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| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5367 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 89 of 668 26 December 2011 at 8:38pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I only have three Assimil lessons left. With Christmas I missed one morning of Assimil lessons, but I did one lesson every other morning (and I still did a little Spanish on the day I missed). The Assimil audio I have for these lessons is not very good so this week I did not really use the audio at all.
I should explain how I have been using Assimil lately. I have been spending about 30 minutes on each lesson (probably not quite enough). I basically read them through and check/learn the words I don't know. I also read the grammar notes. I do the same thing for the "exercises" section. I then read the lesson and exercises out loud in Spanish several times. If the audio is o.k. I listen to the audio a few times, but I have found that, at this level, I really do not need the audio to get a lot out of these lessons. I am certainly not "doing" the lessons as thoroughly as I used to and I have not shadowed without the book for quite a long time. The last 20+ lessons seem to have been at regular conversational pace which is too fast for me to shadow without the book. This week I also read/listened to a few more chapters of El Leon, La Bruja y El Ropero. I have finished chapter 12 now. I am enjoying it. I find it is fairly easy to read right after my Assimil lesson. I have noticed that there are quite a few words that I don't know, but do not seem to interfere with my understanding of the story. I read another 50+ pages of the "Rich Dad" investing book. It is very easy to read. 50 pages sounds like a lot, but it is really not because there is not a ton of text on each page. The book does look intimidating because it is so thick. I am getting some satisfaction of simply reading a thick book in Spanish without consulting a translation or dictionary. The book is written in a conversational manner. It is written as a story about the author learning from his mentor through a series of conversations about investing... this way I feel like it is actually a pretty decent book for language learning... and I enjoy it. I can even read it when I am tired... I cannot do that with any other type of Spanish. I did a meetup. Even though it is often not the best Spanish I am hearing (or speaking) I think these are good because I get immersed in the language for a couple hours and end up thinking in Spanish. I have not done skype. I feel like I have spent a lot of time skyping without major benefit. It is also somewhat inconenient for both me and my partners due to my somewhat unpredictable schedule. I would also like to note that I have been spending a considerable amount of time on the weekends with my self-study of economics. I am already half way to accomplishing my goal for 2012. It is very important to me to keep active with this other hobby even if it means my Spanish will suffer a little bit. Over the last few months I have been spending much more time on economics than I have in the past. I also think I will push pretty hard over the next few months to accomplish my 2012 goal as soon as possible. In the past few days I have thought much about the level of my Spanish. I feel like I have been stuck at this intermediate B-1-ish level. I have been doing mainly courses like Assimil, Michel Thomas, Living Language and FSI. Both Assimil courses, Living Language Beyond the Basics and the first two sections of FSI all seem to bring the student to roughly the same level. As a result, I do not feel like I have really moved past that level. I have been picking up more vocabulary, more fluidity with my speech and more confidence, but I do not feel like I have been moving toward that next level. I learned in Santo Domingo that I really need to work on my listening/understanding. I feel like I have not really been challenging myself sufficiently. I welcome the second half of FSI as a challenge that I think will help propel me to that next level. Sometimes I like to do things that are too easy just as a way not to get burned out. It is a tough balance, but I am ready now to use more challenging material. I will not do any more "beginner" programs. I might go back and do a turbo review of Without Toil or an active/translation review of With Ease, or do the entire FSI course again after I have completed the second half, but I am not going to do any new beginner material ever again. So for this coming week, I am going to finish Assimil without Toil and El Leon, La Bruja y El Ropero. Then it will be on to finish FSI. Edited by James29 on 26 December 2011 at 8:49pm 6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5367 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 90 of 668 31 December 2011 at 9:12pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Well, it has been just about one year since I started this log. It certainly helped me stay motivated to get some things accomplished. I think I will continue the log for 2012, but I might not update it so often.
This week I finished Assimil Without Toil. I also finished El Leon, La Bruja y El Ropero. It feels great to have finished both of these things before the end of the year. I also did FSI lesson 30 this week. It felt nice to do an FSI lesson after a long break. Lesson 30 was actually tougher than I remembered. I am wondering if I am going to be able to do the second half of FSI the same way I did the first half - only two passes through each lesson - or if I am going to need to do each lesson three times. I guess we will see. I am going to start the third level of FSI on Tuesday, Jan 3. Actually, I will be using Platiquemos. It looks great. I think I will like Platiquemos even better than FSI. This week I also read 30-40 pages of my Spanish investment guide. It is nice because it is easy to read and the chapters are short enough that I can usually read a chapter in 15 minutes or so. I had some short breaks of free time at work and it was really nice to just pull out the book and read a chapter. I did some skyping this week and it was o.k. I feel like a broken record saying that I don't feel like skype is really worth the time for language learning. I do, however, enjoy learning about the countries and cultures of my partners... that makes it worth it. I did a meetup that was great. It was small, but the other speakers were all either native or better speakers than me so the conversations really helped me. I feel like my listening/understanding skills are definitely improving. I am so comfortable with the people in the meetup group now that talking seems almost effortless at times. So, my goals for 2012 are 1) to finish FSI/Platiquemos, 2) to read a "real" book, 3) to consistently maintain my routine of doing a little bit of Spanish every day and, most importantly, 4) have this Spanish journey continue to be fun. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5367 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 91 of 668 09 January 2012 at 1:49am | IP Logged | |||||
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Boy, a lot of people updated and started logs this week. I had to go to the fifth page to find my log. I guess starting a log is a good New Year's resolution.
Anyway, I did lessons 31 and 32 of Platiquemos... two times each. I am going to keep doing each lesson two times just to keep things moving along. I should probably be doing the lessons three times because I am making a number of mistakes on the drills and I need the text on the second day. Platiquemos has the audio for the conversation stimulus. I finally understand how to do that section and I tried to do those sections. I can see that those sections are going to be helpful, but now, I am really not able to respond appropriately. It seems like response-type drills are the toughest drills for me. I really like the text of Platiquemos much better than FSI. It is much easier to read and follow. I have not decided about the audio yet. There are a few sections that were pretty tough to hear. It also seems the cadence or something is different. It is hard for me to get into the groove like I was able to do with FSI. I think it just may be the accent or timing or something. Anyway, this is really what I need. I also read several chapters of my DHH Biblia. I don't think I mentioned my reading of the Biblia in my last week post, but I did some that week also. I finished Matthew and am well into Luke now. It is fairly easy to follow/understand, but I do miss a number of things. I purchased a NIV/NVI bilingual Bible because I think the translations are closer and there is a Spanish audio book for the Old Testament in NVI. The English translation of the DHH is not a very close translation and it is somewhat difficult to use the English when I need to figure out what something means. When I finish Luke I think I will start with the NVI. I think I will listen to the Spanish audio while following the English text. I want to work on picking up some more vocabulary and better listening skills at the same time. Since my last post I did two meetups. One of them was in a different state when I was out of town. I am not the most outgoing person, but I was confident and able to speak effectively. Meetups are very worthwhile if everyone speaks Spanish the whole time and if most of the speakers are either native or better speakers than me. I read another 20+ pages of my investing book. The Spanish seems to be getting a bit more complicated now. I am still enjoying it and will continue to read it whenever I have a few free minutes somewhere. I feel myself transitioning from a sense of "urgency" with my studies to more of a feeling that I am simply going to have an ongoing learning process. I seem to be content with the notion that it is going to take a long time to get to a very high level of Spanish. When I finish Platiquemos I am going to start using more native materials and try to transition my Spanish "studying" time into doing productive things in Spanish. I have been scoping out a number of audio books that I will be able to read when I am done with Platiquemos. Anyway, that is it for this week. Things at work will likely be pretty busy in the next several weeks, but I should still be able to maintain 60 minutes a day for Platiquemos. I will try to do 2 lessons each week (four days of Platiquemos) and three days of "other" Spanish material. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Jarvis1000 Diglot Groupie United States want2speakthai.com Joined 4880 days ago 74 posts - 101 votes Speaks: English*, Thai Studies: Spanish | Message 92 of 668 09 January 2012 at 2:00am | IP Logged | |||||
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I am using platiquemos among other things. I am only on unit 8, the author mentioned that somewhere around level 2 to 3 you have a break out and seem to start to catch things much quicker. Did it feel that way to you?
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| dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5014 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 93 of 668 09 January 2012 at 11:30pm | IP Logged | |||||
I hope James29 doesnt mind me replying here. I think the author was talking about reaching a point where it no longer feels like you are learning unconnected "pieces" of language, and starts to make sense as a "whole". I would say thats correct. I think its because at that point you have covered some of the most fundamental points of grammar, and can express yourself not just in the present, but (hopefully) in both past tenses as well, which gives you the feeling that you can express most things whith good circumlocution strategies. They dont teach the future until close to the end of the course, because you can get around it by using things like "Voy a + infinitive". 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5367 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 94 of 668 10 January 2012 at 1:28am | IP Logged | |||||
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Thanks for the question/comment. I, of course, don't mind you answering dbag... especially because I am just now switching over to Platiquemos and I don't really know what the author meant. I started FSI/Platiquemos after more than a year and a half of study so I was fairly well along... but I still found all the lessons challenging enough. I like the drilling much more than I thought I would.
I had my "break out" moment when I did my second active wave of Assimil. That is when things really started to fall into place. Now, with FSI/Platiquemos, I feel like I am tying together all the vocab and grammar I have learned and really connecting them together with some fluidity. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Jarvis1000 Diglot Groupie United States want2speakthai.com Joined 4880 days ago 74 posts - 101 votes Speaks: English*, Thai Studies: Spanish | Message 95 of 668 10 January 2012 at 1:52am | IP Logged | |||||
No that definitely awnser my question. Yeah it seemed to me the the future was the lowest priority to learn, esspecially sense Voy a infinitive works so well and the few times I have heard it I understood it with out even thinking about it being the future tense. Anyway, thanks for the help 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5367 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 96 of 668 16 January 2012 at 2:08am | IP Logged | |||||
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O.K., I did two Platiquemos lessons this week. I am doing them twice each. I am noticing the differences between Platiquemos and FSI. The audio seems like a different pace/cadence as I mentioned before, but I realized that they cut a lot of drills out of Platiquemos. I should have realized this earlier as both courses have lesson audio of roughly an hour and Platiquemos has a longer dialogue section (due to including an English translation) and also a lengthy audio section on the conversation stimulus. I am not sure I like the fact that Platiquemos cut out drills. I am doing the conversation stimulus, but I am really not able to "do it" yet so it does not seem to helpful. I totally skip the reading section which is quite substantial. I am thinking that I may eventually come back and do the conversation stimulus and reading sections sometime in the future and skip them for now.
I also did a lot of listening and reading. I finished Cajas de Carton... that was 2+ hours. I listened to the Spanish and followed the English. I also did the same thing for 10+ chapters of Genesis in my new NIV/NVI Biblia. I also listened to Spanish and read Spanish for 10+ chapters in my DHH. It was very nice to work with Cajas de Carton. I like the stories. It is great that each "chapter" is really a stand alone story, but also fits into the greater story of the whole book. I was able to do a few of the chapters at odd times during the day which was quite nice. The narrator seems to have a distinct Mexican accent which I find quite nice. This was the first time I really did a lot of listening to Spanish while following English. I really got the feel after a while and I think it is going to be a very helpful technique. It did make me realize that I really do not understand as much as I think when I am both reading and listening in Spanish. I am disappointed that the NVI audio is a little too fast and complicated for me right now. I was going to try to slowly work though it, but now I am re-thinking that and may just keep working with the DHH somehow. I did a skype talk that was o.k. I don't think I did any other "real" conversations this week. I don't think I did much else this week. I did spend a lot of time scoping out books that have Spanish translations and Spanish audio. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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