Refold Approach to Language Learning: Spanish ~800-Hour Update
My sixth update of Spanish learning in a nutshell
This is my sixth 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 my fourth update see here. For my fifth update see here. For more information about the Refold approach see here. For a basic Spanish Anki vocabulary deck see here.
General Progress
Reached 800 total hours of immersion. Continued to immerse in chosen focus area (history and historical fantasy). Dove into literary fiction. Improved my Audiobook comprehension. Started outputting on HelloTalk. Continued A/B/C testing the reverse of Anki cards.
Reading
Reading has been going slow lately, probably because I’ve been reading a lot of papers in grad school. It’s also only been about 6 weeks since my last update, and I’ve been going hard on listening. I finished the second book in El Sendero de Guardabosques, El Secreto del Rey. I also finished the first part of Borges’ Cuentos Completos, La Historia Universal de la Infamia. Finally, I slogged through all 91 pages of La Invencion de Morel.
El Sendero de Guardabosques has become a comfort read at this point. While there are still words I don’t know every few pages, it feels almost as comfortable as reading a book in English (right in that 98% comprehensibility range). It helps that the plot is predictable and the characters are very tropey. If this was an English series, I would certainly move on to something that had more to say, but I’m having fun with the series and learning lots of Spanish.
Reddit user prdgm33 suggested I give literary fiction a shot despite my reservations on this last update about difficulty. I ended up going with Borges and his compatriot Adolfo Bioy Casares (and giving up GGM, too hard). Borges was a good choice: he writes short stories, so even if I completely do not absorb the plot for 10 pages, another story will start very soon and I’ll get another chance. La Historia Universal de la Infamia was an excellent collection, composed of stories that were based on real events with a fictional twist. I especially enjoyed the stories adapted from 1001 Nights. La Invencion de Morel took a few rereads of the first 20 pages to get into. However, by the end, I was grasping most of the plot and even some of what Casares was trying to communicate (the false promise of “immortality” in television, film, and literature). I will certainly be revisiting these books again when my Spanish comprehension improves.
Currently, I’m reading El Misterio de la Tundra, have about half the stories of Ficciones left, and have two thick print books (Te dare La Tierra and Olvidado Rey Gudu) for when I don’t use electronics on Sundays.
Total Immersion time: 380 hours
Future Plans: Continue reading my current books, finish the backlog of fantasy translations. Actually, finish Africanus.
Open Questions: Do you have different levels of books that you are reading at the same time? Have you ever revisited a book later in your language learning journey?
Sentence Mining
I’m up to 694 cards now with a 95.23% mature retention rate. Since the last update I added about ~50 cards from El Secreto del Rey, ~30 more from so from El Hijo del Traidor, the last ~40 from Asturias and ~10 from El Misterio del Tundra. I’m currently finished with all my new cards, so I’ll be adding more as soon as I finish the next Guardabosques book. The number of new cards I can make from each book seems to be dropping, which is a good sign.
I’ve continued to count Anki time as immersion time. I’m at about 13 hours spent on Anki, doubling that for card making gives me about 26 hours of immersion from anki.
I also continued by A/B, A/C testing from last time. Here are the numbers for mature cards:
Image: 491/512 correct
English: 388/403 correct
Spanish: 377/403 correct
I am trying to make more English and Spanish cards to correct the imbalanced categories sizes. I did a Chi-squared test and obtained a p-value of .13. Significance is obtained at p<.05. This is more significant than last time but still insignificant. I suspect that my retention rate is too high for there to be significant differences between the A, B, and C groups without hundreds more cards. Commenters have suggested changing the Anki algorithm to lower my retention rate. However, I don’t think the algorithm is not good for me, just the cards. My mature French rate has settled around 85%, which is about perfect. Context clues from the Spanish cards make them too easy.
Writing
I’ve continued to write Goodreads reviews for the books that I’ve listened to and read. Still limiting myself to what I can think of in Spanish. Maybe a good idea to get those reviews corrected by someone who knows Spanish. If any of my readers would like to volunteer, that would be great. I’ve also started (as in today) to text natives on HelloTalk. I may switch over to iTalki or try and find a pen pal/people IRL to talk to because I don’t need to spend more time on my phone.
Listening
I went to beast mode on listening to these 100 hours, mainly audiobooks, while I was doing wet lab work. I finished El Hijo del Traidor and my understanding was much higher after I read the book vs just listening on my own, allowing me to listen without a 100% focus or boredom. I also finished two other books: Como Agua para Chocolate by Laura Esquivel, which is apparently a classic in Mexico, which I didn’t think was that good, and La Catedral Del Mar, which I liked just as much in book form as I did on TV. I also finished the first season of Vivir sin Permiso, but have since paused my Netflix subscription and will have to wait to watch the next season. I will get back to Isabel and Ministerio del Tiempo at some point, but I’m doing too much screen staring to want to watch TV very much.
I also watched some old Dreaming Spanish videos that I last watched when I was at less than 200 hours. The improvement that I’ve had incomprehension since then is amazing! These were advanced videos that were at the right level for me at the time, but now are super easy and basically level 5 comprehensible.
Total Immersion time: 415 hours
Future Plans: El Imperio eres Tu Audiobook, Lifespan Spanish translation audiobook, RVTE dramas.
Open Questions: Am I hurting my conversational ability by only listening to scripted speech (audiobooks)? Controversial podcasters (someone who is not afraid to step out of the neoliberal bubble and have hot takes)?
Speaking
I plan to start iTalki lessons later this month once I give a lab meeting. Hopefully, I can find someone to speak to in my city (Baltimore, MD). If you live in Baltimore, DC, or Philly, email me and we can find a time/place to meet and talk in Spanish!
Explicit Grammar
None. Have to think about por/para and subjunctive sometimes when outputting, but am usually going off of feel and memories rather than rules.
French
I thought it might be cool to try Duolingo Spanish -> French for me to dabble a little bit in French. I lasted a few days before realizing that even though Lamont is making videos about Duolingo, it still sucks for language learners. Way too much early output. While I respect Lamonte for changing his study methods after his interview with Matt, I still think he has a long way to go in terms of being accurate about language learning apps/habits. Although maybe he does have a point about dabbling in other languages helping your target language: since I’ve been experimenting with French I’ve felt like my motivation and impression of my Spanish ability has increased a ton. Isn’t it great that I can actually read and listen to stuff and understand it? However, I don’t think this approach will actually get me good at French. I have to put in some serious comprehensible input grinding to do that.
Overall Impressions
Great month for me, showing what I can do by just concentrating on getting as much input as possible. Once I can fix my sleep issues (caused by long COVID), I think I’ll be able to make even faster progress. However, I think I need to drive myself to immerse less: trying to hit work and language goals is too much. Reading/listening to audiobooks should be relaxing, not a way to fill the time. However, on a positive note, during the next update, I’ll start outputting!
Open Questions: Will dabbling in French improve my Spanish (it won’t improve my French)? Is it appropriate to output now? Are goals counterproductive?
Full immersion link data link.
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