DELE check in

Last Friday I had a quiet freak out in which I decided there was absolutely no way that I could take the DELE in May. I’m project managing an office move happening at the start of April, so work has got a whole lot busier, with so much of my brain being sacrificed that there’s not as much space in there for Spanish. I woke up on Sunday thinking about plug sockets. ¡Qué follón!

Last week was not good for study. I was rolling myself out of bed at 7am with the intention to be ready for the day and sitting down to study at 7:30. I managed this once. When it’s only my needs involved, I have the most fantastic ability to procrastinate.

And as for evening studying – forget it. By the time I’ve got through the door, flopped on the sofa with the cats for half an hour, reset myself, decided what to cook for dinner, cooked dinner and caught up with Juan, I’m pretty much ready for bed. And I do want to have something vaguely resembling a social life.

I didn’t want to postpone until November as we’re (hopefully) getting married at the end of October – and I like the idea of having my results back by the time I legally become half-Spanish. That’s how weddings work, right?

After consulting with Juan on Friday evening I decided my only option was going to be digging my heels in, forcing myself to get up even earlier, shutting myself away from the world and sticking to the May date. That is, until I took a look at the Instituto Cervantes site. There’s a JULY exam as well.

This is absolutely perfect. It gives me a much needed extra 8 weeks, meaning when the dust has settled after the office move I will have the energy to truly dedicate every spare moment to studying in the weeks leading up to the exam. New office is only 3 minutes from my house too, so I might get fatter and lazier but I can max out that pre-work study time!

So what am I going to do between now and April?

I’m not going to beat myself up over not getting in the study hours. If I manage a good session once or twice a week, I’m doing well. Secondly – I’m keeping Spanish a part of my daily life. If don’t have the energy to study in the evenings I can read, or watch some Spanish TV. There’s a new series of Pesadilla en la Cocina coming soon, as well as a talk show hosted by Alaska and Santiago Segura. So excited. As excited as Segura in El Día de la Bestia.

Something else that will help – I finally checked out the Radio Ambulante podcasts. A favourite friend of mine recommended this to me months ago and I’d forgotten to follow it up – and am so glad I finally got around to it. They are exactly what I’d been searching for – Spanish language podcasts with the same production quality as Radiolab et al, that last around 20 minutes – perfect for listening to on a quick lunchtime stomp along the seafront to clear my head.

I can do this. And once I’ve got the C1 under my belt, that’s when the fun* really begins!

*slow slide into translation study despair

Learning through literature – and when a language gets into your brain

Bored of textbooks and feeling guilty at my trash diet of Cuore and Qué Me Dices, I decided it was time to extend my Spanish reading into literature. I’ve read short stories (and Batman) in Spanish, but to really get the most out of understanding another language, I feel I need to go to the source. There are some amazing Spanish authors out there who have been translated into languages the world over, but being able to read them in their native language adds so much depth to the text.

It’s the way you often can’t directly translate from one language into another. Of course, you can translate so they have the same meaning – take the idiom ‘ojos que no ven, corazón que no siente’ as an example. Into English the direct translation is ‘eyes that don’t see, heart that doesn’t feel’. However that sounds a bit too poetic, so would be translated to ‘out of sight, out of mind’. But reading it in the original Spanish, it becomes a phrase with that meaning all of it’s own. I suppose that’s when you know you’re really starting to understand a language – when you stop trying to translate it all to English as you read/listen and instead it just flows through you and makes sense.

I find this now when watching Spanish films, TV, or just talking to people – I can understand exactly what is going on, but to then translate it into English directly becomes difficult. It’s only begun to happen in recent months, but I think it’s a sign of my understanding of the language deepening. All I need to do now is bring my speaking up to the same subconscious level of ease…

Anyway, I digress. For better or for worse, I decided to start my Spanish literature reading with Cien Años de Soledad, by Gabriel García Márquez. All 495 pages of it. Yikes.

2 (hefty) chapters down and I have already filled four pages of my notebook with new vocabulary – but the story has grabbed me already with it’s ghosts and humour and beautiful descriptions, and it is immensely satisfying when I get into the flow of reading in Spanish.

So, after 50 or so pages of reading, here are my top tips for learning from literature – whilst still enjoying it:

• Use a highlighter as you go

Don’t stop to look up every new word as you come across them. You won’t get into the flow of the text, and you stand less chance of getting into the story. Instead, highlight them as you read (or pencil them in if you’re precious about your book). Plus, if you keep reading you’ll sometimes find that you’ll be able to work out what that word is from the context of the sentence. I also highlight any grammatical structures that seem strange to me, for reference later.

• Look up vocabulary in stages

After every few pages, or when a natural break occurs in the text, I stop to look up my highlighted words. If I’m reading at bedtime, I do this the next morning. First in DRAE – then if the translation is still a bit of a mystery, on Wordreference. Wordreference is the reigning king of online dictionaries – it gives you all translations of a word with examples, and even marks if they’re used in a specific country. Useful when reading Latin-American authors.

• Utilise online study guides if available

As “Cien Años…” is a world famous nobel prize winner, there are some great English language study guides for it online, such as Sparknotes. When I come to the end of a chapter, I go onto Sparknotes and read the chapter summary in English, to ensure that I have understood everything that’s happened so far. If I’m surprised by anything I read, I go back into the book and re-read the passage in Spanish, taking my time and making notes of anything that I haven’t understood. If what you’re reading is a little less well known, you can always head to a wikipedia page for a plot summary – but beware of spoilers!

• Get those words into your brain for good

To ensure these new words stay in my brain, I reread the pages with the translations to hand. You could pencil in the translations directly into the book, but I prefer to have a list in my notebook. Then I input them in my memrise and practise every day. Memrise is an excellent learning resource – especially if you build your own courses. I have one that I add all my new vocabulary to, and I try to spend 15 minutes a day on it – often during my lunchbreak. I don’t add every word I come across – I’m not likely to need to call to mind the Latin American word for poison or cinnabar – use your common sense! If you’re interested in swotting up on my new vocabulary as I stumble across it – especially useful if you’re planning on reading the same book! – you can sign up to my memrise here.

Once I’m done with Márquez, does anyone have suggestions for other authors? Or even other titles by Márquez? I’m a big fan of Science Fiction, horror, the weird and the wonderful. Thanks to Juan we have some Roberto Bolaño, but I think after Cien Años I’m going to want something slightly easier going… Carlos Ruiz Zafón?