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Spanish: The Final Frontier | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Jalds Newbie United States Joined 4798 days ago 23 posts - 31 votes Speaks: Spanish | Message 17 of 19 07 May 2014 at 9:28am | IP Logged |
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Back from the Dominican Republic and had a great time. Although I was disappointed
that my spoken Spanish on day 1 wasn't as fluid as it has been with my online tutor. Thankfully I had few problems after that "break in period" and by day 3 I was truly comfortable and unafraid to participate in or initiate any conversations and was even able to tell jokes and stories. My accent was...acceptable for most of the trip. When I'm "warmed up" my accent is good. However, I did notice that when I started using recently learned vocabulary I definitely lost the accent on those occasions and subsequently made gender errors. I don't know if I was thinking too much, but it was a little embarrassing as that's a fairly basic part of speech. I keep reminding myself that this is all part of the process and some days I agree with that statement. This weekend...not so much. I also found I had no trouble understanding any of the presentations I went to or understanding anyone in a one on one conversation, but, I did struggle at times when listening to other conversations on the bus. There's just no substitute for listening to in person conversations. I had my 3rd tutoring session this morning, which went well. I had to watch a video regarding tourism and answer questions on it (that was boring, but I knew it was an exercise in listening comprehension). I then had to give my opinions on random tourism issues that my tutor selected. What I enjoyed most was an exercise where I was given a picture and had to write a short story describing what was happening. I was particularly pleased that I was able to do that fairly quickly and my tutor found it to be a funny story. I also found another grammatical weakness in that I haven't slightest idea of what the rules are regarding when to use "los que" vs. "los cuales", but somehow I've internalized what sounds right. I guess another proof point that writing helps identify weaknesses? I'll look that up tomorrow and add examples to Anki. In any case, the assignment for Thursday is to write another shorty story, pick a topic of my choice to discuss and my tutor will pick a random newspaper article for a 2nd discussion. Challenging class, but I'm having fun and my confidence is growing. This is turning out to be money well spent as I feel as though I'm progressing in some areas and getting validation that I'm at a reasonable level in others. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Crush Tetraglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5705 days ago 1622 posts - 2299 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto Studies: Basque | Message 18 of 19 08 May 2014 at 12:13am | IP Logged |
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First, i think that when you are comfortable with what you are saying you don't have to think about it as much and can focus more on what you are about to say, which helps you to prepare your mouth and tongue to pronounce them well. When you aren't sure you spend more time thinking on what you want to say and have less time to focus on pronunciation. At least i've found that to be the case with me, so it wouldn't surprise me if something similar happened/happens to you. It is all part of the process, and as you go on it gets easier. I think you'll find your accent gets better and better as you get more comfortable with what you're trying to say.
As for "los que" vs "los cuales", you can in a way think of "los cuales" as the English "which". It's a more formal way of saying "that". In most cases you can replace "los cuales" with "que", though in some instances you can only use el cual/los cuales and not "que", such as after según (según el cual), when you're talking about how many in a group (tres de los cuales), etc. Are there any instances in particular you're not sure about? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5215 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 19 of 19 08 May 2014 at 3:27am | IP Logged |
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That plateau is definitely frustrating... I have been stuck at a lower plateau for longer than you... ugh. It sounds like you are enjoying the progress, though. Keep up the good work.
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