Jaleel's Spanish Log, 2018.

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Bex
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Re: Jaleel's Spanish Log, 2018.

Postby Bex » Tue May 01, 2018 7:28 am

Jaleel10 wrote:* Clozemaster. My descent into SRS continues. Completely bullied into it by Bex

Oops...all my fault...sorry :lol:
Hope it works out for you or I'm in trouble!
Jaleel10 wrote:So starting this month I will try an online tutor...

Speaking is hard... don't keep putting it off or it gets harder, I put it off for 2.5 years!. I'm not sure tutors help me much with learning when I only use them once a week (I can teach myself more at home) but they do help me a LOT with speaking confidence, which is such a HUGE hurdle to overcome. Good luck, the first few sessions are hard but you do settle into it.

Jaleel10 wrote: I decided to use Subs2srs. My descent back into the world of SRS begins !!
Jealous...I'd love to do Subs2srs with Avatar but my technology skills are zero, I'd never be able to make the deck :(

It will be interesting to see if you can keep Clozemaster and Anki Subs2srs going at the same time... I'm not sure I could handle two SRS at once.
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Jaleel10
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Re: Jaleel's Spanish Log, 2018.

Postby Jaleel10 » Mon Jul 09, 2018 9:09 am

Damn, been a while since I wrote something here lel

Just a quick update but going forward I would like to update it daily as I have developed a good daily schedule where I have begun incorporating native materials in my daily routine and would like to post about the new things I have learned, struggles and stuff.

* I have finally cracked 5000 words on Clozemaster! And it is really paying off. I can read any B2 and lower text with a fair amount of comfort. Not in terms of vocabulary but just the way the sentences are structured. I have lowered my new words per day going forward and upped my reviews because my brain can't cope anymore lol. I have read some of the comments on the SRS threads and I agree 100% with some people saying that Day 1 beginners should avoid it. I regret forcing myself when I started with Spanish. Oh well. You live and you learn. Glad I started using it when I did after 3 months. Really helped solidify all the vocab and grammar I learned from my beginner course.

2018-06-28_4.jpg


* https://vocaroo.com/i/s1zTmWDHTfif
I recorded myself reading a text and these are some of the respones I have gotten.
The main issues I see are the LL sound and the soft R, which are oftentimes the hardest ones for non-natives to grasp. For example, "y ellos desaparecieron" sounds more like a Y than an LL to me. You pronounce it better in some words (the LL in camilla was pretty good) and worse in others so I reckon you'll nail it down sooner than later. You also stress the wrong syllable sometimes.
But you speak very clearly and are easy to understand so really, it's more of a matter of continuing practicing and exposing yourself to the language.


When I started listening to you I thought I was being tricked, because you really seem to have spoken Spanish all your life, very good indeed, congratulations, already having more practice and your hesitations that you had when reading I imagine they will disappear.


I have to congratulate you because your pronunciation is excellent. However, you have to 'slow down' your reading, as the only mistakes are due to the pace you are reading at. Punctuation symbols (commas, periods, direct style inverted commas, question marks and so on) have a communicative function as well. Just read slower and put a little bit of passion into those punctuation marks to perfect your diction.


A nice range of comments with stuff I can reflect on and some to keep me motivated.

* Oof, reading back my log I kind of lament just how impatient I was lol. I really thought I could learn a language in 6 months. :lol: I had to change my "journey with German" date from July 2018 to somewhere in 2019 :lol: But I guess that impatience and desire pushed me to the level I am at now. I have more clarity about where I am and what I need to do to improve. I have a goal to be B2/C1 by December 2019. I some have anxiety about the difficulty of the task lol. Living in a country where there is no lick of Spanish. But the internet has pushed me this far, hopefully it can carry me to my goal haha

And God, why does everything I read about myself in the past have to be so cringy :lol:

Thanks for reading. :D
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kennyaa
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Re: Jaleel's Spanish Log, 2018.

Postby kennyaa » Mon Jul 09, 2018 11:42 am

Hi just wanted to post saying I've enjoyed reading your log and it's interesting to see that you feel Clozemaster is of benefit. It's been a great log to read I find your scheduling and organisation inspiring!
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Re: Jaleel's Spanish Log, 2018.

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Mon Jul 09, 2018 9:21 pm

Jaleel10 wrote:I have finally cracked 5000 words on Clozemaster! And it is really paying off. I can read any B2 and lower text with a fair amount of comfort. Not in terms of vocabulary but just the way the sentences are structured.


It feels great, doesn't it! :)
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Jaleel10
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Re: Jaleel's Spanish Log, 2018.

Postby Jaleel10 » Mon Jul 09, 2018 9:39 pm

jeff_lindqvist wrote:

It feels great, doesn't it! :)


Yeah, man. It feels super rewarding. Seeing as this is the first language I am studying on my own, it is definitely a unique feeling :D
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Bex
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Re: Jaleel's Spanish Log, 2018.

Postby Bex » Wed Jul 11, 2018 8:54 pm

Good to hear that Clozemaster is paying off or I would've been in big trouble ;)
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Jaleel10
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Re: Jaleel's Spanish Log, 2018.

Postby Jaleel10 » Sat Jul 21, 2018 12:56 pm

Another week

I wanted to update my log daily but sigh, I don't have time. Anyway, we continue.

Speaking A good week overall. I spoke a bunch with natives on Discord. I think I got in a good 40 minutes. Oh and I realised I mentioned before in my log that I would hire an online tutor.Well I did that (for about 3 lessons, which went well) but I guess I am just too broke to continue lol. I managed to replace it (to the best of my abilities) by making a bunch of online friends from different parts of el mundo hispanohablante. It is going well thus far. I am getting my speaking practice in even if only 5 minutes a day. Folks are usually very patient and also eager to help if necessary. That is something I never take for granted. One thing that discourages me slightly is that everybody I meet can speak (at least) serviceable English. But it always warms my heart when I meet a person who says "Jaleel, can you please repeat that" (Now I don't know if it's because of their level of English or just my South African accent :lol: )

Reading is going on. I have kinda neglected my graded readers a bit. I asked for recommendations from the Study Group on some interesting reading material and I have been keeping myself busy with that. I have been freestyling it a bit because I usually add reading material to Lingq (which someone on this forum recommended to me once) but I have not been consistent with my imports. Oh well. At least I am still reading.

Listening at the moment is my favourite thing. I am consuming a bunch of for learner podcasts. I try to listen to at least 40 minutes a day. 10 of those I listen to actively (repeat until I understand it 100%). I would like to bump up my active listening but I feel the mixture of what I am doing now + Assimil is okay for my level. Also! I have been watching a ton of Youtube in Spanish. 100% only for enjoyment. My comprehension is ...ugh.. but I am enjoying it and I am being entertained, can't complain! I also downloaded some cartoons for my active listening practice. 2 dubbed in Spain Spanish, 2 dubbed in Mexican Spanish. I am still keeping up with Gran Hotel (with Spanish subs) and I have watched 2 movies from Spain this week (with Spanish subs) Also! I have discovered this: http://www.spanishlistening.org/. A neat website where a bunch of Spanish speakers recorded short videos describing a wide range of topics. It amazes me at the amount of content there is for Spanish on the internet!

Writing not much. Just Assimil and chatting with natives. I am looking to improve it as well in the future. If anybody knows ways of doing so, I am all ears. I am thinking of just adding all new words I learn in to the Word document during the week and just writing some random story at the end of the week /shrug. We will see. Again, any recommendations or ideas are welcome.

Grammar Me and the subjunctive are becoming friends.It is slow but we are getting there. I have also finally gained a good understand of relative pronouns and can actually produce them well in my limited writing and speaking. Prepositions and verbs with prepositions are still pain though. There are just too many :cry:

Lately I have been able to keep my frustration to a minimum and I have been enjoying the 'process' of learning Spanish. I love the fact that everything I am struggling with now will be clearer in the future. This feeling usually ebbs and flows so for the moment I will enjoy it while it lasts :lol:

Thanks for reading.
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Re: Jaleel's Spanish Log, 2018.

Postby humerusthings » Sat Jul 21, 2018 2:22 pm

Hi Jaleel! Your log is really inspiring especially your planning and scheduling! Will be following. I'm doing Assimil too for Spanish, it's pretty good so far but I'm probably not doing that intensely lol.

And thanks for the clozemaster reccomendation too! :)
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Jaleel10
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Re: Jaleel's Spanish Log, 2018.

Postby Jaleel10 » Sat Jul 21, 2018 3:43 pm

humerusthings wrote:Hi Jaleel! Your log is really inspiring especially your planning and scheduling! Will be following. I'm doing Assimil too for Spanish, it's pretty good so far but I'm probably not doing that intensely lol.

And thanks for the clozemaster reccomendation too! :)


Wow, thank you very much.

And my name on Clozemaster is the same as on this forum, so feel free to add me. Always love competing with people :mrgreen:

You mentioned Assimil. I wrote up my own guide for using it some months ago on Reddit. It doesn't necessarily deviate from the recommend method as described here
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Jaleel10
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Re: Jaleel's Spanish Log, 2018.

Postby Jaleel10 » Mon Jul 30, 2018 9:51 am

Just a pre-work mini update

So on Saturday, I reached my 100 day streak in Clozemaster! But I decided to drop. It helped me bridge the gap between Beginner and Intermediate by exposing me to almost 7000 sentences in context. But the last two or so weeks it just bored me. I think my time is better served reading and listening more.

Gracias Clozemaster
Eras un gran amigo
21-04-2018
29-07-2018


My impatience bug is kicking in again. I have kinda looked into the FSI Spanish series (think I spoke of it before). I have obtained a copy of FSI Platiquemos and it looks very great. The method seems super gruelling though but that is to be expected. I will be going all in on that in September after I finished Assimil.

I have signed up for next month's 6 Week challenge. Let this message be a reminder that I am gonna finish top 5!

I got myself a couple of grammar books because that is something I enjoy doing. Just working through workbooks.

* Demystifying the Spanish Subjunctive
* Perfecting the Past in Spanish
* Gramática de uso del Español. B1-B2
* Spanish Grammar Drills (2018 edition)
* Practice Makes Perfect Spanish Conversation
* The Ultimate Spanish Review and Practice

I took a while to narrow it down to just 6. It was 14 at one point :lol: I will be rotating between them for the next 5 - 6 months, post my results and experiences here.

Recently I experienced a bit of wanderlust, as you guys like to call it. First I wanted to work Polish into my schedule but I dropped that idea very quickly. Then I wanted to learn Dutch but dropped that idea very quickly. I felt I would be doing myself a disservice if I don't commit fully to Spanish.

Another thing. I found a popular Spanish tv show called La Que Se Avecina. You can watch it for free on Mitele. There are close to 150 episodes and each episode is an hour long. I highly recommend it if you want to have more exposure to colloquial Spanish.

Thanks for reading.
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