A language learners’ forum

Hundetier wrote:Does/did anyone of you work with Platiquemos? I got an offer to download it for 35$ (all 8 levels) and I am very tempted.
I had tried the old FSI courses before, but couldn't use them because I was not able to read the (very bad) scans; the accompanying pdfs of Platiquemos are of much better quality.
But I am not sure, if this course would be helpful for me. My current spanish level should be very low intermediate in regard to listening and reading. My other learning sources are a mixture of Grammar and Vocab learning books, Podcasts, Blogs or Sites like VeinteMundos, and Glossika Fluency.

Bad scans?! I've been using FSI and I think the scans are just fine. I finished the Programmatic course some time ago and the scans were all good. The recordings were mostly pretty good too. A few were a little slow, but only chapter 13 was really bad. I'm still working my way through the Basic course, but so far all scans and recordings are good.

You can find several websites offering FSI material and other resources here:

viewtopic.php?f=19&t=5377

iguanamon wrote:You might give the new FSI site a new look. I found the pdf's readable. A course like this will help to tie together what you are learning with native materials and complement them well.

reineke wrote:I also don't see anything wrong herw. I didn't look hard, but the pages look sharp. https://fsi-languages.yojik.eu/language ... matic.html

Thanks for the links, I'm downloading... only 38 min to wait ...
Iguanamon, your evaluation helps me a lot.

Brun Ugle wrote:Bad scans?!

The version I downloaded half a year ago is way to blurry for me to read, it needs much concentration and is eye-tiring to decipher some words in the exercises. Perhaps it is just a matter with my not 100%-functioning eyes ...

You're welcome, Hundetier. I like to read pdf's on a tablet. They can be easily enlarged and bookmarked automatically.

Unrelated to language study, I was thinking about re-watching Buffy. I know several folks here on the forum have watched dubbed versions.

So how is the Spanish dub of Buffy? Is it watchable from an entertainment perspective, not just a language-learning one?

arthaey wrote:Unrelated to language study, I was thinking about re-watching Buffy. I know several folks here on the forum have watched dubbed versions.

So how is the Spanish dub of Buffy? Is it watchable from an entertainment perspective, not just a language-learning one?

How is Spanish dub of Buffy not related to language learning?

Spanish dubs, particularly Buffy: La Cazavampiros

https://www.hometheaterforum.com/commun ... os.109835/

reineke wrote:

arthaey wrote:Unrelated to language study, I was thinking about re-watching Buffy. I know several folks here on the forum have watched dubbed versions.

So how is the Spanish dub of Buffy? Is it watchable from an entertainment perspective, not just a language-learning one?

How is Spanish dub of Buffy not related to language learning?

Well, I want to re-watch Buffy. If the dubs aren't good, I'll just watch it in English again.

Spanish dubs, particularly Buffy: La Cazavampiros

https://www.hometheaterforum.com/commun ... os.109835/

Thanks for the link! tl;dr the dubs don't sound too awesome. :/

arthaey wrote:Unrelated to language study, I was thinking about re-watching Buffy. I know several folks here on the forum have watched dubbed versions.

So how is the Spanish dub of Buffy? Is it watchable from an entertainment perspective, not just a language-learning one?

Related to this, why are there so many shows on Netflix like Buffy that do not have the Spanish audio? It does not make sense to me that they don't put the Spanish on Netflix. I find this incredibly frustrating. Is there any reason for this?

First, kudos to Netflix for including Italian, German and other languages in their Netflix Originals program offering. Amazon: boo!
Some non-Netflix programs are offered with Spanish dubs but most are English- only. This could be due to content owners' policies and business decisions. If you believe in writing to companies, you could try contacting them.

List of TV Shows available on Netflix in the US with Spanish subtitles and audio
Information verified correct on February 10th, 2017:

https://www.finder.com/netflix-tv-shows ... tles-audio

Right now I'm three episodes short of finishing the first season of Aqui no hay quien viva. I have not tried to quantify my listening comprehension, and it's hard to say how much more of the dialogue I get now compared to when I started. However, I don't worry too much about it, it's a delightful sitcom with ridiculous characters and some hilarious storylines, and with plenty of visual cues to keep me onboard whenever some of the rapid muffled dialogue escape me.

Still I'm curious: after finishing all five seasons (approximately 100 hours in total), will I be able to understand nearly everything that is being said in a given episode? I assume many of you have been through a similar regime earlier and can comment on this. My suspicion is that I got a significant chunk of the vocabulary down already, but my parsing/sequencing abilities are still far from sufficiently developed, and some of the more colloquial expressions used rather frequently in the series are still unfamiliar to me.

The one character I'm struggling with the most, by far, is Emilio, el portero. I guess he speaks with a southern dialect (cordobés?), he speaks very fast and drops word endings and whole syllables more often than not it seems. Any tips on how to make this guy more intelligible?