M23's Language Log: Spanish and German

[M23]

In Spanish-world I have been watching Pokémon in Spanish

¿Cuál doblaje estás oyendo? ¿El doblaje en el que dicen "poKEmon" o en el que dicen "pokeMÓN"? (España vs. Latinoamérica.)

Prefiero el doblaje de América Latina. Estoy tratando de aprender Español desde México porque tenemos mucho migrantes Méxicanos, y tiene sentido a aprender ese variedad del lenguaje. Tengo un amiga de Colombia y aprendo cosas de su idioma pero me enfoca en jergas y modismos desde México. Me choca el acento de España. Es casi imposible entender, pero sé que cuando estuve en Canada (Toronto) había suficientes personas de España allá a hacer el aprendizaje de ese acento entendible.

and I have a Meet Up scheduled for this Wednesday.

Antes de Covid yo solía ir a varios Meetups de francés y a veces de español, pero desde entonces parece que mucha menos gente asiste. Aunque quizá en tu ciudad es diferente. Sería interesante si a los otros les preguntaras qué opinan del número de gente que iba antes comparado con hoy en día.

Sí, nuestros reuniones están afectados por Covid también. Hay reuniones que todavía siguen en línea. Tenemos un porcentaje de la población que son de América Latina así que es facíl a encontrar personas que están aprendiendo íngles. Me imagino que pasan mucho de su tiempo hablando íngles y es un lujo para hablar y ensenar el Español por una noche.

[M23]

Spanish

So, in the future I will have some college-level classes in a foreign language and at first I thought I would choose German as my second language, but some things have changed. First, I had a stroke. Given the lack of practice I am experiencing my Spanish has held up fairly well, but I notice problems along the lines of sometimes not being able to do basic verb conjugations that I would have been able to do before the stroke. Second, I am going to be doing these language courses along side the toughest courses in my major as well as having an internship. Pre-stroke this would have been fine to work through, but post stroke I really have limits on my energy and there is only so much I can do. I am thinking of taking one of these Language courses in Spanish and if it is doable, I might take the second one in German. If it is too hard I will continue taking the second one in Spanish. I am not going to have to worry about it anytime soon, so you have the opportunity to challenge me or ask some questions.

I went to a meet up to practice my Spanish, and I notice the problem with doing these meet ups in public places - usually bars where there is a fairly high level of background music and crowd noise. The stroke diminished my ability to do the human task of focusing my hearing in on one thing and following it. I noticed there was problems with even understanding the conversation because the level of background noise was so high that I was having difficulties focusing. Aside from that, I did chat with the group leader and a guy from Mexico City. The guy from Mexico City was a manager for a tech company, so I got to lightly go into the weeds with Cybersecurity and such. Expanding my ability to chat about that area is definitely an area I want to focus on.

Speaking of that, how I picture myself studying for the second language class in school is primarily through Anki. I am loading up a deck right now with my frequency dictionary, but I guess if I want to improve my ability to chat about Cybersecurity I should make a deck for that as well. Actually, there are a couple decks that I would like to make regarding pastimes that I have in order to help "build up my islands." I guess I should get on that while I have time to do so because when the semester starts up again it will be back to not having time for things that I want to have time for.

[MorkTheFiddle]

Spanish
I went to a meet up to practice my Spanish, and I notice the problem with doing these meet ups in public places - usually bars where there is a fairly high level of background music and crowd noise. The stroke diminished my ability to do the human task of focusing my hearing in on one thing and following it. I noticed there was problems with even understanding the conversation because the level of background noise was so high that I was having difficulties focusing.

I hear you. Bar noise distracts me, too, and I have not had a stroke.
Coffee shops might make a better place for discussions.
Cafes work, too, but avoid busy times cause the wait staff get annoyed when their tables don't turn over, hence fewer tips. (Personal experience )
Some libraries offer conference rooms. May or may not help if one or more of your group is a member of the library.

[M23]

Spanish

This semester I am taking Spanish I along with a few other courses that I need to graduate. So far it is super easy, and I absolutely do not mind it. I say this because: 1) The stroke did mess up my Spanish and it is good to have some time to focus on the basics. 2) I am learning that jamming a books worth of information in my head and then taking tests that sort of focus on what was covered in the book is just not for me, and not how I prefer to learn something. On Thursday I took a few practice quizzes offered by the testing software, and I recall encountering some information that was not covered by the book, but I still knew it because I am further on in my Spanish than the material in this class. I always hear how the staff does not want you to Google the answers, but if they test on material that has not been covered in the book then this is going to drive students to Google for the answers because they are not going to have any idea what is being covered and feel that they did not study hard enough. This is one of my many problems with college, but I digress.

I might take a German course either in the summer or in the fall, but I might also take another Spanish course because I hear that German is not that popular and frequently gets canceled. I do find this a little sad, but I also understand it from a students perspective of it being one more class that will be dumping information into your head and testing you beyond what the book is teaching you. Would you rather try something new and challenging in that situation? Or would you rather have ONE class where you do not have to think very hard.

In addition to Spanish in school, I am also attending a Spanish meet up and trying to improve my Spanish at the level that it is currently at. One of the people who manages the group is from Mexico City and is also learning French. He was telling us about how hard it is to speak. He says that there is not much to do other that force yourself to use vocabulary that you are trying to learn because he frequently asks his professor about how to say things and realizes that he already knows the words. True story.

Chatting with other people has also made me realize that for every vocabulary word I have in Spanish for cybersecurity I should also have an explanation (or possibly not learn those words in Spanish and focus on something else). It really does not take long for me to chat about cybersecurity with people that do not know about it in English and they they have no idea what I am talking about. Why would I expect things to be different in Spanish?

[M23]

Spanish

I have had Wrong Side of the Tracks in my Netflix cue for awhile now and I just started to watch it again with the subtitles on. There are people that speak that I do not need to rely much on the subtitles for, but then there are other characters that I need to rely on the subtitles for 100%. The male detective and the crime boss that owns the club are characters that I cannot understand for the life of me. They use slang I do not understand, blend words together, and drop sounds out of words (instead of saying "pasado," for example, they would say "pasa'o").

I had a Spanish Meet Up last night to practice at my current level and I noticed how much easier things go when I have thought about that particular conversation topic before. Earlier this week I woke up and had a tough time getting back to sleep because my brain was stuck on how to explain aphasia to someone that did not quite understand it in Spanish. It came up in conversation, and I noticed that with that little bit of rehearsal I was much more prepared to talk about it. "Build your islands."

Most of my conversation was with a woman who was born in Mexico but lived all of her life over here, so she had a noticeable Gringo accent and her Spanish was around where mine was. It sounds like her kids did not get to learn Spanish, but are working at it now since one of them lives in Barcelona, and the other is in health care (definitely need Spanish there). The other person I was chatting with was from Mexico but spent enough time over there to be fluent and have the accent of northern Mexico down. I stayed until the Meet Up was over, so my brain got a workout of sure.

[M23]

Spanish

My Spanish class is going well. It is certainly an easy class, but also one that is filling in some gaps in my knowledge. I will be taking part 2 of the class this summer, and hopefully that will repair my Spanish as much as it can be repaired. I already notice that my listening and my speaking are better with the language, so hopefully that will continue.

I went to a Meetup to practice my Spanish and had a nice little chat with a lady that is learning English (she is from Chihuahua, MX) and an English native speaker that co-runs the group. We chatted about some of her frustrations with learning English, and I mentioned that English speakers sometime cannot understand each other. For example, I have a terrible time with the Scottish accent and the accent from Whales. She had a rather funny moment when we were talking about difficult Spanish accents, and we mentioned the various Spanish accents. She commented that of course we could understand her because she is from Mexico.

I noticed in chatting with the people from the Meetup group the difference between rehearsed speech and speech that I just have to throw together on the spot. I really noticed how much more challenging spontaneous speech is, and it make me want to rehearse more. Obviously I cannot rehearse everything, but I can at least work on more. I figure that is a job for my neglected HelloTalk app.