Karen's Spanish learning journey

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klvik
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Re: Karen's Spanish learning journey

Postby klvik » Sun Jun 03, 2018 10:34 pm

I signed up for the super challenge and I'm hoping that it will help me get back into the habit of updating my log.

During April I read Los Rito del Agua, by Eva García Sáenz de Uturi. It is the second novel in a trilogy by this author (the third book of the trilogy has not yet been published). It started with a overly long (for my tastes) compendium of myths, lengends and historical tibits which I did not enjoy, but once the story started I enjoyed it very much. After enjoying two novels by this author I unfortunately decided to read a third one, Pasaje a Tahití. It's not bad but not as enjoyable as the previous two books I had read by this author. I hope to finish it this week and then I will have to clean my reading palate with some light "flufffy" reading.

Gardening season started in earnest last month and I have been putting in the hours listening as I plant, weed, water and prune. One of the things I listened to while gardening was an unofficial audiobook of The Hobbit (https://us.ivoox.com/es/escuchar-tabern ... 983_1.html) that I think is very well done. The reader speaks slightly faster than is typical for a commercial audiobook (good!) and uses different voices for each character (yeah!!!). I highly recommend it.
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January 5, 2020
2020 Output Challenge speaking: 66 / 3000

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klvik
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Re: Karen's Spanish learning journey

Postby klvik » Mon Oct 08, 2018 8:43 pm

I have been slacking on writing updates this year (it's only my third log post this year), but at least I have been consistently working on my Spanish.

For the past several months most of my "Spanish time" has being spent reading or listening to podcasts/audiobooks. I still watch some TV but I find that I prefer listening to podcasts right now. I have never been a big fan of television watching and the novelty of watching in Spanish is wearing off. However, with a good podcast I can listen to an episode more than once without getting bored. I expect that after a break from television watching I will be able to return to it with fresh enthusiasm. My reading in Spanish is going very well; reading novels feels easy now. I read more slowly than I do in English, of course, but reading in Spanish feels natural. Using the Kindle helps a lot. At some point I will need to start reading non-fiction to broaden my exposure, but for now I will just read for enjoyment which for me means fiction.

In July I started classes with a tutor over Skype and I've been happy with this decision. My goal for the tutoring sessions has been to work on the spoken language in ways that I wouldn't necessarily use with a language exchange partner. I currently have two consistent language exchange partners and we chat about a wide range of topics. I'm feeling fairly comfortable with this type of spontaneous, informal conversation but my work with my tutor has demonstrated that I am very uncomfortable giving a very short (2-3 minute), semi-formal presentation about a specific topic. So for each lesson I prepare a short presentation on a topic of my choice. In between lessons, I pick one of the grammatical mistakes that I had made during the previous lesson and review the topic until the next lesson. I'm only scheduling a lesson every other week so I have plenty of time to review the chosen grammar topic and my preparations for tutoring sessions do not take up too much of my time spent with the language.
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January 5, 2020
2020 Output Challenge speaking: 66 / 3000

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klvik
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Re: Karen's Spanish learning journey

Postby klvik » Mon Nov 19, 2018 3:38 am

I started this MOOC (http://mooc.speakapps.org/) a few weeks ago. The course is designed to provide guided language exchanges between native Spanish speakers and native English speakers. The course content is well thought out and useful although the MOODLE platform hosting the course is temperamental. I took the course when it was offered two years ago and have been pleasantly surprised this time by how much my spoken Spanish has improved. Two years ago I felt that everyone with whom I interacted spoke English at a much, much higher level than I spoke Spanish. This year I do not feel as though this is the case. It is very encouraging to be able to notice substantial improvement since I usually fall into the trap of noticing the imperfections and ignoring the improvements.

Noticeable improvements aside, my spoken Spanish still leaves a lot to be desired. My vocabulary is pretty good, both passive and productive, but I lack fluidity when I speak and I make more grammatical errors than I would like. I also have noticed that my ability to communicate in Spanish is easily perturbed. If I'm feeling tired , distracted or am dealing with a bad Skype connection, it feels as though I can barely put a sentence together. I know that this is perfectly normal - but it still sucks. I guess if I spent as many hours speaking in Spanish as I do listening to Spanish my verbal skills in the language would be much better. For the year 2018 to date, I've spent ~10x more time listening than speaking so it's really no surprise that my listening skills are improving faster than my speaking skills. I just need to have more conversations in Spanish - a lot more.
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January 5, 2020
2020 Output Challenge speaking: 66 / 3000

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klvik
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Re: Karen's Spanish learning journey

Postby klvik » Mon Jan 14, 2019 11:51 pm

Summary of my efforts during 2018

Logged hours of listening to audio/watching video: 288
The total number of hours is greater than the logged hours since I haven’t been logging the podcasts that I listen to while exercising, cleaning the house, driving or gardening. 73% of the logged hours derived from television shows (fiction), 22% from podcasts, 4% from audiobooks. I’m pleased with what I’ve accomplished with my listening activities.

Pages read: 7524
2018 was the year in which I transitioned from young adult books to big girl books. Woo hoo!!!! I spent 2018 consuming a mixture of light reading and more mainstream books. Well, maybe it was more like a diet of light reading with a sprinkle of mainstream books: 75% of the material I would consider light reading (My definition of light reading is a book that I could knock back in a day if it were in English). Although most of my reading material in 2018 was not intellectually stimulating, it did help me increase my reading speed in Spanish. I have progressed from painfully slow to comfortably slow.

Words written: 5200
It is a pathetic total. I can do better this year. I will do better this year.

Hours of conversation: 46
Speaking is my weakest skill which is not surprising given the little time I spend speaking in Spanish. I only logged 46 hours of conversation this year and more than ½ of that occurred during a 6 week online conversation course. If I want to improve, I need to up the hours I spend speaking the language.

Overall, I’m pleased with my progress during 2018 but I think it is time to focus on improving my spoken Spanish. My vocabulary is pretty good and my grammar isn’t too bad but I do not speak in a fluid manner. My goal this year is to make a noticeable improvement in the fluidity of my speaking. To accomplish this, I plan to double, at least, the number of hours spent having conversations in Spanish. I have also signed up for the output challenge.
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January 5, 2020
2020 Output Challenge speaking: 66 / 3000

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MamaPata
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Re: Karen's Spanish learning journey

Postby MamaPata » Tue Jan 15, 2019 6:53 am

Those seem like impressive figures to me!
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Corrections appreciated.

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klvik
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Re: Karen's Spanish learning journey

Postby klvik » Thu Jan 17, 2019 3:23 am

MamaPata wrote:Those seem like impressive figures to me!


Impressive figures come with a cost. During 2018 I read very little in English and I didn't listen to any podcasts in my native language.
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January 5, 2020
2020 Output Challenge speaking: 66 / 3000

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klvik
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Re: Karen's Spanish learning journey

Postby klvik » Sat Feb 16, 2019 7:34 pm

Part I. The problems.

As I mentioned in my last post, my primary goal for 2019 is to improve the fluidity with which I speak Spanish. While increasing the time that I spend speaking the language will help enormously, I hope that addressing complimentary areas at the same time may speed my progress. Thus, as a first step I decided to try to assess the deficiencies that contribute to the lack of fluidity in my spoken Spanish.

1. Pronunciation. I had always thought that my pronunciation wasn’t too bad: I don’t have the dreaded typical North American Gringo Accent and I seem to be easy to understand. However, upon further reflection I realized that my supposedly good pronunciation was a house of cards – any little perturbation and it all comes crashing down. For instances, when I try to speak a little bit faster suddenly nothing comes out correctly or if I am trying to say something complicated my pronunciation will take a nosedive.
2. Phrasing. I need to improve the phrasing of my spoken Spanish. I have a tendency to group the words in a strange way which probably contributes to the lack of flow in my Spanish.
3. Grammar. I don’t believe that my knowledge of Spanish grammar is a significant impediment to the fluidity of my speech but I’m sure that it contributes.
4. Reaction time. This could be my biggest problem. I don’t consciously translate from English when I speak. It just takes too long for the Spanish words to come out. It’s as though they’re flowing through thick mud to reach my brain. Right now, I’m not sure how much of my slow reaction time is due to insufficient time spent talking (easier to fix) or the formation of a habit (trickier to fix).
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January 5, 2020
2020 Output Challenge speaking: 66 / 3000

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klvik
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Re: Karen's Spanish learning journey

Postby klvik » Tue Dec 24, 2019 8:33 pm

Once again, it’s time to evaluate my progress and think about how I might do things differently in the coming year.
In January, I stated that my primary goal for 2019 was to improve the fluidity with which I speak Spanish. My planned approach was to increase the number of hours spent speaking Spanish – both during language exchanges and with solo output. I set a goal of 100 hours of Spanish conversation during language exchanges and I signed up for a partial Output Challenge. Fast forward almost 12 months and what have I accomplished? Did I reach my targets and am I speaking with more fluidity? My answer is “sort of”. Yes, I have improved my fluidity but I still have a long, long way to go before I speak with an acceptable (at least for me) degree of fluidity.

The first goal (>100 hours of Spanish conversation during language exchanges) I have achieved which represents a doubling over the previous year. I have 3 regular language exchange partners. The sessions with one of my exchange partners are unplanned, open conversations about a range of topics, but with the other two we try to include some structure in our conversations.

I did not complete the output challenge. I was on track until the middle of May when I realized that I needed remedial work on my pronunciation. It wasn’t as though my pronunciation was horrible. I sounded pretty decent when I was repeating after recorded audio but my pronunciation suffered when I tried to speak at a more natural speed or when I was trying to express more complex thoughts during a language exchange. So, instead of continuing with the output challenge I have been doing a combination of chorusing/shadowing with the goal of maintaining decent pronunciation while speaking at a normal speed (low end of normal for a native speaker). It’s working, but very, very slowly. I will write a more detailed description of what I have done at a later date.

Happy Holidays to everyone.
p.s. 50 pages to go in order to complete the Super Challenge.
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January 5, 2020
2020 Output Challenge speaking: 66 / 3000

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klvik
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Re: Karen's Spanish learning journey

Postby klvik » Sat Dec 28, 2019 4:52 pm

I have finished another Double Super Challenge. As of this morning, 10,009 pages read and 315 hours of watching/listening since May 2018.

Favorite book read during this challenge: El guardián invisible, by Dolores Redondo.

Great book that I couldn’t finish: La isla bajo el mar, by Isabel Allende. I read too slowly in Spanish to make it through the most depressing parts.

Favorite TV shows watched: It’s a tie between La casa de papel (season 1 & 2, Netflix version) and Estoy Vivo (season 1). The first is a modern take on a classic caper story (think Ocean’s Eleven or The Italian Job) while the second is a charming, campy cross between a police/detective show and science fiction.

Favorite movies watched: Roma and Todos lo saben (with Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem). Both are great movies for realistic dialog.
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January 5, 2020
2020 Output Challenge speaking: 66 / 3000

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MamaPata
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Re: Karen's Spanish learning journey

Postby MamaPata » Thu Jan 02, 2020 9:00 pm

Congratulations! Very impressive!
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