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Fighting Windmills: Spanish experiment 1 | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
 Iversen Super Polyglot Moderator Denmark berejst.dk Joined 6497 days ago 9078 posts - 16473 votes  Speaks: Danish*, French, English, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, Swedish, Esperanto, Romanian, Catalan Studies: Afrikaans, Greek, Norwegian, Russian, Serbian, Icelandic, Latin, Irish, Lowland Scots, Indonesian, Polish, Croatian Personal Language Map | Message 57 of 71 29 May 2010 at 8:55am | IP Logged | |||||
It attacked a dragon and dripped its tears on Harry's wounds and at least once it said "pouff" and disappeared in a fireball, after which it reemerged from the ashes (that's the kind of things phoenixes do to keep readers happy) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Wise owl chick Senior Member Ecuador Joined 5112 days ago 122 posts - 137 votes Studies: English | Message 58 of 71 29 May 2010 at 12:22pm | IP Logged | |||||
Thank you veyr much for this great explanation! Maybe in the books phoenixes say this and disappear in a fireball, then reemerge from the ashes to keep the readers happy, but in the reality they don't this excepted after they are dead, although the phoenix's soul is immortal and never dead, but the life can die, and after the phoenix will reemerge from the ahses but in a new life (not the same one like what you described). 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5350 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona | Message 59 of 71 29 May 2010 at 10:18pm | IP Logged | |||||
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"FIGHTING WINDMILLS", DAY 13/14
(un pequeño experimento en L&R española) SUMMARY L&R in Spanish today: 2 hours ("Harry Potter y la piedra filosofal") Background listening: 0.5 hours (music) TV: 1.5 hours ("El Internado") ———————————————————— Total L&R in Spanish so far: 88+ hours Sum total of Spanish immersion: 111+ hours Today's reading test: 92% [ - ] ("La Sombra del Viento") NOTES Weekends are always busy or distracting affairs on the whole for me these days, and it's hard to squeeze in the language learning hours I need with other demands so close to hand. Any extra time that I do have I would rather spend relaxing with friends, going shopping for some new summer clothes in Frankfurt, or napping on the sofa with a cheesy afternoon film to catch up on some hours of missed sleep from the previous week. There are also lots of responsibilities and household duties to catch up on. This is why I realistically put aside far less hours for Saturday and Sunday (a few hours a day is a real achievement for me to be honest), even during an intense experiment such as this. I agree that massive exposure is the key to beating the "forgetting curve" and retaining what you learn, but in terms of energy, it's also important to take some time out to recharge the batteries and prepare for the week ahead. I'm thrilled to be consistently getting marks in the 90s for my basic reading test at the end of the day recently, especially considering it's not even 2 weeks yet since I started. I've had a couple of epiphany moments over the last couple of days too. The first was when I realised I could read ahead in Spanish and match this up to the corresponding audio that followed. The second was when I realised I could do this at an even earlier stage in my method. I believe this could be a good indication that I'm fast approaching the "natural reading" boundary for at least easier contemporary novels (e.g. Stephen King). When I reach the stage where I can generally read ahead of the audio and no longer need to pause much for reference whilst doing my first step of L&R in Spanish, then I hope to have jumped that hurdle. Another strange byproduct of all this L&R over the last fortnight is that I can now read a book in German much faster than before. I found this out by accident only the other night, and I guess it must be something to do with my recent training and learning to "deal with uncertainty" in other languages. It's as though I've learned to focus less on what I don't know and use this time more wisely to work out things that I can guess. This is great! :) I'm looking forward to looking up some of the patterns I've noted down in my grammar reference next week. I get a real kick out of working part of the puzzle out in advance and then building on this intuitive knowledge later. I even noticed the "vosotros" form the other day, when Harry said to his aunt and uncle, "¿Vosotros la sabíais?", and I feel much more confident about recognising passive and conditional tenses.
If I dive into the middle of a difficult audiobook file I've never heard before (e.g anything by Zafón), I can generally pick out words and phrases and follow the gist sometimes. This is light years ahead of where I started 2 weeks ago, where it all sounded so incredibly fast and the only phrase I knew was "Vamos, muchachos!" (which sadly never materialised). It's also very difficult when you know absolutely nothing of the context, and much easier to make mistakes on the fly. My reading level by comparison is much higher, where I always understand the gist and only miss out on a word or two in a small section these days. This imbalance is to be expected though, as the whole listening process tends to be much faster, fuzzier and variable. In fact I know plenty of people at C2 level in English who still have trouble sometimes following tv or movies without subtitles. I look forward to addressing this gap in my listening skills more and more over the following weeks and in future experiments, and it's great to already have some small ability in listening now too. Edited by Teango on 30 May 2010 at 12:47am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5350 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona | Message 60 of 71 30 May 2010 at 10:34pm | IP Logged | |||||
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"FIGHTING WINDMILLS", DAY 14/14
(un pequeño experimento en L&R española) SUMMARY L&R in Spanish today: 3 hours ("Harry Potter y la piedra filosofal") Background listening: 0.5 hours (music) DELE review: 1.5 hours (reviewing sample tests for B1 and B2) ———————————————————— Total L&R in Spanish so far: 91+ hours Sum total of Spanish immersion: 116+ hours Today's reading test: 90% [-2%] ("La Sombra del Viento") NOTES Today is the end of this particular experiment. After going through some DELE (Diplomas de Español como Lengua Extranjera) sample papers, I now estimate my reading level in Spanish is around the high B1 to low B2 mark. I started off with no real knowledge at all, and didn't really know what would happen. So this is a huge jump for me in only a couple of weeks, and I'm absolutely thrilled to now be able to understand so much more when I open a Spanish novel or browse through the Internet. I can't stress the importance of parallel texts enough, if you can get your hands on them, they'll make your life much easier in the long run. In my experiments, I found that having a parallel or dual language text at least halved my study time and was invaluable for checking over things later. I used "The Little Prince" and "Harry Potter" in that order because I believe they came much closer to Krashen's i+1 principle and proved to be far more comprehensible and useful to me at this early stage. I would also recommend starting off with parallel text and "target-language only" audio from a good coursebook for languages that might be far more challenging or indeed very different to your own native language. Luckily for me, Spanish was relatively transparent and the word order doesn't vary too much from English most of the time, which helps a lot, but if I were doing this over with say Finnish, I'd really start with beginner-intermediate coursebook material to make life a bit easier. And for a language like Chinese or Arabic, which use completely different scripts, I'd definitely get a foundation in at least recognising the writing system beforehand too. I also find it's important to employ some fun and interesting techniques on the side to keep myself motivated and aware of ongoing progress and goals, some of which I've already mentioned in previous posts. So anyway, as promised, here's a quick summary of what I do now during my L&R phase, one section at a time, using Spanish via English as my example. I can't think of a clever catch-phrase for this methodology right now, so I'll just call it "study-and-click": Here's a photo of a rough and ready table I completed for one of my sessions taken directly from my notebook, you can use this for reference if you like. 
I start by making a 3 x 4 table with columns for "Time", "Notes" (I write down a short name or number for the audio file and the chapter/pages in this second column header too), and "Results". Step 1. READ I note down my start time for this session in the first column. Then I read the section in English and enjoy this thoroughly. The key here is fun. I believe you've got to really love what you're reading to remain properly motivated and get the most out of L&R. If you just don't like the story or the voice of the narrator in the audiobook, choose another. When I've finished, I write down a phrase that really sums up that section for me under "Notes", e.g. "Harry, you're a wizard!", and write down the length of the corresponding Spanish audio file in the third "Results" column. That's my first row done. Step 2. STUDY I begin by writing the start time for this step in the first column again, but on the next row down. And here comes the hardest bit... I listen to and read the Spanish text for the section (simultaneously), and pause at the end of phrases and short sentences, where I take my time to try to match the English translation on the right to reveal the meaning and logic of the Spanish text on the left . When I reach a more advanced stage, I only pause for a word or phrase when it's completely new and I simply don't understand along with the speed of the recording. I've been able to successfully employ this technique by aligning two separate books, as well as creating a parallel text, but if you really want to get the most out of this and do it efficiently, a parallel text is the best way to go about it. I often feel tempted to just compare the texts without audio, but I'm so glad I haven't, as keeping the audio close by whilst reading the text helps prevent me from pronouncing anything too wrong at this stage, as well as getting my ears attuned to the new sounds and intonation and linking this all to what I see on the page. Whilst doing this, I underline any really persistent words that I don't understand, and make a mark on the side of the side of the page. And I mean here only words that you've seen time and time again and still manage to stump you. When the section is completed, I note down the end time in the third row, first column again. I also write down ONE chosen word or phrase in short context in the "Notes" column, along with its translation in the row just below. If no such words come up in a section however, these couple of boxes simply remain empty. Finally, I work out how many minutes elapsed between the start and end times for this step (i.e. my study time including pauses), and write that in the third "Results" column on the second row and underline it. Step 3. REVIEW This is where my clicker-counter is worth its weight in...well...erm...metal and plastic. I listen and read through the whole section without pausing, and click my little tally-ho gadget every time I recognise a new word and understand the meaning. By "new word" I mean only words I just learned in my study during step 2 for this section. You need to be honest with yourself here for the best results. I do this TWICE, and make a note of the highest count in the "Results" column on the third row and underline it. If I've really started to become aware of a recurrent grammar pattern (or perhaps a curiosity in pronunciation), and think I can infer a basic rule-of-thumb, I write down a very short note of this in the "Notes" column on the final fourth row for cross-referencing in my grammar book later. I sometimes however just leave this box empty. When I've finished my review, I note down the end time in the fourth row, and write the total time for this whole session (i.e. the last time minus the first in the column) in the final box in the "Results" column. When all of this is done, I go over to the "Results" column, and divide the number in the first row by the number in the second row to obtain a rough metric of how quickly I'm reading a section now compared to the speed of the narrator in the audiobook. I then do the same for rows three and four, and work out the minimum number of words I've passively learned per minute during this session. Step 4. LISTEN I add any audio files I've completed that day to a playlist on my iPod, and listen to some of these in sequence last thing at night in bed before going to sleep (I don't listen whilst sleeping though). This gives me a chance to review what I've learned by ear within 24 hours of acquiring a passive knowledge of new words, and hopefully guides my thoughts more towards subconsciously consolidating Spanish whilst resting. So at the end of each session, I'll be able to recall what it was all about (useful for future reference when returning to the book), I'll have some idea of the progress I'm making in reading and passive vocabulary acquisition, there'll be at least one phrase and translation to add to my Anki flashcards or wordlists for later, and if I'm lucky, I'll have some good ideas where to start looking in my grammar book. I'll also have a nice little playlist of Spanish audio that I'm already familiar with which I can use to improve my listening skills either in transit, out walking, as part of the background, or simply at the end of the day. Spanish is a wonderful language and I look forward to opening up so many more doors and windows on this culture in the future. These are just my first few steps on a long road hopefully to fluency, and there's much more adventure yet to come. :) Edited by Teango on 01 June 2010 at 12:24pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Emerald Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom languagedabbler.blog Joined 6039 days ago 316 posts - 340 votes Speaks: Hindi, Gujarati*, English Studies: Spanish | Message 61 of 71 30 May 2010 at 11:08pm | IP Logged | |||||
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WOW you have such a methodical approach to L&R. Great job. Yes, Spanish is a wonderful
language. I am loving it too. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 5936 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 62 of 71 30 May 2010 at 11:18pm | IP Logged | |||||
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¡Felicitaciones, Teango! Casi no me puedo creer lo que has podido hacer sólo en estas dos semanas--es increíble. Me has inspirado y ahora quiero experimentar un poco con ese sistema de L-R o L&R (lo que sea). Estoy muy sorprendido y también estoy muy interesado en lo que harás para continuar tus estudios de la lengua española. ¿Tal vez en el futuro usarás este método de estudio para un idioma más difícil, como húngaro, finlandés, o turco? Espero que tengas mucho éxito con el resto de tus estudios del español y de todos los otros idiomas que vas a estudiar en el futuro. ¡Excelente trabajo!
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Wise owl chick Senior Member Ecuador Joined 5112 days ago 122 posts - 137 votes Studies: English | Message 63 of 71 30 May 2010 at 11:45pm | IP Logged | |||||
Estoy de acuerdo: es todo muy interesante. Normalmente no leo casi nada de este tipo de literatura; lo que prefiero en general son cosas cortas como por ejemplo las que encuentras en el internet. Hace cuatro años, antes de descubrir lo que etsaba haciendo la tele, aprendí mucho escuchando /viendo programas en el idioma que quería aprender y a la vez leyendo los subtítulos (en mi idioma maternel o la lengua del programa) - no me parece que sea completamente distinto a lo que hace Teango aunque lo sepa que sus estudios sean más organizados. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5350 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona | Message 64 of 71 31 May 2010 at 9:38am | IP Logged | |||||
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Gracias for all the positive feedback, and please feel free to put up more posts in Spanish as well. It's wonderful to be able to understand every word so far in your replies (although I can't write much yet, and need to start activating it all now). :D
To answer some of the questions... I'll be continuing my studies in Spanish this week in the next grand experiment "El Mariachi". This will be a time for consolidating what I know and building up lots of new skills using a variety of techniques. The special focus during this week will be on speaking and pronunciation. I'm definitely very keen to try out the "study-and-click" method with something quite challenging like Finnish in the future. It would be really interesting to see how I get on with a language that has little or no similarity to English, and of which I know absolutely nothing at all, but that still uses the Roman alphabet. This would be a really good test for sure. I'll also be looking into trying to get the best out of watching TV with access to English subtitles later on with Irish. There are very few resources in Irish where you can get your hands on the audio, text and translation, but there is alternatively a great TV channel with lots of quality award-winning programmes that you can watch for free online called TG4, and I'm really keen to be able to learn much more with this resource. Edited by Teango on 31 May 2010 at 7:39pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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