Now it’s been the magic 3 months since I started learning Spanish and so I thought it would be good to write about my progress in Spanish in its own topic here: Mi camino para aprender español . This topic will be more of an all-encompassing topic in my language journey as I expect to start more languages sooner or later.
It felt it would be better to write in the Spanish forum so that it would feel a little like that was the only way to communicate. It would be also more natural to write there about things that are not related to language learning as a practice. In English, I can write in more detail on a more narrow subject, but with Spanish, I’m still restricted by what I can express. And that’s fine. Based on corrections that I got on my first long writing in Spanish it seems the time is ripe to try my wings in written Spanish. The amount of mistakes is acceptable and many times easy to see why it’s wrong. Speaking Spanish I’m still not comfortable to try. First I try with writing to build those patterns in my head.
In a way at this point, it feels like progress is slower, but only because it is harder to notice if you don’t pay attention. What I have noticed is that some content that I consumed a month ago feels like speech is slower even when it hasn’t changed. Content for native speakers on youtube feels quite manageable in terms of speed. Even some super fast speech I can follow enough for it to be useful, but it speed with lack of some words does compound so much that I need to limit my consumption if I know some tend to be a little too fast. There are still lots of content to fall back on. This month I have watched:
Linguriosa: One of those channels I would watch even if I didn’t need to improve my Spanish. I like etymology and historical aspects of languages, and often there is some information added that is helpful when learning Spanish. I haven’t used lingq for this channel as mostly there aren’t too many unknown words and many are linguistic terms or words in Latin and Greek. The biggest challenge with this was speed, but a couple of weeks ago I binged through all +200 episodes.
BBC Mundo I have watched mostly through lingq, but starting to get to a point where there aren’t that many new words that it doesn’t make as much sense to use lingq. The same is true with other news. At times they are hard because one interviewed speaks fast or is in some other way hard to understand, but there only listening helps.
Un mundo inmenso. Channel about curiosities in the world, which hits quite close to what I like. Maybe not something I would watch all episodes if I wasn’t learning, but still interesting enough to make learning more pleasurable.
Mi jardin en el desierto and Wini Walbaum & co. A couple of channels about gardening in the southern hemisphere that in the middle of the winter bring summer a bit closer.
Lingq I was planning on taking lingq podcast next, but what I realized is that they are starting to get too easy in vocabulary to fit my normal study style which is to read first without audio and then again with audio. That’s why some of the other podcasts I have just “speed run” just reading with the audio or at times listening while doing something else. Could watch lingq podcast this way, but there are quite a few podcasts to choose from so might just choose what I feel like. At this point it feels like the biggest use for lingq is to read books/stories that usually have more complex linguistic expression. Already read Steve’s book and in the coming months will try if some of the other stories are on my level. Right now I have 22000 known words in lingq, and although the number itself is quite irrelevant, it does feel like vocabulary in many cases is starting to be less and less of a problem. Still try to learn as many new words as fast as it’s possible, but it seems there is an increasing need to learn how those words are used and phrases. At the moment plan is still to carry on with words first, but I expect that once I get closer to lingq advanced 2 level in words either new words will naturally decrease or I will stop actively looking for them. We will see.