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James29’s Spanish Log | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4062 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 313 of 668 20 October 2013 at 9:28am | IP Logged |
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I guess that Rosetta Stone is not the only program that tries to get you to repeat back long sentences that are too hard to remember... or at least that it's not just me that has trouble remembering them.
Glad that things are going well. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5186 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 314 of 668 26 October 2013 at 9:20pm | IP Logged |
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Yes, some of the sentences are crazy in FSI. Here is a random sample from the build up in lesson 47 that you are supposed to be able to repeat (sorry no accents)
Pues no fue precisamente asi, sino que te dije que aqui hay ciertas diferencias con el castellano de Madrid. Dicen que el castellano de America se parece mas bien al andaluz. Not that there is anything hard in there, but it seems just too difficult to simply remember all the words. Then the ones where they use the past subjunctive and things like that twist my tongue a bit and are even more impossible. That being said, I love FSI and was thinking today that it is very much responsible for my ability to speak fairly well. I got wonderful comments in a skype talk about a week ago about my grammar and there is no doubt it was FSI that puts it in my head. Ok, this week I finished FSI lesson 48. I had forgotten how hard that lesson is. There are some very tough drills in it. I split it into two lessons and did one lesson three times, the other twice and one day where I did the tough parts. There was a short section or two that I did not do perfectly, but I'll move on because I know the grammar fine and it was more just a matter of the length of the sentences. Watched a couple Episodes of El Capo. I watched episode 58 today. I listened to about 2.5 hours of Padre Rico, Padre Pobre during a very long drive for work. My ability to understand things like this is improving. I listened to the first chapter of the next Narnia book and could understand it almost flawlessly. I am still reading Breaking Out... about 2/3 done now. Was travelling and heard some Spanish at a conference. I just stood and listened to the two ladies talking. I could understand them absolutely perfectly! They were speaking so perfectly clear, slowly and with perfect grammar. As usual, I felt too stupid to jump into the conversation in Spanish. I have struck up skype talks again with my best partner. This is going to start working out again. We had a nice talk or two this week. Edit: I should note that my partner got a great new job and part of the interview was conducted in English. This was one of my most satisfying accomplishments in Spanish as we have been talking regularly for over two years and my English help no doubt made a huge difference. Getting my partner a selective new job was one of the original purposes of our language exchanges. The job market is so challenging in Spain I was not sure it would ever happen. Edit 2: I also note that I had a nice talk with a Mexican who has the same job as me. That was really great because it is hard to find someone who has the specialized knowledge and vocabulary that I need to learn for my work. I hope that works out well and we can develop a good relationship. I am still not going to meetups due to family duties. Hopefully I will find a way to change that as it is a nice change of pace from my other Spanish endeavors. I am trying to decide what to do next year. I'll be done with FSI, and hopefully El Capo, by the end of the year. That will make a good transition into 2014. I need to do something very motivating and challenging. Edited by James29 on 26 October 2013 at 9:35pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5186 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 315 of 668 02 November 2013 at 3:54pm | IP Logged |
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So I am still chugging along with FSI and loving it. I have done lesson 50 now twice. I will probably move on to lesson 51 even though there were a couple drills that gave me some difficulties. I did them ok, but not perfectly. I don't want to get hung up on doing things perfectly.
I will definitely get FSI done by the end of the year. It is much easier this run through and I am basically able to do it every day. Before I could only tolerate four days a week. I did skip a day of FSI this week for a long skype talk and also I decided not to do FSI this weekend. I watched a couple episodes of El Capo this week also. The last episode I watched was episode 62. I wonder if I skipped an episode by mistake because there are a few things I am not totally following. I just don't understand some of the sub-plots. Other than the sub-plots which I may (or may not) be understanding, I really understand everything pretty well. I certainly do not understand every word, but, with context I can understand everything. I was noticing today that the vos conjugations are really not hard to understand even though I really have not used them at all. Like I said, I had a nice long skype talk. We did a lessons on puns in English, but we spoke in Spanish. It was pretty cool. It was different and great for both of us. I had a list of hilarious puns and I simply explained the pun and then we talked about it. It was nice to do something different like this. Meetups are basically out of the picture for me now. I simply cannot go with my family obligations. If I can get the night changed I might be able to go again. In a way, I don't think they were that great simply because there were rarely natives. I went to a Mexican restaurant this week. All the employees were Mexican. This is very unusual around here so I was quite excited. I mustered up the nerve to simply talk to one of the guys in Spanish. I think it blew him away. The owner of the restaruant came out later and talked with me. That was pretty cool. I do not speak Spanish very well when I am nervous. If I am relaxed I can speak very confidently and fluently, but with the initial guy I really bumbled my words quite a bit and he was looking at me with a very crazy surprised look (probably because he was so surprised that I could speak Spanish) and that made me even more nervous. Anyway, the owners plan to open another restaurant within walking distance to my office. I cannot wait! I hope it works out for them. I got the impression business was not going as well as planned. Still reading Breaking Out of Beginner's Spanish. It is too easy for me, but that is ok because I only read it during my workouts and it is not taking away from my Spanish time. I need to decide what to do with this time when I am done with it. I am contemplating doing an active review of Assimil. I'd like to do something a bit more active. I may also read the Cassell's book again or another book on idioms/vocab. I worked a bit on my company's website and tried to translate some of my web pages into Spanish. I realized that even though I can speak and understand fine for work, I am really not competent to do something like write a webpage with technical vocabulary. I really should spend some serious study time learning the vocabulary of my work. I think it will be worth it in the long run. I wrote to a few local organizations that help immigrants and Latinos and told them about my business and that I could speak Spanish. This was a big step for me (to essentially advertise my services publicly by saying "I speak Spanish"). I got a very good response. Much more positive than I thought. I am now thinking of going around to the Latino owned businesses in the general area (not a ton of them) and simply introducing myself and leaving my card. Writing is by far my weakest link. Other than doing skype text chats I don't write in Spanish ever. I have never written with accents and I am sure I would screw them up all the time. Someday I should work on that too, but it is really not a major priority at all right now. I might have to go to Cancun for a work conference. How lucky am I? I am keeping my fingers crossed that they will hold the conference there. We will see. I doubt I will be taking any Spanish trips in the next few years unless I can combine them with work conferences. If I go to Cancun I will do the conference in Cancun and then take a bus to a non-tourist location. I am not a big touristy type person and I would much rather go to a location where I can really get to know the people. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5186 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 316 of 668 10 November 2013 at 3:39pm | IP Logged |
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I finished FSI lesson 52 today. I split it into two sections so I spent four days on it. I have also done a few more episodes of El Capo. I have no doubt I will finish both before the end of the year.
FSI is a great course. I may use it again some time in the future to focus on difficult areas. Unit 4 is somewhat challenging. I like the drills. Many of the drills are easy for me in terms of grammar, but hard in terms of having my tongue get tied and simply not being able to spit it out. I went to a meetup in a different city when I was visiting family. It was cool. I'd say my best Spanish ever. Things were just rolling off my tongue without any problems at all. There was a Mexican there and we had a nice talk. I had no comprehension problems with anyone for about an hour and a half. I also went to my regular meetup. I am now noticing that I am one of the people who always answers the "how do you say ___?" questions and does grammar corrections. I did a couple skype talks. One with my old regular partner. I think that will keep going now that our schedules have worked themselves out. I don't know how helpful it is other than it is just good comfort Spanish. We don't talk about anything complicated or anything other than everyday type things. I also have now had a couple talks with a new partner from Mexico who has the same job as me. This is pretty cool. I am hoping this works out well. This is exactly what I need. I got some very good compliments on my Spanish in this talk. I also note that I seem to be able to understand Mexican Spanish quite easily even though I have not really heard it much at all. I won't be going to Cancun for work. Oh well. I had a meeting with a new customer who is Puerto Rican. He had an obvious accent and a Latino name so asked him where he was from and when he said he was Puerto Rican I just launched into Spanish. He was shocked. We ended up using English because his wife was with him, but it was a pretty cool experience. I am almost done with Breaking out of Beginner's Spanish. I am skipping the part on the history of the language. I should finish it soon. I ordered the Red-Hot Book on Spanish Slang and Idioms to do next during my workouts. I really obsessed about which book to get next. I think I will like this one. I have not received it yet. I hope it is as good as it looks. I like reading these types of books. They are easy to read and they really advance my level of Spanish. Cassell's will be tough to top, but I have high hopes for this one. I am really trying to map out my plan for 2014. I want to have an ambitious plan that really focuses on volume of Spanish, listening and passive skills. I am not going to worry about active for now. I am trying to decide between tackling all of the Narnia and Harry Potter novels or doing things that are more practical and enjoyable for me like shadow Atlas Shrugged and/or read a treatise on Economics. Eventually I will do both, I am just not sure which to do first. I must say that I think my Spanish is interfering with the amount of time I need to properly run my business. My business is now my priority and I need to remember to focus on that. I do think a bit of Spanish every morning is a good habit to maintain and I think it helps. I just need to start focusing my additional effort and time on my business instead of Spanish. Spanish served its purpose of getting me to this point in my career. Now I am here and I don't want to screw it up because I am now addicted to Spanish. A brief comment on my current Spanish skills. I still screw up some little things... I often forget to use the reflexive when I need to. I still have to think about whether or not I have to use lo/la/le in the direct/indirect object situation. I am getting quite confident with the subjunctive and regularly (and correctly, I think) work it into my Speaking. I feel like my vocabulary needs to be beefed up. I watch TV and understand the plot and what is going on, but am missing a lot of the words. I still sometimes "talk around" certain concepts by saying a couple phrases instead of using one simply Spanish construction that does not easily translate into English. Sometimes I listen to things and don't really understand them well, but on the second listen it seems simple (like sometimes in the FSI pattern drills). I am sure I still have an obvious American sounding accent. This does not bother me because my Spanish accent is generally quite good and I think I will always sound like an American. I say some words incorrectly. For example, I am told by one of my skype partners that whenever I say "todo" I say it like "toro" and this makes for some funny situations. I do text chats in Spanish, but have not done any real writing. I am sure my writing is, by far, my weakest link. I do not feel comfortable writing a work letter or doing anything in Spanish that needs to be written correctly. My vocab of my work/business subjects is lacking and I really should spend a month or so beefing it up. I don't think it would be that hard to do. Edited by James29 on 10 November 2013 at 3:46pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5186 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 317 of 668 17 November 2013 at 12:50pm | IP Logged |
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I finished FSI lesson 54 today. In actuality, there were some parts that I needed the book, but I am going to move on. I had to split the lesson into two parts again as I don't have enough time in my day to do a full lesson that is this long. The part of lesson 54 I did today and yesterday was mostly on the voseo. I understand it much better now. I always felt it was simply substituting vos for tu and then saying the verb with a different accent. It, of course, is a bit different. The drill with the commands in the voseo screwed me up and I am not going to worry about it as I understand it fine and I am not going to speak with vos.
I should finish FSI this week. I am very glad I did it again. It has really helped my confidence. A year or two in the future I may whiz through it again considering I don't get a lot of active speaking practice around here. I watched an episode or two of El Capo. I have now watched through episode 65. It is getting a bit more complex and a bit harder to follow. The characters are also getting a bit nastier. The brother is doing some pretty greusome things. I will definitely finish the series before the end of the year. I watched a couple episodes of Los Simpson and also of South Park. I am trying to find another 30 minute show to watch in 2014 in addition to Caso Cerrado. I could understand the shows quite easily. In fact, they were quite enjoyable. I never really watched those shows in English so it was a bit of a new experience for me. I went to a nice meetup. I sat next to a woman from Chile. We spoke a lot. It was great. No problems. I had a couple nice skype talks with my long standing partner. The one yesterday was about two hours in Spanish. I got a call from a Spanish speaker at work. We had a nice 30 minute conversation. He was excited and talked fast. I had to ask him to explain a couple of things and slow down sometimes, but I was really able to help him out. I did not have any real problems with the language. He was very appreciative that I was able to speak Spanish as he could not speak ANY English. That was a very rewarding day as this is one of the reasons I am learning Spanish. I envision a slow ripple in the Spanish speaking community... spreading the word that I am the guy in town that can speak Spanish. I finished Breaking out of Beginner's Spanish. In reality, it was not really worth the time, but it was fun. I got my copy of Red Hot Spanish Slang and Idioms. It looks great. I started it and read the first couple pages. It is cool. Very different. Some of the slang is a bit "dirty." I have never learned things like that, but it is important to know. Now that I am finishing with FSI I really want to move on to a phase of massive input. I will do a combination of TV and audio books. Edited by James29 on 17 November 2013 at 12:54pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5186 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 318 of 668 21 November 2013 at 1:53pm | IP Logged |
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I finished FSI today.
I am now done with "studying" Spanish. I will now just use the language. I might come back and do some drilling on certain things or use courses to work on the subjunctive, but my regular use of Spanish is going to be just with native materials now. I have also been developing a nice new habit of watching an episode of the Simpsons every day. It is nice because the episodes are only 22 minutes and I can much more easily find 22 minutes than the 44 minutes I need for El Capo. Meetups are going great. New natives coming to each group and I really feel like I am just there chatting away without any problems. Doing a bit of skype talking too. I have spent some time going through the Red Hot Book on Spanish Slang and Idioms. I like it. It is packed with tons of idiomatic uses of Spanish. It will take a while for me to get through it. I only use it when I am working out or sitting in line at the barber shop or something like that. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5073 days ago 2237 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 319 of 668 23 November 2013 at 3:45am | IP Logged |
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I am getting in the habit of congratulating you a lot lately, James29. Finishing FSI is an accomplishment you can be very proud of doing. You have made it happen by dint of hard work, dedication, consistency and persistence. You have been an inspiration to so many Spanish-learners here and will continue to be so.
You never really get "finished" with a language. I still learn something new every day in Spanish. You will too. Still, it's a huge milestone to have completed such a thorough course as FSI and have the results to show for it. as you have. ¡Enhorabuena! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5186 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 320 of 668 24 November 2013 at 2:02pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks, Iguanamon. I appreciate it. If the log helps others that is great, but I really do it to keep myself "honest" and to keep me from slacking off. It really helps make my Spanish a good positive habit.
You are definitely right about never being finished with a language. The more I learn and the better I get the more I can see that there is so much more to learn. I often say that if I knew how much work it would be to learn Spanish I never would have started. I started at the beginning of October four years ago with the idea that the following spring, maybe in March, I would "know" the language and be able to visit a Spanish speaking country with a nice beach. I looked at it as a nice, easy winter project. Boy, was I wrong. The truth, now, however is that it has been more rewarding than I ever thought it could have been. Studying Spanish did a lot more for me than just learn the language. I desperately needed something intellectually challenging and Spanish gave it to me. I also got to go to beaches on the Pacific (Ecuador) and Mediterranean (Valencia). When I think about it I am quite pleased (and impressed) with some of the things I have done. I have spoken to numerous people about very important things at work in only Spanish. I acted as an interpreter for a judge one afternoon and did not really have any problems. I spent two weeks in Ecuador speaking only Spanish and doing everything in Spanish (including getting into an argument with a taxi driver about his charging methods). I learned so much about the world and perspectives. I have done some other very satisfying things as well. I don't mention it much here, but my success with Spanish got me healthy again. I figured I'd approach my health the same way as I did Spanish... just a little bit at a time and, over a long period of time I'd be much better off. It has been a bit over a year now that I have been regularly exercising and eating much better. I am actually now starting to see how Spanish could be more than a hobby and really help my small business. That is a few years away, but it is pretty exciting. I always had it in the back of my mind, but now I am seeing it as a reality. Sometimes it is important to just look back and be satisfied. I must say, however, that I much prefer to look forward and get excited. Anyway, since my last post I have been watching El Capo. I watched episode 68 today so I have 23 episodes left. I am also watching the Simpsons. I hope that will become a good nightly habit. I notice that I prefer to watch the Simpsons over Caso Cerrado primarily because there are no commercials on the Simpsons and the website is much easier to navigate. Eventually, I will get back into Caso Cerrado. I tried watching another episode of South Park. I could not stomach it. That show is just too gross sometimes. Also, it was so crude that I had a hard time understanding all the slang. I think I won't watch it much anymore. I had a couple skype talks. I am speaking with a Mexican who has a similar job as me. That is pretty cool. I think that situation is going to turn into a regular weekly language exchange. I like it. I also have very little (if any) experience speaking with Mexicans. It is nice to get exposed to Mexican Spanish. My other skype talk was with my long standing partner. Our schedules are working out much better now and I am sure it will continue. We seem to speak mostly in Spanish. That is good for my Spanish and my partner actually seems to prefer it that way. I had another short talk with an Argentenian. We speak every now and then about economics. We usually speak in Spanish. I have found that I am filled with such a wide range of useless information about a lot of different things that some people really value learning things from me. I think the perfect language exchange is really what I do with some people... I teach them economics or US history or some other thing that is pretty easy for me and we simply do it in Spanish. It is a great trade because we both really value from it. It is super easy for each one of us. I'm also working on the Red Hot Book of Spanish Idioms and Slang. It is well worth it. It is going to take a long time to get through it. It is packed with a ton of stuff. They bill it as having a lot of "adult" material in it, but it is mostly pretty normal slang. Only every now and then they throw in something crude. I am starting to get the travel bug again. This is dangerous. I got a flyer for a work conference in Costa Rica. I also have a friend with a house in Puerto Rico and he told me he would love it if I could "house sit" for a week or two. Anyway, long post. I'll be thinking about and solidifying my 2014 goals soon. 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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