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

[Lawyer&Mom]

I also spent six hours in Clozemaster this week! Which sounds impressive, except I spent 21 hours in Safari... Gulp. (All of which was in English...)

Thanks for inspiring me to look this up. This is interesting data!

[Bex]

I also spent six hours in Clozemaster this week! Which sounds impressive, except I spent 21 hours in Safari... Gulp. (All of which was in English...)

Thanks for inspiring me to look this up. This is interesting data!

Now you made me look at my Chrome usage..interesing. 10 hours on Chrome since Monday but 9 hours on Clozemaster. That's nearly 50/50 English/Spanish reading this week.

I would like to be reading more Spanish than English but this is more than close enough for me... I was surprised it was so close

[Bex]

Clozemaster is helping a lot now...I am noticing a big difference in comprehension when watching TV in the evenings.

I am spending 1 or 2 hours a day on it on average. I would like to get through the 3000 top words and then I hope my reading comprehension will be better.

I love that I am finally learning subjunctive conjugations.

I am not sure why but I find it so much more enjoyable than actual reading. I am viewing it like a graded reader...

My ideal for a while.
1. I would like to keep playing a minimum of 50 new sentences per day, ideally over 100. Currently averaging 71.3 per day.
2. I would like to keep my reviews at zero most of the time.
3. I would like to have played all 3,000 most common words by the end of the 2018 at which points I would have read all 36,000+ sentences at least once.

At present I have read around 20k sentences.

4. I would like to have read 100k sentences (1M words/25 HP1 books approx) and then retry reading Harry Potter.

My data for estimations:
Total sentences read = (played x 1) + (mastered x 3). All mastered sentences are viewed a minimum of 4 times...this total will be less than the actual number of sentences read but it gives me minimum figure.

Harry Potter 1 has approx 6,600 sentences = 300 pages (approx 10 words per sentence).

Clozemaster 10,000 sentences = 450 pages.

1 million words = approx 100,000 sentences = 25 HP books at 300 pages.

Hopefully my maths is not way off

[Jaleel10]

Clozemaster is helping a lot now...I am noticing a big difference in comprehension when watching TV in the evenings.

God damnit, Bex. Stop tempting me !

I love that I am finally learning subjunctive conjugations.

Welcome, welcome. We have been expecting you.

Hey ! If you ever want to practice your verb forms. There is a great site call Conjuguemos (you might have heard of it). https://conjuguemos.com/activities/spanish/verb/1

My ideal for a while.
1. I would like to keep playing a minimum of 50 new sentences per day, ideally over 100. Currently averaging 71.3 per day.
2. I would like to keep my reviews at zero most of the time.
3. I would like to have played all 3,000 most common words by the end of the 2018 at which points I would have read all 36,000+ sentences at least once.

At present I have read around 20k sentences.

4. I would like to have read 100k sentences (1M words/25 HP1 books approx) and then retry reading Harry Potter.

Damn. You are really putting in the work. This is very motivating !

[Bex]

Damn. You are really putting in the work. This is very motivating !

It's nice to have finally found something I enjoy and learn new Spanish vocabulary/conjugations at the same time. I was enjoying listening a lot but I wasn't sure I was learning much.

It's so much easier to learn when you're enjoying it, I'm seeing the same difficult words over and over (and over) sometimes 8-10 times before I remember them. Also it doesn't matter when I get it wrong because I know I'll view it many more times and in many contexts, so eventually it will sink in.

I don't seem to get as frustrated as when I read a book. My stats say I am answering 75-80% correctly and so frustrations are kept to a minimum.

Hopefully months of this will see a good improvement.

[Bex]

My data for estimations:
Total sentences read = (played x 1) + (mastered x 3). All mastered sentences are viewed a minimum of 4 times...this total will be less than the actual number of sentences read but it gives me minimum figure.

I've just realised there's a much more accurate way to work out total sentences read.

It is...
Total sentences correct + total sentences incorrect = Total sentences read.

Which puts my total at just over 31,500 or 5 Harry Potter books

[Jaleel10]

Damn. You are really putting in the work. This is very motivating !

It's nice to have finally found something I enjoy and learn new Spanish vocabulary/conjugations at the same time. I was enjoying listening a lot but I wasn't sure I was learning much.

It's so much easier to learn when you're enjoying it, I'm seeing the same difficult words over and over (and over) sometimes 8-10 times before I remember them. Also it doesn't matter when I get it wrong because I know I'll view it many more times and in many contexts, so eventually it will sink in.

I don't seem to get as frustrated as when I read a book. My stats say I am answering 75-80% correctly and so frustrations are kept to a minimum.

Hopefully months of this will see a good improvement.

This is awesome to hear. I might consider Clozemaster after I finish the first wave Assimil in two weeks. But my past experiences with Anki has ruined my liking for SRS programs lol. We'll see. But I will say that you are swaying me !

[Bex]

Damn. You are really putting in the work. This is very motivating !

It's nice to have finally found something I enjoy and learn new Spanish vocabulary/conjugations at the same time. I was enjoying listening a lot but I wasn't sure I was learning much.

It's so much easier to learn when you're enjoying it, I'm seeing the same difficult words over and over (and over) sometimes 8-10 times before I remember them. Also it doesn't matter when I get it wrong because I know I'll view it many more times and in many contexts, so eventually it will sink in.

I don't seem to get as frustrated as when I read a book. My stats say I am answering 75-80% correctly and so frustrations are kept to a minimum.

Hopefully months of this will see a good improvement.

This is awesome to hear. I might consider Clozemaster after I finish the first wave Assimil in two weeks. But my past experiences with Anki has ruined my liking for SRS programs lol. We'll see. But I will say that you are swaying me !

If it makes any difference I really, really hate Anki

[smallwhite]

4. I would like to have read 100k sentences (1M words/25 HP1 books approx) and then retry reading Harry Potter.
Harry Potter 1 has approx 6,600 sentences = 300 pages (approx 10 words per sentence).
Clozemaster 10,000 sentences = 450 pages.
1 million words = approx 100,000 sentences = 25 HP books at 300 pages.

Hopefully my maths is not way off

I suggest sticking with original units (words/sentences/pages) and converting as little as possible (not converting to pages).

Google says English version of HP1 has 76,944 words, 6,619 sentences.

> 4. I would like to have read 100k sentences...
= 100,000 / 6,619 = 15.11 HP1 books

> Clozemaster 10,000 sentences...
= 10,000 / 6,619 = 1.51 HP1 books

> 1 million words...
= 1,000,000 / 76,944 = 13.00 HP1 books

3. I would like to have played all 3,000 most common words by the end of the 2018

Google also says English version of HP1 has 5,687 unique words. At the end of 2018, there will be at least 5,687 - 3,000 = 2,687 HP1 words you have not played in Clozemaster.

[Bex]

4. I would like to have read 100k sentences (1M words/25 HP1 books approx) and then retry reading Harry Potter.
Harry Potter 1 has approx 6,600 sentences = 300 pages (approx 10 words per sentence).
Clozemaster 10,000 sentences = 450 pages.
1 million words = approx 100,000 sentences = 25 HP books at 300 pages.

Hopefully my maths is not way off

I suggest sticking with original units (words/sentences/pages) and converting as little as possible (not converting to pages).

Google says English version of HP1 has 76,944 words, 6,619 sentences.

> 4. I would like to have read 100k sentences...
= 100,000 / 6,619 = 15.11 HP1 books

> Clozemaster 10,000 sentences...
= 10,000 / 6,619 = 1.51 HP1 books

> 1 million words...
= 1,000,000 / 76,944 = 13.00 HP1 books

3. I would like to have played all 3,000 most common words by the end of the 2018

Google also says English version of HP1 has 5,687 unique words. At the end of 2018, there will be at least 5,687 - 3,000 = 2,687 HP1 words you have not played in Clozemaster.

Thanks smallwhite for re-calculating for me (seems I may have overestimated ), still 15 books isn't bad.

Also I didn't have the unique words figure and so that's really useful to know...seems I had better aim for 6,000 rather than 3,000.

Does anyone know roughly how many Spanish words you need to know to be around a high B1 level, which is where I'd like to be at the end of the year.