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Clarity’s 2015 Log for Español | ||
Tags: Spanish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Clarity Groupie United States Joined 3514 days ago 85 posts - 107 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 1 of 32 06 April 2015 at 8:04pm | IP Logged |
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Hi everyone,
I've read many of your logs and can only hope I have your tenacity and ingenuity. I have found them motivating and informative. Thanks to all of you. I introduced myself in the Member Profile section below. Member Profile Hello I recently took the Cervantes placement test (thanks for the link, Stelle!) and I was placed at level B2.3-B2.4. I wonder whether I scored higher than my real world level because it was tough and I found myself guessing a lot. Maybe I was just a lucky guesser. I am on Spring Break this week, so I plan to spend some quality time with Spanish. I've booked Community Tutors Monday through Thursday this week on italki. I am still trying to decide how to structure my learning once I'm back to work. As I said in my profile, I have a good chunk of driving time to listen to audio. I will probably schedule my italki sessions in the morning when work can't interfere with them. But all the other stuff (reading, writing, anki, which program to follow) remains up in the air. Kind of overwhelming, actually. So any advice you guys have would be most welcome. Edited by Clarity on 12 May 2015 at 10:46pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5254 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 2 of 32 06 April 2015 at 9:02pm | IP Logged |
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Good to see that you have started a log, Clarity. One piece of advice I can give is to change the title to include the word "Spanish" in it so other Spanish learners can find you. You can do that by editing your first post in the log and just inserting "Spanish" somewhere in the title.
What I can add to the advice that I have already given you is, that if you are at B2 and you feel as if you have "backed into it" somehow, then your grammar, conjugations and vocabulary probably aren't secure. In that case, a drill based course like FSI would help. Also, training listening, speaking and reading will reinforce the knowledge gained in the course. Feel free to jump in at whatever unit you feel appropriate. When I did the DLI Portuguese Basic Course I jumped in at unit four of that cpurse because it felt right for me. It was the right decision. I couldn't face the early lessons as I already knew most of it. You could also try some multimedia web-based exercises at B2 level, to see how you feel and if you still to need to work on anything, at the Centro Virtual Cervantes Aveteca. Scroll down to "Nivel B2" on the page. Destinos may be too easy for your level. You can think this to death. The important thing to do is to start, be consistent and persistent. Speaking with the tutors will soon highlight areas to work on. I took Stelle's test as well and scored C1.4, if that means anything. Edited by iguanamon on 06 April 2015 at 9:07pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Clarity Groupie United States Joined 3514 days ago 85 posts - 107 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 3 of 32 07 April 2015 at 2:53am | IP Logged |
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Hi Iguanamon! Thanks for the heads up about using Spanish in my log title. Definitely an oversight on my part.
I'm thinking about starting FSI/Platiquemos at Unit 10. It's early enough that I won't miss anything vital, though not so early that I would lose interest. BUT I have to admit that the pronunciation exercises in Units 1-10 look really interesting. My accent is much better than it used to be, though it never hurts to improve. Hmmmm.... Food for thought. Thanks for the link to B2 exercises at Aveteca. I'll check it out. I'm on Spring Break for two weeks so I can binge-watch Spanish educational shows. I watched all of the Extr@ Spanish episodes last week and just finished all of Nuevos Destinos yesterday. I had a great time! I love that I can lounge around the house watching TV in my pajamas and still feel virtuous for getting my Spanish practice in. ;) 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 4 of 32 07 April 2015 at 3:50am | IP Logged |
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¡Hola Clarity! I enjoyed FSI, although I took a long break somewhere around unit 45(ish?), and was never able to get
back into it. It's excellent for building automaticity, and I highly recommend it. Starting this summer, I want to "study" more (after months of nothing but extensive reading, watching TV shows and Skype chats), and I think that I'm going to finally finish FSI. I look forward to following along on your log! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Clarity Groupie United States Joined 3514 days ago 85 posts - 107 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 5 of 32 07 April 2015 at 6:22pm | IP Logged |
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Stelle! Thanks so much for stopping by! I followed your link to your blog To Be Fluent and read every last one of your posts. You had lots of great information and I loved your writing style! You are part of the reason I'm intrigued by the Mad Men 1961 FSI Spanish. When I read your review, I was thinking "Holy cow! They actually have that on one of their audio recordings?" But for convenience sake, I'm going to be sticking with FSI/Platiquemos for now. Reading about your Spanish progress, here and on your blog, and has been quite motivational. I will continue to visit them for my dose of inspiration.
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| Clarity Groupie United States Joined 3514 days ago 85 posts - 107 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 6 of 32 11 April 2015 at 3:47am | IP Logged |
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My spring break will be over on Monday which means I'm busy getting my Spanish ducks (or "patos") in a row before a tidal wave of work. So holy mother of SRS! I entered so many education words into Anki (about 2500 words and phrases) that my fingers ache a little. I only plan to use Anki for about 15 minutes a day, but I wanted to know all of these terms cold. And I doubt I'll come across "drop out rate" all that often in my casual reading and TV viewing. I also have Platiquemos/FSI loaded on to my USB flash drive so I can listen to it in my car. I'll probably start tomorrow.
I talked with four different italki.com tutors this past week for an hour each. Although I felt like it helped me speak more automatically, I found myself relying on my past skills quite a bit. Because they could understand me and I could understand them, I didn't feel like I had to push myself as hard as I should have. For example, I don't use direct and indirect objects as well as I could. And let's not even begin to talk about how much the Subjunctive Specter strikes fear into my soul. I'm not sure if I should ask them to structure our lessons more or if I should experience a natural-ish conversation. If you guys have any ideas on this, I'd love to hear them. Maybe I just need to go into my tutoring sessions with specific goals for myself in mind and leave it at that. Edited by Clarity on 11 April 2015 at 3:47am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4699 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 7 of 32 11 April 2015 at 3:54am | IP Logged |
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Think of the characteristics of your tutors. Very open, talkative tutors are more
suitable for free-form conversation. Use them to actively practice sentences and structures you are unsure about and get them corrected. Very strict, hardline tutors are good for ramming grammar points like the subjunctive and pronouns into your head. Communicate with your tutors - what do you want them to do? For example, I am being tutored in Italian, Greek and Mandarin mostly right now. In Mandarin, the emphasis is on listening and conversation (and I should really get back to my Hanzi) because I am in China and need that skill. So I'm doing advanced conversational classes where I have to explain my current activities in more detail beyond "I ate rice for lunch". In Italian, I need to get into a flow where I speak proper Italian and not the half- assed Romance mix with Italianized pronunciation I do now (it's mostly Italian but you can tell by how I change the words that it's clear I'm not Italian). If you need a tutor to be strict, tell them that. They can adapt. It's good to get an idea of the personality of your tutor because I for example work very well with open, talkative tutors - this allows me to get conversations flowing. Grammar classes I am actually really good at when I do them but I find them boring (I am doing them for Greek, translating and learning grammar, because I have the basics but need to build vocabulary and learn to structure sentences properly). 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Clarity Groupie United States Joined 3514 days ago 85 posts - 107 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 8 of 32 11 April 2015 at 5:34am | IP Logged |
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Good point to consider the characteristics of the tutor. I bought a package from one of the tutors who was creative with eliciting different types of conversation from me. I don't have a lot of experience, but he seemed open and chatty. Perhaps I should practice explaining evaluation and assessment results to him in Spanish. That would push the conversation into a more challenging realm. I think I may be experiencing the Spanish equivalent of "I ate rice for lunch." Today with a different tutor, I talked about the weather for 20 minutes.
1 person has voted this message useful |
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