (almost done with A1, just getting started with A2). All the success you have had with reading has inspired me to do more of that on a daily basis.

One question - about how many hours a week would you estimate you are actively working on your Spanish?
Regards
Paul

[Hank]

¡Bienvenido Paul!

I have never really thought about how much time I spend studying each week. If I had to guess, it's probably between 2 and 3 hours a day on average.

[Hank]

¡Hola a todos! ¡Es el momento por otro entrada emocionante en mi diario! ¿Cómo se dice "language log" en español?

Estoy impresionado con la gente en este foro. Personas de varios países hablando en lenguas que no son sus lenguas maternas. Muchas personas que no viven en un país angloparlante que escriben como un nativo. Supongo que algo de angloparlantes escriben bien en lenguas que no son sus lenguas maternas, pero no sé. Me único estudio español y mi español no es fluido en este momento. Me siento alentado por las personas en este foro. ¡Gracias a todos!

Memrise- I missed Saturday and Sunday this week. My wife wanted to go shopping and shopping wears me out so I didn't feel like doing any lessons. I'm starting to wonder if the time I spend on Memrise wouldn't be better spent in some other form of study, but I don't really spend that much time on it so it probably isn't hurting anything.

Reading- I finished Divergente. The updated list of books I have read in Spanish:

La telaraña de Carlota
Stormbreaker
Cajas de cartón
Divergente

I started on Insurgente. I have tweaked the reading plan that I posted earlier this week. I'm still highlighting the words and phrases that I don't comprehend, but I'm not writing them down on notecards. I have just been going through the book and reviewing. There aren't a ton of words and phrases that I don't get, but even one or two on each page means a ton of notecards in a 450 page book. Reviewing the highlighted words and phrases is quicker and seems to be working well enough. I have been doing a better job of extensive reading, mostly just comparing the parts I don't comprehend well with the English version. If something still doesn't seem right in my comprehension then I'll use Google Translate to help me understand more fully.

Listening- Since I have been studying with William (Mexico/beginner) on the Spanish Listening site, my listening comprehension is improving greatly. I'm comprehending much more of what I hear on TV. I even understood a few words that Donald Duck was saying on La casa de Mickey! I'm also starting to be able to hear some of the individual words that I don't know and look them up. It's a pretty exciting breakthrough.

Output- Once again, I didn't do great with output this week. I tried to chat with a couple of people on HelloTalk, but it didn't go anywhere. It was kind of weird. They approached me and said "I want to learn your language", so I replied with a welcome and asked why they wanted to learn English. They replied with "I want to learn your language". I wonder if this isn't code for something nefarious. One of my coworkers is a distance runner. Last night he was talking about a 50 mile race in Mexico. He said we should go together and I could be his translator. So I started encouraging him in Spanish and pretending I was helping him train. "No puedes beber las cervezas. ¡Tienes que correr!" We all got a good laugh out of it. I was happy to be able to speak some Spanish off the cuff, but I realized how horrible my pronunciation is. I'm thinking about unofficially participating in the Output Challenge.

Deutsch- The piddling continues. I'm surprised at what I'm retaining with LanguageTransfer.

[PaleoPaul]

Hey Hank,

I like how you are starting out your weekly update with some Spanish - I need to start doing that!

I'm a huge fan of Memrise for beginners as it really works well to increase vocabulary but I think that maybe as you progress in the language other forms of input will be both more interesting and effective. I have recently completed the A1 course and I am going to continue with the A2 but I am hoping that by the time that is done I'll be able get plenty of new vocabulary from reading and TV, both activities which were a bit out of reach to me a couple of months ago.

Also, I just checked out the Spanish Listening website you mentioned - this looks great - yet another resource I have to incorporate!!!

Cheers
Paul

[Hank]

Ayer cuando estuve en el supermercado, escuché a dos hombres hablando en español. Caminaron junto a mí cuando mi esposa estaba pagando por los comestibles. No entendía muchas palabras, sólo la palabra <ella> dos veces. Se dirigieron a la máquina de monedas. Quiería escuchar su conversación, pero no tenía una buena razón estar cerca de la máquina de monedas. Vi un estante de botellas de agua grandes cerca de los hombres. ¿Tal vez puedo fingir a leer las etiquetas en las botellas? me pensaba. Pero decidí que estaba una idea mala.

Based on a true story!

I wrote this up this morning so I could work on Ser vs. Estar and Preterite vs. Imperfect. It's becoming easier to know how to say what I want to say in Spanish, but I know I need work on conjugations. I got out my conjugation cheat sheet and the rules for ser/estar and preterite/imperfect that I had written down. After I wrote it, I checked it against Google Translate as best I could. I put it on Lang-8. We'll see how I did.

[Hank]

My writing in the previous post wasn't too bad according to the corrections I received on Lang-8. I just wish I didn't have to think so hard about it. Practice, practice, practice.

I sometimes wonder if I'm overstating my Spanish abilities. Not intentionally. I just don't want to be fooling myself or feeling like I'm building myself up to be something that I'm not. I had a doctor's appointment today. (It was just a checkup. Apparently I'm totally healthy.) I figured I would have some time in the waiting room, and I thought it would be a good time to test my reading abilities without the "crutches" of a parallel text and Google Translate. So I brought my copy of Insurgente and nothing else. I had time to read almost an entire chapter. It went very well. I understood it very well, including most of the details. I did get hung up with one sentence that I absolutely couldn't figure out, but it didn't affect my understanding. This afternoon I finished the chapter at home without any aids. Maybe I couldn't accomplish this with a new book, but I'm pleased.