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Lorren’s Language Log | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4243 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 161 of 212 30 August 2014 at 11:55am | IP Logged |
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I haven't done as much Spanish over the last couple of days as I would like. I've been doing other things though.
I seem to be recognizing more words in Anki. I haven't been adding new words for several days, so that might be part of it. I'm on chapter 2 of Insurgente. I'm reading it at lunch, but haven't been reading it much elsewhere. I did listen to 50 minutes of Notes in Spanish Advanced though. I think that the main difference between advanced and Intermediate is the speed that they talk; perhaps they don't enunciate as much as well. I'm not understanding as much as I did with the intermediate podcasts, but I do get the gist of most of what they are saying. When I started Notes in Spanish Intermediate, I seemed to have been in the same boat too. There are about twice as many advanced podcasts as intermediate ones though, as well as Notes in Spanish Gold, so I have a lot to listen to. I'm sure that as I go through these, I'll understand them more, just like I did with the intermediate ones. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| AmyinBrooklyn Senior Member United States Joined 4043 days ago 87 posts - 122 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 162 of 212 31 August 2014 at 12:29am | IP Logged |
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Hi Lorren -
It sounds like you're making great progress! I listened to all the Notes in Spanish Intermediate and Notes in Spanish Advanced. I ended up buying the transcripts for both and they actually really helped me understand some of the words that I was missing. After Notes in Spanish, I listened to Spanish Obsessed, which is pretty similar - English guy, native Spanish speaking girl... the girl is from Colombia. And after that one I listened to Casa Rojas, but Notes in Spanish was definitely my favorite. Keep it up! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4243 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 163 of 212 02 September 2014 at 9:14am | IP Logged |
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Thank you!
I finished reading February's National Geographic today. In about 7 full pages of text (combining half-pages), I had to look up 16 words, including artichoke, shipwrecked, ravine, whitewashed, and Russian thistle (tumbleweed). I also looked up and added 13 words that I had highlighted from Divergente. So Anki, even though it had gone down quite a bit in words, will have a sudden influx of words coming. I listened to two lessons from Notes in Spanish Advanced today, and read up to chapter 6 from Insurgente. I was reminded that the next Hunger Games movie will be coming out shortly... which leaves me with a dilemma. I was planning on reading Los Juegos del Hombre after I have read the rest of the Divergente series and a couple of Dragonlance books, but I would really like to read the Hunger Games books before I watch the next movie. I don't know if I'm ready to read a book that I haven't read before, even if I have seen the first two movies (sometimes the book has so much more in it, like the Divergente book compared to the movie). I guess I'll see how I feel when I finish Leal. I still have about 1000 more pages of reading before I have to decide. A lot of improvement can be made between now and then. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4243 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 164 of 212 04 September 2014 at 9:49am | IP Logged |
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I had the day off work today, so I did some Spanish reading. I read about 4 pages of National Geographic, and had to look up 4 words: thicket, morning (matutino), Shiite, and Sunni. I actually kinda figured out Sunni after looking up Shiite, but I wanted to put that into Anki anyway so I can learn it and know it in the future.
I'm up to chapter 8 in Insurgente. This book is about 50 pages and 8 chapters longer than Divergente. I'm understanding what is going on, although when I read the description of the water filtration system, much of what was described went over my head. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4243 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 165 of 212 13 September 2014 at 10:02am | IP Logged |
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While it's been a week since I last updated, I've still been studying Spanish every day. Usually, I'll read some from Insurgente at lunch, and I'll do my Anki words. I haven't found time to read from National Geographic recently.
I listened to Buenas Dias America today. A lot of the details went over my head, but I did recognize all of the topics that they were covering. We'll be moving in about a month. Fortunately, my husband's new company will pay him $5000 to help him move. Still, I spent some of the day sorting through things and making a trip to Goodwill in order to help reduce the costs over $5000 for the move. I am glad that I don't have to pack up this whole place though... my efforts will reduce costs, but I don't have to stress out about it like I did last year. I haven't made a whole lot of progress in the past week, but I think that at this stage, progress is hard to perceive anyway. Edited by Lorren on 13 September 2014 at 10:05am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4243 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 166 of 212 17 September 2014 at 9:19am | IP Logged |
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It's been a couple of days since I last updated, but that's because I've been busy. Part of what I've been doing is being busy studying Spanish!
Today I listened to two episodes of Buenas Dias America, and a couple of Notes in Spanish Advanced Podcasts. Me and the kids were working on cleaning the house today, and podcasts are great to listen to while working on mindless tasks (I also listen to podcasts or watch informative programs while doing the repetitive stuff while making Zazzle products). I had more time to listen to podcasts because a 1) made dinner for the family tonight (often my husband does it because he works part time) 2) made two desserts, one for the family and the other for a homeschool party I'm going to tomorrow, and 3) put together some chicken enchiladas in the crockpot for the party tomorrow). I have a month and a half left of my job... after that, I'll be doing a lot more cooking, which I guess will mean more podcasts. When I last stayed at home with the kids, I was still at the stage where I had to look up about 15 words per paragraph while reading National Geographic. I certainly was not ready for Buenas Dias America or even Notes in Spanish Intermediate. I would listen to podcasts, but they were all in English. In November, I should be able to get at least some Spanish time in every day. I still have a ton of Notes in Spanish Advanced and Notes in Spanish Gold to go through, on top of 1/2 hour of Buenas Dias America every weekday. I've been doing my Anki practice, and I also went through Lesson 4 of FSI Spanish. It's pretty easy, but it's good practice. I need the grammar practice... according to online Spanish tests, I seem to be level A0. The tests are mainly concerned with grammar, so it's not entirely accurate... because I'm pretty sure that I can do the following: - Can understand and use familiar everyday expressions and very basic phrases aimed at the satisfaction of needs of a concrete type. - Can introduce him/herself and others and can ask and answer questions about personal details such as where he/she lives, people he/she knows and things he/she has. - Can interact in a simple way provided the other person talks slowly and clearly and is prepared to help. Which, according to the tests, I'm not quite at that level yet, but I think "can read and understand books that one is already familiar with", and "can listen to and understand the main ideas and some details of news media" is beyond that. I'm not going to say that my speaking ability is great, but I have done simple interactions with Spanish speakers both at my job and during travel. At any rate, although FSI is not nearly as fun as listening to podcasts and reading books, it can't hurt, and can only increase my ability to understand more out of podcasts, books, magazines, newspapers, etc. The hard part is dragging myself away from the fun things to do the less fun things. I'm going to make an effort to do that though. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4243 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 167 of 212 19 September 2014 at 12:37pm | IP Logged |
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A couple of things to note today:
I started working on Russian again, for a couple of reasons. I will be going to my grandma's memorial in a couple of weeks, and I will be seeing my Russian aunt. I may not have the opportunity to say more than Hello, Please, Thank You, and Good afternoon, but hey, I'd like to say them as well as possible. The second reason is that Russia is in the news quite a bit at the moment, and probably will continue to remain there, and I would like to be able to understand Russian media (one of the reasons why I was interested in Spanish). Yesterday I started with Rosetta Stone Level 2. I had already finished the first unit of this level, and it was pretty much review. I also purchased The New Penguin Russian Course off Amazon.com. It is highly ranked, and reviewers say that it's strong on grammar while giving exercises to help reinforce concepts. That's exactly what I need to complement Rosetta Stone. Rosetta is great for me in that it helps me think in the language, but it is weak on grammar (even though the newer versions have a grammar section... they don't explain anything with their approach). I was thinking after I posted my last update... I bet that I would have done much better on the Spanish test that I took after finishing my third semester of Spanish in college, as it was pretty heavy on grammatical concepts; however, I wouldn't have even attempted to read books in Spanish at that point. I didn't have that much of a vocabulary. Sure, I could write sentences based on the topics in the book, but I can understand so much more now. So I guess that there needs to be a balance. At any rate, I didn't do any of FSI Spanish today, but I did do some yesterday, and I'll probably do a bit tomorrow as well. Outside of that, I did Anki, listened to Buenas Dias America, and read from Insurgente. Even though Los Juegas del Hambre is on my "to read" list, I think that I will read the Hunger Games trilogy in English before reading it in Spanish, which was not my original plan. The main reason is that I would like to read the series before Mockingjay part 1 comes out. I might be able to get that done in Spanish; however, since I don't really grasp all of the details when I read in Spanish, it is probably a better idea for me to read it in English first. That way when I watch the movie, I'll have understood more details. There will be other books that I can read in Spanish first, without the pressure of trying to finish (and understand well) before a movie comes out in a month and a half. Edited by Lorren on 19 September 2014 at 12:39pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4243 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 168 of 212 29 September 2014 at 10:28am | IP Logged |
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Although I haven't been updating recently, I have been continued to practice Spanish. It seems like I've just been so tired after getting everything done that I don't have time to update.
I finished chapter 26 of Insurgente. It's been slower going than Divergente, I think, but then again, I did read The Hunger Games in English in the meantime, and I've been doing other language things. I listen to Buenos Dias America several times a week; although I don't pick up on a lot of details, I get the main idea of what the topics are about. I seem to slowly be able to absorb more from Insurgente. Of course, I'm getting more reading done, but I think that the grammar practice from FSI Spanish is helping as well (I'm only doing the written portion, not the audio, because my main focus in FSI is practicing the grammar). Unfortunately, my desktop computer stopped working. I think that it is the power supply; I will have to troubleshoot it, hopefully tomorrow. If it's the power supply, then it won't be a big deal. In the meantime, I don't have Rosetta Stone Russian set up, and I don't have FSI Spanish downloaded; even if I did, I've been writing down the exercises, and I don't know where would be a good place to do them. Maybe I could print out pages with the exercises that I want to do. I got the Penguin Russian course, and I think that it will be a good supplement to Rosetta Stone. I did the first three chapters. I went quickly over most of the pronunciation section, however, I did find the explanation of the soft sounds to be helpful. I do remember my Russian teacher in high school, Ludmilla, explaining these things, but that was a long time ago. I also went over the explanations of gender; also pretty simple stuff, but it's good to get the review. What I've gone over in the book also went over a couple of polite phrases that Rosetta Stone didn't really cover. Fortunately, I have enough language stuff to do that even without my desktop, I can still keep busy with both Spanish and with Russian. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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