I’ve been spending a lot of time this week feeling introspective about this project. That sentence might seem like it’s lacking some self-awareness, as this blog is basically one long object-lesson in the concept of introspection, but I mean I’m feeling that way moreso than the usual. I finished La Corona del Pastor this week, … Continue reading Old Endings and New Beginnings
As November wrapped up, this blog hit 18 months old and my language journey learning Spanish turned two. A lot has happened in that time and I’m proud of myself for sticking to this project and for making as much progress as I have. There are lots of times when I feel like I’m walking … Continue reading A Look Back on 18 Months of Language Learning Progress
I think it’s pretty undeniable that the internet has made language learning a lot more accessible than it used to be. The number of available resources has skyrocketed and multiplied, attacking the challenge from multiple angles. Go back twenty years or so and you were stuck with text books and cassette tapes of conversation examples, … Continue reading Resources for Language Learning on the Internet
(This blog is the English translation of this week’s primary blog, which was originally written in Spanish.) Finding time to learn something while working isn’t easy. This week I started a new job and I had to change how I study. I have less free time, so it was necessary to reduce the amount of … Continue reading Learning a Language with a Job
(This blog entry is written in Spanish. There will be an English translation available tomorrow morning / Esta entrada está escrita en español. Habrá una traducción de inglés disponible mañana por la mañana.) Econtrar tiempo para aprender algo mientras trabajas no es fácil. Esta semana, empecé un trabajo nuevo, y tenía que cambiar cómo estudio. … Continue reading Aprender un Idioma con un Trabajo
After last week’s fiasco for studying, brought on by a doozy of an illness, I knew going into this week that I’d end up being in a period of recovery and stabilization. I had to pause my life for the whole week and had lots of things to get caught back up on, which meant … Continue reading Prioritizing Language Learning
It’s been another six months since the last time I added up the total number of words that I’ve read from books in Spanish. That last time had been six months after the previous time I’d added them up, so at this point it’s a bit of a tradition to look back and reflect on … Continue reading Number of Words Read in Spanish After Another Six Months of Reading
At the risk of being a little meta here, it’s becoming more and more common for me to be at a total loss for what to blog about each week. I mean, I tend to find a topic to write something interesting about (with the possible exception of this very blog), and I always have … Continue reading A Metatextual Blog About Blogging
Something I’m constantly surprised by and reevaluating over time is my perceived current level in Spanish. I’ve talked a number of times on this blog about how difficult it is to judge yourself in an objective way and how easy it is to both overestimate and underestimate your own abilities, and I can comfortably say … Continue reading The Folly of Self-Assessments
(This blog is the English translation of this week’s primary blog, which was originally written in Spanish.) This time of year always feels like it’s the season of challenges. October is the month of tintubre/inktober and November is NaNoWriMo/Mes Nacional de Escribir Novelas, so you can't go anywhere on the internet without finding someone trying … Continue reading It’s the Season of Challenges
Fumbling Toward Fluent 