James29's Spanish and French Log

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Re: James29's Spanish and French Log

Postby Snow » Sun Feb 11, 2018 12:52 pm

James29 wrote:I'm moving my way through the Spanish series El Mar de Plastico. It is GREAT.


Since you recommended La Casa de Papel and it turned out to be awesome, I'm going to trust your recommendation again! :lol:
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Re: James29's Spanish and French Log

Postby garyb » Mon Feb 12, 2018 10:36 am

Me too! I'll check out Mar de Plastico when I can. It wasn't on Netflix UK last time I checked a couple of weeks ago, but it should be soon if not already.

Another Spanish series you might like is "Sé quién eres". It's another crime drama with a convoluted plot: a lawyer has amnesia after a car accident and it turns out he may or may not have committed a murder.
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Re: James29's Spanish and French Log

Postby reineke » Thu Feb 15, 2018 2:00 pm

USA Netflix Shows Audio Described in Languages Other Than English

Spanish
100 Meters
7 Años
Bomb Scared
Cable Girls
Call Me Francis
Club of Crows
El Chapo
Estocolmo
Four Seasons in Havana
Historia de un clan
Ingobernable
Juana Ines
La Casa de Papel Added Jan 5
La Niña
Morocco: Love in Times of War Added Feb 2
Narcos
Surviving Escobar - Alias JJ
The Day I Met El Chapo
Warehoused

French
Blockbuster Added Feb 2
Call My Agent!
Canabis
Chef's Table France! (also in English)
Divines
In the Shadow of Iris
Journey to Greenland
La Mante Added Jan 5
Marseille
No Second Chance
The Break
The Frozen Dead Added Jan 19
Un plus une

http://www.acb.org/adp/netflixadother.html
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Re: James29's Spanish and French Log

Postby James29 » Sun Feb 18, 2018 6:54 pm

reineke wrote:USA Netflix Shows Audio Described in Languages Other Than English

Spanish
100 Meters
7 Años
Bomb Scared
Cable Girls
Call Me Francis
Club of Crows
El Chapo
Estocolmo
Four Seasons in Havana
Historia de un clan
Ingobernable
Juana Ines
La Casa de Papel Added Jan 5
La Niña
Morocco: Love in Times of War Added Feb 2
Narcos
Surviving Escobar - Alias JJ
The Day I Met El Chapo
Warehoused

French
Blockbuster Added Feb 2
Call My Agent!
Canabis
Chef's Table France! (also in English)
Divines
In the Shadow of Iris
Journey to Greenland
La Mante Added Jan 5
Marseille
No Second Chance
The Break
The Frozen Dead Added Jan 19
Un plus une

http://www.acb.org/adp/netflixadother.html


Your list is pretty accurate. However, there are a few of those shows that have different names now. Also, there are a number of other languages (Portuguese, Italian, Japanese, etc) that have shows with the feature. By far, Spanish and French have the most shows. I'm hoping they add more and more shows so I can have a bit of variety.

My Spanish is still chugging along. I'm watching Mar de Plastico. I like it. This is my kind of show... I guess it is something like a Spanish version of CSI. For some reason I can watch these types of shows forever and never get bored. Hopefully I'll find some more because I'm almost done with this one. I also started the second season of Chicas del Cable. I need something of a different length because the 70-75 minute episodes of Mar de Plastico are not too convenient for my running schedule. Chicas del Cable has the audio description feature and that's why I like it. This is totally not my type of show, however. This reminds me of a high production quality US soap opera. It is overly dramatic and all the plots are either political or completely geared toward women. There are only 8 episodes in the second season so I'll finish it fast and move on.

I'm not doing much else in Spanish. I'm going to start back up with Atlas Shrugged and finish that off. I set it down after finishing part 2.
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Re: James29's Spanish and French Log

Postby reineke » Mon Feb 19, 2018 4:52 am

"Every two weeks we will update this list of shows available on USA Netflix with audio description tracks in languages other than English. This is the ONLY such list in the USA!" They added a couple of shows just yesterday. I don't use subs much but hopefully they'll keep doing this. FL audio description is a cool tool.

I've noticed that sometimes when I switch languages I can no longer find a particular audio track. Having Portuguese on all the time has helped me discover some new shows. Of course, I might be imagining things.
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Re: James29's Spanish and French Log

Postby rdearman » Mon Feb 19, 2018 1:09 pm

reineke wrote:"Every two weeks we will update this list of shows available on USA Netflix with audio description tracks in languages other than English. This is the ONLY such list in the USA!" They added a couple of shows just yesterday. I don't use subs much but hopefully they'll keep doing this. FL audio description is a cool tool.

I've noticed that sometimes when I switch languages I can no longer find a particular audio track. Having Portuguese on all the time has helped me discover some new shows. Of course, I might be imagining things.

I've had this problem with Netflix. I was watching a show in Italian, then switched to French for awhile and when I went back to the other program Italian was no longer an option. What I did was go to the online login and change my language to Italian, then switched the show to italian, then relogged in and switched the default language to English (since my wife watches it too!)
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Re: James29's Spanish and French Log

Postby James29 » Sun Feb 25, 2018 12:16 pm

rdearman wrote:
reineke wrote:"Every two weeks we will update this list of shows available on USA Netflix with audio description tracks in languages other than English. This is the ONLY such list in the USA!" They added a couple of shows just yesterday. I don't use subs much but hopefully they'll keep doing this. FL audio description is a cool tool.

I've noticed that sometimes when I switch languages I can no longer find a particular audio track. Having Portuguese on all the time has helped me discover some new shows. Of course, I might be imagining things.

I've had this problem with Netflix. I was watching a show in Italian, then switched to French for awhile and when I went back to the other program Italian was no longer an option. What I did was go to the online login and change my language to Italian, then switched the show to italian, then relogged in and switched the default language to English (since my wife watches it too!)


Are you guys saying the entire audio track itself disappears as an option? I have not noticed that, but I have not been thinking about it. I have noticed that Netflix seems to notice my "preference" in the sense that it will play shows in Spanish.... but if I watch a few shows in English or French for a while it will then seem to automatically change my "preference" when I go back to the show I was watching in Spanish. I was thinking of setting up different profiles in my Netflix account depending on the language I want to watch.
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Re: James29's Spanish and French Log

Postby James29 » Sun Feb 25, 2018 12:28 pm

Well, here I am going on and on with Spanish... and loving it. When will the madness stop? I've been studying, using and practicing Spanish for probably about seven or eight years now. I feel like my Spanish is at a level where it can actually get worse depending on what I am doing. For a while when I was doing nothing more than watching Netflix in Spanish for about six months I feel my overall Spanish got worse to some degree... this was mostly in my total vocabulary and my reading. All the TV, however, really helped my conversational Spanish.

This week was mostly watching Netflix in Spanish. I'm moving through Mar de Plastico and I really like it. I'll finish it pretty soon. I'm also watching episodes of the second season of Chicas del Cable. Both shows are from Spain. Near the beginning of my Spanish journey I would consider Spain Spanish much easier. I used Assimil extensively and I had two consistent skype partners from Spain. Over the past few years, however, I've focused MUCH more on Latin American Spanish and I notice it. Spain Spanish is not as "easy" for me anymore when compared to Latin American Spanish.

I started the third part of Atlas Shrugged. This book is so long that the third part (of three) would be equivalent to a very long book or roughly equivalent to two full length Grisham/Connolly books. I like the book and will slowly work through the end of it. I know the story well enough that I can set it aside for a week or two and just pick up where I left off.

In a couple months I'll have to figure out what I am going to do for a transition. I'll be running less through the summer and that will give me a bit more time off the treadmill for free time. I'm not even sure if I'll use it for languages. If I do I'll have to decide if I put it into pushing up my Spanish more with something like a C level grammar book or if I use it to get a good base in French.

French still appeals to me in many ways. I love the thought of watching French series on the treadmill. I need some variety. My French is good enough to read basic books now, but that's about it. Maybe this summer I'll try to get my French up to whatever level is necessary to be able to meaningful watch shows on Netflix. I'm thinking if I just blast through a few books and get my vocabulary up to a decent level I'll be able to watch shows with subtitles. After a while watching shows with subtitles I'm hoping my regular listening skills would be sufficient to carry me on indefinitely.

Well, that's it for now.
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Re: James29's Spanish and French Log

Postby James29 » Sun Mar 04, 2018 12:38 pm

I am still doing a decent amount of Spanish every day. I am really enjoying the shows from Spain. For the past few years I have tried to consciously select Latin American shows as I felt that was more important. Now, however, my Spanish is at a point where I'm really just watching things for fun and I seem to like the shows from Spain better. They just seem better written and produced. Casa de Papel and Mar de Plastico have just been a pleasure to watch.

I have one more episode of Mar de Plastico. It is not as much of an "edge of your seat" suspense as Casa de Papel, but it is done in a way where I could totally binge watch it. It is a nice balance of suspense and comfort. I'm not sure I like the second season better than the first. I'll have to wait until it is over before making final judgment on season two.

I also have one or two more episodes of Chicas del Cable. I am sick of the two lead guys fighting over the same girl. In every single episode she goes back and forth between the two of them at least two or three times. When one of them gets pissed off at her dumping him for the other he goes and argues with the other guy and punches him. Then the guy who gets dumped goes and gets drunk. Sometimes the order is reversed, but I'm getting sick of it. This show is just not my cup of tea.

I'm trying to pick out another show and I'll have to spend some time searching Netflix today. The telenovela thread on this site has been really helpful. I would love to watch Se Quien Eres, but it is not on Netflix. I see that there is a new Argentinian series coming out called Edha. It looks really good... mostly because it stars Juana Viale who is a total knockout. That does not get released until March 17 so I'll have to wait another couple weeks. I'll try to find something short until then.

I'm still reading Atlas Shrugged. Boy, this is a really long book. I'll read for an hour or so and I'll look at the pages I read and it won't even seem like I made a dent. The translation is good and has much more varying vocabulary than most books I read. There are a ton of words that I don't really "know." At a certain level in a language there are words that one does not "know" until the word is read and then you say to yourself "of course, that makes sense, I 'know' what that means because I can deduce the meaning upon seeing it." I'm getting that feeling quite often reading this book.

In many ways I'm starting to get motivated to spend some more time on French again. For some reason when summer beach season approaches each year I get the itch for French. I'll have to start thinking about that. I see they released season two of Marseille. I think maybe I'll watch it in Spanish to scratch this little French itch.
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Re: James29's Spanish and French Log

Postby James29 » Sun Mar 11, 2018 5:30 pm

I finished Mar de Plastico early this past week. It is too bad there are not more seasons. It is my kind of show. I really liked it. It is the kind of thing that could go on and on and not get boring or repetitive. I also watched one episode of Chicas del Cable. I have one more episode of that which I will watch this week.

I started the Mexican/American telenovela "El Vato." This has been quite a pleasant surprise. I have watched maybe 10 episodes so far. It is about a young Mexican singer and his team (songwriter, producer, manager, etc) who gets a record deal in LA. Then when they all get to LA he promptly screws up and loses the deal. They are left scrambling for work and trying to re-kindle the "dream" of success in the music industry. There are some straightforward twists with the various relationships and one looming sub-plot is that the star's dad was a Mexican singer who went to LA and ended up in prison for drug related matters. The Spanish is very Mexican with a ton of Mexican-isms. I really like it because it is "different" than most telenovelas so it is a nice change of pace. Again, it is too bad there are only two seasons of this show. I'll get through it pretty fast because the episodes are roughly 40 minutes each.

On my short list for future telenovelas are Edha, Tiempos de Guerra and El Ministerio del Tiempo. I'm also thinking of some Mexican comedies. I have never watched much of El Chavo. Also, I'm thinking La Familia P. Luche might be good. I figure those would be very different and might be enjoyable.

I really did not do much else this week in terms of Spanish. I've been busier lately with real life matters. I intend to spend less time on the treadmill with Netflix this summer so I may have more time for book related Spanish (and French!).
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