Refold Approach to Language Learning: Spanish ~600-Hour Update
My fourth update for my Spanish learning journey with the refold approach
This is my fourth update for my Spanish learning journey with the refold approach. For my first update see here. For my second update see here. For my third update see here. For more information about the Refold approach see here. For a basic Spanish Anki vocabulary deck see here.
General Progress
Reached 600 total hours of immersion. Continued to immerse in chosen focus area (history) with a shift towards focusing on listening. Began to listen to audiobooks alone. Began extremely light French immersion. Continued A/B/C testing the reverse of anki cards.
Reading
I have not done as much reading since last time, due to a shift in my focus to audiobooks— which scratch the same itch as books but help to improve my listening (more on that in the listening section). In terms of pure reading since my last update, I finished Una Historia de España and the first two Lord of the Rings translations. I am currently reading Africanus, La Gran Aventura del Reino de Asturias, the first Alatriste book and El Retorno del Rey.
Una Historia de España was extremely difficult to get through. I think Arturo Pérez Reverte must be some kind of literary writer because there were a ton of constructs/jokes/cultural references that I didn’t understand. This has been the case with the chapter I’ve read of Alatriste as well. I also find his writing fairly left wing, especially compared to someone like José Javier Esparza (who calls the generation who came of age under Franco the greatest Spanish generation ever ;)).
The Lord of the Rings fit well into my continued focus on history, as its fantasy vocabulary is very similar to that found in the books I’m reading about medieval history and that of the period pieces that I’m watching. I’ve also really enjoyed rereading the books — they are something that really improves with age. However, I found myself disappointed with the quality of the translation. Many place names that have their origin in English names for things (such as Isengard, a fortress that guards the source of the River Isen) have not had their names changed to reflect the change in language. Apparently the Russian translation does a great job of that. This was an issue with Harry Potter as well, so it may be an issue that I just have to live with when reading translations.
This brings me back to the age old question of translations vs. native content. I read a comment recently from u/justinmeister on reddit:
I think translations can potentially impact long-term motivation as well. Why am I reading something in my target language when I could read a superior version in my native language? When you read stuff originally in the target language, you are engaging with an entirely new world and cultural conversation. The language isn’t just this abstract tool, but a connection to millions of other people currently living and throughout history. How cool is that? A lot cooler than just reading another Stephen King translation, imo.
That being said, you don’t have to fall in love with the first book you read. That first special book doesn’t HAVE to be your first.
Why am I reading translations/watching dubs in Spanish when I could just read/watch those things in English? Part of the reason is to increase my immersion time, but the larger point of me learning Spanish is so I can engage with new cultures. Not sure if I’ll totally give up translations, but this quote definitely made me think that I should shift my focus to native content.
Total Immersion time: 292 hours
Future Plans: Finish La Trilogia del Señor de Los Anillos, Africanus by Santiago Posteguillo, Capitan Alatriste, more José Javier Esparza, Pedro Urvi.
Open Questions: How “literary” is Capitan Alatriste? Are translations really unnatural, or am I just assuming the way natives say things?
Sentence Mining
I’m up to 487 cards now with a 95.47% mature retention rate. Since the last update I added about ~30 cards from Ikagi. More cards should come online once I finish Cruzada del Oceano, Asturias, and Africanus. I only sentence mine for about ~50% of my books because I find it takes me out of immersion to have to think about sentences that are perfectly n+1, even if I only limit myself to 5 new sentences a session. Una Historia de España was a print book, and I decided not to sentence mine Lord of the Rings, so not very many new sentence cards this time. I’m also using Anki to learn ~300 French words right now, so I likely will hold off on new Spanish sentence mining cards until after that deck is finished. Or maybe these are just excuses — my new anki card game in general has been pretty weak since beginning of October.
I also continued by A/B, A/C testing from last time. Here are the numbers for mature cards:
Image: 431/448 correct
English: 332/343 correct
Spanish: 331/354 correct
I did a Chi-squared test and obtained a p-value of .07. Significance is obtained at p<.05. However that is an arbitrary metric: the p-value basically means that there is only a 7% chance that the difference in the distributions is due to random chance. That’s close enough for me to say that there’s a significant difference in means. The significance in this difference mainly comes from the deviation of Spanish definitions from the other two categories. I suspect this has to do more with the my understanding of dictionary syntax rather than any innate difference in how my brain processes the back of each card, but this is something to watch out for for anyone attempting the monolingual transition. I will keep making cards of all three types to continue to gather data.
Writing
I’ve written a few reviews for the books I’ve read and listened to on Goodreads. I’ve decided this is appropriate as long as I don’t try and translate my thoughts in English about the book — only things that I can think of in Spanish.
Listening
The focus of these hundred hours was to really get my listening up to speed. Out of the ~110 hours from the last update, ~75 of those were from listening. I think I was able to make this jump because of the increasingly large number of listening resources I made available to myself.
I’ve continued to listen to Audiobooks, sometimes alongside the text in the case of La Cruzada del Oceano or Cien Años de Soledad, but also alone in the case of La Vuelta del Mundo en 80 Dias and ¡No te Arrepientes!. The audible plus catalog has a good selection of free (if old) Spanish Audiobooks: I would really recommend anything by Jules Vernes, the vocabulary and story are fairly simple to follow, and the narration is very clear. I’m currently in the middle of Juego De Tronos, Linea de Fuego (por Arturo Pérez-Reverte) and the aforementioned José Javier Esparza and GGM books.
Reading/Listening to José Javier Esparza and Arturo Pérez Reverte, who are pretty much on opposite sides of the culture war in Spain has been extremely enlightening. Spain has it’s own cultural fault lines surrounding the civil war and it’s aftermath, the Catholic Church, Morroco, and the colonization of the Americas that have absolutely nothing to do with American culture war topics like BLM. The way the American media paints it, you would think that Europe is just an American colony apeing American political issues. I’m extremely glad to see this is not the case.
In terms of shows, I’ve been on an anime kick recently. I watched a fan dub of Vinland Saga (great anime, btw) and the native Idhun Chronicles. Idhun Chronicles is honestly awful: the voice actors have a very inconsistent tone, the plot makes no sense, and the love triangle that was a big plot point in part 2 was disgusting. However I had level 5 comprehension for most of the show, so I would totally recommend it as a resource for beginners if you don’t mind the flaws of the story. I have a big backlist of period pieces on Netflix as well as RVTE.es that I plan to get to in December.
Netflix has also cracked down hard on VPNs. This makes it hard to find legal dubs of a lot of shows.
Finally I have been doing A LOT of listening to spanish music on Spotify. I’ve counted this in my immersion but as 1/4 time because of the low comprehensibility of music and the large amount of vocabulary repition. However, I think this is an underrated area to get immersion in if you like music in your native language. Hearing the same lyrics over and over again makes you want to know what the words actually are. A well built playlist also mimics spaced-repetition software with how often you hear each song. Strangely, this desire to understand results in better understanding on repeated listening. Not sure how this works exactly, but it does.
Total Immersion time: 303 hours
Future Plans: Linea de Fuego, Isabella, more Anime, Miniestro del Tiempo, Tiempos de Guerra, La Cocina de Castamar.
Open Questions: TV shows vs Audiobooks: why are audiobooks so much easier to understand? Dubs vs Native content: I know Native content is better, but am I screwing myself by watching fan dubs of anime?
Speaking
Spoke to a (non-native) spanish speaker drunk while at a party. Other than that, my speaking solely consisted of learning to play Spanish songs on guitar. Some of my favorite bands are Elefante, Pereza, Chinoy, Jarabe Palo, Los Enanitos Verdes y Heroes del Silencio.
Explicit Grammer
None. Things that I struggled with in school, such as when to use preterite or imperfect, are becoming clear through immersion.
French
I have been immersing in Spanish for about 18 months. I subjectively feel that both my listening and reading are at about a B2 level. I can get the jist of pretty much everything, understand pretty advanced books on a fairly deep level, (if I have read them before that is), and watch dramas without subtitles. The immersion process has convinced me that I plan to learn more than just Spanish: I’ve really enjoyed my experience immersing with Spanish media and the different modes of thought/ways of looking at history it has taught me. I’ve started my third language journey with French because of my interest in French history, food, and Quebecois culture. So far I’ve limited myself to using the starter anki deck and watching about ~10 minutes a day of French Comprehensible Input. It’s very tough, even coming from a strong base in English and Spanish. I’ve never really had the true beginner Refold experience because of my highschool experience with Spanish. I’ve also forgotten how difficult early immersion in TV shows and books was with Spanish. I’m not tied to French yet, as I have not committed many resources to learning it at all. I’m totally open to switching to another non-romance language or putting French on the shelf for now.
Overall Impressions
I’m very happy with my Spanish progress from 2–3 months ago. I didn’t put that much time in September and October, but daily maintenance reading keep my vocab and skills sharp so that when November came, I could really get after it. Now that I’m going to be doing more wet lab I should have more opportunity to listen to audiobooks for an hour or two every day. Adding another Romance language may not be the best idea for my ability level right now. I recently found out that I have significant Scandinavian ancestry on 23andMe, so maybe one of the Nordic languages (Norwegian, Swedish or Danish) might be a good third language to start on. Alternatively, I do have a copy of Lingua Latina per se Illustrata, which might be a cool way to contrast Refold with the more text-based “Nature method”. Whatever I do, I will be still heavily (1–2 hrs /day) focusing on Spanish.
Open Questions: Continue with French, change to Latin, change to a Nordic (or other non-romance language), or just double down on Spanish?
Full immersion link data link.
If you enjoyed this article, you can sign up for my mailing list here. I blog about language learning, biology, the science and art of learning, and many other things
