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Ah, the joy of being not quite done with one's academic projects, but free enough so that I can spare some time for throwing my energy into other things!
1) My Spanish listening comprehension is awful when it comes to watching telenovelas, a little better when watching Buffy; but when I was in Japan the morning shows were just so much babbling, and I could converse pretty well, so who knows? Conversation is different in that there's all kinds of things you can do to repair gaps in comprehension, and people will talk slowly to you if you need it. I have not actually attempted yet to converse with anyone in Spanish. Between shyness and the typical townie/university student economic/racial tensions, it's just a little bit intimidating. But in addition to Telemundo, there are audiobooks in Spanish, so I may have to try those out; I could at least rewind them, and go back to the text to figure out the parts I can't understand.
2) My reading comprehension, on the other hand, has improved markedly. In two years, it really ought to have done so. I got Ciudad de las Bestias out of the library two years ago and basically puzzled out the meaning of the first 40 or so pages, after which I didn't really want to read a book where the mother has cancer. This time around, I finished those 40 pages in a day, and moved on to the interesting part where the kid's in the Amazon rainforest.
3) I will never be able to get jabón (soap) and jamón (ham) straight in my head.
4) Let's say you're learning a language, and let's say you have a song in your head. Is it just me, or do you sometimes translate random lines from the song into the language that you're learning without any conscious intention to do so?
5) I am woefully neglecting my Japanese, and I'm kidding myself if I think I can't lose it. But I can't spare any money for the Japanese bookstore...
(Hey, Meaghan, are you coming down for graduation or what?)
1) My Spanish listening comprehension is awful when it comes to watching telenovelas, a little better when watching Buffy; but when I was in Japan the morning shows were just so much babbling, and I could converse pretty well, so who knows? Conversation is different in that there's all kinds of things you can do to repair gaps in comprehension, and people will talk slowly to you if you need it. I have not actually attempted yet to converse with anyone in Spanish. Between shyness and the typical townie/university student economic/racial tensions, it's just a little bit intimidating. But in addition to Telemundo, there are audiobooks in Spanish, so I may have to try those out; I could at least rewind them, and go back to the text to figure out the parts I can't understand.
2) My reading comprehension, on the other hand, has improved markedly. In two years, it really ought to have done so. I got Ciudad de las Bestias out of the library two years ago and basically puzzled out the meaning of the first 40 or so pages, after which I didn't really want to read a book where the mother has cancer. This time around, I finished those 40 pages in a day, and moved on to the interesting part where the kid's in the Amazon rainforest.
3) I will never be able to get jabón (soap) and jamón (ham) straight in my head.
4) Let's say you're learning a language, and let's say you have a song in your head. Is it just me, or do you sometimes translate random lines from the song into the language that you're learning without any conscious intention to do so?
5) I am woefully neglecting my Japanese, and I'm kidding myself if I think I can't lose it. But I can't spare any money for the Japanese bookstore...
(Hey, Meaghan, are you coming down for graduation or what?)
