I’m trying out another podcast from the list I posted a while ago. This time the podcast is Desde el baño.

I listened to the first three episodes, and I have to say – it really is an advanced podcast. It is not a Spanish language learning podcast. It is a regular podcast in real Spanish by an Argentinian girl. She speaks very fast, though her diction is quite ok.

The first episode was about how to say hello. One interesting thing that she said was that you pretty much always reply with “todo bien” – everything is good. You don’t ever say sad news unless you are speaking with a really close friend. That’s very similar to American way of responding to “how are you?”. Whereas in Eastern Europe where I’m from you more or less tell how it is. Though it is also true that in Eastern Europe its not that common to actually ask “how are you?”, not the same way it is a social ritual and a greeting equivalent to “Hello” in United States.

So yes, apparently I did get a gist out of the first episode, especially after listening to it twice. However it did not go so well with the second and third episode. Second episode was about all the different meanings of the word “che”. I think the third one was about words used in other Spanish speaking countries that should not be used in Argentinian Spanish. I got totally lost while listening to the third episode.

At this point, this podcast is too hard for me. But I will come back to it after I’m done with the intermediate podcasts, so far sounds like Desde el baño covers interesting topics.

This day was a great day for studying, I did quite a bit of walking to get where I need to go, so managed to listen to quite a few podcast episodes. Total time was 130 minutes and here is the breakdown:

4 Duolingo
5 Memrise
61 ShowTime Spanish episodes 1-3
60 Desde el baño episodes 1-3

Till tomorrow!

Show Time Spanish podcast is the intermediate Spanish podcast following Coffee Break Spanish. Now ShowTime Spanish is rebranded as season 3 of Coffee Break Spanish.

I listened to the first 3 episodes and I love this podcast! There is new vocabulary, but at the same time I don’t feel lost. The format is different than Coffee Break Spanish, but it still makes sense. First a conversation between the hosts and then they summarize it in slower Spanish and explain any new vocabulary. In the middle there is few more fun new phrases and a tongue twister. Then another conversation or grammar topic in the second act.

Some of the phrases I learned:

“Estoy estupendamente, no podria estar mejor.” – I’m doing great! Can’t get any better!

“Eres un plasta!” – You are such a pain!

“Estoy molido.” / “Estoy hecho polvo.” – I’m shattered.

One of the tongue twisters they introduced:

Pablito clavó clavito,
un clavito clavó Pablito.
Qué clavito clavó Pablito?

Till tomorrow!

I have tried Spanish from Scratch podcast before, but didn’t stick to it. Now I listened to episodes 8 to 10 and I got reminded again why I’m not likely to stick to it now too.

Grammar.

Too much grammar.

Episode 8 consisted of pretty much only grammar and it covered gerund. In contrast, Coffee Break Spanish got away without introducing gerund tense only after 70th episode. Episodes 9 and 10 were quite ok, hosts introduced new vocabulary by saying this word in English is this in Spanish and so on. However I like Coffee Break Spanish approach better where there is a conversation first and then hosts explain what happened in that conversation.

I definitely wouldn’t start with Spanish from Scratch podcast. Now after Coffee Break Spanish it would be more useful, but probably won’t be my main focus.

Here are the numbers – total of 80 minutes:
16 Duolingo
23 Memrise
41 Spanish from Scratch episodes 8-10

Till tomorrow!

Now that I’m done with Coffee Break Spanish I’m trying out different podcasts. First I listened to three episodes of Notes in Spanish Inspired Beginners.

So the level of Notes in Spanish Inspired Beginners feels appropriate for me after going through Coffee Break Spanish podcast, however it is definitely not an absolute beginner’s or even beginner’s podcast. I would not use that as the first podcast. They assume you already are at some basic level. They are introducing lots of new vocabulary in each episode. There is barely any repetition so I don’t think you would learn new vocabulary effectively. But it is great for acquiring passive vocabulary. The format of the podcast is first introduction of new vocabulary and then a dialog. Each episode is about 15 minutes long. As of now there are 30 Inspired Beginners episodes, 46 Intermediate episodes and 96 Advanced episodes.

Few of the words and phrases covered in the first three episodes: Mebola (love it), qué rollo (boring), ir de marcha (to go out for nightlife), vaya, vaya (oh dear, what a pity), dondé está la marcha? (where is the nightlife?).

On this day I managed to get in 74 minutes of Spanish. Here is the breakdown:
48 Notes in Spanish Inspired Beginners episodes 1-3
5 Duolingo
21 Memrise

Till tomorrow!

When I started with learning Spanish and listening to the Coffee Break Spanish podcast I didn’t actually think that I would ever finish all of the episodes. I first started with a month long mission, then had so much fun that I decided to continue and now I’m done with the 80 episodes of the original Coffee Break Spanish podcast. It took me almost two months with almost 1.5 episodes per day on average.

I think I have now graduated onto intermediate podcasts 🙂 I will try out first couple episodes of few of them and then I will decide with which one of them to stick to for a while.

Yesterday I had quite a bit of time to kill and instead of spending it on Facebook and browsing web I did Memrise for total of about 50 minutes. Here is the full breakdown of total of 127 minutes:
5 watching cartoon
5 Duolingo
65 Coffee Break Spanish episodes 78-80
52 Memrise

Some time ago I posted how I found a Memrise course that teaches the vocabulary covered in Duolingo Spanish tree and planned to use study it. I thought I would give an update.

I like learning Duolingo with the accompanying Memrise-Duolingo course. I wish I had discovered it earlier. The Memrise course contains lessons with vocabulary covered in Duolingo tree with the same breakdown in topics as Duolingo has plus few bonus lessons.

My method is to first learn relevant memrise topic for the upcoming Duolingo topic. So for example, I’m doing the topic on Adjectives on Memrise before doing the same topic on Duolingo. This is more efficient because it is faster to learn vocabulary with Memrise because you either have to tap the word or phrase in multiple choice question or spell it, whereas on memrise to learn or review a word you have to spell out the whole sentence, which can get tedious. Plus if you lose all hearts during a session, you have to repeat those same sentences, which can get boring.

Then when it is time for the Duolingo session I’m more likely to finish it with fewer with mistakes. Also I’m using less hints this way (in Duolingo you can tap on the word and see the translation), and I learn better because I’m spending more time thinking about what is the correct answer instead of immediately looking up the hint.

So if you follow the Duolingo Spanish tree, I highly recommend Memrise’s Duolingo vocabulary counterpart. Here is the part I of the course, and here is the part 2.

Yesterday I managed to get in over an hour of studying. Here is the breakdown:
6 Duolingo
44 Coffee Break Spanish episodes 76-77
22 Memrise

Till tomorrow!

I just discovered Spanish stories for children on Youtube by BookBox. BookBox creates videos of animated children’s cartoons with a narrator telling a story in Spanish with Spanish subtitles. (They have other languages too). They are perfect for beginner learners. I like that I can hear the words and see their spelling at the same time. I did understand the storyline, but there were still plenty of words I didn’t know the meaning of. However, I’m not planning on looking up every single world. I think that way it would become tedious and I would lose interest. Besides, the words that I did recognize I learned using Memrise, so I will just keep learning vocabulary using Memrise.

Nowadays I’m managing to get in 3 Coffee Break Spanish episodes a day! Soon will hit the 80 episode mark! 🙂

Day 22 (of month 2) total of 69 minutes:
5 Duolingo
56 Coffee Break Spanish episodes 70-72
8 Memrise

Day 23 (of month 2) total of 80 minutes:
6 watching video
4 Duolingo
66 Coffee Break Spanish episodes 73-75
4 Memrise

Till tomorrow!

Another week of studying Spanish has passed. Intuitively it feels I have made progress this past week. I think that’s all thanks to Coffee Break Spanish. It’s so exciting that I’m almost done with the first two seasons of this podcast, which is 80 episodes. Can’t wait to start other intermediate level podcasts after that. Originally there was a Show Time Spanish podcast after the initial Coffee Break Spanish series, but over time they have rebranded first 40 episodes as season 1, the second 40 episodes as season 2, and the Show Time Spanish is now season 3 of Coffee Break Spanish.

This week I noticed that I’m very comfortable with speaking simple phrases. Even if somebody doesn’t speak Spanish, but the topic comes up, I still say few sentences in Spanish. I think that’s a great start – then later when coming across Spanish speakers I will be more likely to default in speaking Spanish and continue the conversation in Spanish.

This week all focus was on Coffee Break Spanish as I was so close to the end of first 2 seasons; but I still kept Duolingo streak and a bit of memrise every day.

Here are the numbers. Total time spent studying: 426 minutes or 7h:6m or on average 1h:1m per day. Here is the breakdown:

In episode 70 of Coffee Break Spanish I learned how to answer the telephone in Spanish – “Soy Diana.” That literally means “I am Diana”. I learned something else as well. The standard phrase for that in English (or at least in Scottish English as per Mark, the podcast host) is: “It is Diana.” as in “It is Diana who is phoning”.

Now it makes sense.. why quite a lot of times I would have to repeat myself when making a phone call. Because in my native language you answer phone with more like the way in Spanish rather than in English. So over the years I have used a rotating set of wrong phrases. Well now I know!

This is not the first time this has happened to me. I’m from Latvia, but I went to university in United States. I took French for 2 years. One of the classes I took was advanced French with emphasis on French culture. The funny thing is, I actually learned more about the American culture than the French. This is because I saw from what perspective Americans approached French culture which I was a bit more familiar with because I’m from Europe. I saw what they found weird about the French culture that to me seemed normal.

So, if you are living in a foreign culture and want to learn more about their culture, try taking a class with them about some other culture that you are more familiar with. You may be surprised. 🙂

As for Day 21 of month two, I got in 85 minutes. Here is the breakdown:
5  Duolingo
69 Coffee Break Spanish episodes 67-69
11 Memrise

Till tomorrow!

In total there are 80 Coffee Break Spanish podcast episodes. I’m currently at 66. So close! Somehow I feel that after finishing that I will have graduated from absolute beginners. I get really motivated by finishing and achieving goals. So now I spend more of my study time listening to Coffee Break Spanish and I try to utilize even more time, for example while making and eating breakfast.

So yesterday I managed to listen to 3 episodes. Here is the breakdown of total of 68 minutes:
4 Duolingo
55 Coffee Break Spanish episodes 64-66
9 Memrise

Till tomorrow!