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James29’s Spanish Log | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5367 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 241 of 668 06 June 2013 at 3:32am | IP Logged | |||||
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Holy cow! Pretty interesting discussion. And, yes, what a great way to do accents iguanamon. Thanks. I did a whole bunch of typing today in Spanish (I am writing a website for my work) and used the Spanish keyboard toggle. I think iguanamaon's way will be easier, but I don't mind the toggle. I too got a chuckle about how to find the @ on the Spanish keyboard... what a pain!
Thanks for your thoughts on FSI, Crush. My Spanish is pretty good. I am generally happy with it. When I was in Ecuador I went for two straight weeks speaking only Spanish and I managed totally fine. I have decided to go through FSI again because I still make a lot of little mistakes with prepositions, tu/ti, occasional gender agreement, some irregular verbs and silly stuff like that. I also have to think too much about distinguishing between past tenses and sometimes even with ser/estar. I have challenges with the more advanced grammar too... like the subjunctive. I would really like to nail all that stuff down cold while I am still motivated. Maybe I am off base, but I feel like spending an hour a day going through FSI again would be way more beneficial to me than spending that same amount of time on native material. Since my last post I did FSI lessons 3 and 4. I am only going to do them once for now at the early stages and I think I will skip the dialogue buildup. I have also had some Skype chats. I am basically in the process of replacing one of my good partners who had a baby. As a result I have been having a lot of introductory conversations and some annoying scheduling/planning. I was poking around on the Telemundo website and got hooked on an episode of Caso Cerrado... a daytime Judge show. This might now become my new guilty pleasure. I have never watched those types of shows in English, but now I have an excuse... the Spanish is normal every day Spanish and the people are talking about regular things... and are often emotional and/or upset... perfect for my work where I seem to always have to speak to pissed off people. I have watched two episodes so far. The first one I understood perfectly. The second one was tougher. Like I mentioned above, I have been writing in Spanish for my work's website. It really makes me realize that my Spanish is really becoming a productive asset. I spent about 2-3 hours today writing what amounted to a full page of single spaced text. I had one of my Skype partners read my draft and I was amazed how few mistakes I made. I was very pleased. In fact, I did not make ANY mistakes with accent marks! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Crush Tetraglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5857 days ago 1622 posts - 2299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto Studies: Basque | Message 242 of 668 06 June 2013 at 12:31pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Felicidades :) Otra serie interesante, basada en Madrid, es Aída. El lenguaje es muy coloquial con mucha jerga, dentro de nada estarás diciendo "joder" y "tío" sin poder parar ;)
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| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5254 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 243 of 668 06 June 2013 at 1:59pm | IP Logged | |||||
I love Caso Cerrado. It's on every night after the news on Telemundo. If you have cable, it is closed captioned (subtitled) in Spanish word for word. I agree, I wouldn't watch it in English, but in Spanish it's a wonderful window into another culture. The show, being filmed in Miami, has many different accents from across Spanish-speaking Latin America. If you can get most of Caso Cerrado, I think it's time for you to move Spanish from the "studies" column over to the "speaks". You at least have basic fluency, if not- you are definitely knocking on the door. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5014 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 244 of 668 07 June 2013 at 12:17am | IP Logged | |||||
I just checked it out and am glad to say that I can understand nearly everything! Although I definitely find telenovelas harder. That show is nuts though! Like driving past a car accident, its hard to take your eyes off. Good find James, that's going to be great for the mix of accents alone. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5775 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German | Message 245 of 668 07 June 2013 at 12:45am | IP Logged | |||||
Bah, Aida lost it's way IMO, became far too sentimental. The early series are great, right enough. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Crush Tetraglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5857 days ago 1622 posts - 2299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto Studies: Basque | Message 246 of 668 07 June 2013 at 8:30am | IP Logged | |||||
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I haven't watched much of the later stuff, the first three or four seasons i thought were really funny though. Can't comment on the later stuff as i've only seen isolated episodes on TV, though i can't remember ever not enjoying it. :)
EDIT: While i find "Aquí no hay quien viva" interesting, too, most of the series takes place in the same location/set (the apartment building). Personally i think Aída is a bit more varied, but both shows are fun to watch. Edited by Crush on 07 June 2013 at 8:34am 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5367 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 247 of 668 09 June 2013 at 2:54pm | IP Logged | |||||
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OK, I am getting back on track with my Sunday update to this log. I am ready and motivated to start a new week.
I have been doing FSI and did lesson 8 today. I am glad to be doing it. It is "easy" in the sense that I don't have any problem at all with the Spanish, but it is great in the sense that it is speeding up my otherwise slow functioning brain and that is exactly what I need... more automaticity. I think I will just do each lesson once until I get to unit 2 or the past tenses and then I will do each lesson twice. I am skipping the dialogue build up as that is simply too tedious for me now... that also makes a huge difference to the extent that it cuts about 15+ minutes off each lesson. I am also skipping the conversation stimulus. When I get to the higher lessons I may start doing the dialogues again. Thanks to one of randomreview's comments from a year ago I have noted where the dialogue review starts and I can simply just go straight to the 1 minute review of the dialogue before I start the lesson. I think I will keep doing FSI lessons at one a day until I hit Unit 2 and then I will do each lesson twice and only do FSI four times a week. I must say that FSI is really an amazing course. It is so well put together. I had a couple good Skype talks this weekend. I spoke with a new person who had very complimentary things to say about my Spanish. I read some of the DHH Biblia with audio. I note that the full New Testament is on youtube. That makes it very convenient as I can do it with my phone. Before I needed my computer for the audio. I now only need to read Revelations in order to finish the New Testament. I watched another episode of Caso Cerrado. That is going to be a great show for my Spanish development. It is great for all the reasons mentioned previously by other posters. I find the organization on the Telemundo website a bit annoying, but I will deal with it. El Capo is now in the backseat... sorry Marcelita. Onward and upward. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Crush Tetraglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5857 days ago 1622 posts - 2299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto Studies: Basque | Message 248 of 668 09 June 2013 at 3:47pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I agree, FSI is an incredible course. I can't say i've ever found a course i liked more. I've heard good things about the Hungarian course but, uh.. don't really have any plans to study Hungarian. I definitely think FSI will get you thinking more quickly and loosen your tongue about when it comes to saying more complex sentences, i don't know if you really need that practice or not, though.
Also, your phone can't play mp3/audio files? If you can find the audio files you could just put them on your phone directly without having to connect online. If it's a video, you could rip the video and put that on your phone, at least if it's more convenient to have it on your phone than sit at the computer and do it. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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