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| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5367 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 41 of 668 04 July 2011 at 11:00pm | IP Logged |
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This was another pretty good week. I forgot my Assimil book one day so I missed my Assimil lesson that day. I am in the upper 30s (37 or 38??) and the lessons are starting to get useful. They are somewhat "easy", but very useful at the same time. I wonder if doing Without Toil was smart or not. I feel I could be doing much more with Using Spanish or a more advanced course, but at the same time I am enjoying what I am doing and I still have a very positive feeling every day with my studies. I can tell that I am getting more confident and "fluid" with the language as a result of Without Toil so I am going to keep it up. I may not do another wave. I will decide when I get through this first wave.
The one day I missed Assimil I did another FSI lesson. I have done three of them now. I am feeling that I might want to do the full thing at some point. I certainly won't do it any time soon, but maybe next year or something. Maybe I will just do the first book and see how I like it. I think it has a lot of what I need... automacity of speech (spitting it out...) and a Latin American accent. I did a couple good skype talks. They are quite productive and very useful. I have two really good partners now who are reliable and interesting to talk with. I am getting to know my partners better so we talk about very wide ranging topics. I must say that learning about foreign countries is really intriguing to me. I went to a meetup. It was a group of 15-ish, but it was a roundtable-type setting where only one person spoke at a time. I actually felt it was very useful to my listening comprehension. I also found it quite fascinating to hear the native speakers (all from different Latin American countries) talk about Latin American politics. There was not too much of an opportunity for me to speak out loud, however. I learned of another meetup group in my city that I may try to go to. There is also another meetup group about 45 minutes away. Both of these other groups meet at a more convenient time for me. We will see what happens. I finished the seventh economics video and decided to stop with them for a while. The total amount of audio/video was about 8 hours and I listened to all of it three times. There are about 4 more hours that I have not done, but some of the videos are missing transcripts. It looks like they have been periodically adding transcripts so when they add the remaining transcripts I will finish the course... and probably do it again. I have not watched El Internado for a very long time. It is because the shows are simply too long for me to watch in the evening. I would love to find a 30 minute show. I basically gave up and for three nights this past week I watched French In Action. There are numerous reasons that I have sometimes wanted to know French. I have never really wanted to study it, however. French In Action looked great. Some time in the future I may actually try to slowly learn French or Portuguese. I feel like I am forgetting to mention something, but I guess it does not really matter. My plan to do one Assimil lesson per day at a minimum has worked great. I am hopeful that this upcoming week will let me get back into some more native materials. I think I may try to work with Cajas de Carton the next couple weeks and see if I can get through the whole book in Spanish. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5367 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 42 of 668 13 July 2011 at 1:54am | IP Logged |
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Things have been very busy lately with both work and family. I did, however, manage to do one Assimil lesson per day since my last post.
On a long drive I reviewed the last 8-10 Assimil lessons several times. I did an FSI lesson from the third level of FSI because I wanted to test the general difficulty of the course. I think it was lesson 33 or 34. I could do the lesson, but needed the book for a number of parts. I think if I did it three times I would not have a problem completing the lesson without mistakes and without the book. I did not find it too boring either. It made me feel like I should do the course at some point. I ordered the Barron's book. I hope it matches the audio on the free FSI website. I assumed they would match, but now I am wondering. I also watched another one hour economics course a couple times. I really like it. I don't think it is really too helpful with developing my Spanish, but it is interesting and it is helping with my listening skills a bit. I had a brief occasion to speak with a native speaker. He had an extremly difficult time understanding me. Fortunately the problem was that he was almost deaf and it got better when I started yelling. I have been starting to think about what to do next. I want to have a sense of completing Without Toil, but I am getting somewhat anxious to move on to something more challenging. I have some major projects at work and when those are resolved I will come up with a more challenging Spanish program. For now, my plan of doing one Assimil lesson per day at a minimum is working great. I think when things normalize at work I will start trying to do one FSI per week and mix it with Assimil... who knows? We will see how things go. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5367 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 43 of 668 17 July 2011 at 1:51am | IP Logged |
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I am going to update my log today because I might not be able to for the next couple of weeks due to pressing work issues. I have had very little free time lately due to work and I will have even less during the next two weeks. I have maintained one Assimil lesson per day and hopefully I will continue to do so. There will be a few days next week I know I will miss, but that is o.k. with me because I have priorities and work takes priority over Spanish.
I skipped the review lesson today and moved straignt to the next regular lesson. I will continue to skip the review lessons until things have normalized. I will go back and do the review lessons. It takes me a long time to do the review lessons. I like to review all six lessons very thoroughly when I review. In terms of secondary things I have been doing, I have not done too much lately. I do want to note that I have been shadowing the Assimil With Ease dialogues on the way to work lately instead of just listening. It makes a huge difference and I have gotten a lot out of the last few weeks of doing this. Shadowing out loud makes me really focus on the language and the meaning of every word. I feel like I could easily maintain my Spanish by just shadowing lessons on the way to work. I will, of course, do more. Now I can comfortably shadow all of the first 50+ lessons of With Ease with ease, without the book and without missing many words. I did a meetup this week. Very few people were there, but it was still worthwhile. I had a text chat on skype that was useful. The other person had the same type of job as I did so it was neat to be able to write about work related things. I learned some good vocabulary. I have been having the urge to do FSI. The Barron's book arrived a few days ago. I have been too busy to look through it. I am thinking I may start it on October 1 to mark the beginning of my third year of Spanish study. I want to at least finish the passive wave of Without Toil before I embark on anything else. One thing I have thought about quite a bit over the last couple months, but have not written about is how much I notice I have progressed. I started Assimil With Ease on July 1, 2010... just over a year ago. When I think about how far I have come in that past year I am simply amazed. It feels great and is quite rewarding. I have also been thinking how much I enjoy doing courses. I feel like my Spanish develops faster when I am working with a course. I love watching the economics videos and reading Cajas de Carton, but there is no doubt to me that I get much more out of a course than with native material. The reason I mention this is because I had always thought I would simply use only native materials for my third year. That is one reason I originally wanted to complete Using Spanish by October 1 this year. Now I am really looking forward to doing courses, like FSI and Using Spanish, for my third year. Anyway, that is it for now. This turned into a very long post by mistake. I may not update for a while and I may miss a few days over the next couple weeks. If I do that is fine with me. 3 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 44 of 668 23 July 2011 at 1:56am | IP Logged |
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Lovely thread, dude. Very helpful. I am working on Assimil's using Spanish (doing a
second wave) at the moment (I never used "With Ease" because I found out about Assimil too late, but your blog has inspired me to shadow Spanish Without Toil (it's available online, and as a course from the 1950s which is no longer published it OUGHT to be public domain IMO, even though it isn't), I reckon your variation on shadowing (i.e. without the book) will help turn passive knowledge into active. Thanks most of all for reminding me that this is supposed to be fun!!!!! By the way, I have completed the FSI course and I recommend you fly through the early (maybe 1-35) lessons (I was too stubborn about my idea of a lesson per week and it took s o o o long!). Great blog man, wish I'd seen it ages ago! Edited by Random review on 23 July 2011 at 2:30am 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 45 of 668 28 July 2011 at 1:38am | IP Logged |
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Random Review, thanks for the thoughts. I would be interested to hear how you like Assimil Using Spanish. There are a few threads on this site that talk about how many mistakes there are, but I read through a few lessons and did not notice anything too bad.
In terms of the past week and a half... ugh! I can say conclusively that the past 5 days have been the worst Spanish days since I started. I really do not mind this because I knew it was going to happen. Not only was work out of control (I knew that was going to happen), but I also had a family emergency that occupied much of my time and mental energy. So, I skipped at least three (maybe four?) days. The whole last week was a blur. I must say, however, that the days I did a lesson were great because I really enjoy Spanish and it gave me a break from everything else. Now this hectic period will start to normalize and I am going to, hopefully, get back on my regular schedule starting tomorrow. Well, since I did nothing else since my last post I don't really have much to write. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5367 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 46 of 668 01 August 2011 at 3:05am | IP Logged |
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I am proud to say that I am back on track. Since the last post I have done an Assimil lesson every day and this weekend I did the review lessons that I had skipped. I do think this passive review of Without Toil is a little too "easy", but it is still worthwhile. It is allowing me some extra time to do some other things which is nice. It is also getting me motivated to do something more challenging/hard. I am not really picking up much new vocabulary with Without Toil, but it is good for strengthening the foundation I already have.
I also watched a nice history lecture online. It was about an hour and I split it into a couple days. I have the transcript so I followed along in Spanish. I really had absolutely no problem understanding the lecture. I feel like reading the google "English" version would have been a waste of time. I watched a half hour economics TV show that appeared to have been produced for public TV in Guatamala. It was great and I enjoyed it. I had the transcript and followed along with the Spanish. I wish there were more similar things available. I went to a meetup. It was nice. The groups have been smaller which I actually enjoy better. I will keep up with that group. I also want to start doing a morning breakfast meetup. I just never seem to be able to go in the morning. I will try to go this week. I read several chapters out of my New Life Version Biblia. Wow, what a great translation for someone at my level of Spanish. This was the best $6 I spent on a Spanish learning item. I can read it and enjoy it and I don't really even need the English translation... but it is there to check the odd word if I need it. It is nice to read a "real" book in Spanish. It is also nice because the chapters are short enough that I can pick it up for 10 or 15 minutes and feel like I have accomplished something. Today I finished the Gospel of John. I have now read John and Mark. Between both the New Life and the DHH audio I have, I have probably done both books about two times each now. I think I enjoy it so much because it allows me to learn Spanish at the same time as I am doing something very useful that I would want to do anyway. I have been contemplating my future studies quite a bit. I really feel like I need/want to do FSI. Assimil is kind of getting old now and I find myself sometimes just letting it go in one ear and out the other when I shadow. I really need some active study and some "drilling" to get me to the point where I feel comfortable producing the spoken words off the cuff and also understanding regular speech. I still do not know how I am going to go through FSI so I think I will just figure it out as I go and just try to have fun with it. I have also been thinking more about taking a trip this winter. I am leaning towards Madrid. I got a map of the city and drew up a list of things I would want to do/see. I also started researching some schools that have one and two week programs. If I go it is not going to be a "vacation", but rather a Spanish learning trip doubling as a reward for my progress over the last two years. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5367 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 47 of 668 09 August 2011 at 1:49am | IP Logged |
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I skipped today. Unfortunately, I simply did not have the time to study this morning because of a very long drive I had to do early this morning. I did, however, do an Assimil or FSI lesson every other day since my last post and I even doubled up one day. I did FSI lesson three twice. I think I will like FSI and I will keep doing it. Two times per FSI lesson seems like it will be good. I just cannot decide how many lessons to do per week. So, from now on I am going to do either a lesson of FSI or an Assimil lesson every morning. I will spend at least two days per week on FSI.
Earlier in the week I had a couple long drives and I listened to the last 25 Assimil lessons. I also did some shadowing of the recent lessons which are getting a little more difficult. I also went back and carefully read the first seven lessons. I did a new morning meetup last week also. I was quite pleased and will definitely continue to go. I think I may skip my Assimil lesson if I continue to do this morning meetup because I just don't have quite that much time and a full hour of speaking in the morning is great. I cannot think of anything else I really did since my last post. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5367 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 48 of 668 15 August 2011 at 5:53pm | IP Logged |
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FSI seems to have taken over as my primary method now. I finished unit 6 today. I think I will try to do two units per week for a while. I am doing each unit two times. That seems right, but I might need to do them three times if they get harder. It feels like this is just what I need. It is too early for me to say whether I will continue with FSI or not. We will see, but right now I think it is great. My biggest problem seems to be getting tongue tied... sometimes my tongue just cannot keep up with my mind and I cannot spit out the responses. I feel like FSI is really making a difference and I have noticed my comprehension of the Spanish radio is improving dramatically and I am also able to speak more fluidly.
I will continue to work through Without Toil, but I am afraid it is going to take a while. I did do a couple lessons this week. They are getting tougher and introduce a good amount of new vocabulary. I am definitely going to get through the passive wave. Maybe I will do an active wave, maybe I will not. I note that my skype partners occasionally comment on some of the words use that I learned from Without Toil and they say they are very old words that are not used often any longer. Without Toil is fun and I may start doing it at night. I usually have a little bit of time at night that I could do Spanish. Destinos was perfect when I did it. I tried watching El Internado but the episodes were too long. I have not found anything to do in the evenings. It needs to be easy becasue doing hard or "thinking" Spanish is never going to happen for me in the evenings. This week I watched the first episode of Destinos again because I thought I might re-do the course. It is a great course, but I do not think I could watch the whole thing again. I think I might try to do one Without Toil lesson each evening. This week I did the morning meetup again. It is good. I will definitely keep it up. There is only one native speaker that goes, but there are a couple Americans who are far more fluent than me so that is good. I also did the evening meetup this week. It was good. There were only four people and I was the only non-native. We just talked about Latin American politics. It was more of just a fun get together where we were simply talking in Spanish. I read numerous chapters of my New Life Bible. I lost count... probably about 15 chapters. I have now finished the Gospels of John and Mark and am several books into Matthew. I can read it fairly effortlessly. It feels like regular reading now. There are occasionally some words that I don't know (usually nouns like honey or fox) so I am glad to have the English translation. I may simply start reading one chapter at night. I would like to read the whole New Testament. I did a long skype text chat and a short talk. I enjoy it. I have a couple great partners now. I am on vacation this week which is great. I had the crazy idea to start French. I have numerous family and in-laws who are native French speakers and I feel like it would be a good language to know. I got Michel Thomas's foundations course and listened to the first track. I knew absolutely NOTHING about French prior. My son asked me how to count to three in French and I did not know. Anyway, my plan was to do MT over this week and then start watching the videos of French In Action in the evenings. I have now decided not to pursue French. I am seeing so much progress in my Spanish lately that I really want to get my Spanish to a higher level before learning another language. And, I really do not have the urge to study French. I want to know it and I feel like I "should" learn it if I am learning languages, but the thought of studying it just does not interest me at all right now. I do not comment on non-language related matters in this blog, but I must note that I am closing in on completing my year's goal for my self-study of economics. This makes me feel great. I should finish my 2011 goal this week during vacation. I mention this because I intend to spend my "extra" time this week on economics and not on Spanish. I also want to slowly merge the two hobbies and start doing more economics study in Spanish. That was one of my original thoughts when I started studying Spanish... then this whole Spanish thing took on a life of its own when I realized learning a language takes a long time. My economics study has really suffered a lot over the past two years, but all things considered I feel like I am better off for putting the time into Spanish. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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