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Stelle Speaks Spanish and Tagalog | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| PeterMollenburg Senior Member AustraliaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5468 days ago 821 posts - 1273 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: FrenchB1 | Message 249 of 384 12 May 2014 at 1:50am | IP Logged | ||
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Hi Stelle,
It does indeed sound like you had a fantastic time on the camino de santiago de compostella (I think that's the correct name). Thanks for sharing it. Interesting you felt your language didn't improve but that you improved in confidence etc. PM 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| AlexKastani Bilingual Diglot Newbie United States Joined 3844 days ago 22 posts - 24 votes Speaks: English*, Estonian* Studies: German, Spanish | Message 250 of 384 12 May 2014 at 4:08am | IP Logged | ||
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This is fast becoming my favorite Spanish log! Your progress is really an inspiration. Keep it up! =)
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| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4901 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 251 of 384 12 May 2014 at 8:13am | IP Logged | ||
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Your trips seems like just the right kind of trip for practising. Going somewhere busy like Madrid, and trying to talk to already busy shopkeepers and waiters, would have resulted in a different experience. I enjoyed reading your post!
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| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4136 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 252 of 384 18 May 2014 at 1:06am | IP Logged | ||
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I'm happy to report that I've found my Spanish rhythm again! I dragged my feet for a few weeks, but I think I was
just tired, and sick, and a bit overwhelmed with the mess waiting for me at work. But now I'm settling into a routine. After my surprisingly negative reaction to picking up FSI where I left off, I've decided to focus on only native materials for the next few months (and maybe forever). I've also jumped into the Super Challenge. I think that I'll stop logging TV and reading on my own, and just let the Super Challenge twitter bot do it for me. extensive reading This was the first thing that I started doing when I started easing my way back into Spanish, by setting aside 20 minutes per day for reading. I'm really enjoying the second Percy Jackson book. I understand most of what I read, and the story is engaging. Percy Jackson is a bit clueless and pig-headed, but I like him all the same. I read for at least 20 minutes every day, as a bare minimum. Most days I read for 30-40 minutes. I'll only log a novel for the Super Challenge when I finish reading it. news, articles, current affairs Thanks to some great suggestions from iguanamon, I've started reading and listening to news in Spanish nearly every day. The audio comes with full transcripts and the articles are read at full native speed (and then some!). I enjoy the challenge of reading along at a much higher speed than I would normally read on my own. Democracy Now Espanol – the reader talks *fast*. I'm not sure where her accent is from. Updates Monday-Friday. Amnistia Internacional - slower speech with a Castillian accent. Full transcripts. Updates weekly. When I have a few minutes free (usually while waiting for JP to be ready to leave in the morning!), I read an article or two on BBC Mundo, usually in the “ciencia” section. Today I enjoyed this article about the discovery of the world's biggest known dinosaur: din osaur I use a cut-and-paste word count tool to figure out how many pages I've read, and plan on logging all of this weekly as reading for the Super Challenge. watching Before heading to Spain, I was watching Buffy and The Simpsons, dubbed into Spanish. While I really enjoyed both of those series, and will almost certainly watch each now and then, I've decided that I really want to focus on shows filmed in Spanish. I started a new series this morning called Fragile. The main character is a physiotherapist who uses unconventional methods to get to the bottom of his patients' suffering. I really enjoyed the first episode! Fragile anki I'm still clearing up the massive backlog that was waiting for me after 7 weeks away from anki. I have two anki decks – one with sentences, one with vocab, both L1->L2 – and between them had over 1200 cards in the review queue. I set my review limit at 100 per day, and have done my best to run through my decks at least 3 or 4 times a week. I know that daily is ideal, but I was dreading opening anki at all. I like to keep my total time on my Spanish anki decks under 10 minutes per day, and with massive review queues it was a much bigger job than that. But now I'm nearly there. My vocab deck is at 342 cards, which I should be able to clear by mid-next week. My sentences deck is at only 52, so that should be done tomorrow. I'm not sure how these bulk reviews will affect my decks' rhythm. I'm hoping that I'll be back to 10 minutes per day by the end of next week, and I'm hoping it will stay that way without any surprises. conversation I look forward to my weekly conversations with my italki tutor. We don't do any formal study at all – we just talk the way that friends would. I love talking to her on Sunday mornings over a cup of coffee! I really think that in order to maintain my current conversational skills I should talk to someone over Skype twice a week, but it's hard to schedule right now. I went out for dinner with a friend who grew up in a bilingual home, although – for some strange reason – we've never spoken Spanish together. We planned on having a “Spanish only” evening, but my friend has a very hard time not code-switching! It was fun for me, though. I enjoyed the challenge of keeping up with her, not knowing if a sentence would be Spanish, English, or half-and-half. I grew up code-switching between French and English (and I know how hard a habit it is to break!), so I felt very comfortable with the rhythm of two languages in one conversation. Writing What? Did someone say something? I think my internet is cutting out… (Yeah. Writing just isn't a priority right now. Don't know if it ever will be.) *edited to fix a link Edited by Stelle on 18 May 2014 at 1:13am 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 253 of 384 22 May 2014 at 5:40am | IP Logged | ||
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Hi Stelle -
I think you're feeling about FSI the way, I've been feeling at Assimil. I think I even avoid making eye contact with that book! But I know so many people here say that it has been so helpful for them (as they say about FSI). I haven't been very good about Anki either - I've really only been reading, listening and speaking. (More reading and listening). Can I get your advice on that? Do you think I should be doing more grammar/vocab (Right now, I'm doing the other activities for about 10 hours per week).... (ps - glad to see you back here!) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4136 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 254 of 384 24 May 2014 at 9:47pm | IP Logged | ||
Amy - I think we have to trust our gut when it comes to language learning! I've found that I've gone through a few cycles where I want to "learn Spanish" (using Practice Makes Perfect, Duolingo, FSI, etc) and other cycles where I just want to "do Spanish" (Skype chats mainly, watching TV and reading books). I'm an impulsive procrastinator, and if it isn't fun then I won't do it. So I just do what I *feel* like doing, and trust that I'll end up learning everything that I need to learn. I'm not sure I'll ever return to FSI. I think that I might be at a different place in my language learning now. But I do think that - someday - I'll crack open my Practice Makes Perfect verb book again. There are still some complex verbal forms that I haven't quite figured out. In the meantime, I'm really enjoying using only native materials. I do try to keep up with anki. But I don't use anki the way that so many other people do. I read some people's posts about spending an hour or more on anki every day, and my eyelid starts to twitch. I can't even imagine! I have a vocab deck and a verb/grammar deck, and I don't like to spend more than 10 minutes combined per day on them. If it gets too long, I'll just lower my daily review limit. So take my advice for what it is (the advice of an impulsive procrastinator), but I say that if all you want to do is talk, read and watch - then you're doing exactly what it is that you need to do! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4136 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 255 of 384 24 May 2014 at 10:10pm | IP Logged | ||
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I've really enjoyed myself since I decided to use only native materials. I do think that my Spanish is at a level
where I'm best served by simply using it. This week, I've: finished El Mar de los Monstruos I really enjoyed this book! It's the second book in the Percy Jackson series, which I've never read in English. Percy is exasperating sometimes - he's slow to catch on to things that are obvious to the reader, and he can be a bit of pain in the butt. But I like him enough to read the last 3 books in the series! I'm reading extensively, so I don't stop to look up words unless they keep me from understanding the story, or they pop up several times on a page and start to get on my nerves. I only looked up three words in this book: cobayo (guinea pig), musaraña (shrew) and petate (sleeping mat). Read / listened to Democracy Now daily The first time that I read/listened to Democracy Now, it made my head spin! The announcer read so fast that I could barely keep up. Now, after two weeks of daily listening, I'm much more comfortable with the speed. This morning, I found myself wondering if they'd changed readers, because she seemed much slower. I'm very happy that iguanamon recommended this resource! Cleared out my anki decks After several 25 minute days, I've finally caught up on my anki decks. As I just mentioned to Amy, I really don't like spending more than 10 minutes per day on anki. I don't add a lot of new words these days (although I probably should make an effort to start adding more), so my decks don't take that long. Watched three episodes of Fragiles I'm *loving* this show. It's really not the kind of show that I usually gravitate towards, but it's funny and charming and quirky and engaging. I really like the actors in Spanish dramas. One of the recurring characters in Fragiles was the mom in Desaparecida, the first Spanish drama that I ever watched. Sadly, there are only 8 episodes of Fragiles on DramaFever, so I'm already halfway through the show. I'll have to find a new show to watch when I'm finished. Had one hour-long Skype session As always, I love my Sunday morning chats! Italki World Cup Challenge Italki is launching another challenge on June 1st. The goal: 25 sessions in two months. The pledge: 20 dollars. The prize for succeeding: 40 dollars. Since Skype tutoring is already a cornerstone of my learning, it makes sense to sign up! I wrote a brief introduction to the challenge on my blog: challenge Oh, and if anyone wants to see a few pictures from my trip to Spain (more photos to come in future posts), you can see them here: camino 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4136 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 256 of 384 25 May 2014 at 2:51pm | IP Logged | ||
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I did it!!! I moved Spanish from "studies" to "speaks"!
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