Spoon's Space for Spanish, 'speranto and... Italian [2015]

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Elenia
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Re: Spoon's Space for Spanish, 'speranto and... Italian [2015]

Postby Elenia » Thu Dec 17, 2015 2:57 pm

Wow, looking amazing on the goals front! Well done :D
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Stelle
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Re: Spoon's Space for Spanish, 'speranto and... Italian [2015]

Postby Stelle » Sat Dec 19, 2015 9:02 pm

Sorry about the job! :(
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Re: Spoon's Space for Spanish, 'speranto and... Italian [2015]

Postby Spoonary » Sun Dec 20, 2015 10:16 pm

Thanks Stelle, and Elenia, for different reasons :)

It is time to go over the rest of the results of my first attempt at weekly goals.

First of all, I have literally just done the last voice recording of the week. They weren't as organised as I would like a lot of my Output Challenge recordings to be - that is, regarding one subject, rather than me just rambling on about all sorts of things - but I am still happy that I kept it up all week, even if I did have to double up on Saturday after having failed to find the time on Friday.

On the writing front, I didn't do anything. Not even one word. As I said in my last update, I have written a few posts in Spanish on the forum, but they don't count. My plan was to quickly write 350 words about something today, before writing this update, just to be able to say I had done it, but I think that goes against the whole idea of writing a bit every day in preparation for the Output Challenge, so I didn't bother. :?

On to next week's Spanish goals! w/c 21/12/2015
Goal #1 (Reading) - Read 2 chapters of Historia de los Egipcios.
This is the book I am currently focusing my reading time on, and I think I might read more than 2 chapters of it this week, but it is Christmas at the end of the week so, who knows? Chapter 5 has 18 pages and chapter 6 has 22 so that's 40 pages of non-fiction for me!

Goal #2 (Speaking) - Do daily 10 minute self talk recordings.
This one is pretty much the same as it was this week, but this time I would like to actually do daily recordings, not miss one day out and do 20 minutes the next day to "catch-up".

Goal #3 (Listening/Watching) - Watch one episode of a series/hour of something other than Youtube.
Again, this is the same as last week.

Goal #4 (Writing) - Write a page in my diary each day.
Instead of trying to write 50 words a day, I have decided to get my old Italian/Spanish "diary" out again and write a page in there each day. An average of about 250 words in my handwriting fit on one page so, in the long run, this will add up to more words. The thing is, as I will be writing by hand, I won't be able to edit my work too much, so it will end up being a kind of stream of consciousness with many of the same mistakes I make while speaking. Still, it's better than nothing, and it may help to ease me back into writing daily, hopefully :roll:

Goal #5 (Reading) - Read 5 online articles.
I have added this goal to introduce some more variety to my reading. I don't generally read a lot of online articles in English, but that's no reason not to start in my L2. The articles can be about any topic and there is no minimum/maximum size so it should be quite easy to find something that fits my mood/time constraints at least 5 times over the course of the week.

I am feeling positive about the goals for this coming week. :mrgreen:
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Re: Spoon's Space for Spanish, 'speranto and... Italian [2015]

Postby Spoonary » Thu Dec 24, 2015 1:58 pm

As several other forum members have done before me, I have decided to do a quick year in review for 2015 (although it won't actually cover a whole year).

I am going to begin with my graduation on 14th July. After 4 years of ups and downs: fantastic new experiences, stressful assignment deadlines and lots of soul searching, I received a first-class BA in Spanish Studies with a distinction in spoken Spanish. Of course, I was incredibly proud of myself at the time and I felt ready to take on the world (which turned out not to be the rosy realm of opportunities I thought it was, but I'm not focussing on the negatives here).

After all the celebrations and enthusiasm died down, I realised that, due to my lack of regular seminars and deadlines, if I didn't get myself in gear and do some work, my Spanish ability would atrophy if I wasn't careful, along with the little Italian/Esperanto I had managed to learn thus far. Luckily (for me), this coincided nicely with the migration of the HTLAL community over to our humble LLF, so I made an account here on 20th July.

According to my post history, I dived right in on that same day and started integrating myself into this wonderful community. I also took on several challenges (Super challenge - Spanish and Italian; Output challenge - First Italian, then Spanish; Music Challenge - Italian; 6 week challenge - Esperanto), in an effort to add some structure to my language learning/maintenance. Everything was ok at first. I actually enjoyed having structure in my life again, but I quickly found that I wouldn't be able to keep any of the challenges up for long, especially when I moved out of my student flat and back in with my family. I can't remember exactly when I gave up the challenges, but give them up I did.

The rest of the year can be summed up with lots of reading, less listening and even less speaking/writing. :geek:

Reading:
See Goodreads for my year in books. The majority of the books I read this year were in English but I am hoping to read 30 books next year, with at least 15 of them being in something other than my native language.

Listening:
There is no order here. I carried on with my usual Youtube entertainment, and odd episode of La Que Se Avecina, while also adding a few new podcasts/radio shows which I listen to every now and again (ES: Nadie Sabe Nada, Nómadas, Hoth Factory, Porque Podcast, Fallo de Sistema, Esto me suena; IT: Tutta la città ne parla, Digitalia, File urbani) and TV series (Lalola and El tiempo entre costuras).

I will be starting a new log in January (I already have the title :P) so I will write my goals for the new year there. I will also write an update about my current weekly goals on here at the end of this week, but for now, all that's left to be said is...

Happy holidays, everyone!
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Spoonary
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Re: Spoon's Space for Spanish, 'speranto and... Italian [2015]

Postby Spoonary » Sun Dec 27, 2015 1:12 pm

Well, it's Sunday and I am sure I'll be too tired to write this later on so it's time for the results of this week's goals. Brace yourselves, it ain't pretty :lol:

Goal #1 (Reading) - Read 2 chapters of Historia de los Egipcios.
Complete! I finished this on Thursday. Because of Christmas, I didn't get much more than those 2 chapters read, but that's ok.

Goal #2 (Speaking) - Do daily 10 minute self talk recordings.
*cough* I... er... did 11 minutes on Monday... and that's it :roll:

Goal #3 (Listening/Watching) - Watch one episode of a series/hour of something other than Youtube.
Complete! I watched 2 episodes of Lalola; one on Monday and one between Wednesday and Thursday.

Goal #4 (Writing) - Write a page in my diary each day.
See Goal #2, but replace 11 minutes with 211 words :oops:

Goal #5 (Reading) - Read 5 online articles.
I read 3; one about homosexuality in (I can't remember which country it was), one about the legalisation of marijuana in Colombia and one about some water-transmitted disease I can't remember the name of. (Dat memory doh :roll:) Overall, I found these articles to be legible but by no means easy reading. There were many useful phrases I should definitely start using more often in my Spanish output, as these articles reminded me.

So, all in all it has been a pretty lacklustre week on the language front, but I don't mind too much. I have enjoyed our Christmas celebration and having a few days off. I only worry that I will use the same excuses to not do any Spanish output next year that I have used (to myself) this week; that I can't do a recording while my family is around, or that it is ignorant (and awkward) to wander off upstairs to do so. I don't have my own bedroom or anything at the moment, and our house is pretty small, so it's hard to shut myself away anywhere to do the daily recordings, which is why I often favour self-talk ramblings to more meaningful output when I do do them... I suppose we'll see what happens next year :?

In other news, I will be creating my new log next week, but I think I'm going to miss this old one :cry:
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Re: Spoon's Space for Spanish, 'speranto and... Italian [2015]

Postby Stelle » Sun Dec 27, 2015 4:03 pm

I've decided to keep my old log - but I'm looking forward to following your new one!

¡Buena suerte en 2016!
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Spoonary
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Re: Spoon's Space for Spanish, 'speranto and... Italian [2015]

Postby Spoonary » Wed Dec 30, 2015 8:13 pm

Thanks Stelle! :)

Here you have it, my 2016 log!

See you all there!
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