Spanish Group

An area with study groups for various languages. Group members help each other, share resources and experience. Study groups are permanent but the members rotate and change.
NoManches
Blue Belt
Posts: 654
Joined: Thu Feb 25, 2016 2:21 pm
Location: Estados Unidos (near the Mexican border)
Languages: English - (N)
Spanish - B2 +
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=7942
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Re: Spanish Group

Postby NoManches » Mon Sep 24, 2018 3:47 pm

garyb wrote:
Jaleel10 wrote:I can highly recommend her podcast too and it comes with transcripts. http://www.espanolautomatico.com/


I listened to Español Automatico for a good few months, but eventually got sick of it because too many of the episodes were just becoming sales pitches for their courses, full of marketing BS and promises of miracles. Which is sad because it's a very professionally-produced podcast, and the "normal" episodes discussed some very interesting topics and were of a perfect length for multiple listens. Sure, they need to make their money somehow, but other similar series (like Français Authentique and Italiano Automatico, the ones that obviously inspired it) find a better balance and are more honest about what they're selling.



I listened to the first episode and really liked it. My comprehension was at or near 100%, and I didn't have the problem I normally encounter with podcasts where my brain wanders and thinks about other, non related things. I think this is because I like the topic of "language learning", so I was listening carefully to pick up any good advice

I'll keep listening and hopefully the sales pitches aren't too bad. Many of the episodes look very interesting, so even with advertisements it might be worth it to get exposed to some good content. Therywas talk on here (or the old site) about how helpful it is to watch informercials in your target language, so as long as the advertisements are in Spanish I'll try to listen to all the episodes.
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NoManches
Blue Belt
Posts: 654
Joined: Thu Feb 25, 2016 2:21 pm
Location: Estados Unidos (near the Mexican border)
Languages: English - (N)
Spanish - B2 +
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=7942
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Re: Active Online Spanish-speaking Communities

Postby NoManches » Sun Sep 30, 2018 8:18 pm

Jaleel10 wrote:I thought I'd post some websites with an active Spanish-speaking presence on the internet. Feel free to give your opinion on them because I have not spent a significant amount on theme, these are just websites I got from my Spanish-speaking friends.

Quora Español https://es.quora.com/

Reddit: r/Mexico https://www.reddit.com/r/mexico/




The quora en español recommendation is awesome! I even downloaded the app to my phone the other day.

As far as Reddit and Facebook in Spanish....I came to the conclusion that any amount of Spanish practice I get from those sources will be wiped away when I get side tracked and 3 hours later realize I am looking at dog pictures posted from a friend I haven't spoken to in 10 years. I was subscribed to a ton of Facebook pages en español but too often I would get stuck doing stuff in English (the same applies for Reddit).


I think Quora in Spanish might be one of the best things to happen to me for Spanish in a long time though, so thank you for the recommendation. I just hope it doesn't turn out to be one of those things that seems great in the beginning and after a few weeks turns out to be a waste of time.
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Jaleel10
Blue Belt
Posts: 534
Joined: Thu Sep 14, 2017 6:44 am
Location: Springbok, South Africa
Languages: Afrikaans (N), English (N)
Spanish (Advanced-B2)
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Re: Active Online Spanish-speaking Communities

Postby Jaleel10 » Mon Oct 01, 2018 7:59 am

NoManches wrote:I think Quora in Spanish might be one of the best things to happen to me for Spanish in a long time though, so thank you for the recommendation. I just hope it doesn't turn out to be one of those things that seems great in the beginning and after a few weeks turns out to be a waste of time.


Me alegro de que te guste y te resulte útil :)

Yeah, I use Quora everyday almost. I definitely see what you mean by it possibly being a waste of time. I think limiting oneself to X posts a day helps keeps things fresh, rather than you just mindlessly scrolling through dozens of pages. I bookmark two pages each day for the following day and that's it. I love it because you get to see native speakers using semi-formal language about things that interest you. Each day I see new grammar constructions that no book will ever teach me.
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Kraut
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2599
Joined: Mon Aug 07, 2017 10:37 pm
Languages: German (N)
French (C)
English (C)
Spanish (A2)
Lithuanian
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Re: Spanish Group

Postby Kraut » Wed Oct 03, 2018 3:55 am

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iguanamon
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2354
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 11:14 am
Location: Virgin Islands
Languages: Speaks: English (Native); Spanish (C2); Portuguese (C2); Haitian Creole (C1); Ladino/Djudeo-espanyol (C1); Lesser Antilles French Creole (B2)
Studies: Catalan
Language Log: viewtopic.php?t=797
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Re: Spanish Group

Postby iguanamon » Thu Oct 04, 2018 11:49 pm

From my log:

I wrote:Recently, while searching for Catalan resources, I came across a site with dictation exercises. The site has dictation for Spanish too. The exercises are labelled with CEFR levels and are short with a two speed option- "Assimil snail-slow" and normal "fast" speech. For those who prefer Castillian Spanish, yes they're from Spain. At this moment there are 206 exercises for dictation at dictando.com.

Also, while helping someone on the forum, I discovered Cursopedia. Cursopedia has many free video courses on a variety of subjects. There are also some languages covered, including Russian, French, Portuguese, "Chino" and Italian. They could be useful for dabblers and wanderlusters.

The new session for La Escuela de Escritores starts soon. The school has several writing courses taught by professional writing instructors, some of whom are published authors. The courses are expensive and require a time commitment. I hope to sign up for one this November.
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Jaleel10
Blue Belt
Posts: 534
Joined: Thu Sep 14, 2017 6:44 am
Location: Springbok, South Africa
Languages: Afrikaans (N), English (N)
Spanish (Advanced-B2)
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Re: Spanish Group

Postby Jaleel10 » Fri Oct 05, 2018 5:44 am

The amount of free resources for Spanish never ceases to amaze me.
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klvik
Orange Belt
Posts: 177
Joined: Wed Jul 13, 2016 8:40 pm
Location: United States
Languages: English (N) Spanish (Intermediate)
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=3149
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Re: Spanish Group

Postby klvik » Mon Oct 08, 2018 6:06 pm

There is a MOOC starting in 2 weeks that I would like to bring to everyone’s attention.
http://mooc.speakapps.org/

From the course description:
“Do you want to improve your speaking skills in Spanish or English? Do you need practice speaking with a native speaker? This six-week course will help you develop speaking strategies by getting in contact with native speakers of Spanish or English. Improve your speaking fluency doing tandem tasks with native speakers of your target language. If you are a Spanish-speaking student of English or an English-speaking student of Spanish, this tandem MOOC is ideal for you!”

I participated in the version that occurred 2 years ago and found it very useful. When you login to the platform you are randomly matched with another student and the course provides a series of tasks to complete with your partner of the moment (picture descriptions, role plays, ect.). Half of the task is completed in English and half in Spanish. When I took the course last time I usually spent more time chatting than doing the tasks, but I thought the tasks were well designed.
Last time there were many more Spanish speakers signed up than English speakers (of course). The majority of the Spanish speakers were from Spain and the majority of the English speakers were from the US which caused some scheduling difficulties. Despite any scheduling difficulties that may result, I think the course is worth.
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iguanamon
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2354
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 11:14 am
Location: Virgin Islands
Languages: Speaks: English (Native); Spanish (C2); Portuguese (C2); Haitian Creole (C1); Ladino/Djudeo-espanyol (C1); Lesser Antilles French Creole (B2)
Studies: Catalan
Language Log: viewtopic.php?t=797
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Re: Spanish Group

Postby iguanamon » Fri Oct 19, 2018 2:51 pm

Recently in my log:
I wrote:I have been using an app called leemur. This is an app that lets you read "chat stories". These are short stories told in the format of an internet chat/text/sms exchange and appear on your phone or tablet as such. The stories are in different genres- comedy, drama, romance, horror, etc. The chats may take up to about half an hour or so to play out. The video below will give an overview. I've read several of these. It's an interesting format to tell stories and almost "voyeuristic". It's quite fun.

Also, my favorite Cuban radio show, La Tremenda Corte, one that I often recommend to people looking for exposure to Cuban Spanish or comedy, is now available as a free app.
Wikipedia wrote:La Tremenda Corte fue un programa de radio del género cómico, el cual se produjo en La Habana, Cuba, y cuyos guiones realizaba Cástor Vispo, un español que después adoptaría la nacionalidad cubana. Se transmitió por radio entre 1942 y 1961 de forma ininterrumpida. Se dice que se grabaron alrededor de 360 episodios, la gran mayoría de ellos escuchados a nivel internacional. ...

Basically, this was an old radio show that was broadcast in pre-revolutionary Cuba. It uses the format of a trial where the character Tres Patines is almost always the accused. Tres Patines and Señor Juez are the main characters. Each episode lasts about 15 minutes. They all carry the suffix "cidio", like "alcaldecidio", "galleguicidio", "automovilicido", etc. The comedy is timeless, and believe it or not, these old radio shows are still broadcast in Spanish-speaking América today. Tres Patines is a beloved character and the show is evocative of a bygone era and quite nostalgic.

The app I use is free and called Tres Patines. There are over 200 of these "podcasts" to listen to with data or downloadable for offline listening. Of course, comedy is difficult for non-natives because of cultural allusions and references and, in this case, being radio, there are no visual clues upon which to rely. Oh yeah, there's also the accent and a lot of "cubanismos". I'm pretty sure the LTC site I linked to has a vocabulary glossary. If anyone needs it and can't find it, I have a copy, so, pm me and I'll try to get it to you. Tres Patines loves playing with Spanish and is always making comedy out of his mangling of the language. The app saves me from having to load up my phone with mp3's and keeps count of the ones I've listened to already for me... and... it's free. So, no excuses now!

It's October and Baseball is having its playoffs and championship series. It's amazing how easily it is to follow in Spanish. So, I know that those outside the Americas know and care little about baseball, but if anyone does be sure to check out MLB en Español for original and translated articles, and player interviews in Spanish.
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Sayonaroo
Green Belt
Posts: 256
Joined: Wed Jan 11, 2017 12:13 am
Languages: English(N), Japanese -fluent?, Korean - advanced?, Spanish (b1?)
Language Log: http://choronghi.wordpress.com
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Re: Spanish Group

Postby Sayonaroo » Fri Oct 19, 2018 8:42 pm

I'm sure someone already mentioned this but RTVE streams full episodes of tv shows and has full transcriptions.

isabel is one of them
http://www.rtve.es/television/isabel-la ... -capitulo/

estoy vivo is another and it also has spanish subs that can be downloaded from addic7ed for season 1.
http://www.rtve.es/television/estoy-vivo/
I have no interest in watching the show (I have too many american/japanese/korean shows to watch) but I've been using workaudiobook to learn from estoy vivo by recording the audio on the website via audacity. I use the auto-repeat function, bookmark function, and note-adding function in workaudiobook. On top of that I use lingoes (off-line pop-up dictionary. I set it so it shows me the definition when I double-click), readlang (to easily generate anki cards), reverso, deepl (I paste the stuff the txt export from readlang into reverso translate and deepl for making my anki cards so I don't have to be copy pasting words one at a time into some dictionary. Also I set up autohotkey scripts and a gaming mouse with macros so highlighted text can be looked up on deepl or reverso with one click :D ). I don't even bother with google translate anymore because I know it sucks. Also I do not use default anki settings since they are over-kill. In fact, I'm using my anki settings for Korean for the Spanish deck because quite frankly I'd rather be under-tested than over-tested. It's set so new cards are sent out 5 or 6 days depending on if I mark it good or okay and I have a single lapse step of 2400.

I think for re-listening I'll either use the truncate silence function on audacity to generate a shorter audio file or run sub2srs... haven't decided yet.
Last edited by Sayonaroo on Mon Oct 22, 2018 9:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Jaleel10
Blue Belt
Posts: 534
Joined: Thu Sep 14, 2017 6:44 am
Location: Springbok, South Africa
Languages: Afrikaans (N), English (N)
Spanish (Advanced-B2)
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Re: Spanish Group

Postby Jaleel10 » Mon Oct 22, 2018 7:35 am

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