#nowtoboldlygo posts

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spanish resource lists for learners

a list of lists!! levels are estimated.

refold has a crowdsourced resource list for spanish, curated & with notes | A1 to C2

dreamingspanish on reddit has a crowdsourced spreadsheet with over 90 channels geared towards learners | A1 to C2

learn natively has a huge deck of spanish books sorted by difficulty by learners | A1 to C2

prensa escrita has a list of news websites sorted by country & sometimes city | B1 to C1 probably

the CI wiki has an editable list of CI resources and a couple of native content links | A1 to like B2?

comprehensible hub has tons of spanish podcasts for learners | A1 to B2

letterboxd has a ton of very fun #español lists, e.g. movies mentioned in the wild project podcast, latin american female directors, made in puerto rico | ~B2 to C2

there are also a ton of moocs in spanish for intermediate to advanced learners (moocs are online courses, usually free) | B1 to C2

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I have more!!! No Romanian/Croatian though.

Amharic - all of ethiopiques of course

French - 90s

French - pop today

German - chill

Greek - rap

Italian - oldies

Italian - 80s

Mandarin - r&b, hip hop, lofi

Guqin playlist ;)

Mande languages++ (mix) - blues!

Kora playlist ;)

Portugeuse - fado

Spanish - guajira / type of punto cubano

Spanish - mexican rock

Spanish - guitar sad songs, mostly

These are less for language learning & more for vibes - I just like to listen to native-country music when I'm reading a translated-to-english novel.

Language Playlists

Disclaimer: These playlists predominantly reflect my taste in and knowledge of music. I apologise in advance. Some playlists include songs in other languages including English if deemed appropriate for the playlist. All playlists are works in progress. Playlists in bold are really long.

Multilingual and Continental Playlists

African Music (this used to be a South African playlist and then just mutated)

Foreign Covers

Germanic Music (excluding German and Low German)

Middle Eastern and North African Music

Multilingual Mixtape (contains most of the playlists in this post and a lot more)

North American Music (classic and contemporary indigenous artists)

South Asian Music (mostly but not exclusively Hindi film soundtracks ngl)

Single Language Playlists

Cambodian

Catalan

Chinese

Czech

Finnish

French

Galician

German

Greek

Hawaiian

Hebrew

Hungarian

Irish (Gaeilge)

Italian

Japanese

Korean

Low German and Northern German

te reo Māori

Portuguese

Scottish (Gaelic)

Spanish

Thai

Turkish

Vietnamese

Welsh

Yiddish

Hidden Agenda: Please recommend me music in Romanian and Croatian 🥺 (I also accept other recommendations)

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wait did y'all know there's a ton of free language course resources for u.s. peace corps training??

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twenty books in spanish, tbr

for when i'm fluent!! most with translations in english.

Sistema Nervoso, Lina Meruane (2021) - Latin American literature professor from Chile, contemporary litfic

Ansibles, perfiladores y otras máquinas de ingenio, Andrea Chapela (2020) - short story collection from a Mexican scifi author, likened to Black Mirror

Nuestra parte de noche, Mariana Enríquez (2019) - very long literary horror novel by incredibly famous Argentine journalist 

Canto yo y la montaña baila, Irene Solà (2019) - translated into Spanish from Castilian by Concha Cardeñoso, contemporary litfic

Las malas, Camila Sosa Villada (2019) - very well rated memoir/autofiction from a trans Argentine author

Humo, Gabriela Alemán (2017) - short litfic set in Paraguay, by Ecuadoran author

La dimensión desconocida, Nona Fernández (2016) - really anything by this Chilean actress/writer; this one is a Pinochet-era historical fiction & v short

Distancia de rescate, Samanta Schweblin (2014) - super short litfic by an Argentinian author based in Germany, loved Fever Dream in English

La ridícula idea de no volver a verte, Rosa Montero (2013) - nonfiction; Spanish author discusses scientist Maria Skłodowska-Curie and through Curie, her own life

Lágrimas en la lluvia, Rosa Montero (2011) - sff trilogy by a Spanish journalist

Los peligros de fumar en la cama, Mariana Enríquez (2009) - short story collection, author noted above

Delirio, Laura Restrepo (2004) - most popular book (maybe) by an award-winning Colombian author; literary fiction

Todos los amores, Carmen Boullosa (1998) - poetry! very popular Mexican author, really open to anything on the backlist this is just inexpensive used online

Olvidado rey Gudú, Ana María Matute (1997) - cult classic, medieval fantasy-ish, award-winning Spanish author

Como agua para chocolate, Laura Esquivel (1989) - v famous novel by v famous Mexican author

Ekomo, María Nsué Angüe (1985) - super short litfic about woman's family, post-colonial Equatoguinean novel; out of print

La casa de los espíritus, Isabelle Allende (1982) - or really anything by her, Chilean author known for magical realism; read in English & didn't particularly love but would be willing to give it another try

Nada, Carmen Laforet (1945) - Spanish author who wrote after the Spanish civil war, v famous novel

Los pazos de Ulloa, Emilia Pardo Bazán (1886) - book one in a family drama literary fiction duology by a famous Galician author, pretty dense compared to the above

La Respuesta, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1691) -  i actually have a bilingual poetry collection from our favorite 17th century feminist Mexican nun; this is an essay defending the right of women to be engaged in intellectual work (& it includes some poems)

bookmarked websites:

Separata Árabe, linked by Arablit

reading challenge Un viaje por la literatura en español

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alternatives to anki for spanish, also free

y'all know i love anki, but sometimes you just don't have the time to make over a hundred flashcards every single week.

clozemaster - an app where you fill-in-the-blank for the most commonly used words in spanish (order is random).

picture dictionary - for beginners, not an SRS! just a learning tool based on pictures for vocab. i recommend using spanish for both native and target language settings.

memrise - limited use for free, and personally i only recommend this if you're taking a course or using a textbook with associated user-created courses. this isn't common in spanish, but is in some other languages

readlang - the most efficient way to remember new words is to read them in context, and readlang does offer flashcards!

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Hope I can add a few more links!! These are all shows I've watched or that I have bookmarked from reddit threads (recommended for learners).

한글용사 아이야 I'm always talking about this show! It's a preschool show with superheroes that teaches Hangul. It's educational, the repetitive, and the dialogue is slow and simple.

Blippi 블리피 This is dubbed, originally in English. A guy runs around and kind of exclaims at stuff. Educational with written vocabulary, lots of repeated numbers and colors, well formatted videos.

Masha and the Bear 마샤와 곰 Dubbed, originally in Russian. Very light on dialogue - Masha, her cousin Dasha, and Father Frost are the only characters who speak. Good for a background show.

Peppa Pig 페파피그 Also dubbed, originally in English. Difficulty seems to be around high beginner low intermediate depending on the person and the season. Many people find the oinks annoying, so fair warning!

Tayo the Little Bus 꼬마버스 타요 Cute little cartoon about four buses running around in a city. Each episode begins and ends with narration, the voices are super intelligible, and it's pretty cute. Also the spin-off, Titipo Titipo 띠띠뽀 띠띠뽀.

Bluey 블루이 Beloved by kids and adults alike, and dubbed from English.

Ding Dong Dang 딩동댕 유치원 Puppets! Voices are like, high-pitched affectations but overall the dialogue and plots are super easy to follow.

Superwings 출동! 슈퍼윙스 Anthropomorphized airplanes! Lots of background music during dialogue, but overall super entertaining and silly.

Tobot 또봇 Transformers cartoon with over a dozen seasons.

신나는 동화여행-Korean story train A channel with fairy tale storytelling, native narration.

랑이언니의 잘자요 동화 A sleepy-time podcast aimed at kids.

giantpengtv 자이언트 펭TV I feel like this one is so big everyone already knows about it? Anyway, very popular comedy appropriate channel for kids.

Learn Korean with Korean Children’s Shows

Many children’s media is easily accessible too, with a lot of shows officially uploaded to YouTube for free so you don’t have to hunt down resources or pay for a specific subscription or platform. They are great for beginner practice because of the easy-to-follow plots, simple dialogue, and story!

Hello Jadoo – 안녕자두야 The plot focuses on a young girl in Seoul and her antics with friends and family.

The Youtube channel Learn Korean with Jadoo is a good resource, with both Korean and English subtitles (with subtitle options for more languages too!) in short 10min episodes.

Pororo the Little Penguin – 뽀롱뽀롱 뽀로로 The most popular recent Korean children’s TV show, Pororo has hour-long episodes uploaded to YouTube for free as well; but the official channel doesn’t come with English or Korean subs so keep that in mind.

Dooly the Little Dinosaur – 아기공룡 둘리 A late 80s to 90s Korean kids’ TV show, Dooly is also an official South Korean citizen

Anpanman – 안판만 Popular children’s show about a bread superhero, it’s Japanese but still big in Korea (and dubbed in Korean), also referenced in the iconic BTS song

Pinkfong 핑크퐁 No doubt you probably know “Baby Shark”, which craze was started by the Pinkfong channel originally in Korean and then into English. They have a bunch of Korean songs and short stories on their channel.

JunyTony 주니토니 Channel about animated twin wizards with animal friends, who go on magical and musical adventures, using their spells to save the day.

yearimTV 예림TV This YouTube channel has many short stories and songs like the others, but also has a focus on traditional Korean stories.

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korean media resources for beginners! 🇰🇷

comprehensible input, vaguely in order of easiest to most difficult. on the CI wiki and lingotrack. here's the list for day-one beginners! (with lots of overlap)

태웅쌤 - Comprehensible Input Korean’s [Lv.A0] Complete Zero Beginner Korean Course 9 hours; modeled after Comprehensible Thai’s playlist!

KIWI-Korean Input With Images’s playlist 3 hours; did rewatch this a few times. so cute & simple!

몰입한국어 Immersion in Korean’s Super Beginner/A0-A1 short story playlist ~1 hour; new playlist but likely to fill out. stories repeated thrice.

한글용사 아이야 60+ hours; kids show, i love my hangul power rangers ❤️💙💛

Comprehensible Korean Language’s beginner playlist 13+ hours; brand new channel!! started 6/2024

Blippi Korean Easy preschooler show, dubbed. 🚶‍♂️

태웅쌤 - Comprehensible Input Korean’s hidden folks & unpacking playlists 15+ hours; imo his most comprehensible video game stuff

Peppa Pig in Korean 32 hours; preschooler show, dubbed. 🐷

Tayo 꼬마버스 타요 Preschooler show. 🚌

Muzzy in Gondoland 4 hours; technically requires a subscription but offers a free trial, pretty famous for English learning & has a Korean version

other preschooler-level TV shows 한글용사 아이야, Blippi & Peppa are the easiest, but you start to unlock shows for 2-6 year olds at this level. and there are a billion of them.

search term 룸 투어 for room tours

shopping channel / infomercials!, product reviews 제품 리뷰 always very very repetitive, and while i'm at bits & pieces understanding, it's fun to pick out new vocab occasionally.

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researching testimonials on extensive reading for beginners, bookmarks

ok so i needed testimonials for inspiration when starting the purist dreaming spanish method, and now i need things for reading. this is all cherry-picked with love 🍒❤️

r/DS thread

science behind extensive reading

three-part thread (note: intensive, with anki)

r/languagelearning thread

r/languagelearning thread

r/DS

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a really great wiki for spanish podcasts for learners just dropped, i am in love ❤️❤️❤️❤️

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daninook is supposed to be good for Sims if you're intermediate!!

Estoy aprendiendo español y quiero recomendaciones de canales de videojugadores sobre Youtube. Me gusta mirar los Sims, Cities Skylines y Animal Crossing. ¿Alguna ayuda o sugerencia? ¡Gracias!

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added some all-Korean beginner-level podcasts to the CI Wiki page, please add or comment anything that I might be missing!

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so anki is the love of my life, and i'd like to discuss it re language learning.

spaced repetition systems in general

SRSs are helpful tools to prevent memory loss for specific facts. there's some criticism behind the specifics, but it's pretty safe to say that it's good to have a huge flashcard deck with relevant flashcards where you review the new-to-you stuff with relative immediacy and your already-reviewed stuff with relative distance.

flashcard model recommendations

go for a monolingual deck!!! if you absolutely can't, edit the flashcard to monolingual after you're vaguely familiar with the word!!! (i use wordreference - it's good but imperfect)

edited to add - a TL/NL vocab deck can be very efficient if languages are from the same family

i use a picture for the front unless the vocab word is too high concept, and using a picture would just be misleading/ineffectual.

i use soundclips about half the time - i pull clips from wiktionary, forvo, & the collins dictionary.

i use the fill-in-the-blank feature (cloze) pretty heavily with antonyms, and if i'm trying to remember specific usages of common words/phrases

i also use the fill-in-the-blank feature for chunking, altho i use this fairly rarely

i recommend 25 new words daily, or anything that'll set you for your regular pomodoro time for studying vocab (which is 25 mins for me).

i'm not at an advanced level yet for language learning, but this format is recommended for higher levels!

i lowkey recommend including example sentences on the backside, re chunking, but the utility really can depend on the vocab word

limitations

some limitations are a bit obvious - the quality of your study is 100% down to the quality of the flashcard (e.g. accuracy, relevancy, does it need more explanation for you to understand it)

it's also a hell of a time-suck to create these decks. i study 25 new cards a day, which means i have to create about two hundred flashcards every week. i make this quicker by having an ongoing list of words to add to my deck, instead of trying to look up vocab lists or whatever in the moment. i also do the whole week at once because i do get into the rhythm of dictionary-picture-audio searching while watching tv or whatever.

there are some fun add-ons (like for deadlines), and some complicated customization within anki itself. i usually just google if i have a question - a ton of people use anki, so there are tutorials for almost anything you want to do.

fluent forever

if you're unfamiliar, the fluent forever guy wrote a book about language learning which really hinges on a specific model of flashcard. he has tons of tutorial videos on his website, but basically he incorporates the phonetic alphabet, Google Images, and other relevant info for a vocab word (and grammar) in a flash card.

i think his flashcards take an unrealistic/unproductive amount of time, with a bunch of useless filler. however, i do recommend doing a quick read-through of his model and reasoning, as he might speak to something that you're struggling with. (for example, i've never struggled significantly with pronunciation so i think the IPA stuff is 100% useless.)

here's an integration to create the fluent forever flashcards much much faster. i don't use it but i've seen it recommended before.

outside of language learning!

i've used anki to learn for my work certification, for english vocab words from books i'm reading, and for titles of paintings that i want to remember forever. i wouldn't recommend shared decks for language learning, but i emphatically recommend them for other subjects!

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i passed fifth grade math <3

i've been abusing the start over feature a bit, especially for the quizzes. but the point isn't to get through the unit, the point is to have excellent foundational skills. so. keeping an eye out on that.

learned a new way to multiply multi-digit numbers, the "grid pattern"

definitely wouldn't have been able to write out a long division problem before this review. standard algorithm whomst?

still doing some multiplication table flashcards, and added in some long division worksheets for more practice problems than khan academy really offers. mathisfun.com offers several levels of difficulty.

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I'm not using anki rn for Korean, but I've also seen these decks come highly recommended!

Days 7-9 of Korean

Day 7

FSI - 30 minutes

Day 8

Nothing - I needed a break because I was exhausted from life things

Day 9

FSI - 45 minutes

Anki - 15 minutes

I've decided to add Anki to my routine, I'm using this deck (Korean Core 5K) at 50 new cards per day (that is likely way too many and definitely not recommended but I need to go hard to achieve my goals, especially since the first week was very relaxed)

Total: 13 hours

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the OKC library has a wonderfully comprehensive list of books by women in translation - it's literally 725 titles.

so incredibly useful as a resource. that third book, Fire from the Sky? it's a debut novel by a Sámi author with a queer romance. hello???? why has no one mentioned this book to me???? it's won awards????

i do think this is one of the longest lists i've found for witmonth, and definitely the only one where i could click through for a summary. bless librarians.

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hello i am in a VERY TALKATIVE MOOD structuring hobbies with timelines and goals and language learning vs other types of learning and physical hobbies vs input-based hobbies.

i am bugging all of my friends with like excessive navel gazing BUT they love me anyway so it's fine.