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Mr. Smith vs. Spanish and French

  Tags: French | Spanish
 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log Post Reply
MrSmith
Newbie
United States
Joined 4001 days ago
6 posts - 6 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: French

 
 Message 1 of 7
17 December 2013 at 1:44pm | IP Logged 
Hello,

Introduction: I'm an engineer in my mid thirties working on a career change, and I'm studying Spanish and French this year, ostensibly to meet the foreign language requirements for a European business school, and I've always been interested in language, but I've never pushed myself with anything like a TAC. I will focus on one language at a time, and move to French once I have passed the CEFR exam for Spanish. I assume these goals are reasonable ;)

Goals:
1) Spanish: from "nada" to B1 in six months
2) French: from A1 to A2 in as little time as possible

Background:
My first experience with language after high school was Pimsleur Mandarin I-III, which taught me how to hear intonation, and was very useful in 2006 backpacking through China. although I never learned how to read more than a couple dozen characters. This summer I went through Pimsleur French I and II, which was my introduction to romance languages. Hooray for cognates!

Approach to Spanish:
I'm starting with Assimil and Michel Thomas to get a a feel for the language. After 4-6 weeks I will transition to FSI Basic Spanish to build automaticity, adding native materials and conversations where possible. To kick things off (and while I'm waiting for Assimil to arrive), I am using the first units of FSI Basic Spanish to drill phonology alongside the first half-dozen episodes of Destinos to get a feel for native speech and culture.

Approach French:
The core of my French study will by French in Action--the complete, expensive, full course with workbooks &etc.), but I may run through Assimil and/or Michel Thomas to get a feel for the language depending on my experience with the Spanish versions of each.

Good luck everyone!


Edited by MrSmith on 18 December 2013 at 3:34am
1 person has voted this message useful



tastyonions
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
goo.gl/UIdChYRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 4657 days ago
1044 posts - 1823 votes 
Speaks: English*, French, Spanish
Studies: Italian

 
 Message 2 of 7
17 December 2013 at 1:55pm | IP Logged 
For me, paragraphs don't work correctly in Google Chrome, but work fine in Firefox and Internet Explorer. That may be the root of your problem.
1 person has voted this message useful



MrSmith
Newbie
United States
Joined 4001 days ago
6 posts - 6 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: French

 
 Message 3 of 7
18 December 2013 at 3:04am | IP Logged 
tastyonions wrote:
For me, paragraphs don't work correctly in Google Chrome, but work fine in
Firefox and Internet Explorer. That may be the root of your problem.


Thanks for the tip. I'll try again in another browser.
1 person has voted this message useful



MrSmith
Newbie
United States
Joined 4001 days ago
6 posts - 6 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: French

 
 Message 4 of 7
18 December 2013 at 3:36am | IP Logged 
tastyonions wrote:
For me, paragraphs don't work correctly in Google Chrome, but work fine in Firefox and Internet Explorer. That may be the root of your problem.


I tried Safari and saw the same behavior. Turns out the the textarea uses 'wrap="physical"'. I opened up the object inspector, set the wrap to "soft", and voila!

And heck, I forgot TAC 2014 from the subject.

Edited by MrSmith on 18 December 2013 at 3:44am
1 person has voted this message useful



culebrilla
Senior Member
United States
Joined 3989 days ago
246 posts - 436 votes 
Speaks: Spanish

 
 Message 5 of 7
18 December 2013 at 4:04am | IP Logged 
MrSmith wrote:
Hello,

Introduction: I'm an engineer in my mid thirties working on a career change, and I'm studying Spanish and French this year, ostensibly to meet the foreign language requirements for a European business school, and I've always been interested in language, but I've never pushed myself with anything like a TAC. I will focus on one language at a time, and move to French once I have passed the CEFR exam for Spanish. I assume these goals are reasonable ;)

Goals:
1) Spanish: from "nada" to B1 in six months
2) French: from A1 to A2 in as little time as possible

Background:
My first experience with language after high school was Pimsleur Mandarin I-III, which taught me how to hear intonation, and was very useful in 2006 backpacking through China. although I never learned how to read more than a couple dozen characters. This summer I went through Pimsleur French I and II, which was my introduction to romance languages. Hooray for cognates!

Approach to Spanish:
I'm starting with Assimil and Michel Thomas to get a a feel for the language. After 4-6 weeks I will transition to FSI Basic Spanish to build automaticity, adding native materials and conversations where possible. To kick things off (and while I'm waiting for Assimil to arrive), I am using the first units of FSI Basic Spanish to drill phonology alongside the first half-dozen episodes of Destinos to get a feel for native speech and culture.

Approach French:
The core of my French study will by French in Action--the complete, expensive, full course with workbooks &etc.), but I may run through Assimil and/or Michel Thomas to get a feel for the language depending on my experience with the Spanish versions of each.

Good luck everyone!


Your goals may or may not be reasonable depending on your time investment. How many hours per week of concentrated work are you going to put in? An hour a day is probably not going to cut it but two or three a day might. Good luck and enjoy the ride.

If you get to absorbing native material here are my some websites, books, and music that I like(d).

bbcmundo.com, elpais.es, http://eluniversal.mx/

For podcasts I like listening to the Spanish Radio but it will probably be much too advanced for B1 level or even C1 level. Showtime Spanish is probably the right level for B1, B2.

http://radiolingua.com/shows/spanish/show-time-spanish/

http://www.rtve.es/alacarta/audios/no-es-un-dia-cualquiera/

Nada, El coronel no tiene quien le escriba, La familia de Pascual Duarte, El embrujo de Shanghai, (Carlos Fuentes novels' are famous and well-acclaimed but I don't like them)

La oreja de van gogh, Motel, Maná, Shakira (young Shakira), Jesse & Joy, Control Machete, Bacilos, La quinta estación, Aleks Syntek, Calle 13,
1 person has voted this message useful



MrSmith
Newbie
United States
Joined 4001 days ago
6 posts - 6 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: French

 
 Message 6 of 7
18 December 2013 at 4:55am | IP Logged 
culebrilla wrote:
Your goals may or may not be reasonable depending on your time investment


Thank you for the links; hopefully I can get my passive skills up quickly!

I also agree these goals are aggressive. I'm planning on 2 hours each weekday and 3 on weekends, and I have the time, so it will come down to the discipline to study every day. For me it's like long-distance hiking on the Appalachian or Pacific Crest Trails--the days not always enjoyable, but the total journey is worth the effort. (and it's ok to take a break, as long as it's only every now and then).

Edited by MrSmith on 18 December 2013 at 4:56am
1 person has voted this message useful



MrSmith
Newbie
United States
Joined 4001 days ago
6 posts - 6 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: French

 
 Message 7 of 7
08 January 2014 at 2:37am | IP Logged 
7 January 2014

I have completed one runthrough of Michel Thomas Total Spanish, and Assimil passive wave 1-20. Compared to my experience with Pimsleur (Chinese and Spanish), the density of new information is shocking. I like it.

I plan to continue studying MT and Assimil, but after discovering the long thread on L-R, I am preparing for an intensive weekend of Listening-Reading with the Lord of the Rings using ebooks purchased and processed into RTF with Calibre. I'm using Audacity to play the audio and set labels and sentence or paragraph break for easier looping. I'm using ABBY Lingvo for popup help.

Here is the setup:



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