Bex's Spanish log 2018. Chapter 2: Improbable ambitions

[Jaleel10]

Hi Bex. If you ever need more reading material I have an ebook of Hans Andersen best fairy tales translated to Castilian Spanish. I'd be more than happy to share it with you.

We'll done with the transcribing. Can't wait to incorporate it into my own routine.

[Bex]

Friday update:
Reading Target: 100 pages. This week = 18 (2018 total 464)
Writing Target: 1000 words. This week = 1060 (2018 total 4769)
Listening Target: 120 minutes. This week = 55 (2018 total 941)
Speaking Target: 60 minutes. This week = 45 (2018 total 345)

Generally not a good week this week

I was really tired all week, I was not sleeping well and I was busy and grumpy. Lots of interruptions at home and I did not manage to find any reasonable chunks of time for listening or reading, etc. I managed to do a little bit of everything though and I shall try and step it up next week.

Listening: I am trying to improve my listening skills. I can listen and follow all of a NIS intermediate podcast and I know from reading the transcripts afterwards that I have understood correctly. When I read the transcript I understand 90-99% of it so there's hardly any unknown vocabulary.

However there are words/sounds that I just miss because I can’t process the speech fast enough, I know that this will come with practice and lots of listening but it is annoying me, and I know that slowing down the audio doesn’t help me with this...so I have decided to speed up the audio to double speed. I am going to listen to the same 30 minute double speed audio everyday during next week and see if I can speed up my listening skills at the same time.

My hope is that if I can follow the 30 minute audio completely after a week then it will seem slow when I listen at normal speed. Or I may just be mad?

Speaking: I appear to have given up on Glossika. It’s too difficult and I am never in the right frame of mind for it. I may just add one random extra iTalki chat once a month to keep on track with my speaking target.

Reading: I am finding the Harry Potter book difficult to read, there is lots of unknown vocabulary but it is definitely easier to become absorbed in a longer book than skipping from one short story to another and much less boring than my readers were. I didn’t read much this week partly because I didn’t have much quiet time where I could read and partly because I am looking up every 5th word and it is painfully slow. I am hoping once I’m a few hundred pages in that it will get easier.

Because of my lack of large periods of time this week (lots of waiting around for people this week) I managed to fit in a bucket load of Clozemaster here and there in 10-15 minutes chunks and racked up over 5 hours on it over the course of the week. Shame I don’t include this time in any of my targets! I still only have 246 out of 6,000+ sentences mastered

So there it is another week gone by and another load of targets not met (again)...seems I am living up to the name of my log thus far

[iguanamon]

...However there are words/sounds that I just miss because I can’t process the speech fast enough, I know that this will come with practice and lots of listening but it is annoying me, and I know that slowing down the audio doesn’t help me with this...so I have decided to speed up the audio to double speed. I am going to listen to the same 30 minute double speed audio everyday during next week and see if I can speed up my listening skills at the same time.
My hope is that if I can follow the 30 minute audio completely after a week then it will seem slow when I listen at normal speed. Or I may just be mad?

Perhaps, I don't know. Experiments are worth trying, if only to see if they work or not. Still, really, it's about listening more, listening regularly and paying attention. Gimmicks only go so far and can't really replace the hard work needed. It takes what it takes, despite our impatience.

...I am finding the Harry Potter book difficult to read, there is lots of unknown vocabulary but it is definitely easier to become absorbed in a longer book than skipping from one short story to another and much less boring than my readers were. I didn’t read much this week partly because I didn’t have much quiet time where I could read and partly because I am looking up every 5th word and it is painfully slow. I am hoping once I’m a few hundred pages in that it will get easier.

It will get easier because words and phrases repeat. It just takes a long time to build up enough of a base. Besides, HP will have a lot of specialized vocabulary- the whole "wizardy" thing. If you can power through and accept the frustration for now it will get better. I remember when I was reading my first real Haitian Creole novel "Woben Lakwa" ("Robinson Crusoe"), it was painfully slow with new vocabulary, specialized nautical vocabulary, and new patterns I hadn't seen before. I really noticed it getting easier after about 150 pages. By the end of the book, I had it whipped.

You are doing fine. We can't always be consistent but you are being persistent and persistence keeps you in the game until you can be consistent again. I find goals and targets limit me and don't actually help me to achieve despite the conventional wisdom. We're all different though, ymmv. Keep up the good work!

[AndyMeg]

Friday update:
Reading Target: 100 pages. This week = 18 (2018 total 464)
Writing Target: 1000 words. This week = 1060 (2018 total 4769)
Listening Target: 120 minutes. This week = 55 (2018 total 941)
Speaking Target: 60 minutes. This week = 45 (2018 total 345)

Generally not a good week this week

I was really tired all week, I was not sleeping well and I was busy and grumpy. Lots of interruptions at home and I did not manage to find any reasonable chunks of time for listening or reading, etc. I managed to do a little bit of everything though and I shall try and step it up next week.

You did great for a rough week! (and over 5 hours of Clozemaster is a lot!)

This week was difficult for me too: I had a small (ambulatory) surgery and too much to do and too little time to do it and I was not in the best shape to do it.

Just as Iguanamon said, persistence is key for when you can't be consistent. And it is also important to value any progress you make because that means you are moving forward.

[Bex]

You are doing fine. We can't always be consistent but you are being persistent and persistence keeps you in the game until you can be consistent again. I find goals and targets limit me and don't actually help me to achieve despite the conventional wisdom. We're all different though, ymmv. Keep up the good work!

Thanks iguanamon. Interesting read about goals and targets, I don't take my targets too seriously. I just use then as a marker of my absolute ideal if I were studying perfectly...so if I hit them it's great but I mostly expect not too because I never expect to be perfect

[Bex]

Just as Iguanamon said, persistence is key for when you can't be consistent. And it is also important to value any progress you make because that means you are moving forward.

Thanks also AndyMeg

Thats why I love logging my Spanish journey so much, keeps me accountable. The accountability keeps me going and so I don't have months of no Spanish. I always aim to have something to log each week even if it's just a little Spanish I manage to squeeze in somewhere.

[Bex]

Friday update:
Writing Target: 1000 words. This week = 2626 (2018 total 7395)
Speaking Target: 60 minutes. This week = 45 (2018 total 390)
Reading Target: 100 pages. This week = 10 (2018 total 474)
Listening Target: 120 minutes. This week = 148 (2018 total 1063)

I appear to be spending all my time transcribing. I am finding it extremely helpful. My routine with it seems to have settled at....

1. Transcribe 1 full 10 minute podcast. Underline any unsure/unknown/unrecognizable vocabulary or speech. This takes about an hour or more.
2. Read the official spanish transcription and compare with my transcription.
3. Make corrections and highlight any useful sentences/errors, I also look up any unknown vocabulary and highlight any words I couldn’t hear.
4. Wite out highlighted sentences at the end of my transcription.
5a. Each day add a few of these sentences to my (new) revision notebook.
5b. Also each day I am going back to sentences from at least two weeks ago in my revision book and transferring any unknowns to the front of the list again. I tick off as I go so I know where I am. This my take on a simplified Goldlist Method.
6. Listen to some new and some transcribed podcasts as often as I can. I have to listen to some new otherwise I find I go a bit loopy.

I am using my revision notebook just to see in the shorter term if I am remembering anything, I suppose it will be a good way to measure my progress in the longer term. I suspect I’ll drop it eventually, especially if I can see that the transcribing is working.

It’s interesting that only having a Spanish transcript and no English translation of the podcast means I can’t cheat, I have to work out what the Spanish means for myself and I am finding this ‘working it out’ process extremely helpful.

I am learning a lot more from this process than just randomly clicking words on my kindle to reveal the English translation whilst reading Harry Potter. It’s just too easy to click and then move on, my brain seems to need to work more to make things stick.

The transcribing is combining intensive listening, writing, reading and grammar all in one and so combined with my heavy use of Clozemaster top 500 words and an iTalki lesson each week, it is really pushing my Spanish in all areas and I am slowly feeling more comfortable with my listening now,

The reading of the transcripts is much more interesting and I am learning a lot more from it, but it’s just not as easily measurable as reading book pages. For now I have decided to put my weekly reading target on hold and I will remove the weekly reading target from my log because as iguanamon so acuartely suggested...

I find goals and targets limit me and don't actually help me to achieve despite the conventional wisdom.

I feel that my reading goal is (at best) distracting me at the moment and so for now I shall only read if I feel like it, with no weekly measuring. I am still aiming to finish Harry Potter, it just might take me a little longer.

So that’s my writing and listening (and reading) sorted for now.

Speaking to sort next...My iTalki lessons are going well but I am not going to reach my annual speaking target with just one 45 minute lesson a week. Glossika and shadowing are too boring, instead I am going to add more iTalki, just an extra lesson or 2 each month so I can hit my target. They will be conversational only and not with my weekly professional tutor. I already have one community tutor that I enjoy just chatting with and I shall seek out a couple more for some variety. I have booked a trial session with a new community tutor for next Monday, hopefully he can be my second conversation partner (ie. backup), if not I’ll try another.

A much more constructive week, I think

ETA: updated listening total X 2

[Jaleel10]

[list]1. Transcribe 1 full 10 minute podcast. Underline any unsure/unknown/unrecognizable vocabulary or speech. This takes about an hour or more.
2. Read the official spanish transcription and compare with my transcription.

¿Dónde encontraste podcasts con transcripciones?

[Bex]

1. Transcribe 1 full 10 minute podcast. Underline any unsure/unknown/unrecognizable vocabulary or speech. This takes about an hour or more.
2. Read the official spanish transcription and compare with my transcription.

¿Dónde encontraste podcasts con transcripciones?

Los Podcasts son Notes In Spanish Intermediate. Tienes que pagar por los transcripciones y solo están en español. Me gustan porque solo hablan español y no hablan demasiado rápido. Transcribiré material nativo tan pronto como mi escucha mejore.

Español automático es otro podcast que es gratuito y tiene transcripciones gratuitas, si necesitas los transcripciónes gratuitas. Son demasiado largos para mí, ya que estoy transcribiendo cada podcast y acabo de escuchar pocos.

English: The podcasts are Notes in Spanish Intermediate. You have to pay for the transciptions and they are only in Spanish. I like them because they only speak Spanish and they don't speak too quickly.
I will transcribe native material as soon as my listening gets better.

Español automático is another podcast that's free and it's got free transciptions, if you need free transciptions. They are too long for me, since I am transcribing every podcast and I have just listened to a few.

Please feel free to correct my Spanish

ETA: There's also https://hoyhablamos.com which has transcripts online, you only have to pay if you want to download them.

Also ETA: Coffee Break Spanish is a highly recommend learner podcast, I don't like all the English explanations but it's supposed to be very good.

And there are loads more podcasts on the Spanish Resources page:
https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 377#p63366

[Jaleel10]

Bex, querida, tu español es mucho mejor que el mío.

Gracias por la información. Volveré a este puesto. Especialmente cuando empiezo mi práctica auditiva.