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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 4809 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 225 of 271 06 January 2014 at 11:47pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks for the nice messages everyone! They are very much appreciated! Vivianj5, I think I need to find that book! I really need to break down my goals(and not just my language ones)in a much more systematic fashion.
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| dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4809 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 226 of 271 07 January 2014 at 12:15am | IP Logged |
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It's been a relatively productive week for Spanish. I am more than half way through El Palacio de la medianoche and have read several articles in the online version of El Pais. I actually really enjoy that newspaper, and reading one article usually leads to several more. I usually click straight on sociedad and go from there.
I have also watched / listened to a lot of content. One of my favorites is Filosofia aqui y ahora and this week I have also watched a little bit of Mentira la Verdad. I also regularly watch QL Televisionand sometimes even mundodesconocido. These two are probably not everyones cup of tea, but they keep me entertained and have improved my comprehension no end over the last year or so. Today I also discovered the related Tu propio camino.org which I can see myself spending a little bit of time with. I don't necessarily take all the above seriously, but I think its important to have some interesting content at hand. Often I won't listen to a whole show, but skip between them as and when I get bored. My big discovery this week has been the show profugos which is set in Chile, and produced by HBO LatinoAmerica. I read about this in someone else's log. I then spent way more than an hour tracking it down. I didn't even know there was an HBO LatinoAmerica! I have only watched 1 and three quarters of an episode so far, but it is fantastic, and looks like its really going to showcase Chile's beauty. I was impressed that the first episode had a fast car chase through Valparaiso, which went right past where I stayed there. Thinking of Valparaiso, as I type this there is a documentary about the Japanese Tsunami on the TV, which reminds me of how unsettled I felt on the waterfront there, standing next to a "tsunami hazard point sign"! In related news I also watched most of an "espanoles por el mundo" episode which took place in Patagonia. I really hope to make it down there one day. So I guess that I have averaged something like 2 hours passive study a day this week, sometimes a bit less, sometimes a bit more. If I can maintain that as a baseline I will be happy. P.S Body fat percentage was 29.5% when I checked. A little higher than usual. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| BAnna Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4409 days ago 409 posts - 616 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Turkish | Message 227 of 271 10 January 2014 at 2:42am | IP Logged |
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Muchísimas gracias por haber recomendado la serie Filosofía Aquí y Ahora. He visto los primeros tres episodios de
este programa y me gustaron mucho. Es excelente y muy divertido. ¡Qué lindo es el acento argentino! A mi esposo le gusta imitar a los distintos acentos del mundo hispanoparlante y me dan mucha risa sus esfuerzos. El locutor de este programa es bastante pícaro y me encanta su modo de hablar. En las semanas que vienen, voy a también investigar a más de los recursos que Ud. ha recomendado. Gracias. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4809 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 228 of 271 15 January 2014 at 11:46am | IP Logged |
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I was going to post an update yesterday, but I was too busy watching El Capo. Back in the summer I had got up to episode 50 something when, for no obvious reason, the MundoFox website stopped working for me. I tried various solutions, and when none of them worked, Iguanomon was kind enough to find me an alternative link. That worked for a short while but was promptly taken down. After a lot of digging I have finally found a place to watch it online.
So in the last week I have watched episode 51 through 72. I am determined just to get through the series now, partly because it may get taken down, but also because it is quite an addictive show and I need to get much more comfortable with this kind of input. Comprehension wise, there are some characters, the President and Pedro Pablo for example, who I can understand almost perfectly, and others which are almost completely incomprehensible. I think that these characters are often talking in slang, with gangster/street type accents. Ultimately, I want to get as comfortable watching telenovelas as I am listening to people talking from a script. To do that I think I need to bite the bullet and spend a few weeks getting as much of this kind of input as possible, even if it is at the expense of some of my other activities. I don't really want to be the kind of person that watches 20 episodes of a TV show in one week to be honest, but I think it could be a necessary step which will eventually enable me to access all native content. So I guess my goal for January is to finish El Capo, while of course peppering my time with a few other shows here and there. I think I will shelve profugos until I am done at least with El Capo. Shows like Profugos do have the advantage of having far fewer episodes than the big series. El Capo has 90 episodes just in season 1, all at over 40 minutes long! The tentative plan is to plough straight ahead with El Capo 2 after finishing season 1. There are just so many cliff hangers in each episode that I think it will keep my attention if I can keep the momentum up. My mini- goal is to get my comprehension of this kind of show up to a high enough standard that I can watch Pablo Escobar, El Patron del Mal just for fun. In fact, I am not that far off now, but it looks like such a good production that I don't want to spoil it by missing important information. I imagine that I will watch a few documentaries and read a few books on the subject first, to give me as strong a context as possible. When I have finished El Capo 2 I will either jump straight in, or if I feel that I need to improve somewhat I will instead watch Los Tres Caines first, which itself has around 80 episodes and is also based on the true story of a Colombian drug gang. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4809 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 229 of 271 21 January 2014 at 2:17pm | IP Logged |
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I stayed up past 01:00 am last night to finish the last episode of El Capo. It was fantastic. I can't believe I have watched 39 episodes in a little over 2 weeks. I began to get really engrossed in the story line towards the end, and now I can't wait to get started with El Capo 2, something I plan to do later today.
I am not sure if I would watch the program if it were in English or not. It is pretty good, but way to drawn out in my opinion. It is a fantastic tool for learning though, as each episode ends on a cliffhanger, so you find yourself getting drawn in. My comprehension has definitely improved. I think I have a pretty good grasp of the various subplots now, which I certainly didn't have when I began the series. A good knowledge of the story line and of the different characters will I hope provide a very strong context for understanding the second series, which will help improve my comprehension even more. There are 76 episodes in the second season, which is more than enough for me to get my teeth into, and El Capo 3 is due to screen sometime this year. It would be nice to get up to date by the time it comes out, so that I can then watch a weekly episode. I will have to find an alternative place to watch it though as the mundofox site has ceased to work on either of my devices, which is an endless source of frustration for me. There are loads of shows I would like to watch on there. I have done a little reading on Gustavo Bolivar the man who wrote El Capo. I would be very interested in reading and watching his other works, especially if they are as good as El Capo. Sin Tetas No Hay Paraiso seems to be particularly famous, and has been adapted into a telenovela by various countries. Gustavo Bolivar also appears in this English language video / article here about Colombia's Narco Novelas. Yesterday I also finished El Palacio de la Medianoche by Carlos Luis Zafon this week. It was an okay book, but I began to get a little bored in the middle. I have a feeling that his writing for adults is a lot more interesting. I am going to start Las luces de septiembre later on today, which is also written for adolescents, and then get back onto La Sombra del Viento which I read half of last year, and appears to be a truly excellent book. I am really not sure why I ever put it down, but I have flicked through it a few times in the last week or two and it begins to pull me in every time. The good thing is that it is the first of a series of four, so I am hoping the series will hook me in the same way as El Capo. Despite the fact that I really need to work on my active skills, I think I am going to continue with this native media binge for a while. I really want reading novels and watching telenovelas to become a real recreation activity, so that I can add my "proper study" hours on to it, i.e spend say, 1 hour a day reading and 1 hour a day watching TV just to relax, and then find a way of adding an hour a day of active study into the day. A couple of new discoveries this week. Nomadas Ecuador looks like a brilliant program. Ecuador really looks like a fantastic little country. Also, Espanoles por el Mundo visited Cambridge! Cambridge is a fantastic place, and I actually lived there for 3 years. I really wish I had studied Spanish back in those days, as the place is absolutely full of Spanish speaking people. In actual fact I only live about an hour a way, both by car and train, but it would be too inconvenient and expensive to travel up there weekly to do a language exchange. Edited by dbag on 21 January 2014 at 2:18pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5162 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 230 of 271 21 January 2014 at 2:34pm | IP Logged |
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Congratulations on finishing El Capo. It really is a great show. Were you able to understand Tato (the black guy)? That guy's mumbling drove me nuts, but I guess it was realistic. I am going to put off doing #2 for a while, but will probably watch it at some point. Like you, I am trying to consume a lot of TV and books.
Keep up the good work. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4809 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 231 of 271 21 January 2014 at 3:03pm | IP Logged |
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No, Tato was almost impossible at times. The other guy I couldn't understand was their main enemy in the prison. I found him even harder than Tato. I wish I could find a version of the show with (Spanish) subtitles. The Closed Caption option on youtube is next to useless as well.
In fact I can't seem to find much native Spanish content that comes with subtitles. I would love to be able to rewind hard bits and write down difficult expressions etc. I think that would be the ideal way of dealing with difficult speakers. I am going to read up on Colombian slang a bit though, and see if any of it comes up. One thing I noticed from the start is the word that seems to mean young man- "pelao" or something like that. Did you catch that? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5162 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 232 of 271 21 January 2014 at 5:26pm | IP Logged |
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yes, that guy in prision was impossible. I remember getting a bit lost on the storyline with him, but then I figured it out later. Also, the girl in the prison... I could not figure out why she was always with them... until later when I figured out who she was. What a great show!
I don't remember pelao exactly. When I hear words I don't know I don't seem to remember them even though I can understand them. I realized this with the voseo in the show. They were using it the whole time and I did not even really realize it until more than half way through... it was just something I subconsciously understood without even realizing it. One thing I got from El Capo was my ability to spot a Colombian accent from a mile away. I think it is the coolest thing to hear a native Colombian talk and for me to be able to identify exactly where they are from. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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