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James29’s Spanish Log | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| mitcht Newbie Australia Joined 3733 days ago 32 posts - 36 votes Speaks: English* | Message 601 of 668 24 March 2015 at 4:24pm | IP Logged |
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It's a shame I didn't know about Assimil at the time, I don't think it would be as
valuable to me anymore. One thing there is plenty of from the carribean is music - salsa, reggaeton, bachata, etc. and radio stations supporting those. 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 602 of 668 24 March 2015 at 10:43pm | IP Logged |
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... and a ton of beaches!!
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| Crush Tetraglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5857 days ago 1622 posts - 2299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto Studies: Basque | Message 603 of 668 25 March 2015 at 5:28am | IP Logged |
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Wow, i somehow missed that you'd started the French Assimil course! Btw, i highly recommend the older El francés sin esfuerzo course. It's longer and covers more, it also follows one character so it each lesson is almost like a small chapter in a book. I'm not sure how easy it is to find in the states, but i might be planning a trip to Spain again this summer, i'd happily pick a copy up for you (or see about getting back my old copy which i gave away after finishing the course). For what it's worth, this is the book i'm talking about, from 1957 i believe. All the old Assimil courses for Spanish speakers seem to have the yellow cover, at least the ones i've seen (alemán and inglés).
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| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5367 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 604 of 668 25 March 2015 at 2:59pm | IP Logged |
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Well, I haven't really started the French Assimil course. What I'm doing is simply reading all the Spanish in the book and skipping the French. I read the dialogue in Spanish and then read all the notes. I find it is a pretty enjoyable process and I am learning a bit of French. I'm also getting familiar with the course so if/when I go through it again I'll have an easier time with the way it is set up. I must admit, however, that it is not as interesting as I had hoped. I'll look at the older course. Thank you very much for the suggestion.
Edit: it is really too bad that the old Assimil courses stop getting published. Edited by James29 on 25 March 2015 at 3:01pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Crush Tetraglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5857 days ago 1622 posts - 2299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto Studies: Basque | Message 605 of 668 28 March 2015 at 12:50pm | IP Logged |
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Yeah, i did both courses but enjoyed the old course much much more. My favorite Assimil course is the old German Without Toil course, i really enjoyed the humor in a lot of the lessons. The later courses are nice, but generally not as charming as the ones Alphonse Chérel had a direct role in creating.
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| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5367 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 606 of 668 30 March 2015 at 1:28pm | IP Logged |
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OK, well, I'm continuing with some Spanish every day, but the last couple weeks have been very tough. Things at work are simply overwhelming in terms of the amount of work (this is not a bad thing) and I'm doing some other personal things as well with my time so I simply don't have as much time for Spanish anymore. Nevertheless, I managed to do six or seven of the grammar lessons (one a day) since my last post. It's good... tons of exercises on all of the various situations for the subjunctive. I'm definitely getting a lot out of it.
I'm also reading out of the first Michael Connelly book, The Black Echo. It is a decent book so far. I've actually made some pretty good progress because I'm able to read pretty fast. I went to a meetup and also did a couple nice skype talks. that's it for Spanish this week. Hopefully things in my life will normalize soon and I'll get back to spending more time on Spanish. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| BOLIO Senior Member United States Joined 4650 days ago 253 posts - 366 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 607 of 668 31 March 2015 at 6:49pm | IP Logged |
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Hey James, just wanted to stop by and say hello. You are a machine. I appreciate your effort.
Keep fighting the good fight! BOLIO 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 608 of 668 05 April 2015 at 2:48pm | IP Logged |
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Yes, there is something rewarding about just keeping on going and keeping on with the journey. It is amazing, however, that the better and better I get the more and more I feel like I can continue to improve. The cool thing is that I still really like it and I dare say I am liking my Spanish studies even more every day.
This week was again another relatively slow week due to craziness at work and some other personal endeavors. About a year and a half ago I took over ownership of the small business I worked at and it is not a fun process when all these undisclosed stink bombs blow up on me. All things considered things are going well, but there are just a lot of things that are a real headache and waste of my time. I still managed to do a lesson every day from the grammar book. I really like that. The lessons are perfect length. They are not too hard, but, at the same time I am learning some things. It is a wonderful resource and highly recommend the book series to anyone. The only caveat is to make sure you select the correct level. I think I am somewhere about lesson 87 now so I've got about another month of lessons. Eventually I will definitely want to do the C level book, but I'll take a break for a long time. I'm still reading a decent amount. The Michael Connelly book is a fairly good read so far. I'm somewhere about 40-45% done at this point. I'm easily able to read it, but I've been thinking that it is much more enjoyable reading it on a kindle than it would be in paper simply because it is so simple to look up the unknown words. One minor complaint about the kindle dictionary I use... it does not recognize any verbs that have the -se or -te or -le stuck on the end of them. It just says the word is unable to be recognized. Surprisingly, that is not really too much of a problem as I tend to need to look up nouns, adjectives and adverbs more than verbs. I had a nice meetup. That's just a good relaxing way to get in some Spanish. I also met a few native speakers I know for dinner this week. That was great. We just chatted away for a few hours. I was the only non-native speaker and it did not seem to be an issue at all. We all know each other pretty well so it was just a comfortable friendly few hours of talking in Spanish. My skype exchanges have been really suffering. I've been emailing with some new partners and some long-term ones, but I am really dropping the ball about scheduling talks. I am definitely the problem... I simply don't have the time to get something scheduled and I just let it slide. It makes me feel like a terrible partner. The Buenos Dias America podcast is back up and running. This is great news because it is the only thing I have been able to stick with during the drive to work. I'll keep that up. I was really bummed out when it was down for the past few weeks. I've been slowly reading through the Spanish side and notes of the French Assimil book. It is getting me a bit more comfortable with how a French journey might go. I am more and more interested in studying French seriously and will eventually do it when the time is right. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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