Blood Secret in Spanish...

My wife and I have been learning Spanish through Duolingo for around 600 days and have made some progress, but for the last few days I’ve been trying a different approach to learning the language. 

I haven’t given up on Duolingo – at present I’m using it primarily for the chess component, which is helpful even though I’m very slow to pick up on seeing what best to move. I think in a real game you’d have a lot more idea which pieces were where and how you’d got to the position rather than starting from the position and having to work it all out – which I don’t tend to do anyway. I use their tool of knowing which is the best piece to move, but that still catches me out at times. But I do enjoy the full games, which I often win. I think the bot is a bit odd, perhaps, in some of his moves...

Anyway, on the Spanish side of things I’d got to the point of feeling as though I was just going through the motions because there’s so little variation in terms of the style of lessons: either it’s a combo of reading a sentence, or translating a sentence (usually with the English words given randomly below), or writing a Spanish sentence only from hearing it (but again the Spanish words are randomly laid out to choose from, along with some ones that don’t belong). 

There are occasional vocab exercises, which are usually very easy, and tests where you have slightly less help overall. There are also stories to simultaneously listen to and read, but these don’t require a lot of input on the student’s part. And sometimes there are exercises entirely in spoken Spanish where you have only a modicum of an idea what’s going on. Most of the words go over your head.

However, I was having a snooze the other day and woke up with the idea of using AI (Grok on X) again. I'd used it before when I was trying to write in Spanish around a subject, and it took a huge amount of effort in spite of Grok’s endless encouragement and help. 

This time I had the idea of using one of the books I’d written – in this case The Mumbersons and the Blood Secret - and giving him a few paragraphs at a time to translate into Spanish, and then I’d work on the Spanish from there. I hoped that by gradually moving through the book the more consistent context would help me to grow more familiar with a consistent vocab (for the most part), and the way the Spanish words don’t follow the English format, and getting more familiar with phrases that can’t be straightforwardly translated into English – idioms, in other words, of which English has plenty too. And anything else that was useful.

Of course, Mr Grok (or maybe it’s Miss Grok), is infinitely helpful, going out of his/her way to offer suggestions, being willing to improve the translation where I didn’t feel it was quite cutting the mustard – no da la talla, in other words.

For the first time in a while I feel more enthused about keeping on with learning Spanish. Which is good. It’s not a criticism of Duolingo, which at least in the early stages is very good for getting the language under your belt. But after a while you find it lacks variety, it lacks a personal touch, it’s not good at explaining difficulties, and it doesn’t really teach you to speak the language for yourself.

Here are the opening paragraphs in Spanish: 

William Dylan Mumberson —normalmente conocido como Billy— calculó que había tenido  cuarenta y cinco cortes de pelo en su relativamente corta vida. Todos habían sido tranquilos y sin incidentes. Sin embargo, aquel jueves por la tarde en particular, su corte número cuarenta y seis resultó fuera de lo común.

No era porque el señor Frizzer, el dueño de la barbería, estuviera de vacaciones «tomando el sol ». El cartel en la puerta decía que regresaría en un par de semanas.

Tampoco era porque el sustituto no se hubiera presentado —como habían hecho otros barberos de reemplazo— ni porque no hubiera entablado  ninguna conversación. El hombre era alto y enjuto, y la bata de barbero que llevaba le colgaba floja de su delgada figura. Parecía haber aprendido el oficio en una escuela especializada en cortes de pelo extravagantes. Billy no dejaba de mirarse en el espejo  y se preguntaba qué diría su padre cuando volviera del trabajo. «¿Te has peleado con el cortacésped, Billy?», probablemente preguntaría.

La falta de conversación y el curioso corte de pelo no fueron las cosas que Billy recordaría más de su visita a la barbería aquel día. Lo que hizo memorable la ocasión fue el pequeño corte que recibió en la oreja cuando el barbero lo pinchó con las tijeras, justo al recortar los últimos pelos.