Bex's Spanish log 2018. Chapter 2: Improbable ambitions

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Bex
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Re: Bex's Spanish log 2018. Chapter 2: Improbable ambitions

Postby Bex » Thu May 03, 2018 6:35 am

El Ministerio del Tiempo S1 E3 watched last night. It's definitely getting easier...no headache this time.

I have definitely noticed new vocabulary from Clozemaster appearing whilst watching, it's nice to feel I'm actually moving forward again (at last).
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Re: Bex's Spanish log 2018. Chapter 2: Improbable ambitions

Postby Bex » Fri May 04, 2018 9:11 am

Michel Thomas Advanced CD's finished this morning. I didn't realise the 5th one is just review.

Anyway all done...I may start writing some notes on conjugations and tenses next week. Just so I can re-cap whenever I like without having to go through the pain of listening to that again...it is SO slow.
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Re: Bex's Spanish log 2018. Chapter 2: Improbable ambitions

Postby Andy E » Fri May 04, 2018 11:16 am

Bex wrote:Michel Thomas Advanced CD's finished this morning. I didn't realise the 5th one is just review.

Anyway all done...I may start writing some notes on conjugations and tenses next week. Just so I can re-cap whenever I like without having to go through the pain of listening to that again...it is SO slow.


Doesn't the Advanced Review (CD5) cut all of the painful student stuff out? Without going up to the loft to get my copy out, I thought it was just a Michel Thomas Q&A so you can review it without having to go through it all from scratch.
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Re: Bex's Spanish log 2018. Chapter 2: Improbable ambitions

Postby Bex » Fri May 04, 2018 1:54 pm

Andy E wrote:
Bex wrote:Michel Thomas Advanced CD's finished this morning. I didn't realise the 5th one is just review.

Anyway all done...I may start writing some notes on conjugations and tenses next week. Just so I can re-cap whenever I like without having to go through the pain of listening to that again...it is SO slow.


Doesn't the Advanced Review (CD5) cut all of the painful student stuff out? Without going up to the loft to get my copy out, I thought it was just a Michel Thomas Q&A so you can review it without having to go through it all from scratch.

Yes you're right it is just a review of the other 4 CD's....I just listened to the first 5 minutes of it after reading your comment.

Thanks saves me making notes like I was going to, I'll just re-listen to CD 5 for a quick recap.
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Re: Bex's Spanish log 2018. Chapter 2: Improbable ambitions

Postby Bex » Fri May 11, 2018 7:55 am

Friday update:

Feeling more positive this week, I am starting to be able to integrate Spanish into my life, it's s good feeling after struggling so much with how to move forward after finishing my courses.

Speaking: I have managed 18 hours of iTalki lessons this year so far (7 last year, so 25 hours in total) and I am finally starting to feel more comfortable with my speaking. I find myself trying to translate my English thoughts into Spanish these days, I still can't manage it most of the time but it's interesting that my brain feels the need to attempt such a thing. I'm not sure my speaking has improved much but I am much more comfortable with my butchering of it at least and I am finally feeling after 25 hours that my iTalki lessons aren't just a complete waste of my time.

Writing: I am still not really doing much, I am starting to feel like I should again. Not just for the challenge but for some reason I feel a strange compulsion to try and play with some of the sentences in my head. It's an odd feeling, not sure how to explain it. I am not sure how this will convert into me actually writing but we'll see.

Reading: Finally starting to pick up a little reading each day, it's definitely a lot easier after using Clozemaster so much. I have seen nearly 45,000 sentences in the past 3 months (0-500 most common words mostly) and when I picked up my kindle at the beginning of this week...I can read sentences, no more single words and constant look-ups. I haven't had much time this week but I've read 80 pages of my short stories book. I have been reading one short story and then the next time, I re-read it before reading the next story. My reading speed and comprehension is massively improved on the second pass. Seems the SC might be possible after all :D

Listening/Films: I only managed to watch one episode of Ministerio del Tiempo this week (Episode 4) and my comprehension was the worst so far, I missed huge chunks of it, couldn't follow it for some reason. I just couldn't process the Spanish fast enough and kept getting lost/left behind. I think I shall read the script and then attempt watching this episode again.

All in all though my comprehension accross the board is improving, I have racked up over 180 hours (definitely minimum time spent, for example: I estimate my reading time spent based on my number of pages read, then calculate time using reading speed of a slow native reader and I am definitely much slower than that. I use a similar calculation for writing) of Spanish so far this year and I am now staring to feel the benefits. I have a 600 hour target in my head for this year...for some reason I wanted to see what difference 600 hours would make...I'm not sure why :?

Here are my totals so far...

Image

Gotta love a spreadsheet :lol:
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Re: Bex's Spanish log 2018. Chapter 2: Improbable ambitions

Postby Andy E » Fri May 11, 2018 9:38 am

Bex wrote:Listening/Films: I only managed to watch one episode of Ministerio del Tiempo this week (Episode 4) and my comprehension was the worst so far, I missed huge chunks of it, couldn't follow it for some reason. I just couldn't process the Spanish fast enough and kept getting lost/left behind. I think I shall read the script and then attempt watching this episode again.


Don't sweat it. This happens to me all the time - particularly when I've had a busy day at work. I find my attention wanders and I end up having to rewind and re-watch. To be fair, the same thing can happen to me when I'm watching TV in English.

For the entire first series of El Ministerio I watched an episode, read the guide and then watched it again. I did the same thing with Isabel - no guides but I downloaded the VTT subtitle files and looked through those to see what I'd missed or only partially understood and then re-watched.
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Re: Bex's Spanish log 2018. Chapter 2: Improbable ambitions

Postby Bex » Fri May 11, 2018 9:49 am

Andy E wrote:
Bex wrote:Listening/Films: I only managed to watch one episode of Ministerio del Tiempo this week (Episode 4) and my comprehension was the worst so far, I missed huge chunks of it, couldn't follow it for some reason. I just couldn't process the Spanish fast enough and kept getting lost/left behind. I think I shall read the script and then attempt watching this episode again.


Don't sweat it. This happens to me all the time - particularly when I've had a busy day at work. I find my attention wanders and I end up having to rewind and re-watch. To be fair, the same thing can happen to me when I'm watching TV in English.

For the entire first series of El Ministerio I watched an episode, read the guide and then watched it again. I did the same thing with Isabel - no guides but I downloaded the VTT subtitle files and looked through those to see what I'd missed or only partially understood and then re-watched.

I have just finished reading through the script this morning which is available on the RTVE website and actually I hadn't missed as much as I thought, unfortunately the main part I had only partially understood was at the beginning and it was the explanation of their mission. Once I had read this, the rest just fell into place and I then just scanned through until the end scene which was another bit I had not really understood fully. Seems missing the beginning and end of a story can really mess with your comprehension levels in the middle :roll:

I'm not very good at re-watching or re-reading anything...I get bored easily...but I know it would be very beneficial.
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Re: Bex's Spanish log 2018. Chapter 2: Improbable ambitions

Postby Bex » Fri May 18, 2018 10:01 am

Friday Update:

I am slightly ahead for the reading part of the SC (18 days in means I should have read 148 pages) and I have read 155 so far. 3 books yay!
The Films part I am behind because I have only watched 140 minutes (I should be around 266 minutes on day 18) but I'm not too worried as it's always easier for me to watch TV than read...so it's the reading part that I need to keep my focus on.

Writing is still a no go...I find this really difficult to create a habit for. The pen-pals were great but my Spanish is not advanced enough, so it stayed on a fairly low level and I got bored after 3 months of chit-chat.

Speaking is still going well...confidence is still growing. I even attempted to discuss my sun-cream allergy with a kind lady in the chemists yesterday...I didn't know a lot of the vocab (and my grammar is still terrible when speaking) and so I had to ask her a couple of times how to say the odd word, whilst trying to explain what I was trying to say in Spanish...she was very helpful and kept calling me "guapa" :lol: . She babbled away in Spanish at me and I pretty much followed what she was saying...it is definitely getting easier even if I'm not getting any better :D

Interestingly with my speaking confidence growing and my Clozemaster practice (20 hours this month) it is becoming really apparent where my weaknesses are...unfortunately as a novice learner I have little idea how to tackle these problems...knowing what I need to learn and knowing how to learn them are not the same thing.
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Re: Bex's Spanish log 2018. Chapter 2: Improbable ambitions

Postby Bex » Sat May 19, 2018 9:30 am

Bex wrote:...knowing what I need to learn and knowing how to learn them are not the same thing.


Continuing on with this theme...and really just thinking aloud...

I am currently just looking up grammar "difficulties" as I come across them whilst using Clozemaster. I do not feel this is very good use of my time and I would like to put a more concrete learning system in place, rather than my current "do something" when I feel like it system.

Also since I appear to be unable to create my own system to progress forward with grammar beyond Assimil, Michel Thomas, etc, I think I should probably add some kind of grammar studies to my routine...

I am also doing too much extensive listening and not enough "studying", I can feel the lack of progression, my brain is itching to understand.

Clozemaster has helped loads with getting over my reading hurdle and I'm not going to stop but I have time in my day and I would like to fill it with something constructive.

I progressed well when I finally forced myself to finish the Assimil course and I was sitting down to study for an hour each day....I would like to return to a similar system.

Maybe something similar to PM's rotation system?

1. Grammar book
2. Writing
3. Reading

I can continue iTalki, listening, watching and Clozemaster as I am but rotate 1-3. Hmmm I shall continue to mull this over...
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Re: Bex's Spanish log 2018. Chapter 2: Improbable ambitions

Postby smallwhite » Sat May 19, 2018 9:40 am

Bex wrote:
I am currently just looking up grammar "difficulties" as I come across them whilst using Clozemaster.

What are some grammar difficulties that you've had?
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