2018 language log - Arabic and Spanish

[MamaPata]

Looks like you achieved a lot! It's been a while since I've read Como Agua but I remember the male protagonists being rather uninteresting, so you're not alone!

Out of interest, what's the problem with Al-kitaab? I'm not looking to go back to Arabic any time soon, but that was what we were told to use when I did study it.

[auntie mildred]

Looks like you achieved a lot! It's been a while since I've read Como Agua but I remember the male protagonists being rather uninteresting, so you're not alone!

Out of interest, what's the problem with Al-kitaab? I'm not looking to go back to Arabic any time soon, but that was what we were told to use when I did study it.

Ooh, I hope I don't accidentally start a flame war, its a bit of a controversial topic...(al Kitaab, not Pedro as he definitely sucks)

al-Kitaab tends to get a bad rap because the vocab's not amazingly practical and its just a bit...stilted is a probably a good descriptor. The common joke is that you learn the word for "United Nations" before the word for mother, because the focus on language structure over communication. Having said that, some people love it for this reason and I have heard that the later editions are better.

I personally don't mind it, however as I never studied Arabic at university so I never had to slog through it as my textbook, and I use it along side like, 3 other grammar textbooks as well as native materials so any gaps/weaknesses are plugged by other resources.

[auntie mildred]

Week 3 update!

Spanish
Reading - Only 55 pages, but finished Como agua para chocolate
Writing - 1500 words
Listening - 375 mins (!), or 6:15. It turns out catching up on mending is an ideal activity for binge watching Destinos, which I have now finally finished. I did read the plot summary a good month ago so nothing too surprising, but it was good to have the four episodes right at the end where they basically recap the entire series to see where I've improved, especially when comparing against the really early episodes
Speaking - Another 3 x 60 min conversation classes, so ~90 mins total.
Anki vocab deck every day

I'm actually pretty impressed with this, mainly because its evidence that I'm managing to get the language routine down which was my original goal for this log, and that I'm getting pretty good at fitting stuff in to my schedule in ways where I don't notice the extra time commitment. For example, writing a diary on my lunch break or in 5 minute tea breaks during the day, and watching a Destinos episode when I'm stretching out after a run. The one thing I'm having trouble with is reading, as I always push it to the end of the day and half the time I fall asleep after 5 pages.

Anyway, the training wheels are off for next week - I'm going to start watching an actual telenovela, and I've borrowed El amor en los tiempos de cólera from the library to make my way through during the next month or so. I'm thinking of La reina del sur, as its available on Australian Netflix, seems to have a diversity of accents and I can put Spanish subtitles on. Also its been mentioned in heaps of people's logs so clearly it must be good! If I have time I might chuck in some intensive listening practice using the Notes in Spanish podcasts, as I bought the transcripts for the intermediate level ones and need to put them to good use.

Arabic

Writing - 1300 words
Reading - not much (half a BBC Arabic article and 2 paragraphs of a France24 film review)
Anki vocab review every day

So this week was significantly more successful than last week, because I did what I said I'd do and scheduled Arabic before Spanish every day so it actually got prioritised. I also changed focus with the writing a bit and split it between a diary and learning exercises - the first half (~100 words) I'd write about whatever it was I wanted to write about that day, but the second half would just be practising one or two key phrases/words which I'd noticed in writing the first bit and wanted to learn because they're useful. For example, Monday's phrase was "supposed to", so I plugged that into Reverso Context, found the top 3 translations and looked at the structures in the example sentences, and then just wrote a whole heap of example sentences using different tenses and conjugations. At the end of the week I went back over these and wrote out a whole new set of sentences from memory just to reinforce them. Whilst its definitely not what you'd consider "expressive writing", I've found it really useful to actually bed down sentence structures as well as being easy to fit into short breaks during the day so it actually gets done. Also, I personally find it more useful than trying to learn all the new vocab I've put in at once as I can prioritise things according to how I actually want to communicate, eg learning how to say "I'm about to" is for me far more important than learning the word for "sideboard" (I wrote a description of my lounge room).

Next weeks goals are to just keep doing the same, but I'm planning to put at least one 200-300 word piece up on iTalki for corrections (a proper piece of writing, not example sentences) as I'm sure its full of mistakes. I'm also going to add in some Clozemaster reviews after reading about Maiwenn's success in getting through the Amazon example chapter of Harry Potter. Reading...I need to find something closer to my level if I'm going to progress past newspaper headlines as those two paragraphs of film review I refer to above took me a good 4 hours, so I'll park that one for now and just aim to read something every day this week. Suggestions are welcome! Otherwise there's always the example texts in al-Kitaab (which despite best intentions, I did not even open this week).

[auntie mildred]

Oof...well, that was a non-productive two weeks on the language front. Very productive (and excessively busy) on other fronts though! Unfortunately, they don't have a public log attached. On with the update

Spanish
Reading - Repeated attempts have been made to get through the first 30 pages of El amor en los tiempos de colera, which unfortunately have failed because a) I usually read at night before I go to bed but have been so busy that I'm too tired to read in English, let alone Spanish, and b) possibly an overambitious choice based on my current level. I literally wrote down 200 new vocab words over 10 pages of reading. Luckily its a library book so I can swap it out for something a bit more

Speaking - I think I've only managed 30 mins of conversation this month, through a combination of me cancelling, them cancelling and me forgetting to book additional classes. The time difference is also killing me at the moment - all my iTalki tutors are in South America and I'm in Australia, which means classes are either at 6.30am or 10-11pm to fit around my work schedule. My ability to function pre-8am is variable at the best of times but over the last couple of weeks its been non-existent.

Writing - I've been managing 100-200 words every few days, which isn't as much as last month but at least it's something.

Listening - Probably the only thing I've managed to do consistently, largely because binge watching La Reina del Sur on Netflix counts as a valid educational activity. I am learning heaps of Mexican and Spanish slang though (with subtitles on)!

Plan for the coming week
Get back onto a schedule - things kind of fell apart a bit because I got sick, then work got mega busy, and generally things have been a bit all over the place. In particular, I need to figure out a less unsociable time for conversation classes, get an easier book, and block out some writing time. Luckily writing in Spanish is becoming more fluid so I can fit it in around other things - I just need to remember to do it!

Arabic
Writing - 400 words. So not nothing but....not not nothing

I also started weekly classes again at a local language school where I've been going for the last couple of years. The quality of the classes has been pretty variable, and to be honest the main reason I kept going last year was because it was just really nice to meet people who were also learning Arabic. I was also the worst person in the Advanced class, which is a position I like being in as you really have to work to improve. Unfortunately this year a lot of the old people didn't come back, so I've been put in the class below. This is bad in one way as the standard is a lot lower (ie, nobody actually speaks lower), but the teacher is AWESOME. He focuses heavily on teaching through real world cultural materials, so lots of literature, songs, conversation role play etc. The level of the materials is challenging to me, he sets homework, I get clarification on grammar/structure stuff I've been confused about - I've fully regained my love of the Arabic language and its legit the highlight of my week at the moment.

Plan for the coming week
As per Spanish, get back on the schedule. I also want to explore some of the materials my Arabic teacher has introduced to us, as I've found using these for listening/reading/writing practice far more enjoyable and motivating than what I'd cobbled together on my own.

I've also started a Goldlist as a bit of an experiment in tracking/learning the new vocab that's being generated from all the reading and writing I've been doing. Whilst I've got ANKI decks for both Spanish and Arabic (5000 word frequency lists), I like the idea of Goldlists because they're so quick and clean - you just keep writing the words out in a list in a book. No idea if it works yet, but its quick enough that I can maintain the habit which is probably the most important thing for me right now.