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Spanish Log (TAC 2014 Team Lobo) | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| talkl Diglot Groupie Israel Joined 5023 days ago 51 posts - 61 votes  Speaks: Modern Hebrew*, English Studies: Spanish | Message 73 of 271 13 September 2011 at 11:16am | IP Logged | ||
Good luck finding native Spanish speaking people who actually have the same motivation as you. See what i noticed after months of livemocha.com is that it is very hard to find a language partner that can put enough hours like you expect him to put. People are not that serious about language learning like many of us on this forum. This is the reason why i gave up and just paid for a tutor. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Crush Tetraglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5652 days ago 1622 posts - 2299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto Studies: Basque | Message 74 of 271 14 September 2011 at 1:49am | IP Logged | ||
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I did Platiquemos a while back and it was a wonderful, absolutely amazing course. It covers so much material that other courses don't even hint at. I think in the beginning they use the Usted form, but soon (certainly by Unit 18) the characters start "tuteando". And it really does feel weird to me to hear someone "tratarme de usted", unless it's over the phone or maybe an employee at a store. I jumped around a bit in the beginning, did the first two levels of Pimsleur, the Michel Thomas course, the first couple lessons of LSLC, and in the end left everything and stuck through with Platiquemos, which'll DEFINITELY bring you to a nice comfortable conversational level. It'll be a little bit of effort to be able to relax while reading in Spanish, though only for the vocabulary, not really because of the grammar. Since Platiquemos I haven't touched a grammar book (though maybe I should, to review some of the more difficult grammar points in Spanish).
Lo he dicho un montón de veces, pero no me canso: Platiquemos es un curso increíble. Por cierto, ahora creo que bien sé cómo (o cómo podría) aprender otro idioma, o sea que ya no me hace tanta falta un curso así de completo (y a mi parecer, divertido) como Platiquemos, pero sin él, sin su estructura para poder seguir aprendiendo, construyendo, el idioma, no digo que no lo hubiera aprendido sino tal vez que hubiera tardado mucho más en avanzar y a lo mejor hasta ahora todavía no habría terminado de leer mi primer libro en castellano. Hay muchas personas aquí que dicen que dominan el castellano y la verdad, no sé bajo qué criterio. No lo hablo perfectamente, eso es obvio, pero yo que dudabe si poner que lo hablo o no porque todavía me confundo a veces con los tiempos del pasado o el subjuntivo y ¡aquí la gente que supuestamente lo domina se confunde con simples conjugaciones! Claro, es una minoría, pero a ti eso no te pasará nunca habiendo acabado Platiquemos. :) Mucha suerte y si alguna vez tienes preguntas, no dudes en preguntármelas. PD: Yo tuve mucha suerte con los hispanohablantes por internet, sobre todo con la gente que habla por Skype. Disfrutaba yo mucho de hablar con ellxs. Edited by Crush on 14 September 2011 at 1:51am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tibbles Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4978 days ago 245 posts - 421 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Korean | Message 75 of 271 14 September 2011 at 7:41am | IP Logged | ||
But why is it necessary for a single language partner to possess the same high motivation? Is that a structural limit of the livemocha interface? It's easy enough to find 10 skype partners via other sites and then distribute our conversations amongst them. Plus that is probably better for learning Spanish since we'll be exposed to a wider variety of accents and ideas. To dbag: consider sorting out the earphone / microphone portion first. A video camera is a nice but non-essential component. Also, in my case since most of my conversations are intercontinental spanning thousands of km, a video image tends to bog things down and degrade sound quality. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4809 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 76 of 271 18 September 2011 at 11:24pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks for all the comments guys! I am glad I dont have to buy a camera. I will probably be set up by October.
I have had a reasonably productive week. I have now done all of the Conversation Stimulus units for level 1, which now seem easy. I have listened to loads of Michel Thomas and a couple of new LSLC lessons. I have also done quite a bit of passive listening to Assimil dialogs, Cuentos Infantiles and some dialogs from Veinte Mundos. Im just about done with unit 20, just having slight trouble with indirect and direct clitics in the same construction, but I will be done with it tomorrow and on to Unit 21. Im still a bit concerned that Im not studying enough, although I have managed to hit 3 hours a day for the last 2 or 3 days. I think that starting in October I will keep a record of my hours, to see how much time I am really putting in. I have a 2 hour lesson on Wednesday, so I will probably update again after that. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4809 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 77 of 271 21 September 2011 at 11:56pm | IP Logged | ||
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So I had my two hour lesson today. I loved it. We reviewed some very basic material today, which was still useful. I find it so useful to have a native speaker correct my mistakes.
I have discovered that I am not pronouncing the "o" at the end of words like "segundo" or "mano" quite correctly. The way I have been doing it, thesse words would be spelt something like "segundou" in Spanish. However, I believe this is a very common mistake, and certainly one that is easy to correct. I made a couple of classic beginners mistakes today, like saying "es" instead of "soy". I suppose this is normal when you first speak your language face to face, you have so much to think about that you sometimes go a bit blank. I suppose the good thing is that I know I have made a mistake straight away, before I am even told. Using TU and Vosotros is still something of a hassle, as most of my learning has been so biased towards Usted. I know all of the conjugations on an intellectual level, but thinking of them really slows me down in speaking. We had a chat in Spanish at the end of the lesson, which I loved. I was able to talk about countries I had, and would like to visit, about my hobbies, about things I had done on previous holidays etc. We also spoke about my plans for the week in Spanish.I spoke very slowly, with lots of ums and ahhs, but I was able to express most of the things I wanted to. I had a real boost at the end, when my tutor told me that he was very impressed with how much I had learned in such a short time, especially considering I had taught myself. He says I have a high degree of "fluency" for a beginner (by which I think he means fluidity) and thinks that we will be having quite in depth discussions within 4 or 5 lessons. He liked the fact that I was able to use connecting phrases like "a decir verdad" etc. which enabled me to keep the conversations flowing rather than giving one sentence answers. I cant wait to get on skype and start practicing hard. It will probably have to wait until October though because I havent got a great deal of money left this month. I really dont think it will be too long until I can have quite nice, flowing conversations. I found that Vocabularly doesnt seem to be too much of a problem, its just really a few grammatical issues which slow me down. Having said that, I perhaps shouldnt feel too bad as I have had virtually zero real life experience, at least not since I visited Madrid in February. Right now, I really feel that I just need a good few hours practice, and I could be on the verge of a big breakthrough. Time will tell. There is loads more I would like to talk about but once again Im quite tired so it will have to wait. Till next time :) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4809 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 78 of 271 01 October 2011 at 11:24pm | IP Logged | ||
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I had another lesson at the begining of this week, and was able to tell the tutor all about my weekend in Spanish. I am really enjoying thesse lessons and have another one on Monday.
I havent really done much fsi this week. Unit 21 was a real beast, probably double the size of the other units, although quite easy as it focusses on common, present tense iregular verbs. I finished it last week and having beeb faffing around on unit 22, which is actually a very easy unit. As I mentioned before, I dont get to do as much solo driving as I used to, so now its just a matter of having the will power to sit in my bedroom doing drills each day. I actually enjoy the drills a lot, but it can be difficulkt to find the time and energy to do as much study as I would like. I have decided to invest in some new speakers in my car, as mine are so bad that sometimes I cant make out the fsi audio at all, which means I need to switch to a course with clearer audio, like lslc. I have done a lot of listening this week, to veinte mundos, news in slow Spanish and others, as well as cuuentos infintiles and shadowing the first Assimil tape 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4809 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 79 of 271 16 October 2011 at 10:40pm | IP Logged | ||
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I havent managed to fit in any where near as much Spanish over the last two weeks as usual, although I have done at least something, every day. It is intesting to look at the log of James29, and note that he seemed to have a tough week after reaching the same point in FSI as I did. I forget which Unit it is exactly, but one of the later ones in Unit 3 is a real killer, probably twice the size of most units.
I have had an extremely busy and stressful week at work, but tomorrow I have the day off, and have a Spanish lesson booked. I am moving on to level 4, despite the fact that there are still 1 or 2 drills in the last level that I havent quite perfected. I will just highlight these areas and go over them with my tutour. Also, the last Unit of level 4 is a review drill, so perhaps I will try and race to that point, then seriously overlearn that unit. I have some interesting graded readers with audio which will hopefully be arriving tomorrow as well. which will hopefully reintroduce some real fun into the schedule. I will update about them when I have them. Well heres hoping that I can get back into my stride this week. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4809 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 80 of 271 27 October 2011 at 11:53pm | IP Logged | ||
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So I havent updated for a few days. Things have been ticking along quite nicely, although still not quite as intensly as I would like.
I had a two hour lesson at the begining of last week. I still have a little trouble rembering to prounounce o and de correctly. My teacher is very dillegent though, and corrects me literally every time I make a mistake. This is good as it has made me so conscious of it that I now try and corect myself each time at home. I was unable to have a lesson this week, and my teacher is on holiday for the next two. As good as these lessons are. I am unconvinced of the need for a lesson every week. I think the primary purpose of a teacher is to point out areas you need to work on. I think I can teach myself new things faster than someone can teach them to me, as long as I know what I need to focus on. I told my teacher about the graded readers I purchased. He seems to think I should be tackling popular novels at this point, reading along even if I dont understand much. He is actually quite insistent on this point, although I am unconvinced. I think study time could be spent more productivly really. I prefer to read something challenging, but easy enough for me to at least get the gist off what is going on. If anyone reading this has any opinions on this matter I would love to hear them. I have actually become quite interested in the LR method, and need to read up on it a bit more. I have been doing quite a bit with easyish texts before bedtime. My long term plan has been to do a lot of LR after finishing FSI. It sounds like a good way to get to advanced fluency. Once I can read standard texts with ease I will be away, as I love to read, and my natural tendency is to consume texts. I think I'll leave it there for now as Im quite tired, but , fingers crossed Il pick it up tomorrow. Night! Edited by dbag on 06 November 2011 at 6:19pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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