Sometimes we learn through failure.
Jul. 4th, 2023 04:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickIt's Spanish again. I am a poor speaker/reader/listener of Spanish but... I have some things that I am currently finding helpful.
At fifty-three, I am apparently into the "as you age" part of life. *sigh* There was no memo and I really resent being here but not enough to go for the alternative so yeah, here we are. Middle age. (If you think it's not? Multiply by two.)
Things that I'm finding helpful vis a vis sucking less at Spanish.
Apparently you are supposed to watch television and movies (without subtitles) in your target language. Turns out I can do that because Netflix. Nice. :)
Turns out I cannot do that because they talk hella fast if it's Spanish tv for people who speak Spanish. :(
Turns out that if you watch Korean tv that has been dubbed into Spanish, they speak at about half speed of Spanish speaking actors on Spanish television shows. I do not know WHY this is, but I am a lot better at watching this stuff than actual Spanish television. Spanish-dubbed Korean television is basically Spanish at training wheels speed.
The world is a very strange place.
Right now (if for some reason anyone wants to play along) I'm doing Robocar Poli, which is aimed at small children who probably also enjoy Paw Patrol. Robocar Poli has a very Paw Patrol feel to it. Robocar Poli is... sentient vehicles that go out and rescue other sentient vehicles from assorted troubles in a world that also contains functional humans who... do not drive the sentient vehicles. I don't know about this very inconsistent worldbuilding, but OK. The sentient vehicles (at least some of them) can also transform into humanoid forms for rescue purposes. Again, I do not understand the worldbuilding here but also I'm not five.
I can listen along with minimal English subtitle help to adult shows of the Spanish dub of Korean media stripe, but I can't go them alone like I can Robocar Poli. (I would REALLY like to watch Bluey in Spanish but unfortunately that's on Disney whatever and I don't have that.) I can also follow along happily to Pocoyo, which may be actual Spanish tv for actual Spanish speakers. I find Pocoyo delightfully surreal and I love Pato.
When last I mentioned Spanish I allowed as how I was going to give a more figurative adult literature book a try. It defeated me, spanked me and sent me to bed without dinner. And I got mad at it and gave up for... two years or so. So now I'm returningwith gold in great store like a dog to vomit and shopping in the "For Young Readers" aisle again. (I can definitely read better than "El Gato Ensombrerado" or whatever. I can read, like... some. Just... not quite grown-up books. Those are a bridge too far as yet.)
How much can I read? Hard to explain. Here are some example sentences that I can read and that I understood on the first go without any English help. (I do look up words in the Spanish dictionary which is sometimes helpful. The definitions are entirely in Spanish but still useful sometimes when I don't know a word.)
"Serán todos altos y fuertes como osos, pero yo no he visto nunca a un oso atrapar una ardilla"
(Ardilla: Mamifero roedor de unos 20 cm largo de color negro rojizo por el lomo, blanco por el vientre y con cola muy poblada que dobla hasta sobresalir de la cabeza. Se cria en los bosques ye es muy inquieto vivo y ligero. From the dictionary, I got "Mammal, rodent(?), about 20 cm long, greyish on top, white on the underside, lives in trees, active/busy, lively, lithe(?)." That's a squirrel.)
"They were all tall and strong like bears but I have never seen a bear catch a squirrel."
"Era la hacienda da la familia; pero ya no"
"It was the family's house, but not anymore / not now."
"Suspiró y por un largo momento recordó los buenos tiempos en los que su padre y él vivieron allí y eran felices. Parecía que había pasado una vida pero solo habían sido tres años."
"He sighed and, for a long moment, remembered the good times when he and his dad lived there and were happy. It seemed like a lifetime ago, but it'd only been three years since then."
(We are, of course, doing the sentences I can follow pretty well with mostly words I know. We are not doing the sentences where I am at sea, and there totally are some of those as well.)
Sometimes I don't have a literal translation but I can coast on "how people talk".
"Lasgol (our main character's name) fue a responder pero lo pensó mejor y se mordió la lengua."
Lasgol went to respond but thought better of it and... ??? the tongue. Probably I'd go with bit his tongue or held his tongue. It fits the meaning and honestly people are not all that different the world over.
"De tal padre, tal hijo. Un cobarde y un traidor!" (There is a lot of action in this thing because it is a book For The Yoots and so we get Action Dialogue, which yeah, I can read that.) "Like father, like son. A coward and a traitor!"
"Mi padre no traicionó al reino y yo no soy ningún cobarde"
"My dad didn't betray the kingdom* the kingdom (rey is king, reina is queen, betcha reino is the kingdom) and I am no coward." (Literally it's more... "My dad didn't treason the kingdom" but we don't have a great verb for "do a treason" so I went with "betray" instead.)
So apparently my reading level is Young People Genre Fiction. Ok. This one is kind of a fantasy world style thing called El Hijo del Traidor (The son of the traitor) : El Sendero del Guardabosques Libro 1. (There are many more of these if I like the first one.) I do not know what a Sendero is ("way" or "path" perhaps. That would fit with genre and structure of secondary title.) but I guessed (because I do that a lot) that Guardabosques was likely "Ranger" which it totally fucking is. Go me. This is a KU series by Pedro Urvi who presumably speaks and writes Spanish a hell of a lot better than I do.
Could I read this genre fiction in English? Yes. In an afternoon, while doing other things. It's probably... "okay for most sixth graders" kind of a level and in English it would present no difficulties whatsoever. It is definitely a chapter book, but also not really a For Adults book. We'll see how it goes. (A lot fucking slower than English is how it will go. With passages frequently read aloud for better understanding.)
I also picked back up with the Owl again, which saved my place and turns out that if I don't touch the damn thing for a year, I haven't lost much (if any) ground, still have 95% of the vocabulary, and can hit the ground running. The app is a lot different now, which is a bit off-putting, but I am feeling somewhat motivated, so... we'll see. I may get Brother the Younger to put me on his Owl app if he does the pay for version as they do offer a family plan, but for now I'm doing the free version.
At fifty-three, I am apparently into the "as you age" part of life. *sigh* There was no memo and I really resent being here but not enough to go for the alternative so yeah, here we are. Middle age. (If you think it's not? Multiply by two.)
Things that I'm finding helpful vis a vis sucking less at Spanish.
Apparently you are supposed to watch television and movies (without subtitles) in your target language. Turns out I can do that because Netflix. Nice. :)
Turns out I cannot do that because they talk hella fast if it's Spanish tv for people who speak Spanish. :(
Turns out that if you watch Korean tv that has been dubbed into Spanish, they speak at about half speed of Spanish speaking actors on Spanish television shows. I do not know WHY this is, but I am a lot better at watching this stuff than actual Spanish television. Spanish-dubbed Korean television is basically Spanish at training wheels speed.
The world is a very strange place.
Right now (if for some reason anyone wants to play along) I'm doing Robocar Poli, which is aimed at small children who probably also enjoy Paw Patrol. Robocar Poli has a very Paw Patrol feel to it. Robocar Poli is... sentient vehicles that go out and rescue other sentient vehicles from assorted troubles in a world that also contains functional humans who... do not drive the sentient vehicles. I don't know about this very inconsistent worldbuilding, but OK. The sentient vehicles (at least some of them) can also transform into humanoid forms for rescue purposes. Again, I do not understand the worldbuilding here but also I'm not five.
I can listen along with minimal English subtitle help to adult shows of the Spanish dub of Korean media stripe, but I can't go them alone like I can Robocar Poli. (I would REALLY like to watch Bluey in Spanish but unfortunately that's on Disney whatever and I don't have that.) I can also follow along happily to Pocoyo, which may be actual Spanish tv for actual Spanish speakers. I find Pocoyo delightfully surreal and I love Pato.
When last I mentioned Spanish I allowed as how I was going to give a more figurative adult literature book a try. It defeated me, spanked me and sent me to bed without dinner. And I got mad at it and gave up for... two years or so. So now I'm returning
How much can I read? Hard to explain. Here are some example sentences that I can read and that I understood on the first go without any English help. (I do look up words in the Spanish dictionary which is sometimes helpful. The definitions are entirely in Spanish but still useful sometimes when I don't know a word.)
"Serán todos altos y fuertes como osos, pero yo no he visto nunca a un oso atrapar una ardilla"
(Ardilla: Mamifero roedor de unos 20 cm largo de color negro rojizo por el lomo, blanco por el vientre y con cola muy poblada que dobla hasta sobresalir de la cabeza. Se cria en los bosques ye es muy inquieto vivo y ligero. From the dictionary, I got "Mammal, rodent(?), about 20 cm long, greyish on top, white on the underside, lives in trees, active/busy, lively, lithe(?)." That's a squirrel.)
"They were all tall and strong like bears but I have never seen a bear catch a squirrel."
"Era la hacienda da la familia; pero ya no"
"It was the family's house, but not anymore / not now."
"Suspiró y por un largo momento recordó los buenos tiempos en los que su padre y él vivieron allí y eran felices. Parecía que había pasado una vida pero solo habían sido tres años."
"He sighed and, for a long moment, remembered the good times when he and his dad lived there and were happy. It seemed like a lifetime ago, but it'd only been three years since then."
(We are, of course, doing the sentences I can follow pretty well with mostly words I know. We are not doing the sentences where I am at sea, and there totally are some of those as well.)
Sometimes I don't have a literal translation but I can coast on "how people talk".
"Lasgol (our main character's name) fue a responder pero lo pensó mejor y se mordió la lengua."
Lasgol went to respond but thought better of it and... ??? the tongue. Probably I'd go with bit his tongue or held his tongue. It fits the meaning and honestly people are not all that different the world over.
"De tal padre, tal hijo. Un cobarde y un traidor!" (There is a lot of action in this thing because it is a book For The Yoots and so we get Action Dialogue, which yeah, I can read that.) "Like father, like son. A coward and a traitor!"
"Mi padre no traicionó al reino y yo no soy ningún cobarde"
"My dad didn't betray the kingdom* the kingdom (rey is king, reina is queen, betcha reino is the kingdom) and I am no coward." (Literally it's more... "My dad didn't treason the kingdom" but we don't have a great verb for "do a treason" so I went with "betray" instead.)
So apparently my reading level is Young People Genre Fiction. Ok. This one is kind of a fantasy world style thing called El Hijo del Traidor (The son of the traitor) : El Sendero del Guardabosques Libro 1. (There are many more of these if I like the first one.) I do not know what a Sendero is ("way" or "path" perhaps. That would fit with genre and structure of secondary title.) but I guessed (because I do that a lot) that Guardabosques was likely "Ranger" which it totally fucking is. Go me. This is a KU series by Pedro Urvi who presumably speaks and writes Spanish a hell of a lot better than I do.
Could I read this genre fiction in English? Yes. In an afternoon, while doing other things. It's probably... "okay for most sixth graders" kind of a level and in English it would present no difficulties whatsoever. It is definitely a chapter book, but also not really a For Adults book. We'll see how it goes. (A lot fucking slower than English is how it will go. With passages frequently read aloud for better understanding.)
I also picked back up with the Owl again, which saved my place and turns out that if I don't touch the damn thing for a year, I haven't lost much (if any) ground, still have 95% of the vocabulary, and can hit the ground running. The app is a lot different now, which is a bit off-putting, but I am feeling somewhat motivated, so... we'll see. I may get Brother the Younger to put me on his Owl app if he does the pay for version as they do offer a family plan, but for now I'm doing the free version.
