Mild Regrets I've been trying to eat healthier lately, but I think we can all admit that healthy eating and easy and convenient eating are two different things. The other day though, I got a protein cookie from the gas station for my second breakfast. It wasn't delicious, a bit doughy and dry at the same time and not very sweet, but I still enjoyed it. My gut though seemed to enjoy it much, much more. I don't think I've ever been so flatulent in my entire life. We're talking full blown power rips every five minutes or so for basically the rest of the day. I feel so sorry for my coworkers. So, learn a lesson from me, Pubski, if you see a protein cookie and you're wondering whether or not to give it a shot, my answer would be "only if you wanna torture the people around you." Sewing I'm working on making another rat owl, third and last one, from another old shirt. I now know how button collections get started. At the rate I'm going, I'll never run out of buttons for the rest of my life. If I recycle more and more old clothes of mine and Dala's, the same will be true for fabric. I just gotta find a way to keep things organized. Speaking of sewing, a few different community centers around here host sewing circles. Dala goes to one from time to time and I think when possible, I'll try and join her. I know I'll enjoy meeting new people and I bet I'll learn a thing or too as well. Geocaching I think soon, between the books I make, the pictures I draw, and the dolls I'm sewing, I'm running out of places to keep things (let alone any real reason to keep them). I still give away quite a lot as gifts, but I'm thinking it might be fun to take up Geocaching as a hobby and using it to leave things behind. Spanish It's not always easy, but the learning goes on. Besides learning basics like numbers, people, etc., I'm focusing on building vocabulary around animals, food, and adjectives at the moment, because I like talking about animals, everyone likes talking about food, and you can't paint a picture with words without using adjectives. I'm struggling a bit, with everything from grammer to understanding accents to different dialects using different words, but it turns out those are common issues for anyone starting out, so I'm not too discouraged. johnnyFive has allowed me to pm him some practice paragraphs and the feedback I've gotten from him has been super helpful. He's corrected some of my grammer for me, taught me some new words, and has given me some insightful information too. It's been fun. fletcher, if you're still game too, I think I might be ready to try some light conversations. You'll have to forgive me in advance though if my sentences are super simplistic. All loose thoughts today.
What medium are you using for learning Spanish? I have those laminate study sheets on grammar, vocab, etc. Makes it easier to reference when writing, but sounds like you're working on conversation more. I can scan my sheets and send them your way if you want. Its a lot of tightly packed information. Good stuff, nonetheless.
Thanks for the offer, and I hope to not offend by passing on it. I try my best to be respectful of copyright laws and such. That said, I'm learning a few different ways. I just recently picked up two books, one on grammer and the other a direct translation dictionary for Latin American Spanish and English, both of which will go nicely with a verb dictionary Dala already owns. I definitely need help on the grammer end and obviously, there's no such thing as too much vocabulary. As for learning it, I'm doing a few things. The majority of time that I watch Netflix now, for example, it's with Spanish audio. I don't absorb words very efficiently that way, but when I do learn words, they stick really well, like an "Aha!" type of discovery. I've learned words from bruja to lugar to ayuda this way. I also watch videos on YouTube as well. I'm a huge fan of Ana and her Butterfly Spanish Videos because she's pretty good natured and that honestly helps a lot. Easy Spanish is mostly conversations, especially with people on the street, so while it's less structured and academic, it's pretty interesting because you get to hear a lot of the different ways people talk. There's quite a few other good channels, but those two stick out as being pretty unique. The rest are your standard phrases and vocab building videos. Lastly, I try to read spanish out in the wild alongside English whenever possible. Product packaging, instructions, labels, you name it. I learn some interesting words that way, like advertencia or incendio or peso.
No offense taken at all. I'll take a gander at Ana. A teacher's attitude really does make the difference - goes for any subject. Regional dialects/accents can be fun to hear. Semi-related, my current roommates are from Brazil. Their Portuguese sounds nothing like a Spanish relative to me half the time. Their cousin who came over could have fooled me otherwise. ¡Buena suerte!
Portuguese is funny that way. I can barely understand anything when I hear Portuguese spoken, but then reading it and it's surprisingly comprehensible.