Hank's Adventure in Spanish (Now with 100% more Welsh!)

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Tomás
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Re: Hank's Adventure in Spanish (Team Spanish TAC 2016)

Postby Tomás » Sat Jan 16, 2016 11:00 pm

Hank wrote:In my Spanish studies, I find the "journey" frustrating. I want to fully understand what the actors are saying in a Telenovela so badly that I can taste it. I usually have an idea about what is being discussed, but I want more. I want to listen to Chuy Lizárraga and fully understand the lyrics. I want to be able to write and speak Spanish without having to think about it so hard. It's annoying! I think the "destination" is actually the goal this time.

I started my journey in August, and quite frankly, I'm surprised at my progress. I knew it would be a long progress (even though I didn't realistically realize HOW long :lol: ).


I started about a month after you and feel the same frustration. Some of the telenovelas I can sort of understand from reading the transcript, but there is no way I could get it just from listening. I've only just begun to understand a few tv shows for toddlers, but even Barrio Sesamo is still over my head. I cannot follow Kermit and Miss Piggy at all. I can see that it will be a very long journey.
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Hank
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Re: Hank's Adventure in Spanish (Team Spanish TAC 2016)

Postby Hank » Sun Jan 17, 2016 3:37 am

We'll get there Tomás. I'm just not used to being this impatient. :lol:
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Re: Hank's Adventure in Spanish (Team Spanish TAC 2016)

Postby Lorren » Sun Jan 17, 2016 7:26 am

Hank wrote:In my Spanish studies, I find the "journey" frustrating. I want to fully understand what the actors are saying in a Telenovela so badly that I can taste it. I usually have an idea about what is being discussed, but I want more. I want to listen to Chuy Lizárraga and fully understand the lyrics. I want to be able to write and speak Spanish without having to think about it so hard. It's annoying! I think the "destination" is actually the goal this time.


Su español es muy bueño for having started in August.

Fortunadamente, español no es como los bolos. It's the most fun when you get there! You'll never get to the point where you're one of the best in the league, and the effort to step up your game is not worth it. You might get to the point where you speak Spanish very well, and you don't see much improvement, but when you get to that point, you can just enjoy using the language, and not worry about how much effort it will take you to get better.
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Hank
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Re: Hank's Adventure in Spanish (Team Spanish TAC 2016)

Postby Hank » Tue Jan 19, 2016 3:10 pm

Someone on the Duolingo message board started a poetry challenge. I came up with this. It's silly, but it kind of rhymes. I'm actually surprised I was able to come up with something.

Tengo una manzana,
Soy de Tijuana,
Vivo cerca de un restaurante,
Cuando estoy cansado,
No conduzco mi auto,
Y bebo mucho café.
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Hank
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Re: Hank's Adventure in Spanish (Team Spanish TAC 2016)

Postby Hank » Fri Jan 22, 2016 3:31 pm

For a while this week I actually felt like I was regressing. I was having trouble recalling words that I should have known. Not very common words like también, así, algo, etc. I have always had trouble remembering words like that! :lol: But the more I think about it, I think it's more likely that I'm still fighting impatience and I'm kind of getting bored with Duolingo and Memrise. I can only review "Me gustarían dos cervezas" so many times! Maybe it was just one of those weeks.

I have noticed something weird. I usually have Despierta América on in the mornings when I'm home. I tend to understand more of the language when I'm passively listening. When I actually sit and watch a show or movie in Spanish I don't feel like I comprehend as well. I wonder if I'm not distracted by the images. Or maybe I'm just distracted by all the mujeres hermosas on the Despierta América! :lol: My Spanish comprehension is improving, but I still think my biggest issue is lack of vocabulary.

I tried a little experiment last night. I watched an episode of Extr@ en Español on YouTube. If I didn't understand what was said I would rewind it and listen again. If I still didn't understand what was said I would turn on the Spanish subtitles. Then I would turn off the subtitles and listen again. It seemed to be effective. I'm going to keep trying this and see what happens, except I'm more interested in Latin American Spanish right now so I'm going to find a Latin American show that I can do this with.

I'm fighting my way through La telaraña de Carlota. I have the English version and have Google Translate open when I read. I'm almost done with the third chapter. I'm relying less and less on the English version and Google Translate, but it is slow going. I read a sentence and try to understand it before I start looking up words. It's mentally exhausting. It's fun, though. I bought this book because I thought that a children's book would be easier to read. I'm learning a lot of vocabulary, but it's mostly about a farm. I'm not sure how often knowing how to say llave inglesa or pocilga is going to be helpful in real life. When I finish this book I'm going to try to find a book that is more current with more conversational vocabulary. Any suggestions?
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BOLIO
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Re: Hank's Adventure in Spanish (Team Spanish TAC 2016)

Postby BOLIO » Sat Jan 23, 2016 1:23 am

Hank, I am looking forward to seeing your journey.

One resource you may enjoy if you have not completed it yet is languagetransfer.org.

All the best,

BOLIO
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Reminder to myself: Perfection is useless and harmful. Just keep moving forward.

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Hank
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Re: Hank's Adventure in Spanish (Team Spanish TAC 2016)

Postby Hank » Thu Jan 28, 2016 3:15 pm

I'm still plugging along and I feel like I'm advancing well. I'm keeping up with Duolingo, but I have made some changes with how I use Memrise. I was trying to keep up with all the review, but it's just too much. I have been doing the Memrise lessons, and reviewing them once when I'm done, but I don't do any of the big review unless I just feel like it. It annoys me to see that I "need" to review 200 words, but I don't feel like it was worth the time.

Duolingo Welsh started in beta this week. I haven't looked at it yet. I'm not ready to start learning the language yet, but I'm looking forward to it. I want to exclusively stick with Spanish until I'm more comfortable with it. I finally figured out how to find Welsh language novels on Amazon.com. You would think Amazon would be more user friendly. It was easy to find Welsh language learning books. It took me quite a while to figure it out, but I suppose that there aren't too many people in the U.S. that are interested in Welsh language novels. Can someone living in the U.S. order books from Amazon UK?

My listening comprehension seems to be improving. I'm starting to be able to hear the words even if I don't know what they mean. I watched a Latin American news show the other night, and I followed along very well. I still have trouble with telenovelas.

I had an opportunity to have a few very short written conversations in Spanish on Duolingo and Lang-8. I had to think about it for a while, but I feel like I did very well. The corrections I received were very minor or more common ways to say what I wrote.

I read the thread about extensive reading. I have been giving it the occasional try with La telaraña de Carlota. It seems to work fairly well when I can compare with the English version. I go back and forth between intensive and extensive. I think the issue with extensively reading La telaraña de Carlota is all the farm related vocabulary. I'm enjoying the book in Spanish. I'm about one third of the way through it. I kind of know the story, but I don't think I ever read it in English. I have been concentrating more on reading. It's a lot more fun.

I'll be out of town for a few days. We're leaving in the morning. I'm going to watch my alma mater's basketball team play. It's my annual birthday trip. I'm going to try and keep up with Duolingo, but I doubt I'll do much studying otherwise. That's ok. A little break probably isn't a bad idea. I'm going to visit a bookstore that's close to the hotel where we're staying. It's supposed to be three stories tall. I'm hoping to find a good selection of Spanish novels, and maybe even Welsh but I doubt there will be any of those. The selection of Spanish novels at my local bookstore is poor.
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Hank
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Re: Hank's Adventure in Spanish (Team Spanish TAC 2016)

Postby Hank » Thu Jan 28, 2016 4:32 pm

I forgot to mention:

One of my coworkers is planning on moving to Costa Rica when he retires in a couple of years. We have discussed it when I worked at his station. He's very excited about it. He was recently transferred to my station. I told him, "Since you're moving to Costa Rica you should learn Spanish with me. It would be fun. We could speak Spanish to each other." He replied, "Why would I want to do that? A lot of the Costa Rican natives speak English. I'm just going to use a phrase book."

I don't understand this at all. If you're moving to a different country, why wouldn't you want to learn the language? I feel like that's insulting. It's not like there aren't a bunch of free, online courses where you could at least get a basic grasp of the language.
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Hank
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Re: Hank's Adventure in Spanish (Team Spanish TAC 2016)

Postby Hank » Thu Feb 04, 2016 5:16 pm

Not a whole lot of excitement to report.

I was out of town for a few days. The only study I did during that time was meeting my daily goal on Duolingo. The break didn't seem to hurt my understanding at all. I'm back into my routine now.

The four story bookstore that I mentioned in my last post was a flop. They had a few more novels in Spanish than my local bookstore, but nothing terribly exciting and no other languages. They had a great deal more language learning books, but nothing in Welsh. The Latin cd section was tiny. The only artist I recognized was Jesse y Joy. A reviewer had written that this store had a large selection of non-English magazines, but I didn't see any. We had a good time on the trip. I got to watch my university's basketball team (We won!) and my wife and step-daughter got to go shopping.

My wife and step-daughter read a lot of books, and I asked them for suggestions. My step-daughter told me about a book that she liked and pulled up an overview on her phone. The overview was in Spanish. She thought she was being funny thinking I wouldn't be able to read it. It was a good test for me with no Google Translate or parallel text available. I understood it very well, which was exciting.

I'm still reading La telaraña de Carlota. I'm more than halfway finished. I have always been a slow reader, so the amount of time it is taking me to complete the book isn't solely due to Spanish. I may read Los juegos del hambre next. I have never read the book or seen the movie, but it sounds like an interesting story.

I still need to commit to more output since I don't do very much. For some reason I just haven't been able to motivate myself to do it regularly.
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James29
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Re: Hank's Adventure in Spanish (Team Spanish TAC 2016)

Postby James29 » Thu Feb 04, 2016 8:50 pm

For easy to read, yet interesting, beginner books I'd suggest the Cajas de Carton series. It is an autobiographical series written about a Mexican immigrant boy who moves to So California with his parents/family. it was the first real book I read in Spanish. The first book in the series has an audio book.

I did not know the Hunger Games story when I read that... I found it a bit tougher than Narnia and Harry Potter. I love the Alex Rider series and found it a good level for initial books... unfortunately there is not a Kindle version nor an audio book of Alex Rider.

Keep up the good work.... what matters is doing a little every day.
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