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Stelle Speaks Spanish and Tagalog | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4147 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes  Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 217 of 384 26 February 2014 at 11:27am | IP Logged | ||
I'm not familiar with the DLI course, so I'm not sure if it's the same as FSI Spanish. But I started FSI several months into learning Spanish, and I find that I'm able to understand most new words from context. Anything I'm iffy on will usually be cleared up during a translation drill. If there's something that I'm not sure of, I check it up on word reference when I get home from my walk. My approach really wouldn't work for someone who didn't already have a decent grasp of vocabulary and vocabulary, though. If I was using it as an absolute beginner, I would be relying much more heavily on the text. I just started unit 47, and I find that there's a big jump in difficulty from volume 3 to volume 4, so I'm going to repeat the last unit - and if it's still hard on the second run-through, I'll read the lesson in the text. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4147 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 218 of 384 26 February 2014 at 11:31am | IP Logged | ||
One of my language partners is Catalan. What a neat language! It's almost like a cross between Spanish and French. (Also, I'm fascinated by Catalan after watching the Spanish period drama Isabel.) I think that even if the only word that you can say is "hello", using people's language can open doors and spread goodwill. As for already packing - well, I have to do some training walks with my pack. I'm not training enough at all, but I figure that the first time I walk with a full pack shouldn't be while trudging uphill for 25 km. Ha! I've read that the first day through the Pyranees is the hardest one. When are you going to Spain? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4147 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 219 of 384 26 February 2014 at 11:35am | IP Logged | ||
There's no English recording during the dialogue at the start of each unit - just the Spanish repeated over and over again. I think that the text-free approach only works if already have a big enough vocabulary to draw from. The only English on the recordings is during translation drills - many of which do come from the dialogues (both from the current unit and from prior units). Honestly, I think that I would use the text more if it didn't have all of that phonetic spelling making everything so messy and chaotic-looking. The phonetic spelling does a number on my already limited abilities to focus. ;) 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4147 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 220 of 384 26 February 2014 at 12:26pm | IP Logged | ||
I think that this is the best way to describe how I use FSI. It isn't my main course at all. I'm not necessarily using it to "learn Spanish", but rather to practice and work on what I already know. I don't really have a main course. Until I started reading this board, I was only marginally aware of self-study language courses! Very briefly, here's my path so far: At the very beginning (late May-late June), I learned Spanish using: LiveMocha (which I do not recommend - it wan't as free as it pretended to be, and the language partners weren't set up yet. It may be better now, but I don't plan on revisiting it to check.) CoffeeBreak Spanish (which I only vaguely recommend if you're looking for survival tourist talk. I think I got to lesson 20 or so. It was a good confidence-booster, because it was so easy. Then it got boring, again because it was so easy.) BBC's Mi Vida Loca (same as Coffee Break Spanish) Then, after about four weeks or so, I started finding the resources that really worked for me: language exchanges and Skype tutors (the best thing I could possibly have done for my language learning) the first 8 lessons from Pimsleur (highly recommended, but get it for free at your library) Destinos (LOVE! I watched all 52 episodes within 3 months) Duolingo (which I recommend up to an A2 level) Notes in Spanish (I started with intermediate - highly recommended) reading Roald Dahl novels reading (and listening to) texts on VeinteMundos (also highly recommended) anki for SRS (highly recommended, although I've been falling off the anki wagon lately) Practice Makes Perfect workbooks (again, very very useful, and something that I have to get back to soon) So as you can see, my language learning was a bit haphazard. It worked for me, because I was getting lots of input from different sources. This led to a wonderful sense of synergy - I was being exposed to the same words in many different contexts. I also participated in the summer Six Week Challenge, which helped me make some great strides in learning Spanish. I started FSI sometime in October, about 4 or 5 months after I started learning Spanish. I wasn't necessarily looking for a course; I was looking for something that I could do while walking, because I found that language learning was too sedentary. To give you some context: by the time I started working with FSI, I could carry on a basic conversation in Spanish for an hour, read books by Roald Dahl with 95% understanding without a parallel text, listen with 90%+ understanding to the intermediate Notes in Spanish podcasts, and comfortably use (or at least recognize) most indicative verb tenses. I wouldn't say that I used FSI as a beginner, but as an early intermediate Spanish speaker. I don't think that a beginner could use FSI Spanish the way that I use it. Now that I'm at unit 47, FSI has caught up to me. I haven't yet learned the past subjunctive in my grammar workbooks, and I'm finding unit 47 very difficult. I'll either have to read the FSI text that goes along with the lesson, or else I'll have to hit the grammar books again. I think I'll go with the second choice, so that I can practice past subjunctive, SRS some basic sentences, and then reinforce what I've learned using the FSI drills. 7 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4147 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 221 of 384 28 February 2014 at 12:17pm | IP Logged | ||
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Well, I've fallen completely off the anki wagon. I've done my anki decks without fail since starting my Spanish study,
but over the past month or so, I find myself putting it off and letting it go for a few days. I set my review limit at 50 per day (with 2 decks, this meant 100 cards per day), and that helped, but I'd still forget now and then. And now I haven't touched my anki decks (aside from euskara and gallego) in a week and a half. I only have two weeks to go before my trip. Getting caught up seems a bit futile, since I won't be touching anki at all for almost 7 weeks. I think that I'll just let it go for now, only doing it if I actually feel like it. When I get back, I'll keep my limit set at 50, treat it as a new deck, and see if I feel that it's useful again. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5025 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 222 of 384 28 February 2014 at 12:24pm | IP Logged | ||
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Classic! You have hit the dreaded unit 47! Things get really hard at that point. I think that's a point where you really have to dip into the book a bit. I definitely haven't any where near mastered the content in those units yet.
Have fun! 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| BAnna Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4625 days ago 409 posts - 616 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Turkish | Message 223 of 384 02 March 2014 at 2:00am | IP Logged | ||
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Your overview of your learning history was interesting. Thanks for sharing that and your opinion of various
materials out there. As you say, synergy is really important and useful. I'm doing that with Russian currently and it's working well so far. I did listen to a little of FSI Spanish, but I need to find the right lesson (the one I picked was too easy). And I totally relate to your comment about language learning being too sedentary. I've done walking or biking while listening to podcasts, but nothing where I have to repeat after the speaker. I'm afraid I might crash into a tree or something... maybe if I picked something really easy to repeat after it would be ok. I'm a bit distracted and busy right now wrapping up things before my trip, but will probably revisit FSI once I return. I'll be in Spain starting around the same time you are (mid-March), but won't be doing anything as ambitious as what you'll be doing. Instead I plan to just relax, see the sights and spend time with family. Catalan is definitely an interesting and beautiful language. Just as you said, picking up even a few friendly words would be good. At least "hola" is the same in Spanish and Catalan, but it does sound very slightly different or maybe I'm just imagining that? :) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Crush Tetraglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5868 days ago 1622 posts - 2299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto Studies: Basque | Message 224 of 384 02 March 2014 at 6:30am | IP Logged | ||
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In Catalan, non-stressed a's and e's turn into a schwa, so it is possible that they sound slightly different, though i think you would barely notice it in "hola".
3 persons have voted this message useful |
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