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Spanish Log (TAC 2014 Team Lobo) | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5015 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 89 of 271 30 November 2011 at 11:40pm | IP Logged |
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I have made an important decision. I am going to start Assimil Using Spanish on Friday, alongside all the other work I am doing.
I know the translations are terrible etc., but I need to get things moving again while I am revising with FSI. Im really looking forward to mopping up lots of new vocabulary. A month or so ago I didnt think I was ready, but I think its time. Afterall when I started "with ease" I really couldnt understand any of it, and now it seems pretty easy. Im not sure what I will do about the active wave yet as this book is a little different. Its only a 60 lesson course, so with any luck there should be a good jump in my Spanish around Febuary time. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5015 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 90 of 271 03 December 2011 at 11:53pm | IP Logged |
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I must say Im quite impressed with this Anki lark. Somehow I seemed to have "learned" about 200 words in a week. I have put "learned" in quotation marks because I dont have an active command over them, and I will need to encounter them in real use a few times until they feel like "my" words.
I think it would be possible to build a huge vocabulary very quickly with this tool. I know that the repititions are spaced out on the idea of using the programme once a day, but I have been doing way more than that. At least once or twice in the morning, the same in the evening, and sometimes during the day. It doesnt seem like a chore though. It will take a bit of experimenting for me to get the most out of this program , I think. There are several things I dont understand. For example, I already have several items that arent supposed to be due for the next 100 years! I dont really get that one, when Ive only been using the deck for a week. Also, I know theres a lot of cool things you can do with Anki, like add audio etc. I am enjoying the process of learning new things, but I dont want to spend more time learning about Anki than I do learning Spanish. 2 days in, Im fairly happy with "Assimil Using Spanish". Its spoken at a faster rate, and sounds far more natural than "with ease". I dont want to go mad on this course, Im just trying to get the highest reward for the least amount of work possible. Revising Platiquamos is going well. I just keep making passes through different units, trying to hammer this stuff into my long term memory. I have took a look at whats coming up in level 5. It actually seems that the audio components are quite short and straightforward. The reading sections are massive though, and there are at least 2 per unit. I think I am going to get started on them straight away. Edited by dbag on 05 December 2011 at 8:09am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5015 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 91 of 271 14 December 2011 at 11:19pm | IP Logged |
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I have now read all of the readings for unit 5, some of them more than once. I will probably cycle through them a few more times. The readings for level 6 are much longer, and dont have translations, although important vocabulary is introduced in a "basic sentences" section with is similar to the way basic sentences are introduced in a dialog at the begining of each unit.
I am actually noticing a marked improvement in my reading ability. I have regulary been reading articles out of a Spanish fishing magazine, and I seem to be able to understand maybe 85% to 90% of the content. In other words I am getting more than just the jist of the articles, and I think there are very few points I am missing out on. However, I do know about the subject matter inside and out, so I know what the articles "should" say, whch helps fill in the gaps. It is amazing how learning a word or idiom can suddenly make a text legible. For example I only recently learned that "ya que" means "since".(Maybe Asimil covered this and I missed it?) Little things like that really help. I often spend time looking in my various graded readers, or going through the readings on the "Centro virtual cervantes" site. There is a book I've read about on here, called, I think "better reading Spanish". People talk about spending 200 hours on it, so it must be quite substantial. Apparently you can go into native materials afterwards, so Im eager to check it out. Reading ability is quite important to me, although not as important as speaking. Its because I know that when I can read in Spanish for the pure enjoyment of it, that I will naturally spend hours and hours doing it and my ability will just snowball naturally. I think Ive got a way to go before I reach that point, but its definetly within sight if I keep working at it. I have been doing a lot of listening the last few months. I seriously recomend reading Leosmiths thread "listening from the begining". I have been following his advice and listening to at least 10 min of native content a day ( more like 30 min to an hour). I really feel like my listening comprehension is coming along nicely. I course I still listen to slowed down podcasts, Assimil etc as well, and I think both activities are very important. If you read this site a lot you will notice that a common problem faced by even those with a very high ability in a language, is listening comprehension. I think its an essential skill to work on. I am intending to start doing some of the listening exercises in one of the DLI courses soon, and making this part of the daily routine. Edited by dbag on 14 December 2011 at 11:28pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5015 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 92 of 271 19 December 2011 at 12:16am | IP Logged |
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This week has been very good for study. I managed near to 3 hours some days, and today I have done probably 3 1/2. 3 hours is the magic number for me really. I find that if you can put in 3, or nearly 3 hours a day, it doesnt take long at all to see visible results, which in turn encourages you to study even more.
I have been making good progress on the conversation stimulus units.I really wish I hadnt skipped them in the first place, they are by far the most intense part of the course. They really help build your fluidity if speech as they as you to repeat really long sentences, and they also throw in lots of grammatical tenses which keep you on your toes. The conversation stimulus is the part of the unit which allows you to integrate all of your previous knowledge. I am looking forward to moving on to level 5, but that wont happen until I feel really comfortable with levels 1 - 4. This is because they provide a really important foundation , and I have read that how well you get on with 5- 8 is largely dependent on who well one has mastered the first four levels. I am really, really loving this course though. I doubt my ability to learn a language that doesnt have a course like this. I find that drilling can be extremely addictive and once I have started, I usually dont feel like I want to stop. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5368 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 93 of 271 20 December 2011 at 2:42am | IP Logged |
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Wow, 3+ hours a day. That is motivating. I wish I had your discipline to be able to stick with it for so long during the day... and also to do the conversation stimulus sections. I skip over those. When will you start level 5? I plan to start Platiquemos on level 5 for the new year.
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| dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5015 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 94 of 271 21 December 2011 at 5:42pm | IP Logged |
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I must say I do find it hard to put in more than a few 3 hr+ days in a row. I can go weeks just doing 1 - 2 a day, but lately Ive been trying to make an extra effort, as I only have a 24 hr working week at the moment so really should be productive with all the spare time I have.
I skipped over the conversation stimulus sections for a very long time, and there are still loads I havent looked at at all. They are very challenging though, and I am find that they are really helping me to combine use of different tenses and clitics. BTW, I believe they are diffent to the ones found in the original fsi course, in that they are actually 10 - 15 minute long exercises. I havent looked at the original course though so Im not sure. I will start level 5 sometime very early in the new year, although I still havent done 28, 29 or 30 at all yet. Edited by dbag on 21 December 2011 at 5:42pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5015 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 95 of 271 03 January 2012 at 12:04am | IP Logged |
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I hope everybody who drops by this log had a good Christmas and new year. Unfortunately Ive had a bad virus since xmas, so study has been minimal.
I still dont feel too good, but once I get a bit better Il write a post about how I thought last year went, and what I want to get out of 2012. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5015 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 96 of 271 15 January 2012 at 9:41pm | IP Logged |
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Decided to finally finish LSLC part 1, really just for the sake of doing something a bit different. I had never done lessons 20 - 30.
This turned out to be a really good idea. They give a really thourough workout of all the simple past tenses, and things like indirect and direct pronouns in the same sentence. The first couple of lessons I wondered whether I should be spending my time on it, as it seemed slow and easy in comparision to FSI, but then they start throwing these multi-tense lessons at you, and you really have to think. Ive done most of these lessons twice over now. They seem to have given me a much better "feel" for when to use preterite vs subjunctive vs past perfect. I feel like FSI didnt fully help me with the differences between the two. Lessons 29 and 30 will need a good going over, as constructions with multiple clitics and tenses still give me grief. I am quite excited about LSLC 2, as I know it deals with the imperative, conditional and subjunctive tenses. I definetly want to go through the subjunctive with LSLC before I meet it in FSI. So next week I want to rush ahead with LSLC for a day or 2, before restarting FSI with lesson 27, which is where I left off. Edited by dbag on 16 January 2012 at 9:35am 1 person has voted this message useful |
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