#as an intermediate spanish speaker

[ego-sum-ex-altiora]

My Roman Empire is the fact that if my school offered Latin, I would absolutely take it (no matter how pretentious it would make me)

[rigelmejo]

Something that always annoys me is the idea only 1 language learning method works. Which is not true. While it may be possible that, for a particular individual, only a few out of many study methods may work well enough for That Individual to make progress and stay motivated... that doesn't mean all the other study methods won't work for anyone else out there, or that those few methods will work for every other given person.

Obviously if you've been studying a while, then you already figured out what kinds of things work for you and don't. If you're a beginner, just wading into studying?

I would suggest you simply look for study methods that: 1. Teach you new things regularly, 2. Review and practice things you've learned, 3. Include studying things you need for your particular goals (for example if your goal is to read X book then the study materials at some point should involve reading practice and some words the book contains, if your goal is to talk about Y then the study materials should include some information about pronunciation and words you'll need to be able to say).

As you can imagine, a TON of study materials will meet these requirements. And you can study a given skill in a LOT of ways.

(Reading is my focus lol so just for reading, a beginner might: do vocabulary study with lists or conversations with native speakers or watching shows and looking words up or listening to dialogues with a transcript like in a textbook or graded readers or a picture book with word labels in the target language or a video game with labelled objects in target language, all of those things as long as your vocabulary is improving or reading practice is happening would help you make progress). So to improve reading skill as a beginner: you could study with a textbook, a podcast with transcript, a classroom or tutor with words written down in target language (like TPRS), a video game, a TV show and a translate app on your phone, a friend you talk with (who either writes words down or you look up words you hear with a translate app), a friend you text with, srs flashcards like anki (provided there's text) etc. As long as there's new words, and/or you're practicing reading, the study method may work. If it works will come down to if you can stay motivated doing it regularly, and make sure you regularly learn some new things and review/practice things you've already studied.

So consider those things when you see people selling a study method as a product (especially when it's costing you money). Consider if it teaches you NEW things, and are those new things related to your goals, and how MUCH new stuff will it teach you before you finish it? Consider if it provides review or practice, or if you can use it's materials to review on your own making up your own method, or if you'll need to do separate review/practice.

So examples:

LingQ. Can it teach you many new words? Yes, thousands, since you can import any texts you want when you get done with their provided material (I have no idea how much their beginner material covers though in terms of words... I would hope 1000-3000 words but that can be researched). Is your goal reading? It's suited to reading, so you will practice and review often with it. Cost? I think it was $12 a month when I last had it, and the price may have increased. Is it worth it? Depends on a learner's needs. I found it was wasting my money, so I chose to use free tools like Pleco and Readibu apps - since those apps are suited for Chinese learners and have better translations, Pleco has better paid graded reader material if I was going to spend money, and both Pleco and Readibu let me import texts so I can learn thousands of new words just like LingQ but free. Now that I'm not a beginner, I often use Microsoft Edge to read chinese... since I can still click-translate words easily (all my web browsers have that tool free), and Edge's TTS voice is helpful for pronunciation and sounds quite good. I read webnovels online so Edge works well. But it's translations aren't as good as Pleco or Readibu, so if I still needed translations more I would use them. So... is LingQ a good study method? Its certainly a study method marketed to buy. Well... the method is suited to improving reading skill, at least. It costs money, which is a negative, but it does offer a lot. However: everything it does regarding reading can be done free with other apps or sites or web browsers on their own. So if paying money motivates you to read... sure. LingQ does have a few word tracking features a learner may find worth the money, keeping in mind the actual read-to-learn method can be done free without lingq. (Also... while LingQ is a valid option for improving reading, if the learners goal is speaking then it would be important to think of what study activities the learner will do OUTSIDE of LingQ to improve speaking... because I've seen how LingQ is marketed as "how to learn a language" but it's only focused on some skills. It has vocabulary and grammar in some sense, since you'll read a lot and encounter new words and structures. But it doesnt have speaking or writing practice at least last time I was on it. Those activities would need to be worked on, on your own).

You can do that kind of cost/benefit contemplating with any study method material you see being sold. Amother example: there's a beginner Mandarin course called Mandarin Blueprint. It teaches like 800 words. Thats all. It may be worthwhile for a beginner... who still needs to learn 800 common words. But if you already know a few hundred words, the benefit of the course is less, you'll need to find a new material to teach you more new stuff soon. And the price was like a few hundred for the course... which for me personally was too much to spend, when I had already learned 800 hanzi from a book that cost me 12 dollars and 2000 words from a free user made memrise deck. The course claimed to get a person speaking, competent, but anyone not a beginner would say speaking basically with 800 words is nowhere near the level of working in Chinese or just doing a lot of daily life stuff, or reading/listening to media. (Although for the motivated beginner if you're learning 800 words on your own like I was, its definitely close to the point of jumping to learn more words and start reading kids and teenager books, and watching easier shows if you're willing to look new words up). So to me... Mandarin Blueprint felt like overselling some basic beginner materials. (Again when I know several other things that teach beginner stuff either more in depth so HSK test prep classes, and college courses, or that teach beginner stuff to the same depth as Mandarin Blueprint but free).

Some study materials aren't going to act like they teach everything. I've seen chinese courses just for learning to speak tones better and general pronunciation - probably worthwhile if your goal is to improve speaking and a teacher could help improve the issues your having. But a learner needs to be aware for that course that they'll need to study vocabulary on their own, its JUST a pronunciation improvement course.

[honeyviscera]

waahhhh i can feel myself losing my spanish bc im not practicing it regularly and it SUCKS bc in high school i did ib spanish and like i genuinely knew a fair amount of the language like it felt really good and our spanish teacher said we were like one of the most advanced classes she's had but now since im not taking classes or anything i can feel it slipping from me and im like no :( come back :(

[imtryingtolearngerman]

as a spanish learner, i find it so shocking when i randomly understand a basic portuguese sentence

low key wanna learn portuguese

[adhd-languages]

Learning through immersion

(Specifically Spanish, for intermediate-advanced learners. Most of this can be used for any language though)

Consume native content without looking up anything. Just enjoy it. (Something written, or something which has a transcript/subtitles)

Now consume it a second time

Write down any interesting sentences. (Ideally with pen and paper, for it to stick)

Anything that has something that looks like a word you know, but is in a tense you’re not sure, just a new use of a tense, some interesting expression or vocab…

Go onto SpanishDict and type in those interesting conjunctions, figure out what tense they’re in

Learn that new tense! Either through SpanishDict (they have lessons for pretty much everything) or just google lessons online. This can be as in depth as you like, or you can just google a quick explanation

Create new vocab list of new words and quickly run through it

Re-consume native content after going through all your sentences with a new enlightened mind

On this run you can also read aloud (or mirror, if you have audio) the interesting sentences you wrote down. With feeling, please.

Then write something in your own words, using new grammar and vocab you’ve studied. Or speak aloud, and record yourself. You should try to write other sentences using a similar structure as whatever new interesting tense use you’ve found. If it suits you, get a native speaker to check your sentences, using Busuu, or HiNative, or something similar.

This is just one way that I’ve been enjoying recently. To be honest, you can cut out pretty much any of these steps depending on what suits you, how much time you have, etc.

The important thing is that you’re paying close attention to your content, and you absolutely need to write your own sentences afterwards.

Unless you genuinely have no interest in communicating with native speakers — maybe you just want to watch tv or read in your target language and that’s fine — but if you do want to be able to communicate, you’re going to need to practice. You should also be practicing speaking aloud. If you have nobody to talk to, talk to yourself.

This strategy is really useful for when you’ve self-studied the basics of a language and you don’t know what grammar you need to study next. Just let

[stolen-wolfbread]

(Free) Brazilian Portuguese Beginner Resource Masterlist

I've seen a lot of posts for European Portuguese, but none for Brazilian, so here we are! All resources are available for free (or at least have free trials.)

The items highlighted in yellow are what I, personally, use and recommend.

The items with asterisks are closer to intermediate level.

I will continue to update with new resources as I discover them. If you have any suggestions, comment or reblog!

Text

Textbooks

101 Brazillian Portuguese Expressions

Brazilian Portuguese

Brazilian Portuguese Grammar

FSI Brazilian Portuguese Fast 1 | 2 (+audio)

ClicaBrazil*

Learn Brazilian Portuguese - Word Power 101

Complete Brazilian Portuguese

IE Languages

Modern Brazilian Portuguese Grammar

Português para principiantes

( +more in the Mega Folder from @salvadorbonaparte)

Handouts

List of Irregular Verbs

Top 100 Portuguese Phrases to Learn

Verbs in Brazilian Portuguese

Blogs

Uncle Brazil

Video

Channels

Brazilian Talk

Fernando - FWBP

Lennon Brito

Plain Portuguese

Portugués con Philipe Brazuca (For Spanish-speakers)

Speaking Brazilian Language School

Street Smart Brazil

Playlists

Brazilian Films with English Subtitles

Easy Brazilian Portuguese: Basic Phrases

Easy Brazilian Portuguese: Learning From the Streets

Portuguese From Brazil

Super Easy Brazilian Portuguese

Audio

Podcasts

Brazilian Portuguese Podcast

Brazilian Talk

Brazilianing

Carioca Connection

Fala Gringo*

Língua da Gente

LinguaBoost

Papo Vai

Read Books in Brazilian Portuguese With Me*

Speaking Brazilian Podcast

Tá Falado! (Compares Spanish and Portuguese languages)

Spotify Playlists

Brazilian Boogie

Brazilian Pop Mix

Brasilidades

RADAR Brasil

Raízes Brasileiras

Top 50 - Brazil

Top Songs - Brazil

Web Apps/ Mobile Apps

Flashcards

Anki | Speaking Brazilian | 55 Sounds

Linguno

Memrise | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6

Dictionaries

Forvo (Pronunciation dictionary)

Priberam (Cites differences between European and Brazilian)*

Word Reference

Courses

Duolingo | Old Duolingo for Web | Old Duolingo APKs For Android

Language Drops

Keyboards

Lexilogos

Type.it

Communities/Forums

HiNative

r/brazilianmusic

r/language_exchange

r/Portuguese | Discord Server

[hobbit--punk]

In case anyone’s wondering how our move to Madrid is working out, today involved my landlord toting a duffel bag full of chainmaille, plate armor, and a broadsword up to our apartment so he, my husband, and I could all nerd out about historical clothing together. The three of us wound up comparing notes through broken English, terrible Spanish, and Google Translate for an hour. 

Landlord: has mad metalworking and leatherworking skills, but no sewing skills and minimal woodworking skills. Needs a gambeson for his chainmaille and wants a wooden horse crest for his plate helmet. Can’t speak English well enough to find tutorials on YouTube.

My husband: has some metalworking skills including several years of making chain maille whne we were in uni, and mad woodworking skills including beginning carving. Has been wanting to learn to make swords for longer than we’ve been married.

Me: Has intermediate sewing skills, mostly in historical clothing and making quilts, is a native English speaker who knows how to find just about any skill set tutorial on YouTube. Has been wanting to experiment with medieval clothing.

Today has been a good day, y’all. 

[brf-rumortrackinganon]

As a native Spanish speaker and an English teacher myself, let me say, she does have some control of the language in terms of vocabulary, and her pronunciation is not terrible. However, she makes mistakes in the tenses of the verbs and she clearly has no fluency, she memorised most of this little “speech” and that’s why it sounds unnatural.

She has no detectable “Argentinian” accent, she sounds more like LA Spanish to me. Again, not terrible, but more basic/intermediate than advanced.

To be honest, she’s better than I thought she was. She’s clearly a well educated woman, sadly, we all dislike her for her actions, and we assume every word out of her mouth is a lie. In this particular case I dare say she wasn’t lying about speaking Spanish, she’s got the basics down. She’s probably been rehearsing her speech, it’s not hard to find Spanish speakers to practice with in California.

🤷🏽‍♀️

I agree. She sounds like me when I try to speak Spanish on vacation - I had 6 years of Spanish in school so I have a passing familiarity with the language but I’m so rusty that I have to re-teach myself phrases, vocabulary, and pronunciation when I travel to be able to speak it and it does sound more like rote memorization than fluent conversation (which I could do 17 years ago!).

So to my untrained (and deaf, so please be kind to me if I’m missing something) ear, Meghan sounds like someone who once had a Spanish education but lost the skills from non-use and has recently had a crash course in it.

But that isn’t the same as claiming to be conversationally fluent in Spanish after all this time, and that’s not what she demonstrated this weekend; she can make a speech in Spanish (which anyone can do if they practice long enough because honestly it’s just mimicking sounds and pronunciation when you don’t know the words), but she can’t hold or follow a conversation in Spanish - which we know because she needed headphones for that one conference and all of her answers were in English.

And there’s a lot of speculation, from Sussex Squad and the rest of us, that because Meghan has claimed to be conversational in Spanish, she speaks to her household staff in Spanish - which started after a rumor that Meghan’s household staff is largely Hispanic because of assumptions that the domestic workforce in CA is largely Hispanic - that’s why I made the post I did suggesting that because she didn’t sound conversationally fluent (to me) and she needed translator services all weekend, we can probably debunk those claims that she speaks specifically in Spanish to her staff.

(For some reason I can still read Spanish pretty well but being able to read Spanish doesn’t help when you’re asking for directions!)

[spanishskulduggery]

I love scrolling through your blog because of all the great resources and explanations! I’ve been speaking Spanish with my partner (who only started learning English a year ago) everyday since 2020 but I took a little CEFR test today online and got B1, which seriously shook my confidence. How do I start filling in the gaps in my knowledge and learning all the stuff I’ll never pick up just speaking at home?

This can be difficult because it's partially skills and partially knowledge, and each person is different

(Also can be difficult when speaking with native speakers who use "incorrect" grammar aka the way they speak is correct but not how formal Spanish wants you to speak, like saying "ain't" in English isn't correct but it is what sounds natural)

Like if you take the test and you're great at everything but the listening part (that was me on my exam years ago) then it's a skill thing

Knowledge is easier to fix. It depends on what your gaps are though. There are some big things like understanding subjunctive or preterite/imperfect that are common missteps... and there are minute details that trip people up. Like they always try to make sure you know y/e or o/u

In practically every major competency exam for Spanish, you'll see something like siete _ ocho horas "seven (or) eight hours" or something equivalent and it wants you to put "or", but it should be siete u ocho horas because o "or" turns to u when it precedes a word with O- or HO-

Spanish Grammar Online: Contents (Enrique Yepes, Bowdoin)

This is what I usually recommend for people who are more intermediate because it gives an overview of the major things you should know. There are some minor things that aren't addressed though

I would also recommend WordReference, Linguee, and Contexto Reverso which are my usual go to resources for finding the right words / seeing how something is translated

Also don't knock Wikipedia in Spanish - the amount of times I've had to look up specific geographical names/spellings or especially looking up names of specific animals/plants/minerals... it's truly a lifesaver and you get to practice your reading

[ihnmaims]

i don't know which beginner/intermediate spanish speaker needs to hear this today but the word that you are looking for is "emocionado" not "excitado" .

[rigelmejo]

Picking up a second language from television: an autoethnographic L2 simulation of L1 French learning

I deeply appreciate this experiment one person did with their own language learning, Picking up a second language from television: an autoethnographic L2 simulation of L1 French learning, and it's free to read if anyone else is curious.

The writer did the following: attempted to learn French by watching TV shows in French with no subtitles, and no word lookups or translations, for 1200 hours. They started with shows for adults, and realized children's cartoons were much easier to learn new words from initially as the visual context and slow speech helped them figure out word/phrase/grammar meanings, and then watched children's cartoons for a while until gradually increasing difficulty of shows again. While in the first several hundred hours, they watched some cartoons by repeatedly watching certain sentences and scenes over and over, attempting to understand as much as they could, such as with the cartoon Calliou. After 1200 hours, they started reading French, talking to people in French, and reading some grammar explanations at that point. They passed a B2 test at the conclusion of 1500 hours, with the first 1200 being watching French TV with no tools/explanations and then the last 300 hours including speaking and finally looking up some explanations and seeing french writing.

This account of their experience is incredibly interesting to me. It shows a few things which (at least for me) can be learned from.

1. That a goal of aiming for over a thousand hours spent trying to understand materials in your target language is useful.

2. The time they spent engaging with French is (very roughly) similar to FSI estimates if you include the hours of outside-class study recommended, 750 class hours plus time spent studying outside of class (2 hours outside of class per class hour is the FSI recommendation - which would be 2250 for French). The time it took him to pass B2 is in the 1000+ hour range, which is similar to classroom time plus outside study time expected. Automatic Language Growth type courses tend to suggest 1000-2000 hours to speak on an adult level and understand others, with 1500 being the suggested study length Dreaming Spanish suggests and ALG Thai programs recommending 2000 hours. Some learners who've done DS and ALG Thai programs suggest they feel they can understand people and discuss things on a basic level at those hours, but feel they need more hours to really be 'fluent'. I think that aligns well with the 1500 hour French study linked above, where he felt 1500 hours felt intermediate and capable of talking with others/working/understanding others but by no means fluent. So my personal thoughts on this is... the French 2250 hour estimate (FSI class-hours estimates added to 2 outside-class hours per hour as FSI suggests) is probably roughly in line with people's experiences.

And the earlier goal of 1500 (1000-2000 depending on the individual, and the target language) being a good initial goal for basic ability to do all things in the language (but not necessarily well and not mastered). Perhaps this number could be several hundred hours, and less than a thousand, if your target language is similar to one you already know or you have experience learning languages already. But the thought I am concluding from all of this is: expect 1000 hours or more trying to understand stuff in your target language if you wish to be able to understand the main idea (or more) of most things, and communicate your main idea with others.

(And for the sake of curiosity, FSI estimates 2200 class hours for Japanese and Chinese, so 6600 hours total, for an English speaker. So probably...at minimum 1000 hours to start speaking, like ALG Thai learners notice, at minimum 2000 hours to start understanding the main idea of most things, and based on FSI estimates... perhaps 3000-3300 hours minimum to start feeling similar to that level achieved after 1500 hours studying French or Spanish).

3. He studied French with zero aids like grammar guides or translations or even the French alphabet and a pronunciation explanation. He mentions in his paper, that being able to look up translations, or even see French subtitles on the TV shows, may have potentially sped up his progress. (Or perhaps not, as he didn't try those tools until 1200 hours in). Many of us learners HAVE used such tools already. The lesson I take from his experience is...even if you use NO tools or aids to learn, if you dedicate 1000+ hours to attempting to understand visual-audio situations (videos or classes or your life experiences in a country) you will make progress and increase your understanding of the language. If you initially focus on more-visually understandable things, like children's cartoons or ALG teachers who visually attempt to explain or a person helping you through a situation (like a native speaker talking to you as they help you grocery shop), then your initial progress as a beginner will be FASTER. And it may well be necessary to understand a certain amount, as a beginner, for the target-language input to be useful. You don't need to understand 100% or even 90%, but you do need to understand enough to hear at least 1 word or phrase or grammar piece every couple minutes that you can GUESS at the possible meaning of. At least, to learn in a timely manner.

So as a beginner, visual-audio input is much more useful than audio only - especially if you don't have cognates to use to make guesses. And visual-audio input where the speaking is ABOUT something in the same scene/experience/event so it's easier to guess what bits of the language mean. And if you choose to use tools like a translation app/site, if it's helping you figure out meaning of bits of language then it may be particularly useful as a beginner. (There's certainly language learning camps that think using translations lessens your actual learning of the language, but based on his paper... I at least think, what I take from it, is that those beginning few hundred hours it's most important you find a way to UNDERSTAND the main idea of the target language material. My take is that, even if that involves translation tools for 300 hours initially, it's worth it. You can abandon translation tools once you understand enough stuff in the language - like a few hundred key words or pronunciations etc - to start understanding really basic main ideas from kids cartoons. But if you can't even guess "cartoon character is pointing to bike, seems to want bike, even though I have no idea what words they're saying, maybe one of those words was bike..." then you aren't going to comprehend enough to guess word meanings. It seems like after the first few hundred hours, the need for translations and/or kid cartoons is less. Once you have some small base of words/phrases you've guessed the meaning of, then it's possible to start guessing the meaning of conversations even when there's no visual context to indicate what's going on - such as adult shows where they discuss off-screen abstract topics, and audio only materials).

4. There is no huge need to pick the 'perfect' study method or materials. After the initial beginner stage of learning some key words/phrases from visual context (a few hundred hours), you WILL continue learning and make progress as long as you keep engaging with the language and trying to understand the main idea. So study/watch/listen to whatever you like that, that you can get yourself to engage with for 1000 hours or more. Some people will want to keep looking up word-translations, do that. Some people will love cdramas or anime or shows and just want to watch tons of shows. Some people will feel more comfortable watching/doing easier things like a tutor that matches your comfort level (like crosstalk), immersion with someone helping you navigate, watching cartoons, watching stuff for learners (like Comprehensible Input youtube channels). Some people want to jump into the deep end and go for audiobooks or podcasts. If you are able to even just GUESS a word/phrase/grammar point meaning every 1-3 minutes (or more often) then you'll likely keep improving your understanding. No need to be perfect, just figure out a way to keep yourself engaged. Because it'll take a thousand hours or more.

5. I hate to say this because I love reading... but to develop listening comprehension... you need to listen. Having visual-audio materials as a beginner is critical. Even if that means graded readers you read paired with an audiobook. And you'll need to keep listening for at least 1000 hours to build good listening comprehension - it takes time to get used to hearing the pronunciation, to mentally separating it into phrases/words, to adjusting to various speeds, to emotional meanings and implications, to adjust to understanding various accents. His paper indicated he struggled with understanding faster speech until he'd studied enough hundreds of hours, and then struggled with slang and accents much longer. Listening comprehension is critical to: conversing with others, speaking and being understood, listening to shows and audio. So it must be worked on. That is not to say you can't study by reading - I sure did! And still do! But that the hours spent reading WITHOUT audio will not contribute to some of those critical listening and speaking skills.

Reading on it's own will help prime you to pick up vocabulary when listening faster, help with increasing vocabulary, help with getting used to word usage and grammar. But based on his paper... for him, at least, it seems reading skill was picked up Extremely Fast after already having a good ability to listen and speak with people. He picked up reading skills within months! From my own experience... I mostly studied with reading ONLY activities, in French and Chinese, and improving in my listening skills takes A LOT of hours. It will not be as good as my reading within a few months. I think I may pick up listening skills Somewhat faster than someone who's read less, since I am primed to learn listening comprehension of words I understand in reading faster than trying to comprehend brand new words. But so many listening skills are lagging significantly. My Chinese listening skills are much better than my French listening skills, since I did often listen while reading when I studied. But there's still so many key aspects of words that I don't have natural ability to simply verbalize without thinking, like instantly saying the right tone, or instantly knowing the right pronunciation for some words I can read fine. And comprehension of listening to people is way lower than my ability to read and comprehend.

[martinshep]

Intro post!!

󠁗󠁨󠁯󠀠󠁵󠁰󠀠󠁷󠁵󠁮󠁧󠁬󠁩󠁮󠁧󠀠󠁴󠁨󠁥󠁹󠀠󠁨󠁯󠁧󠁻󠁷󠁵󠁮󠁧󠁬󠁥󠀠󠁴󠁥󠁸󠁴󠀠󠁥󠁮󠁤󠁳󠀠󠁨󠁥󠁲󠁥󠁽Hi I go by Martin, Shep, or Riley (they/them, but it/its to friends) I'm 21 and from Australia.

Autistic with ADHD, huge nerd. Agender anthro dog therian!

I make art on @martinshepart

Make sure to check out my alterhuman dictionary project here!

All my posts or reblogs where I say something are tagged #martin originals

More details under the cut!

Martin Schäfer

★★★★☆ Reviews (4)

★★★☆☆ arrived with no issues but item is kinda mid

★☆☆☆☆ would not shut up about languages

★★★★★ would not shut up about languages

★★★★★ very good dog arrived in good condition

Item condition:

Slightly damaged, still working

I'm autistic and ADHD and still struggling with executive dysfunction. Still learning how to recover from being a former gifted kid and never learning how to socialise. If I'm being annoying or obnoxious please tell me!

Agender because I do not understand gender, although unsure if it's just the human concept of gender I don't understand.

Therian and transpecies! Specifically an anthro german shepherd mix border collie, possibly with some other herding dogs in there. I also identify a lot with becoming a virtual/uploaded consciousness? Not sure what to call that. Also I'm thesean. If you don't know what that is here's my post about it.

Demisexual and platoniromantic/flectic. Not exact labels but the closest I can get without using an encyclopaedia worth of text to describe myself.

I'm an artist and I'm open for commissions! Check out the pinned post on @martinshepart for details!

Tags

#martin originals - all my posts where I say/ask a thing #poked beast - asks answered by me #martinshep's art - my visual art #martinshep's music - my auditory art #martinshep's languages - my languages related art

Other blogs

@martinshepart - my art blog, I put all my art there @martin-schaefer - my alt nsfw blog that I'll probably rarely use

Current special interests and hobbies:

(Note my knowledge of any of these is not as exhaustive as most people's)

Illustrated art

Cartography

History (esp cultural and economic)

Linguistics (esp lexicography and orthography)

Semiotics

Cosmology

Quantum mechanics and general relativity

The most horrid music you can imagine (breakcore, mashcore, shoegaze, dariacore, noise pop/noise rock)

3D modelling

Fursuit making

Kandi bracelets

Learning Spanish (just starting out)

Learning Dutch (Also just starting out)

Game design/dev (once I get my shit together and learn C#)

Music making (once I get my DAW working)

Furgonomics

Cooking/food prep

4D games

Languages I know, am learning, or am planning to learn:

If you speak one of the languages I'm learning and are willing to help me out please let me know :D

English - I'm a native speaker and specifically speak australian english

Auslan - Taking classes on it and soon will be taking a tafe course on it.

Toki pona - mi kama sona, kepeken tenpo suli. mi pilin e ni: sona toki pona mi lon meso. (I'm learning, slowly. I think I'm at an intermediate level.)

Hindi/हिंदी - मैं बुनियादी हिंदी वाकयों बोला सका। मैं कोश में शब्द मिलना बहुत अक्सर। (I can say simple sentences. I have to look up words in the dictionary very often.)

German/Deutch - Ich kennen en bisschen deutch, aber jetzt ich lernen nicht. (I know some german, but I'm no longer learning it.)

Dutch/Nederlands - Ik spreek een beetje nederlands. Dezelfde als duits echter. (I speak some dutch. Same as german though.)

Spanish/Español - Estudiaba español. Sé mucho poco. (I'm learning spanish. I know very little.)

Croatian/Hrvatska - Still getting around to learning the basics.

I also want to learn arabic and mandarin at some point but I'm waiting until I'm learning fewer languages.

Me↓ (art by snowflake-sage)

Me↑ (art by snowflake-sage)

Feel free to message me if you want to hang out in vrchat, infodump to me, get help with art or 3d modelling, lust over my fursona, or just chat! I'm an attention whore so don't think you're bothering me!

I also have a discord server:

I like to listen to fucked up horrible awful music

Here's a google doc (currently under renovation) with a bunch of recommendations that's still a work in progress, I plan to add more to it as time goes on too

I'm like a year late to make this but whatever

[crystal--riot]

dusts off this blog. sooo... I'm picking up Spanish again! I want to try and spend at least a month trying to learn the basics and see where I'm at. my current goal is to be intermediate by next year!

I currently have a large vocab list, a handful of cool resources, and have found two native speakers to practice with 💖

I also have the desire to learn ASL, Chinese, and perhaps another language such as German, but I will be focusing on Spanish for now :)

gracias, ¡hastas luego!

[qsmpspanishclass]

¡ʜᴏʟᴀ ʏ ʙɪᴇɴᴠᴇɴɪᴅᴀ ᴀ ʟᴀ ᴄʟᴀꜱᴇ! / ʜᴇʟʟᴏ ᴀɴᴅ ᴡᴇʟᴄᴏᴍᴇ ᴛᴏ ᴄʟᴀꜱꜱ!

The QSMP Spanish Class is a discord server that aims to teach fans of QSMP Spanish from English, however it is friendly to everyone looking to join a community with both Spanish and English speakers!

features & mods beneath the cut!

Our server has three tiers, novice (principiante), intermediate (intermedio), and expert (experto)- the level you can view is determined by reaction roles!

We also welcome people who use Spanish as a first language, though there are no tiers for learning English, and it would be more a safe space to practice than anything!

Additionally, we host game nights & events to practice speaking, and offer a space to share creatives like art and writing- both related and unrelated to the QSMP!

The QSMP Spanish Class has 3 m̵̢̯͌ô̸̠͚͌̏͜d̸͚̼͖͂ę̴̟̯̊͗r̷̢̟͙̄̃a̸͈̫̿̇͂ẗ̸̛͍͈̳́͊ơ̶͎̻̖r̸̪̈ș̵͔̬̊͆̚!

Ghost Town!

"Hello! We're the Ghost Town system, pronouns depend on the alter! We're the founders of the QSMP Spanish Class, and we've taken 5 years of Spanish and are planning to study abroad after 3 more years studying! Our tumblr is @theghosttown & our favorite CCs on the QSMP are Quackity, Jaiden, Luzu and Mariana!"

Zee!

"Hey! My name is Zee, they/he, or el/elle in Spanish! I am a minor, and Slimecicle is one of my favorite ccs. English is my first language, but im working on learning Spanish! My tumblr is @dreams-your-smp, and your always free to shoot me an ask to say hi!"

Fran!

"Hello there :) I'm fran (they/them). I spent five years learning Spanish in school and recently picked up learning it again. I'm also currently trying to learn Portuguese and am a big fan of practically all of the creators on the qsmp"

The QSMP Spanish Class has 2 additional moderators selected via election, and 1 further moderator selected by other m̵̢̯͌ô̸̠͚͌̏͜d̸͚̼͖͂ę̴̟̯̊͗r̷̢̟͙̄̃a̸͈̫̿̇͂ẗ̸̛͍͈̳́͊ơ̶͎̻̖r̸̪̈ș̵͔̬̊͆̚!

Chris!

Heyooo, I'm Chris (He/Him) I'm latino (VIVA COLOMBIAA) and spanish is my first language, my art tumblr is @chrisartshere and im just happy to be a menace

B!

[To be updated!]

Frank!

Hiya! I’m Frank, she/her/hers. I’m American, and English is my first language. QSMP Spanish class is teaching me Spanish, and I’m also semi-fluent in ASL! My tumblr is frankjonesthenerd, and my AO3 is the same. Multifandom with an emphasis on MCYT and Star Wars. Come hang out with us!

.

[nowtoboldlygo]

level three update for dreaming spanish! i just hit 150 hours of comprehensible input!!!!!!

if you're unfamiliar, there are a ton of comprehensible input videos out there in spanish, usually where a native speaker guides you through a story/discussion with pictures, lots of body language, and beginner-level vocab and grammar. there is proof that a language learner can learn to speak entirely by consuming video content at an appropriate level.

the goal is one thousand and five hundred hours total. terrifying, but i'm 10% of the way through!

quick facts for the curious:

i'm not speaking, reading, or writing for now. check out this page for more about the method - the general idea is immersion, with the goal of language acquisition, and the minimization of poor pronunciation and beginner-level demotivation.

it took me 47 days of study, over the span of almost seven months, to watch 50 hours of superbeginner and beginner content.

it took me 63 days of study, over the span of three months, to watch another 100 hours of superbeginner, beginner, and intermediate content, for a total of 150 hours.

within the last year i've only studied thirty more hours outside of comprehensible input videos - listening to language transfer, reading A1 level materials made for learners, and flashcard study. worth mentioning: over a decade ago i did study spanish for two years, and french for six.

[cow-stealin-gal]

“¿Los pájaros no se van cuando te acercas?”

(Don’t the birds leave when you get close?)

have a free little guy with this ask

*squee!!

“¡Ay, que lindo!”

(Aww, how cute!)