Re: Danny's 2 year long POLISH immersion experience!
Posted: Sat May 25, 2019 2:28 am
(Possible) Language Plan for Summer 2019 (while home in NYC)...
Goal: Completely Mentally Separate Portuguese and Spanish.
My Portuguese is quite good. I'm definitely B2 in everything except writing. But Spanish still interferes with my Portuguese.
This morning I talked to a friend from Bogotá on the phone for an hour, and we talked about pretty complex topics like student loans etc. Then, my friend from Brazil called me out of the blue and we ended up talking for about an hour and a half.
I don't confuse words and grammar that much anymore. I rarely have Spanish words come into head when speaking Portuguese.
Sometimes I'll doubt a word, like I said "manter" then I asked, "Como se diz isto em português? Se diz mantener ou manter? Qual é a palavra certa?"
The way I separate languages in my brain is through working on pronunciation and rhythm. This has always worked the best for me. I hear the word "casa" as "[k′azә]" in Portuguese, ['ka.sa] in Spanish and ['ha.sa] in Italian (Yes. "La gorgia toscana" is a part of my mental framework for Italian, if I say it with a hard /k/ sound it feels like I'm trying too hard.)
My Spanish literally came back overnight. I watched some youtube videos in Spanish, and fell asleep to telemundo, and this morning when I talked to my friend on the phone, I even recorded myself towards the end to see how I sounded. I fixed the /ɛ/ and /e/ problem overnight with some quick immersion and listening - paying close attention the the exact sound of the /ɛ/ sound. In the recording I said the 'e' in the stressed syllable a little bit higher, almost like /e/ but still closer the /ɛ/.
When speaking Portuguese, I asked my friend how it sounded, since I've been neglecting it for months, and he said my accent became way more "portunhol-ish". I didn't record myself, but I realized I've been saying the 's' like /s/ instead of /z/ in certain places and pronouncing the 'n' as if it was Spanish. For example, pronouncing "cantar" as [kan'tah] instead of [kɐ̃'ta].
Also, I tried to shadow some basic sentences, and I keep pronouncing 'de' as /di/ instead of /d͡ʒi/. I kept saying words like "vendas" like [ven'dəs] instead of [vɛ̃'dəs].
I can never speak both Portuguese and Spanish "at my best" at the same time. One always takes precedence over the other. This happens to a lesser extent with Italian and Spanish, but it's more "rustiness" in the sense that I just need a second to think and I know what's what. In Portuguese and Spanish, I need to look up words and ask questions. I don't think Portuguese has "infiltrated" my Spanish, but I know that Spanish pronunciation has infiltrated my Portuguese. Right now my Spanish is really strong. I'm going to try to maintain my Spanish at this strong level, and simultaneously improve my Portuguese, through focusing on Pronunciation.
Whenever I reach a B2-ish level, I always improve my language dramatically through going crazy with pronunciation and phonology. I love phonetics and accents, but in order to understand the phonetics of a language very well, you need to understand the language itself very well. I guess you could say this is my way of "tricking myself" once I've reached a B2 level, where I feel totally comfortable and myself in the language, but I make noticeable errors quite often, like grammatical, vocabulary, and pronunciation errors for example.
_________
How I'll improve Portuguese? AND maintain/improve my Spanish
- READING QUORA FOR 30 MINUTES A DAY in Portuguese.
- Watching Danilo Gentili's talk show daily, or at least a few times a week. (I'm aiming for the São Paulo pronunciation, simply due to the fact that it's the most easily accessible. Nonetheless, my favorite accent is Rio de Janeiro's Carioca accent.)
- Talking everyday with Brazilians (and one Portuguese person!) on the phone.
- Talking everyday in Spanish, even using free for talk if no one's around to chat.
________
The daily speaking is probably the most important part, since the only time I get a real self evaluation is when I'm forced to speak for 30+ minutes. Under 30 minutes I can make an effort to speak correctly, but after 30 minutes, (if I'm not fluent enough in the language,) I'll start to slip up and make mistakes.
If I find that my Spanish is getting worse, or that my Portuguese is not improving, I'll readjust.
P.S. Youtube's "slow the video" feature is great if you want to figure out what was said, but they were talking to fast! OR! if you simply want to hear the way someone pronounced something in slo-motion to really analyze what was said!
If anyone has any advice, resources, questions, criticisms, I'd be happy to hear it! (even criticisms, I'm serious!)
Goal: Completely Mentally Separate Portuguese and Spanish.
My Portuguese is quite good. I'm definitely B2 in everything except writing. But Spanish still interferes with my Portuguese.
This morning I talked to a friend from Bogotá on the phone for an hour, and we talked about pretty complex topics like student loans etc. Then, my friend from Brazil called me out of the blue and we ended up talking for about an hour and a half.
I don't confuse words and grammar that much anymore. I rarely have Spanish words come into head when speaking Portuguese.
Sometimes I'll doubt a word, like I said "manter" then I asked, "Como se diz isto em português? Se diz mantener ou manter? Qual é a palavra certa?"
The way I separate languages in my brain is through working on pronunciation and rhythm. This has always worked the best for me. I hear the word "casa" as "[k′azә]" in Portuguese, ['ka.sa] in Spanish and ['ha.sa] in Italian (Yes. "La gorgia toscana" is a part of my mental framework for Italian, if I say it with a hard /k/ sound it feels like I'm trying too hard.)
My Spanish literally came back overnight. I watched some youtube videos in Spanish, and fell asleep to telemundo, and this morning when I talked to my friend on the phone, I even recorded myself towards the end to see how I sounded. I fixed the /ɛ/ and /e/ problem overnight with some quick immersion and listening - paying close attention the the exact sound of the /ɛ/ sound. In the recording I said the 'e' in the stressed syllable a little bit higher, almost like /e/ but still closer the /ɛ/.
When speaking Portuguese, I asked my friend how it sounded, since I've been neglecting it for months, and he said my accent became way more "portunhol-ish". I didn't record myself, but I realized I've been saying the 's' like /s/ instead of /z/ in certain places and pronouncing the 'n' as if it was Spanish. For example, pronouncing "cantar" as [kan'tah] instead of [kɐ̃'ta].
Also, I tried to shadow some basic sentences, and I keep pronouncing 'de' as /di/ instead of /d͡ʒi/. I kept saying words like "vendas" like [ven'dəs] instead of [vɛ̃'dəs].
I can never speak both Portuguese and Spanish "at my best" at the same time. One always takes precedence over the other. This happens to a lesser extent with Italian and Spanish, but it's more "rustiness" in the sense that I just need a second to think and I know what's what. In Portuguese and Spanish, I need to look up words and ask questions. I don't think Portuguese has "infiltrated" my Spanish, but I know that Spanish pronunciation has infiltrated my Portuguese. Right now my Spanish is really strong. I'm going to try to maintain my Spanish at this strong level, and simultaneously improve my Portuguese, through focusing on Pronunciation.
Whenever I reach a B2-ish level, I always improve my language dramatically through going crazy with pronunciation and phonology. I love phonetics and accents, but in order to understand the phonetics of a language very well, you need to understand the language itself very well. I guess you could say this is my way of "tricking myself" once I've reached a B2 level, where I feel totally comfortable and myself in the language, but I make noticeable errors quite often, like grammatical, vocabulary, and pronunciation errors for example.
_________
How I'll improve Portuguese? AND maintain/improve my Spanish
- READING QUORA FOR 30 MINUTES A DAY in Portuguese.
- Watching Danilo Gentili's talk show daily, or at least a few times a week. (I'm aiming for the São Paulo pronunciation, simply due to the fact that it's the most easily accessible. Nonetheless, my favorite accent is Rio de Janeiro's Carioca accent.)
- Talking everyday with Brazilians (and one Portuguese person!) on the phone.
- Talking everyday in Spanish, even using free for talk if no one's around to chat.
________
The daily speaking is probably the most important part, since the only time I get a real self evaluation is when I'm forced to speak for 30+ minutes. Under 30 minutes I can make an effort to speak correctly, but after 30 minutes, (if I'm not fluent enough in the language,) I'll start to slip up and make mistakes.
If I find that my Spanish is getting worse, or that my Portuguese is not improving, I'll readjust.
P.S. Youtube's "slow the video" feature is great if you want to figure out what was said, but they were talking to fast! OR! if you simply want to hear the way someone pronounced something in slo-motion to really analyze what was said!
If anyone has any advice, resources, questions, criticisms, I'd be happy to hear it! (even criticisms, I'm serious!)