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Spanish Log (TAC 2014 Team Lobo) | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4803 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 169 of 271 02 December 2012 at 10:50pm | IP Logged |
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Okay, so I guess I had better start writing about my trip before the memories start to
fade. To be honest I don't really visit the forum too much nowadays. I'm too busy learning Spanish, going to the gym, and working so that I can afford to go away again. I'm really motivated to leave the U.K on a long term basis now and... Well, I'll write about that later. As time is short, I will attempt to write a little bit about my trip each day until I am up to date. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4803 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 170 of 271 09 December 2012 at 11:52pm | IP Logged |
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I set off on my journey from Heathrow the day after the Paralympics had finished, and
several of the olympic teams where in the airport at the same time as me. I even saw a lady being photographed with a gold medal which was kind of cool. Things got pretty crazy before I even got to Chile. I had to take a short flight from London to Paris, then wait in Paris for some time before catching the long flight to Santiago. On the flight to Paris I was sat next to a guy from Chile who I started speaking to in Spanish, but who then switched to English. We had quite a good chat and drunk quite a bit of wine. "Okay, lets get drunk in Paris airport while we wait" he said! I must say Paris airport was a real joke, the worst I have been anywhere. My friend turned out to be a little crazy and unpredictable. He began swearing very loudly in Spanish, telling me not to worry because no one could understand! I'm pretty sure quite a few people could! To be honest he was quite a nice guy, but I decided that I didn't want to get stuck with him when I arrived in Chile, so after he had fell asleep on one of the airport chairs I distanced myself from him. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4803 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 171 of 271 09 January 2013 at 12:53am | IP Logged |
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Well, heres wishing everyone here a late happy new year! I have to laugh, as we seem to
have the same situation as this time last year_ thousands and thousands of new logs! So it looks like I haven't updated in nearly a month! Wow, the time just goes so fast. I will get round to writing about my trip, but I have been working really hard lately ! I will probably write the whole thing in a word document then post the whole lot in one go. So what have I been up to? Well, I once again have a 30 minute drive each way to work, so I use that time to do random Platiquemos drills, or if I feel tired some LSLC. LSLC is actually a really good course, super slow compared to Platiquemos, but there are some really good units on the subjunctive and things like clitic pronouns. Sometimes at home I go through the drills found on the fsi site as well. I still need to do units 50 through 55 to have "completed" the course (although I cant envision ever being really "done" with it). At home I occasionally do some grammar exercises out of one of the PMP workbooks, and this is something I would like to turn into a daily habit. I have read a hundred or so pages of "el codigo de vinci" and am thinking of getting hold of the audio. I often spend time with sites like vientemundos, audiria etc etc.., just getting a lot of comprehensible input. I also watch plenty of rtve everyday, but usually forget to add that to my suerchallenge tally. I have (finally) found a Spanish speaker looking for conversation exchange in the nearest biggest town, and we should be meeting for the first time on Sunday. This is good, I don't feel like I can make genuine progress with out regular conversation at this point. I will let you know how it goes. Edited by dbag on 09 January 2013 at 12:55am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4803 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 172 of 271 20 January 2013 at 11:53pm | IP Logged |
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Unfortunately I haven't met the Spanish speaker yet. I had to sleep at work last Saturday night as someone phoned in sick, so I was too exhausted to do anything on the Sunday. Nevermind, we are due to meet soon.
As mentioned before I have been working hard lately. I am hoping to do a TEFL course in Barcelona in 3 months time or so. I don't feel like I can move on to other things in life until I have moved my Spanish on to the next level, by which I mean probably a strong B2. I honestly don't think I will ever really reach that level from England. I still do drills in the car, and when I'm at home I really just mess around in Spanish. I use quite a lot of native material now. I have done a few more pages of "using Spanish" and I really cant recommend it highly enough for the advanced learner. People are often advised on the forum not to bother with it and to move on to native materials. In my eyes that's terrible advice! There is a lot to learn from this course even if you are regularly using native materials. Another really good resource which I sometimes use is Audiria. You will never run out of material on this site, and a lot of the material is far more advanced than that found in even "Using Spanish". You just have to search around a bit. In fact, 2 of my favorite resources matched up nicely the other day. You can read this interesting, intermediate article with audio about "los tres reyes magos" here. If you scroll to the bottom of the article there is a youtube video which can also be found on audiria, with a transcript here. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5156 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 173 of 271 21 January 2013 at 2:35am | IP Logged |
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You should definitely get the audio of the da Vinci Code. The narrator is amazing... it is a joy just listening to his voice. If you haven't heard it go to audible.com and listen to the sample.
edit: also be aware that there are two different translations of the da Vinci Code. Only the first one matches the audio. Edited by James29 on 21 January 2013 at 2:37am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4803 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 174 of 271 27 January 2013 at 11:09pm | IP Logged |
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I have just found a parallel text copy (pdf) of the Da Vinci code with Spanish audio, so I will probably start using that soon. You can find loads of Spanish - English parallel texts here.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4803 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 175 of 271 28 January 2013 at 12:45am | IP Logged |
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So I met the Spanish speaker the other day. We spoke in English for maybe 20 - 30 minutes then moved onto Spanish. She seemed amazed that I could understand her and could actually speak. This seems to be a really common reaction. Spanish speakers always seem genuinely surprised when someone knows more than one or two words. I am surprised this is the case with such a large and important language- there simply must be more foreign speakers of Spanish around.
I felt pretty good about myself though, this was my first conversation in about 3 months and I was able to launch right into it. We ended up talking in Spanish for ages, I guess maybe about an hour. I really wish I had more access to Spanish speakers, I 90% sure that had I spent more time speaking, I would be calling myself "fluent" by now. In fact several non speakers have called me fluent before, although by my own definition that is definitely not the case. Anyway, touch wood I seem to have found a good language partner here, she has moved temporarily to my local town in an effort to avoid Spanish speakers and bring her English up to fluency. She only has a few months here so is keen to meet 2 or 3 times a week, which is ideal for me. My "study" has really lacked direction for some time. I am at that point (and have been for a long time) where I can improve simply by getting exposure to the language. So I often just flick around reading or listening to various things, and I do audio programs in the car. I am contemplating working through the second half of FSI programatic. Also, just to keep myself focused, I am going to read through every transcription for every episode of Espanol podcast. There are 163 of them!! Sometimes I will listen to the audio, but it depends how much free time I have. The idea behind this project can be found here in this video by Prof. Arguelles. Basically, I am hoping my vocabulary will snowball by extensively reading texts of which I have something like a 90% comprehension. I cant stand the idea of building vocab through Anki etc, so I hopes this works as intended. I will start with episode 163 and work backwards. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5156 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 176 of 271 28 January 2013 at 1:17am | IP Logged |
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That link to the parallel texts is great... I could not get some of the links to work, but I am on a very old computer. there are some great books there... some I definitely want to read. Thanks for the link.
I am like you with vocabulary... the thought of anki makes me sick. It seems that no matter how much the snowball grows the more there is. It almost feels like a never ending process to build vocabulary. And then... there is the forgetting curve! I am jealous you found a good local partner. I have a couple very good skype partners, but have not been able to find anyone local other than whoever shows up at the meetups. For what it is worth, I think your level is beyond programmatic. Maybe go through FSI basic again? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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