M23's Language Log: Spanish and German

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M23
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Re: M23's Language Log: Spanish and German

Postby M23 » Mon Nov 12, 2018 6:14 am

The semester is almost over and I am looking forward to getting some time back to noodle with my languages. I have been itching for some German study, but I have to refrain because I need to dedicate that brain power to my school work. I have been doing a daily Duolingo lesson to keep warm, and I am enjoying squeezing in some Coffee Break German when I can.

On the Spanish front I watched about nine episodes of Casa de los Flores on Netflix yesterday, and then on Saturday I went to my monthly Spanish meetup. That went way better than I was expecting it to given that nowadays I get zero output in with the exception of that monthly meetup. Even though I have not actively working on my output, something must be going on behind the scenes in my brain because when I get to my monthly meetups the floodgates seem to open and I find myself chatting up a storm - sometimes on subjects that previously would have stopped me dead in my tracks.

Like I said, hopefully once the semester finishes up I will have more brain power to dedicate to language noodling, and I will have some interesting things to put in my log.

Until then, stay thirsty (for language) my friends.
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SGP
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Re: M23's Language Log: Spanish and German

Postby SGP » Mon Nov 12, 2018 10:47 am

M23 wrote:The semester is almost over and I am looking forward to getting some time back to noodle with my languages. I have been itching for some German study, but I have to refrain because I need to dedicate that brain power to my school work. I have been doing a daily Duolingo lesson to keep warm, and I am enjoying squeezing in some Coffee Break German when I can.
As a native of German, I'd really like to know if you consider that language sometimes really taking up much of your brain's power :). I mean whether it takes up much more than Spanish for example, or not. Because for me, it sometimes really is that way, even if I am a native (explained here).
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M23
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Re: M23's Language Log: Spanish and German

Postby M23 » Mon Nov 12, 2018 9:36 pm

SGP wrote:
M23 wrote:The semester is almost over and I am looking forward to getting some time back to noodle with my languages. I have been itching for some German study, but I have to refrain because I need to dedicate that brain power to my school work. I have been doing a daily Duolingo lesson to keep warm, and I am enjoying squeezing in some Coffee Break German when I can.
As a native of German, I'd really like to know if you consider that language sometimes really taking up much of your brain's power :). I mean whether it takes up much more than Spanish for example, or not. Because for me, it sometimes really is that way, even if I am a native (explained here).


Like you mentioned in the post you linked to, I only have so much in my energy reserves for mentally exerting tasks and then it is gone. Since I am so new to German, it absolutely drains me faster that Spanish. I remember Spanish used to drain me like German does now, but since I have learned more of it - and have to exert myself less to speak and understand it - I can go for hours on end before it starts becoming noticeable that I need to rest.

With German I tend to burnout really quick if I am in study mode. I have a bit more energy for it if I am just passively listening to it and seeing what I pick up and what I don't. Curiously, I notice my energy for it increases when I go to Germany to visit my wife's family. I feel like I am in sponge mode when I am out there, and I want to soak up as much as I can while I am there. I am, however, not exerting my mind with anything else but German while I am over there, so perhaps that is where the extra energy is coming from.
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SGP
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Re: M23's Language Log: Spanish and German

Postby SGP » Tue Nov 13, 2018 4:11 pm

(The original post isn't relevant any more after the purpose of the "Everything Else" Log has changed.
And this one-line notice could be deleted as well.)
Last edited by SGP on Sun Dec 30, 2018 7:49 am, edited 1 time in total.
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M23
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Re: M23's Language Log: Spanish and German

Postby M23 » Sun Dec 30, 2018 7:06 am

Spanish

While I was out of town a few months ago, I picked up another Isabel Allende book at a used bookstore. I had finished the book I was reading at the time and forgot to bring the book I was planning on digging into next. Anyway, after getting through one-hundred-something pages into it I have decided to pull the plug on it. I might be just reading the worst combination of her books because all three have been the same story told three different ways. If someone has never read one of her books, then I would suggest House of Spirits and move on to a different author. The book I had intended on digging into next will be Rayuela. Julio Cortazár is quite a step up from Allende, so I expect to have my nose in the dictionary quite often. It is also quite poetic and the content of the novel will take some additional brain power to dig at in addition to it being in my L2. For anyone familiar with this novel, it is non-linear... so since I am reading it in my L2 I am going to use the chart in the beginning at the book to read it linearly to try and keep the confusion down to a minimum.

On the Netflix front I finished up watching La Casa de Papel as well as La Casa de Flores. The first was rough as my ear has a hard time with Spain accents - as well as the speed at which they speak. Subtitles with that show was a must. Aside from that, my wife and I binge-watched the F out of that show. The second was total trash, yet enjoyable.

German

The Duolingo continues. Now that I am on break I have more time for Coffee Break German as well as Nico's Weg. I periodically try the Beginner's German Reader that I bought many moons and it proves to be too much. I tried again the other day... and it is still too much.

For Christmas I was gifted some more German music by my German in-laws. I have not listened to all of it yet because I have been hung up on the Glasperlenspiel album. They have a knack for writing really catchy tunes that makes me want to listen over and over again. Here are a few selections for those of you looking for some new German bubblegum electro-pop:

Du Bist
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMqXIxLVFkU

Willkommen zurück
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qnnmFnZyp8
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SGP
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Re: M23's Language Log: Spanish and German

Postby SGP » Sun Dec 30, 2018 8:20 am

German

The Duolingo continues. Now that I am on break I have more time for Coffee Break German as well as Nico's Weg. I periodically try the Beginner's German Reader that I bought many moons and it proves to be too much. I tried again the other day... and it is still too much.
This could be because books tend to use much more different words than a Daily Life Spoken Language Podcast like CBG. I once had a comparable experience when I was reading in Spanish. Some were rather easy to understand. But others were too difficult, because they were about some specific topics with jargon-y vocabulary. And by that, I don't mean rocket science ;).

They simply were about something that I could read about in English, but not in Spanish. I don't recall their particular topics any more, but some examples could be cooking, anything related to ships and the Seven Seas, or visual arts. We don't always call the words of these topics a jargon, because they really are closer to the Usual Daily Life Vocabulary than scientific terms used in physics and chemistry. But still, in order to be able to read about cooking and similar subjects, some one-time efforts are needed, even in one's native language.
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M23
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Re: M23's Language Log: Spanish and German

Postby M23 » Sun Dec 30, 2018 11:41 pm

SGP wrote:
This could be because books tend to use much more different words than a Daily Life Spoken Language Podcast like CBG. I once had a comparable experience when I was reading in Spanish. Some were rather easy to understand. But others were too difficult, because they were about some specific topics with jargon-y vocabulary. And by that, I don't mean rocket science ;).


True story. When you are in a beginner stage like I am with German it does not take much to bump up against the edge of the boundaries of your knowledge. The story that I was trying to read was about a phoenix, so... yes. CBG and Nico are teaching the basics in order to get someone just enough German to be able to express basic needs, and to get some grammar rules down so that when more vocabulary is learned it can be used right away. This is all part of the process. Just like with Spanish, I periodically get materials that are a few steps above where I am, and then as I learn I periodically pick them up to see if they are more workable. If not (like with the German Reader) then I set it back down and keep working with other materials. If it is workable then I will start using it/reading it/etc.
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M23
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Re: M23's Language Log: Spanish and German

Postby M23 » Sat May 18, 2019 6:43 pm

The storm is finally calming down enough where I actually have the possibility to work on my languages a bit. There is nothing really to report with my German other than I am hoping to start it back up this coming week by resuming Nico's Weg. This week I started reading a book that I was given at Christmas but have yet to have time to read until now: La LLamada del Tribu by Mario Vargas LLosa. It is a nice blend of an academic subject matter presented in a conversation fashion, and should be helpful in the vocabulary department for tackling more difficult conversations that have a philosophical or political tone to them. At some point I also want to start skimming some more technical literature for useful industry jargon. It seems like the NIST CSF might be a good starting point:

https://www.nist.gov/sites/default/files/documents/2018/12/10/frameworkesmellrev_20181102mn_clean.pdf

More to come as I de-stress a bit and have more to give to my languages.
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Re: M23's Language Log: Spanish and German

Postby M23 » Mon Jun 03, 2019 6:18 am

Spanish

I have been watching the Pokemon Sun and Moon cartoon series in Spanish on Netflix. It doesn't strain me too much, so I can watch multiple episodes back-to-back and get some good input in without completely baking my brain. On the book side I have been reading the Mario Vargas Llosa book that I was gifted for Xmas. There is plenty of good philosophy vocabulary in there to absorb. I will keep at that and then look to get into some conversations about philosophy in a future Meetup. Speaking of that, I went to a Meetup to get some practice in last week. As I suspected, my Spanish took a bit of a hit since I barely had any output in the past few months. On the bright side, things were not as bad as I was expecting.

German

I have been finishing off a few more units of Nico's Weg, as well as getting quite a bit of Duolingo in. I have been struggling with Coffee Break German since they are getting more into large chunks of time spent speaking German, and their explanation sections are not terribly clear. Since this is the case it might be a good idea to set it down for a while and focus on Nico's Weg and a learner book I have been working with off and on. German has been a bit of a struggle to find motivation and energy for since it taxes my brain meats more than Spanish does.
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Re: M23's Language Log: Spanish and German

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Wed Jun 05, 2019 12:05 am

Your persistance in the face of pressures at work impress me very much.
Your assessment of Isabel Allende's novels more or less agrees with mine, but I found her volume of short stories to be excellent: Los Cuentos de Eva Luna. Cortázar, in addition to Rayuela, also wrote a number of worthy short stories that I can recommend. In addition to big novels, the late Gabriel García Márquez wrote a number of interesting short stories. I recommend reading a couple of them in English to see whether you like them before plunging into the Spanish originals. In fact, I do this with a lot of writers. Finally, there is Como Agua para Chocolate, a lot of fun (the movie, too), by Mexican writer Laura Esquivel (though I believe it bombed with a readers group here :cry: ).

It is a bit hard for me to judge your reading level, and perhaps my recommendations are a bit above your current level. And of course might not even be in your range of interests. But so much fine Spanish literature has been written in Spain and Spanish America you'll never run out.

Continued success!
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