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Fighting Windmills: Spanish experiment 1 | ||
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| Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5338 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona | Message 1 of 71 17 May 2010 at 10:32pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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"FIGHTING WINDMILLS", DAY 1/14
(un pequeño experimento en LR española) SUMMARY LR in Spanish today: 8 hours ("El Principito" by Antoine De Saint-Exupery) Background listening: 2.5 hours ("Ficciones" by Jorge Luis Borges) ———————————————————— — Total LR in Spanish so far: 8 hours Sum total of Spanish immersion: 10.5 hours Today's reading test: 75% [+75%] (first 100 words of chapter 1 in "La Sombra Del Viento" by Carlos Ruiz Zafón) NOTES ¡Hola a todos! It's the first day of my little Listening-reading (LR) experiment in Spanish, where I plan to learn a little Spanish from scratch using massive exposure (ideally 120 hours) to listening-reading over the next two weeks. I hope this will reveal some useful practical data on the LR method and address some of the questions raised since it was first introduced to the forum. Having never done anything like this before, I'm actually quite interested in seeing where it brings me with this wonderful new language. I've already made a fair amount of progress, although not the full 10 hours today as hoped. The first real challenge was not to log on to this forum till later in the day. The second hurdle was to stay awake and alert during this time, which was made that much more difficult by working up till 2am on some software (yes, I know - silly billy). I achieved both however I'm glad to say. As I had to deal with a whole bagful of pressing issues on Sunday, it'll come as no surprise that I was unable to do any real additional prep work in advance as initially planned. However I'll try to fit this in next weekend around LR. I think, on the whole, doing a little research into Spanish sounds and intonation in particular could really aid with listening and picking up new words. So let's get to it...Spanish...first impressions...it's a great sounding language with real fire in the blood, for sure! ;) I found my knowledge of French and musical terms coming in really handy today, as well as finding a new use for the odd word or two I must have picked up from Spanish music, songs, salsa and cowboy films over the years. I understand quite a few words by the end of my first day, and several whole phrases too, but the gist still mainly evades me when first listening to new texts. Reading Spanish fares a little better in this respect. There are loads of words I learned today all the same, and caught myself often thinking...wow...so THAT's what that word means! Examples include "suavemente" (meaning "smoothly, softly" - as recollected from salsa classes), "el dorado" ("gold" - this one reminds me of a favourite children's tv programme), and "inglesias" ("churches" - with the embarrassing fact that I was reminded of Julio rather Enrique, showing my age to all and sundry now haha!). [edit] Not only do I find that I'm picking up a whole colourful circus of new words, but I'm also learning a fair bit of basic grammar along the way (e.g. tenses, person, word order). On that note, I have my first quick question for any Spanish speakers out there reading this: why is "yo" sometimes also pronounced "jo"? I'm sure there's a really good explanation for this, and I wish I'd done a bit of prep work on Spanish phonology/orthography now... As regards to the main text I'm L-Ring at the moment, "El Principito", the translation seems fairly poor on the whole (even a beginner like me can see that at times), but the audiobook by comparison is absolutely wonderful - I felt like a muchachito (little boy) once again being read a lullaby at bedtime. I wanted to lie down on the couch with some milk and cookies, but I was good and resisted the cosy temptation. :) I've also made some amendments to my version of the listening-reading method, as I'm not using any course materials to start off with this time, and I need a little extra push as I'm starting with almost zero knowledge of the language too. Here's a basic summary of my current method, which I cycle through in bite-size sections to keep up motivation and interest in what happens next (rather than read the whole book several times): step 1: Listen to Spanish audio, read Spanish text; [I try to see how much I can understand at the beginning of each section, and find that this helps to prime the sounds and images to follow] step 2: Read English translation (without audio); [Getting context is really the key here, although I guess you could skip step 2 if you already really know the story off by heart] step 3: Listen to Spanish audio, read English translation; [I'm currently trying out pauses and parallel sentence comparison at this initial stage, with a view to dropping this later and just doing plain LR without pauses, but I guess you could alternatively just use a coursebook or interlinear text for early LR activities instead] step 4: Listen to Spanish audio, read English translation; [I always, whenever possible, try to read slightly ahead of the audio, as I found this helped whilst doing German LR this year] step 5: Listen to Spanish audio, read Spanish text, but this time count up new unique words you now understand with a clicker-counter (importante!). [it's cool to see how far I've progressed (since step 1) in each section when I reach this stage, and this activity really helps me focus and consolidate L1/L2 word-pairs in my immense sieve of a brain] Say "hola" to my best LR friend... 
(...don't worry, this isn't the actual number of words I clicked today.) I initially started clicking around 4 new words per minute during step 5, which was less than I had hoped. However when I amended step 3 to include pauses and active comparisons, this rose up to 8+ words per minute (more than double). Recognition of several hundred words and a generous slice of grammar, and all in just one day without really consciously trying to remember anything and enjoying a fun story - this is where the action's at! ;) The main thing for me now is to keep up this massive exposure to new Spanish audio and texts, and hopefully keep the "forgetting curve" at bay, allowing new words and ideas to flourish and take root. Well, that's more than enough for today. Please forgive this long initial post, but as it's the first one, I thought I'd beef it up a little and share my thoughts for the opening journey. I'm going to look for a telenovela now and watch this before bedtime (I'll add the hours tomorrow). If anyone can recommend a great telenovela, I'd be very grateful?? ¡Hasta mañana! Edited by Teango on 01 July 2010 at 7:40pm 6 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| M. Medialis Diglot TAC 2010 Winner Senior Member Sweden Joined 6139 days ago 397 posts - 508 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Russian, Japanese, French | Message 2 of 71 18 May 2010 at 1:00am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Teango, this experiment is so stunningly awesome that you've instantly gone up to the fourth place on my personal "most influencal language learning people"-list.
(The 1th, 2nd and 3rd place still belong to Atamagaii, Khatzumoto and Prof. Arguelles).
You're forgiven. Oh, and feel free to create even longer posts! ;) ;) Edited by M. Medialis on 18 May 2010 at 1:00am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Kazen Diglot Groupie Japan japanese-me.com Joined 5110 days ago 96 posts - 133 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese | Message 3 of 71 18 May 2010 at 9:44am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Good luck! I haven't done any LR myself so I'm looking forward to reading about your experiences with it.
Oh, and make the entries as long as you like! -_^ 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5338 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona | Message 4 of 71 18 May 2010 at 9:53pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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"FIGHTING WINDMILLS", DAY 2/14
(un pequeño experimento en LR española) SUMMARY LR in Spanish today: 7 hours ("El Principito" by Antoine De Saint-Exupery) Background listening: 1 hour (a mixed bag of salsa music and short stories) ———————————————————— Total LR in Spanish so far: 15 hours Sum total of Spanish immersion: 18.5 hours Today's reading test: 79% [+4%] (first 100 words of chapter 2 in "La Sombra Del Viento" by Carlos Ruiz Zafón) NOTES I started the morning bright and chirpy, dancing around the living room to salsa music "yo te quiero"s with my better half and indulging in some sunny Seville orange marmalade. I also partook in a little siesta this afternoon, another great aspect of this new culture I'm appreciating now. Well, it's always fun to get into character for these type of things, don't you think?! ;) I'm really enjoying this Spanish version of "The Little Prince" (can you believe this is actually the first time I've ever read the story). At first you take it for a simple children's story, but soon discover it's actually wise beyond years. I've also decided to add all the sections I've finished LR-ing into my background listening playlist from now on. This will help me consolidate what I've already learned I hope. It's great not to have to worry about verbs flying to the end for a change, and phrases like "¿quién vendrá a visitarme?" (who will come to visit me?), where the verb and pronoun join so sweetly together, display one of the many great features in this language. Of course I've also got a swarm of questions buzzing round my head by the end of the day, like why "orugas" (caterpillars) has a silent "g" when spoken, and how come "vergüenza" (shame) gets an umlaut? I guess these will be answered when I look into the alphabet and sounds later this weekend... @Medialis, Kazen Thanks for the great support, I'm all embarrassed smiles now. I hope, if anything, the results of all this turn out to be entertaining at least. :) Edited by Teango on 24 December 2014 at 9:52pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Emerald Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom languagedabbler.blog Joined 6027 days ago 316 posts - 340 votes Speaks: Hindi, Gujarati*, English Studies: Spanish | Message 5 of 71 18 May 2010 at 10:39pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Teango,
I will be following your progress with great interest. I use a variation of L-R method, but haven't consciously followed step by step process like you are doing. I use L-R as a part of the package. I am currently learning Spanish too (start a few weeks ago). I have one question: What exactly do your reading tests entail? Do you just read a different book (that you are not doing L-R with), and see how many words you understand? Sorry, I didn't quite understand that from the post. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Kubelek Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland chomikuj.pl/Kuba_wal Joined 6634 days ago 415 posts - 528 votes Speaks: Polish*, EnglishC2, French, Spanish Studies: German | Message 6 of 71 18 May 2010 at 11:51pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Man how can you take it for so many hours? Did you print out the texts? It's so much nicer with paper in hand, but the trade off of not being able to use a pop up dictionary has stopped me from printing more than the Little prince in Japanese so far.
Keep it up! No pressure but... we all want to see the end result of the 'assault' :) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 5924 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 7 of 71 19 May 2010 at 1:16am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Hi Teango,
I'll be following your log and can answer most any question you might have about Spanish for you. I'm glad you're enjoying your studies and have learned so much already! One question for you--what sort of pronunciation are you studying? I originally learned a blend of Mexican and South American Spanish when I was younger, but I've now found that I prefer the sound of Castilian Spanish (the one with the 'th' sound for 'z' and soft 'c's) and have switched over to that dialect to the best of my abilities. I also find that this dialect helps when spelling, since when you have a sound that corresponds to 's' in English, you don't have to wonder about whether to choose s, c or z. Just wondering about which one you study.
I would highly recommend El Internado ("The Boarding School"). It's a telenovela from Spain that is great. You can watch it online here.
Well, this really just depends on the dialect mostly, but it can even vary in individual people's pronunciation. There are lots of acceptable pronunciations, including yo, jo, zho, sho, etc. I usually say 'jo' or 'zho.'
Ah. Well, we see now that Spanish isn't quite as phonetic as it seems. If perfectly articulated, orugas would have the 'g' pronounced like in English. However, when spoken normally, it will be softened quite a bit, to the extent of seeming to disappear. I would describe it as more of the sound of 'γ' in Greek, or 'gh' in Swahili, or 'غ' in Arabic, if you're familiar at all with those. Also, the 's' might not be audible in the colloquial language of several dialects at the end of words or syllables, or are instead pronounced like a soft 'h'. This will lead to things like ¿Crees en los fantasmas? (Do you believe in ghosts?) being pronounced like "¿Cree(h) en lo(h) fanta(h)ma(h)?" Confused? Don't be, it's actually pretty simple and you'll find that you'll get used to it fairly quickly. In regards to vergüenza, the marking over the u is actually referred to as a diaeresis in this context. It also occurs in words like bilingüe (bilingual). Why? Well, in Spanish, the 'g' can have two sounds (well, as we saw above there can really be more, but whatever): like in English good, and like a hard 'ch' in German (the same sound as the Spanish j). The former sound occurs only before the 'hard' vowels (a, o, u) and the latter occurs after the 'soft' vowels (e, i). But what if you want to make the first sound followed by an 'e' or 'i' vowel sound? Well, in Spanish you simply add a 'u' before the e or i. This changes the quality of the g (the u is silent) and gives you the desired sound. Now, to reverse that, if you do want the sound of 'gwe' or 'gwi' in English, then you have to add a diaeresis to show that the u is pronounced. So, vergüenza is pronounced 'ver-gwen-tha,' but if you take away the diaeresis, it's pronounced 'ver-gen-tha' instead. Note however, that 'gua' and 'guo' would still be pronounced 'gwa' and 'gwo' respectively even without the diaereses. The same concept applies to the letter c. Since k is rarely used, if you want to make a c sound followed by the soft vowels, the c actually changes to 'qu'. This is particularly evident in constructions such as the preterite (simple past) or the subjunctive, when the consonant sound must remain the same but the next vowel changes. So, here is a list of such changes that will occur: g --> gu (cargar --> cargue) g --> j (proteger --> protejo) c --> qu (verificar --> verifique) c --> z (conocer --> conozco) z --> c (avergonzar --> avergoncé) I hope this helps and that I haven't confused you further... --Philip 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5338 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona | Message 8 of 71 19 May 2010 at 8:57pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Yes, that sounds about right...I mark out the first 100 words of a new chapter each day in "La Sombra del Viento", and basically count how many words I don't fully understand (this includes any difficult idiomatic expression or phrases) to give me a simple percentage. It's not the most rigorous test in the world, I'll grant you, but it's quick and simple and it provides me with a rough guide to how I'm progressing with vocab (and I guess a little grammar too) at the end of a hard day's studying. Best of luck with your Spanish studies too, by the way!
Haha...yeah, now you come to mention it, I do have a bit of a bowling ball for a head right now. I'll need to take careful steps not to completely burn up and strike out on this one... ;) As regards to texts, I've almost finished using a parallel version of "El Principito" (parallel texts are wonderful to start off with when you're a beginner). I'm exploring my little pile of Spanish books and am quite daunted over the increase in reading level after this (my Spanish copy of Harry Potter, which would be ideal next, has yet to arrive in the post). ¡Si las palabras son los bolos, entonces...viva los bolos! (this one sounds a little rude, so I really hope it means "If words are bowling pins, then...long live bowling!")
First of all, let me just say...wow, muchas gracias for all the great info! This really helps fill in so many gaps already. I'll be watching that telenovela you recommended tonight too (I've been looking for a Spanish one all week). :) To answer your question, I'm actually starting off with Castilian Spanish (this is the pronunciation I think I'd prefer to pick up for now), but I'm also looking forward to learning more about Latin American Spanish as I go along too, as this should prove really handy for watching movies and chatting with native speakers in salsa clubs later on. I also have "Pronounce it Perfectly in Spanish" lined up for later, which should help tune my ear into some of the many variations as well. Edited by Teango on 19 May 2010 at 10:07pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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