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

[eido]

I'm not a Spanish expert, but I noticed you said "mi escucha" - I got corrected on this once. The native said "comprensión auditiva" is the way to go.

[reineke]

"Métodos generales para mejorar la escucha... La enseñanza del lenguaje oral 1. Importancia del lenguaje oral..."

"Escucha más: Especialmente la radio y podcasts en Inglés. Es la mejor forma de mejorar su escucha y le ayuda con la pronunciación."

[eido]

Hmm, there's probably a difference between the two but if I translated them literally to English I'd say they were about the same. Maybe the person correcting me was wrong? Although I know it's a valid phrase. Maybe it was over-correcting.

[Bex]

Just a quick note:

I have started to listen to the 3rd Harry Potter book whilst reading along (all in Spanish) today. I have begun at Chapter 3 because that is where I had read up to previously.

This morning I listened to the whole of chapter 3 straight through in Spanish whilst reading the book on my Kindle in Spanish.

I noticed the following:

I can follow the basic plot.
I am missing a lot of details.
There is a lot of unknown vocabulary.
I noticed new vocabulary I have recently learned on Clozemaster
I am having to concentrate very hard.
Having audio helps a lot with my "flow" when trying to read.
I prefer it to stopping to look up words.

I read the wikibooks chapter summary once I had finished the chapter and I had missed a lot of details but I had followed the general plot.

I am not sure if it would be better to read the chapter summary before reading the chapter or after.

I shall try and read a few chapters each week and see how it goes, it seems the audio is pulling me along with it whilst I am reading and it may be the best way for me to continue reading at the moment...we shall see

[Bex]

Friday update:
Writing Target: 1000 words. This week = 1005 (2018 total 9788)
Speaking Target: 60 minutes. This week = 45 (2018 total 555)
Reading Target: 100 pages. This week = 71 (2018 total 583)
Listening Target: 120 minutes. This week = 616 (2018 total 1937)

Clozemaster 100-500. Mastered = 1,094 out of 6,000+

Writing is getting hard to fit in time wise because i want to concentrate on input at the moment but it’s OK if my writing suffers a little whilst I concentrate on other areas.

Speaking is still going OK on iTalki, although I am getting a bit bored with my teacher. I have an extra session with a new teacher scheduled next week, will see how that goes.

Reading and Listening have been interesting this week. Smashed my 5 hour listening target this week with 9 and a half hours of listening

I thought about what iguanamon said about not stopping my reading and I have decided that since it is one of my weakest areas I should focus on it more not less. And since listening is one one of my stronger areas I decided to use listening to prop up my reading whilst I try to improve.

My basic plan was to do as much reading as possible, extensively not intensively. I figured that eventually my reading would have to improve, and so I dug out all my Spanish Harry Potter books/audio and started to try to read whilst listening.

I started by reading and listening in just Spanish and then reading plot summaries to check if I had understood the plot correctly. The audio did help with reading a lot, but I decided this was not going to help me with vocabulary acquisition unless I also did intensive reading/transcribing or SRS. I tried transcribing but that was too hard (way too much unknown vocab) and I don’t want to go back to building SRS decks to learn vocabulary or stop using clozemaster.

So I thought I would read each chapter in English first whilst listening in Spanish, this way I could pair up Spanish words with English and thus learn new vocabulary, it also meant I had an overview of the story before I attempted to read it in Spanish with Spanish audio.

So my method then became…

Step1: Listen Spanish + read English
Step 2: Listen Spanish + read Spanish
(Optional) Step 3: Any spare time I have I also listen to my current chapter in Spanish.

Each Chapter is around 45 minutes to 1 hour long.

I am finding it extremely effective, I am learning new vocab and learning to ignore the unknown, since I figure if it’s important it will repeat itself and having the audio means I can’t look things up… it’s allowing me to read extensively, something I have been unable to do previously.

I suspect that repeating Step 1 would be helpful but I know that I would not get through the book if I added any more repetitions due to boredom. I figure that the book is long enough that there will be plenty of repetition of vocabulary anyway so I have kept it at just the 2 steps. I am aiming to read/listen to the whole book as quickly as I can this way. My overall aim is to be able to read extensively without wanting to throw the book at the wall and it will be a bonus if my listening improves as well.

My total time spent just on Harry Potter 3 in Spanish this week is; 71 pages read and 7 hours 11 minutes of audio.

Edit: Grammar

[Bex]

Friday update:
Writing Target: 1000 words. This week = 1006 (2018 total 10794)
Speaking Target: 60 minutes. This week = 105 (2018 total 660)
Reading Target: 100 pages. This week = 50 (2018 total 633)
Listening Target: 120 minutes. This week = 250 (2018 total 2187)
Clozemaster 100-500. Mastered = 1,495 out of 6,000+

All still going well, keeping up with most of my targets.

I have started using the Practice Makes Perfect Sentence Builder book for some writing practice at the moment. I managed to go through a couple of the chapters in the book this week, it seems good so far and is showing up my grammar weaknesses nicely.

I had two iTalki lessons this week because I wanted to try out a new tutor, I was getting bored of the old one, I think I’ll stick to this new one for a few weeks and see how it goes.

Reading is still below target each week partly because I’m reading/listening to each chapter twice and so just 3 chapters this week took over 4 hours, however I am listening to each chapter in Spanish twice, so it feels like a good use of time. I am not meeting my reading target each week but at least I am regularly reading now, which was the aim.

I feel that my listening and reading comprehension is definitely improving but it’s difficult to gauge…

I am still using Clozemaster everyday, I decided to look at how much time I had been spending using the app and it’s a lot more than I had thought...

...January 23 minutes, February 19h 14m and March (so far) 18h 34m.
I am averaging over 6 hours on Clozemaster every week at the moment!

Clozemaster combined with my listening and reading feels like a winning combination at the moment and so I shall continue for as long as I can and see where I end up.

[FrannieB]

fascinated with changing tutors.
I probably need to change my tutor but honestly after two years of close to twice a week he is more like a friend. I mean we text regularly out of class on whats app in Spanish.
Leaves me pondering do I keep him for my once a week general conversation and find a tutor that is more academic for the other day of the week.

[Bex]

fascinated with changing tutors.
I probably need to change my tutor but honestly after two years of close to twice a week he is more like a friend. I mean we text regularly out of class on whats app in Spanish.
Leaves me pondering do I keep him for my once a week general conversation and find a tutor that is more academic for the other day of the week.

If you love your tutor then keep him, mine just goes through documents in an order he obviously has noted down somewhere and whether I get it or not then he moves onto the next thing. It's frustrating when he moves on and I feel I didn't get it (I end up reviewing it after the lesson) and we hardly ever just chat, so I just don't feel we have that connection.

My new tutor is starting me at a much higher level and then we'll cover any gaps in my lower levels as we go, whereas my old tutor just started at the beginning A1 and so I got bored and then frustrated.

Basically I didn't feel I was learning anything I couldn't have learnt from just picking up a course book. But it was good speaking practice at the beginning which is why I kept it going, I needed to improve my confidence and so easy was good then...but I need to push myself more now and hence why I looked for a new tutor.

I do wonder if some of the ITalki tutors worry that their students will leave if they make it too difficult for them.

[FrannieB]

That is helpful -

I think what I like about my tutor is that I am a teacher by trade so he lets me really choose my own adventure as I like to call it. Guess I had a momentary FOMO by staying with my guy.

[Bex]

March monthly update

Writing Target: 4,200 Actual: 2,011 words
Speaking Target: 250 Actual: 255 minutes
Reading Target: 450 Actual: 142 pages
Listening Target: 500 Actual: 1268 minutes

Speaking and listening both were on target. I am still enjoying both this month and I am now taking 1 hour iTalki lessons each week instead of 45 minutes...so my brain ache from speaking is definitely improving.

Writing I am still behind but last month I did extra so I'm not too far behind...I can catch up with my writing.

Reading I missed this last 2 weeks because we had guests and I was extremely busy...late nights, early mornings and busy days. I really didn't have any decent lengths of time to spare. I did however manage to spend 28 hours on Clozemaster during March, which is about 54 minutes every day.

Having spent so much time on clozemaster I wondered how it would compare with my Harry Potter reading...

https://medium.com/@clozemaster/the-har ... 5e8c14f1bf

To date I have played just over 17,500 sentences which is about 797 pages or 2.64 HP1 books.

So it seems that although my reading target is behind by 716 pages this year. Not sure I can actually count Clozemaster as reading though but if I did count Clozemaster sentences as reading then I'm actually 81 pages ahead of my current reading target at the moment!

I am loving Clozemaster and my aim at the moment is stay on track for more than 6 hours Clozemaster per week. I hope to finish learning the first 3000 words before the end of this year...then I'll try to dive into native reading. In the meantime I'm going to continue with my L/R as much as I can and if I can start being able to enjoy reading native materials before the end of the year...then that is just a bonus.