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| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5255 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 129 of 196 02 May 2014 at 5:33pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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You're welcome, Nancy. It's a pleasure to help someone like yourself who is dedicated to learning a language I enjoy so much. For me, it's a judgement call I make with newbies. I'll help anyone at first. In order to actively help someone through the process I have to see that the person is serious and wants to go beyond the basics and learn the language. Your and Bolio's enthusiasm and hard work is enough evidence for me that you are worthy. I think for Crush too.
As to your lang8 questions, I'm of the opinion that it's always good to go ahead of your course from time to time and make your own connections about how Spanish works :). If your course tells you how something works, that's good, but I think it sticks a little better in your mind if you have already made some of those connections on your own. That's what I do, all the time, it's called "teaching yourself". For example, we recently had a discussion about the subjunctive mood in the Romance languages and someone mentioned that most courses don't get around to teaching it until quite late and it is common enough in the language that it should be taught much earlier. I agree. It's nothing to be afraid of and can be learned quite easily. If you happen to learn a bit about it before your course(s) gets around to it, I believe the concept will become more clear to you when you do reach that point. So, instead of thinking- "What!!! The subjunctive? How am I ever going to learn and use that?" having had no prior exposure; with previous exposure and even a vague idea of how it works, when you reach that point in your course you may think "Oh! That's why they do that that way! It's so clear to me now!". Checking grammar, conjugations and learning how to write things on your own is not wrong. It helps you to learn. The only way it becomes wrong is if you would be almost copying and pasting without understanding, or, caring about understanding, the underlying constructions/concepts and why they are being used in that way. Writing and speaking and being corrected helps us to eliminate errors and become more adept at using language on our own. Be careful, you might get so good at teaching yourself that you may not even finish your courses :)! That's not a bad thing either. At some point, as you continue to venture outside of "course-world" (while simultaneously continuing with your courses), the courses may even begin to annoy you as vehicles to "teach". At that point the courses morph into reinforcement and become more of a guide and explanation of what you are already reading, listening to and speaking about in the real world. It's my view that that's when a course or courses become even more useful because they become a guide instead of an instructor, alongside your real-world Spanish exposure. Have a look at my links to "Waynedrop" over at Bolio's log and consider it as a side project for intensive reading. The advantages are, there's an English version (the Spanish is translated) you can use as a check against your comprehension and it's not too advanced. It's only about 16 letter-sized pages so it's short. It's at a comfortable level (intended for South Florida 5th grade elementary school students) yet challenging enough to help you learn. You can work on a paragraph at a time, and did I mention that it's free! You can see how I used it at my Haitian Creole Log. Regardless, keep up the excellent work! You're on the right track :) Edited by iguanamon on 02 May 2014 at 6:04pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Crush Tetraglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5858 days ago 1622 posts - 2299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto Studies: Basque | Message 130 of 196 02 May 2014 at 10:37pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I wouldn't worry too much about two small paragraphs. If you plan to write more, then it becomes more of an issue as correcting every single sentence becomes a pain. Like iguanamon, i try to give comprehensive corrections to other people (it often leads me to read a bit on English grammar, which i enjoy doing, and also has taught me some of the major differences between different English dialects), but tend to come back to people who it's clear that they are really interested in the language. While i don't really see anything against it, i also tend to prefer talking with people and helping people who learn it out of a personal interest in the language and not because it's "important" or they need it for their job. But even so, it's always nice to see someone who's serious about learning, who actually studies and makes an effort. I sorta have a feeling that the majority of your Arabic friends on Lang-8 won't be visiting the site anymore by the time you write your first entry in Arabic.
You're also not making that many mistakes, i would've corrected your entries if they hadn't already been corrected (though i tend to leave that to native speakers). Instead i just posted some general observations here that the people who corrected your entries didn't really explain. A lot of times, people will just write out a correct or better-sounding version of your text, which definitely helps, but even simple explanations go a long way. One other thing i saw was "No nos vimos unos ciervos..." Here, you don't need the reflexive form (it sounds like you mean you didn't see each other). But the main part i wanted to talk about was "unos". The person who corrected it just removed it, but you could also use the "double negative": No vimos ningún ciervo (o ningún venado). In Spanish you'll often use the double negative where we tend to avoid it (no vi a nadie, no tengo nada, no tienes ni idea, etc.) To use "unos" correctly here, it would have to be a sentence like "¡No vimos unos ciervos sino unos cuervos!" (What we saw weren't deer but rather ravens!) And lastly, i agree that the feeling FSI gives you after you finish a unit is great, you know that you can actually use what you learned, which is something you don't really get out of most courses, they tend to leave you with a much better passive understanding of things. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| nancydowns Senior Member United States Joined 3915 days ago 184 posts - 288 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written) | Message 131 of 196 02 May 2014 at 11:13pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Thanks Iguanamon and Crush. I was curious about your opinions about this, but I was feeling like it will help me. I guess I'm taking this
approach of "intensive writing" where I have to look things up and try to figure out how to say things I haven't actually learned, instead of taking the approach of intensive reading. I guess both are probably valuable, and I should probably incorporate some reading into my study time. I did look at the Waynedrop links you posted on Bolio's log, Iguanamon. I will try to start with that. My study time is very limited (of course that is partially my fault for trying to do Spanish and Arabic at the same time), and so that's why I am not reading yet. I'd like to, but I know I need to get through FSI and Assimil. 100 words isn't too long, so I can squeeze in two of those per week. Maybe I can squeeze in a couple sessions of reading, too. Yeah, I know it's probably silly to have so many Arabic friends on lang-8, but I just decided to accept anyone who sent me a friends request. I don't even know why I put Arabic as a language I am learning, since I am not at the point of being able to post anything yet. But I am finding it fascinating to read some of the things they write and comments they make. I guess beginning to fall in love with the culture, history, and people will help motivate me to continue studying Arabic. Arabic is like an ultra-marathon! It seems like an impossibly long process, so I guess learning to love the process is what will keep me going. Thanks for clarifying the point about "unos" and the double negative, Crush. I have no idea why I use the reflexive so much, but I guess I keep wanting a subject pronoun, and so I stick in a reflexive one. But I hope with each writing to get a little better and a little more fluid and natural. Thanks to both of you for your kind words and encouragement. I don't feel right now like I am actually progressing much, but hopefully the next few months will make a big difference, if I keep diligent daily! Edited by nancydowns on 02 May 2014 at 11:40pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5255 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 132 of 196 03 May 2014 at 4:08am | IP Logged | ||||||||
If you do use Wayne Drop, here's a little tip. Try looking up unknown words using google images before checking the English text or a dictionary.
Flotar Estuario unirse enredadas raíces manglares andar sobre zancos Try to guess from context or cognate first. Check google images (even for verbs), scrolling down the page a bit. Then check a bilingual dictionary if you need further confirmation or the images aren't helping. I think seeing the images helps to think in a language and not always associate a word with English (until you have enough of a language base to use a monolingual dictionary), and there's that whole "making your own connections" thing too. Google images won't always give a clear idea of the definition of a word but it does often enough to make it one of my go to sources for unknown words if I have an internet connection handy.
It may take a while to get through this text, I know, but don't worry so much about that. That's the point. 10 minutes or so in a session devoted to it will eventually get you there. I think you'll find it gets easier and faster as you go along. There's a lot of scientific vocabulary that will be easy to guess and common vocabulary too. In the first few paragraphs you'll learn the Spanish for "to tease someone", "to squirm", "file cabinet", "rain drop" and "study guide". Words and grammar concepts pop up again and again in the text and you'll eventually see them in other places too. The text has photos and footnotes as well for context. The English version is available for you to use as you see fit. Though I would use it as my backstop (a substitute for the answer sheet). If you manage to finish this text, you'll learn quite a lot of Spanish along the way and, if you order now- we'll double your order!!! As a bonus you will definitely know the water cycle and the Everglades :). Not the most thrilling thing to do, I know. I can take anything for just a few minutes as long as I know it is helping me to learn the language. If it bothers you too much, drop it. You'll still learn Spanish.
Edited by iguanamon on 03 May 2014 at 2:12pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| nancydowns Senior Member United States Joined 3915 days ago 184 posts - 288 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written) | Message 133 of 196 03 May 2014 at 4:05pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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This is great stuff, Iguanamon! These next two weeks, I will be on the road a lot, but after that, I should have time to add in a little reading of
Waynedrop. Thanks for all the work you did in linking the google images! This is like Bakunin's strategy with Turkish, which intrigues me very much! It is great to be an explorer of the language! I know I rely too heavily on grammar and English, so this will be a good test. I am hoping to be finished with FSI and Assimil and ready to read some of my books that are aimed at 3rd and 4th graders by August, so maybe I can aim to be finished with Waynedrop by then. All of that, plus two lang8 posts a week, I am hoping will make it so I can easily begin reading books and enjoy them starting in September.... Okay, I just had a look at Wayne drop in Spanish, and it looks like about 12 pages of text, and I have exactly 12 weeks, starting May 11, until the first of August, so I am going to make it a goal to get through one page per week until then. I kind of have to set these goals for myself to push in the times when I have extra time because August and the beginning of September are going to be extremely busy for me, and I'm not sure how much I will get to study in that time. Thanks again for all your help to encourage me to do this! I will give it a try! 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Penelope Diglot Senior Member Greece Joined 3862 days ago 110 posts - 155 votes Speaks: English, French Studies: Russian, Turkish, Modern Hebrew | Message 134 of 196 03 May 2014 at 9:37pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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This is all great advice and inspiration!
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| nancydowns Senior Member United States Joined 3915 days ago 184 posts - 288 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written) | Message 135 of 196 03 May 2014 at 9:55pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I agree, Penelope! I feel very fortunate to have experienced learners giving me advice in my own language learning! It is amazing to get to see
what others are doing and also to be coached during the process! :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Luso Hexaglot Senior Member Portugal Joined 6054 days ago 819 posts - 1812 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, French, EnglishC2, GermanB1, Italian, Spanish Studies: Sanskrit, Arabic (classical) | Message 136 of 196 03 May 2014 at 11:00pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I came to see what some of my friends were up to today and saw they were hanging out in here. Maybe I'll drop by too, from time to time.
In the mean time, if you need some help with Arabic, feel free to ask. Although I'm just a few steps ahead on that endless ladder. Edited by Luso on 03 May 2014 at 11:01pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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