Lilly's log - French, Russian, Spanish and Italian

[blaurebell]

Spanish

I finished GdUdE A! After doing my usual hour with it, I only had 2 more lessons left, both super easy, so I decided to go for the final push and be done with it! In total it took me 28.27h to finish it. If I can keep going at this rate the whole course A, B and C will take me 90h roughly, which would take around 3 months at 1h a day.

Problem areas:
* Articles with dates
* overuse of articles and personal pronouns
* word order with adjectives and questions
* Qué vs cuál
* verbos irregulares
* presente VS estoy + Gerund
* pretérito perfecto VS pretérito indefinido *
* imperativos *
* Preposiciones when I don't pay attention to them
* hay que VS tener que

This list looks long, but I actually noted down anything where I didn't feel 100% sure. This means I might have noted down things where I got most exercises right and still made one or two mistakes. On most of the other pages I simply had no mistakes at all or only such that were due to badly designed exercises. In general GdUdE doesn't have too many of them, but occasionally there is more than one way of doing the exercise or it's a little unclear what they want. There are also a few mistakes in the solutions. Overall it's quite good though and it was really good to identify any sort of problem with the grammar. I will use the lists gathered from GdUdE A + B for FSI and go over exercises that address such issues twice. The (*) issues need particular attention, because they are different in Iberian vs Argentinian Spanish and the language learning machine in my head is confused about them. I will have to try to carve the structure into my brain separately for both versions.

So, even though most of GdUdE A was clearly below my level, it was still helpful to identify the problem areas where I still need to perfect my understanding. Right now I get these things right 95-98% of the time, which isn't bad, but I'm a little bit of a perfectionist, so such mistakes annoy me. I also noticed that I make less mistakes while speaking since I started with GdUdE, because it cleared up some grammar confusions. Instead of just hearing that I just made a mistake I now know why and how I can fix it. 28h well spent!

My conclusion is that I should have started this grammar mission already a couple of years ago. I was planning to do it, I even bought a different grammar book, but I didn't like the structure, it was tedious and I wasn't really entirely sure I needed to improve my Spanish. Now I have much more concrete goals and a couple of specific reasons to do this, so it actually makes sense that I now manage to follow through with my plans.

Courses left in my grammar mission:
GdUdE B
FSI Spanish Basic
Macanudo : español lengua extranjera para el Río de la Plata*
Practice Makes Perfect: The Spanish Subjunctive Up Close*
Behind the Wheel Spanish 3*
GdUdE C
Practice Makes Perfect: Advanced Spanish Grammar*

I actually added a few more advanced courses and a course that includes voseo to the list. I have already gone over the basic grammar 3 times (Spanish immersion course, Duolingo, GdUdE) and will end up with 5 basic grammar runs at the end of my mission (FSI, Macanudo). That should hopefully be enough! And since that's a bit of a bias towards basic concepts I made sure to add some more advanced courses to the mix to overlearn those advanced concepts too. Now, my priority will be to finish the most basic drilling - GdUdE B and FSI Spanish Basic - until the end of September. My in-laws are coming over to Europe in October and I really want to use their visit to practice speaking a lot. I'm right on track for this and as long as I finish GdUdE B by the end of June I will have enough time for FSI Spanish Basic. The whole audio has 55h runtime and I have 3 months to cover them. Since most of it is just repetition and drilling of already familiar things I doubt I'll need much more than the actual runtime of the audio. Well, at least until halfway into volume 3 when it starts going over the subjunctive! So, having a buffer of 35h should probably suffice. And then in October in combination with lots of speaking practice I will then move on to Macanudo - perfect timing for Argentinian practice! The advanced courses will be on the list for next year to be finished by the end of May 2018 at the latest.

Do you remember that I made buying a large format camera dependent on finishing Modern Russian? Well, I have dropped my Russian grammar mission for now to focus on breaking through the comprehension barrier first and taking care of my health. So, in the end I have actually replaced the Russian grammar mission with my Spanish grammar mission and the large format camera will be the reward for the Spanish grammar mission. After my Spanish mission I will move on to a French grammar mission, since my French is much further along than my Russian and the timing will probably be right to finally activate it. Activating Russian before I have reached a similar level is just another way of pushing myself too hard and that's not good for my health.

Next big thing to finish: My first book in Russian! Still at 92%.

[Tomás]

I will have enough time for FSI Spanish Basic. The whole audio has 55h runtime and I have 3 months to cover them. Since most of it is just repetition and drilling of already familiar things I doubt I'll need much more than the actual runtime of the audio.

I sometimes need one runthrough to learn what the substitution drill expects me to do, even when I already know the grammar. On the off chance you are as dense as I am you may want to budget a little more than the advertised runtime for the substitution exercises.

On the other hand, at your level you can safely skip the dialogue exercises, which drastically cuts down on the time needed to complete the course.

If you have a Mac product, I recommend the Dicendi version of FSI Spanish on iBooks. To me it is worth the money not having to deal with rewinding.

[Jinx]

Just dropping by to say that I love your log. It's so motivating! I've noted down some book recommendations of yours – thank you for those.

I'm only up to page 22 of the log, so apologies if you mentioned this and I missed it, but: have you checked out the Spanish series "Gran Hotel" (http://wlext.net/series/gran-hotel-season-1)? I haven't watched much of it yet but I really enjoyed it so far – it's a historical mystery/romance story that's rather charming. No idea if it would fit your tastes, but at least it's not as cheesy as a lot of other telenovelas.

[blaurebell]

I sometimes need one runthrough to learn what the substitution drill expects me to do, even when I already know the grammar. On the off chance you are as dense as I am you may want to budget a little more than the advertised runtime for the substitution exercises.

On the other hand, at your level you can safely skip the dialogue exercises, which drastically cuts down on the time needed to complete the course.

If you have a Mac product, I recommend the Dicendi version of FSI Spanish on iBooks. To me it is worth the money not having to deal with rewinding.

Substitution drills often make my brain go into "WTF mode" as well! So whenever I hear the FSI speaker say "Substitution drill" I mark the position in Audacity so that I can rewind easily. After some 13 files of Modern Russian I sort of got used to them though. It really helps that they always have a very similar structure. For the Russian where my grammar is still more shaky than with my Spanish I never needed more than 20% more time for the exercises, so I might be able to do them at real time for Spanish up until subjunctive. I'll see, I have a bit of buffer and if all else fails I can always do two sessions a day, one in the morning one in the afternoon.

What is the Dicendi version like? Are all the exercises split up properly?

[blaurebell]

Just dropping by to say that I love your log. It's so motivating! I've noted down some book recommendations of yours – thank you for those.

I'm only up to page 22 of the log, so apologies if you mentioned this and I missed it, but: have you checked out the Spanish series "Gran Hotel" (http://wlext.net/series/gran-hotel-season-1)? I haven't watched much of it yet but I really enjoyed it so far – it's a historical mystery/romance story that's rather charming. No idea if it would fit your tastes, but at least it's not as cheesy as a lot of other telenovelas.

Thank you for your kind words and you're welcome!

Thank you also for the recommendation, but I have to say that I can barely stand Iberian Spanish TV. Usually the writing is altogether idiotic and the acting is horrifically bad. I think Gran Hotel is starring another one of those El internado actors who can barely act and gets awards for it, right? In any case, I think I will spend my last 20h of my Iberian Spanish SC with some Spanish movies, they tend to be a lot better than their TV. That said, the other actress in Gran Hotel seems to have done a Colombian series that looks mildly interesting!

[blaurebell]

Spanish

Today I started GdUdE B and already finished the first 6 lessons. It was all very easy, because so far all the lessons went over the same stuff as the A book Maybe all that redundancy explains why this level has 10 more lessons than GdUdE A. But well, all the practice will be worthwhile if I don't go out of my skull! And it might even sort out some of my issues that I noticed from the A book by going over them again.

Yesterday we also finished season two of En terapia. We really wanted to finish it, so we continued watching for 4h And although all the characters are a bit horrible and drove us a little nuts with their unwillingness to actually deal with their problems, I think it was actually amazingly written! How it all comes together at the end is really quite amazing. And of course the acting was simply superb too! The only one that drove me nuts with the acting was the character of Valentina, because the actress overdid it and had a really annoying voice. The rest of them were absolutely great though! I have high hopes for season 3 now, because one of my favourite Argentinian actresses is playing one of the characters. As for my listening comprehension: Valentina was really quite tough, worse than crying children, because she totally overdoes the broken voice while half crying. And I understood her I guess the last 215h of TV did something! I'm more than halfway through my Argentinian SC now.

French

I finished the history book I was reading for my PhD. I had absolutely no problems following it and even though there were some words that I couldn't quite pin down, it was rather similar to the experience that I had when I started reading for university in German and English. 7794 pages of 10,000 done. Next up will be another book by Irène Némirovsky. I'm pretty sure that by the end of my PhD I'll be reading French with as much precision as German and English.

Also, I only have one episode of Transfert left. I also need to get some sort of adapter for my phone because the bumper is making my headphones fall out. I already ordered it, but until I get it I simply can't listen to anything while I'm out and about. Annoying! In a few days it will be sorted out I hope.

[Tomás]

What is the Dicendi version like? Are all the exercises split up properly?

Each exercise is on its own page with its audio player in iBooks, so it is easy to jump to exactly the one you want. You can download several chapters for free to see what it looks like and how it works.

[Jinx]

Just dropping by to say that I love your log. It's so motivating! I've noted down some book recommendations of yours – thank you for those.

I'm only up to page 22 of the log, so apologies if you mentioned this and I missed it, but: have you checked out the Spanish series "Gran Hotel" (http://wlext.net/series/gran-hotel-season-1)? I haven't watched much of it yet but I really enjoyed it so far – it's a historical mystery/romance story that's rather charming. No idea if it would fit your tastes, but at least it's not as cheesy as a lot of other telenovelas.

Thank you for your kind words and you're welcome!

Thank you also for the recommendation, but I have to say that I can barely stand Iberian Spanish TV. Usually the writing is altogether idiotic and the acting is horrifically bad. I think Gran Hotel is starring another one of those El internado actors who can barely act and gets awards for it, right? In any case, I think I will spend my last 20h of my Iberian Spanish SC with some Spanish movies, they tend to be a lot better than their TV. That said, the other actress in Gran Hotel seems to have done a Colombian series that looks mildly interesting!

Haha, fair enough, it's all a matter of taste. I suppose I have such low standards for television in general (I'm not a huge TV fan as a rule) that I'm not that picky when I do watch it. (Although, that said, last night I had to stop watching a French show called "Les témoins" halfway through the second episode because the sexist stereotypes were simply too much for me to take – if I see one more male character who is considered "fascinating" and "brilliant" because he doesn't tell anyone what he's thinking and doesn't follow the rules and treats everybody else like shit, I'll SCREAM!) But yes, you'll probably have a lot more luck with movies... I'm looking forward to continuing to follow your log with an eye on any future recommendations.

[blaurebell]

I got a bit worried about my behaviour yesterday thanks to the ban and it turns out that apparently we're all naughty

So, you know what's a big problem? The temptation of procrastinating with social interaction. I really love that there is a language learning community with so many nice people, but I know that I would probably spend more time learning languages if I didn't hang out on the forum for hours every day For example yesterday I spent 9h with my languages although I went out for 2h. Uhm ...! That should give me something to ponder.

Spanish

After doing the first 10 lessons of GdUdE B I got bored with doing the same exercises as in GdUdE A again, so instead of continuing I did the first hour of FSI today. I think if I alternate between FSI and GdUdE I might cut down on the boredom a bit. Now, was the first hour of FSI painful? No, not very. However, the thought of 55h more of the same seemed like quite a mountain all of a sudden I definitely deserve a reward after this one! The advantage of doing it now is that it will help me more directly with speaking. So, 1 unit done, 54 to go. If I alternate between FSI and GdUdE then I can possibly finish Volume 1 before my photography course in Spanish on the 24th of June. I'll see how I feel though, maybe I do more or less, depending on my mood. I think having any clear deadline for FSI might actually make it impossible to finish.

There were also a couple of episodes of Las Chicas del Cable and more En terapia.

French

I read 75 pages of David Golder by Irène Némirovsky which seems like a very interesting book. Not exactly my kind of crowd - rich folks -, but it's somewhat funny to have it happen one town over on the French side of the border. I could just get on a coach and have a look at that town if I really felt like it. Also, Le Scorpion - tome 3 finally arrived, so I read that before bed. Really entertaining! I have one more tome left before we have to order new ones and I think there is Le Monde d'Edena by Moebius on the way. I love reading comics in French.

Russian

I spent some time reading yesterday and got to 93% of my book. There was also a page of only 9% unknown words, so I'm getting somewhere now! I'll try to make an effort to reach the end of the book before my next meeting with my PhD supervisor so that I can brag about it

By the way, I'm starting to develop a space problem after putting most of my recent book purchases on the shelves. With all the books and comics in French I've been buying I think I'll run out of space very soon. And since we've already filled all the walls with bookshelves there is no real solution to the problem. I think we might actually have to put some shelves behind the sofa next After that the only solution will be to move to a bigger place. Clearly book addiction is a serious problem

[blaurebell]

Doctor's appointment time again, so I have to deal with a major disruption of my routine. I still managed a couple more lessons of GdUdE, 4 episodes of En terapia, half an hour of speaking Spanish with the doctor and about half an hour of French listening. The suggestion of speaking Spanish actually comes from my doctor since he knows that I get too little practice around here. After listening to my French podcast on the way to the doctor yesterday I ended up with a little interference, so for today's appointment I decided to switch to a Spanish podcast about Science Fiction and Fantasy instead. This definitely helped and I was already in a Spanish mood when we started speaking today which meant that I was not stumbling around too much this time. By the way, I need a warm up time in all languages I speak regularly, English, German, Spanish. Even when I dance tango I need about 3 tangos before I get used to it again. I'm also bad at dealing with unexpected situations, like running into friends on the street or being expected to speak eloquently about certain topics out of the blue. I guess I'm just not very spontaneous in that regard.

This morning I actually did another session of FSI Spanish Basic. I have now done 3 units and the grammar drills are starting. So far not difficult at all and I also don't have problems staying concentrated for the whole hour. I also don't really have to stop the recording at all unless they want me to repeat 3 sentences instead of one, which would overload my short term memory in any language So, if I continue along these lines I actually have good chances of getting at least Volume 1 of FSI Spanish Basic out of the way before my course on the 24th. I think I will profit more from this than from more GdUdE at this point and will therefore go through GdUdE more slowly now while focussing on FSI. I think all this work on my grammar is actually helping with confidence too. The other day I dealt with bank stuff on my own and it was just fine, completely without any hesitation, weirdness or anything. Good to know that all my efforts are paying off!