### Recap ![[354 hours.png]] Since last check-in have accomplished the following: #### Watching/Listening/Video Immersion - Finished rest of Luis Miguel: La serie. I enjoyed this series a lot. Luis Miguel is such an integral part of Mexican music history and pop culture. Learning his story was both entertaining and educational (and often infuriating!). - Tested my comprehension, no lookups, on the final 4 episodes of Luis Miguel and passed myself to 2C. Might be cheating because Luis Miguel has low density and several scenes in English, but I know that I'm ready for 2C and want to move on. - Finished Jane the Virgin (finally!!!!!) - JTV has actually been a large part of my life - Watched it on and off. On and off. When I found the first 1-2 seasons (which I watched in the original English), at the time, I was floored by the premise. I’d never seen anything like it. A telenovela that pokes and prods at the genre, but still pays homage to telenovelas. I truly see it as a love letter to the genre. - It’s easy to not be respectful of telenovelas. They're tailored toward women. They have ridiculous, unbelievable twists and turns. They're cheesy. The events defy reality in the name of love. - But that’s the point. Life should defy reality in the name of love. In the finale they fucking commandeer a bus to make it to the wedding. - The Villanueva ladies, Petra’s redemption, and in the end, even the love story between Jane and Rafael have a special place in my heart. - Watched first season of Gran Hotel - Luis Miguel got momentarily removed from Netflix WHILE I WAS WATCHING IT, so I started Gran Hotel, an older period telenovela from Spain about all the drama that goes on at a bougie hotel. I love it and it has all the pieces to make me fall in love with a show. There is a special sort of adoration in my heart for well executed telenovelas. Up to then I'd mostly been watching shows in Mexican accents, so it was interesting to hear a Spanish accent, and I'm guessing more formal 18th/19th century type Spanish on top of that. - Started watching more Youtube videos in addition to narrative series (for the language density), particularly travel vlogging - I've enjoyed Alex Tienda and Luisito Comunica. Watched all of Alex Tienda's N. Korea series and a mix of Luisito Comunica's recommended playlist. I find that my comprehension wavers throughout these videos, depending on difficulty of the dialogue and how much I'm paying attention. But overall super entertaining. - Worked through a lot more Dreaming Spanish beginner videos - I have 100% comprehension of these but am trying to supercharge my listening. Reason is because I'm not pleased with my comprehension of the Youtube travel vlogs I've been watching. #### Anki - Made the transition to monolingual definitions. Initially just did monolingual lookups during my immersion, then started adding monolingual definitions to my Anki cards. #### Reading - Started reading graded readers. - Finished the following A2 readers by Juan Fernandez - Spanish for beginners: Un hombre fascinante - Learn Spanish with stories (A2): La profe de español - Finished Short Stories in Spanish for Beginners: Vol 1 by Olly Richards (graded A2 - B1) - I found the Fernandez ones incredibly boring. The Olly Richards one was much more entertaining and I'm planning to read his Vol 2 series. - Overall I'm please with my level of comprehension for these readers. I would love to be able to read more Spanish classics in the original text - Borges, Allende, etc. #### Active/Pure Listening/Podcast Immersion - Discovered and started working through Spanish Language Coach Intermediate Podcast - Cesar speaks clearly and slowly, and I'm pleased with how high my comprehension is. In fact, what I struggle most with is zoning out during the podcast and having to refocus (which I struggle with in English language podcasts as well) - Bought AirPods Pro, which definitely have led me to include more immersion in my life - while washing dishes, doing laundry, other chores, etc. #### Passed 2B, moving on to 2C ##### Criteria >By the end of Stage 2B, you should have level 4 comprehension while reading native content. >To evaluate your comprehension, pick a native show that’s meant for an adult audience (ie. not a children’s show). Watch an episode that you've never seen before, stopping to read each subtitle line, but without doing any lookups. You should be able to follow along with the majority of the ideas expressed by the characters, though some details will still be lost. ###### Level 4: Story[](https://refold.la/roadmap/stage-2/a/levels-of-comprehension#Level-4-Story) >You can follow along with the majority of the ideas being expressed, but some details are lost here and there. >You rely heavily on contextual inference to determine what was said when you can’t make out all of the words. When you’re not able to understand something, you often can’t tell _why_ you weren’t able to understand. #### The test I watched four episodes of Luis Miguel: La serie that I hadn't seen before. Read each subtitle line, didn't do any lookups. Refold recommends 1 episode, but Luis Miguel has really long dramatic scenes with no dialogue, and in the episodes I watched there were several English scenes. Most likely I should have just tested with another show, but I'm impatient, and I know I'm ready for 2C. - Was able to follow along with the majority of ideas expressed, with some nuance lost - Recognize 99% of the words (now it's just how they're put together that occasionally confuses me!) Passed myself to 2C. ### Looking ahead: 2C > 3A Refold guidelines is to get from lvl 4 to lvl 5 comprehension of a single domain of native content. Refold recommends slice of life. I'm likely going to ignore this and watch whatever I feel like watching. IMO given current life obligations I need to optimize for enjoyment if I want to consistently make progress, even if it takes longer. We'll see how that goes. > By the end of Stage 2C, you should have level 5 comprehension of slice-of-life content meant for adults. Use the following instructions to test yourself. > Choose an episode of a slice-of-life TV show that you have never seen before. Turn off the subtitles. Watch the entire episode without pausing or rewinding. Ask yourself the following questions: > - Can you hear nearly every word spoken? > - Can you understand every detail of the plot? > - Can you automatically understand the majority of the dialogue without having to think about it? > Level 5: Comfortable[](https://refold.la/simplified/stage-2/a/measure-comprehension#Level-5-Comfortable) > - You understand nearly every sentence but miss an occasional word or phrase. > - You may not understand jokes, puns, or nuance. > - It still requires effort to understand. ### The Plan - I'm probably... going to continue watching whatever I feel like watching. Need to optimize for enjoyment IMO. - Up to now my daily routine has been - Anki - SpanishDict grammar lesson - Active Immersion (reading and understanding every line of a native show and doing lookups) - Luis Miguel, Gran Hotel - Free Flow Immersion (watching show or youtube video, no subs, doing no lookups) - travel vloggers, Jane the Virgin, Dreaming Spanish, etc - Sometimes - listening to podcasts - Spanish Language Coach - Sometimes - graded reader - Moving forward, it's recommended to more consistently incorporate reading to keep gaining new vocabularly, so gonna alternate listening/reading heavy days (kinda like working out!) - Listening - Watching/Listening/Reading - active immersion w/ Spanish language TV show w/subs - Gran Hotel, Cable Girls, Club de Cuervos, Money Heist, Elite, Velvet, Ingobernable, shows where you care a lot about the plot. To start we'll prob alternate between Gran Hotel and Cable Girls. - Watching/Listening - free flow immersion w/ Spanish language show (either previously watched or brand new) or w/ dubbed or Spanish language cartoon or reality show - Xico's Journey etc, dubbed Disney films, Rebelde, La casa de las flores, Madre sólo hay dos, Made in Mexico, Nailed It Mexico. Basically stuff where you either know the plot or don't care about the plot or you think is easy enough for you to catch the plot without subs. - Listening - Spanish language podcasts - Reading - Watching/Listening/Reading - active immersion w/ Spanish language TV show w/subs - Gran Hotel, Cable Girls, Club de Cuervos, Money Heist - Reading - free flow immersion w/graded reader - Olly Richards - Reading - active immersion w/native, non-graded reader, non-translated content ### Random thoughts - Want to read more about Krashen and the theory behind comprehensible input. - Wonder if it ever comes up in Spanish conversation where someone uses the imperfect to say they habitually did this in the past and then the other person challenges the OP and is like did you do that habitually or did you do it ONCE e.g. OP says caminaba cada dia and other person goes caminabas o caminaste una vez? --- Created: July 17, 2022 Last Modified: July 19, 2022