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| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4243 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 153 of 212 16 August 2014 at 6:24am | IP Logged |
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Update for the day:
Anki was just review. Today was a work day, so I didn't get around to starting the next article in National Geographic (which is about the Yukon), and I didn't add new words. I read the equivalent of 14 pages of Divergente today. I plan on reading some more before I go to bed. While I was reading (during lunchtime at work), one of the workers in the lunch room was passing out bananas. She was going around saying "Banana?" When she got to my table, without thinking, I said "gracias." LOL. I think that she is originally from Mexico (all of our name tags say a place on them so people can associate us with a place) so it really wasn't out of place to say thank you in Spanish, but I usually talk to her in English. Maybe I should order an "ensalada pequeña" some day (at work, I order a small salad almost every day). Today I read a passage in Divergente that I didn't really remember much out of the English version. When I read it in Spanish, there was quite a bit that went over my head, but I did get quite a bit of details out of it, like lying in the net, looking at the sky, etc. After going home, I looked at the passage and was surprised at how much I did get out of the scene that I barely remember reading from the English version. I think that it is VERY helpful that I've learned so much vocabulary in the past year reading National Geographic and putting all of the unknown words into Anki. There are so many words that I'm seeing over and over again in Divergente that I remember going through in Anki (sometimes over and over and over again). I used to wonder how I was going to teach my kids a foreign language some day, since I homeschool. My language teachers in school used to seem so fluent in their language of choice. Funny how so very few people became fluent in those courses... after 5 years of German, I did get pretty good at that language, but I could never pick up a copy of Der Spiegel and just read it without a dictionary to help me. After being at this site for a while, and learning how to really learn a language, I realize that I can teach my kids a second language. I know that even after my kids finish 5 levels of Rosetta Stone, they're still going to need to work hard to get to the level where they can read a book or watch a movie in the other language and have understanding... but it can be done, especially in the time frame that I have to teach them. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4243 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 154 of 212 17 August 2014 at 7:19am | IP Logged |
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I passed page 300 of Divergente today. I've decided to move on to Insurgente and finish the Divergent trilogy before rereading any books. With all the progress that I've made so far, I figure that after reading another 1200 pages of the Divergent trilogy, 1000 pages of the two Dragonlance books that I plan on buying, and then perhaps the Los Juegos del Hambre trilogy, then I'm sure that my Spanish ability will have improved by leaps and bounds before I read anything again.
I've been doing the mini-challenge for the month in the Super Challenge, writing down sentences with me, te, lo, etc. ... I intend to do the translations, but even without it, it is helping me. So far, I've copied down 70 sentences. It's helped me to see the patterns a little bit better, which is helping me as I read. I think that I will probably want to do the six week challenge with Russian when it comes back in November. Not now, since Spanish right now is getting much easier for me and I like the feeling of reading a book in a foreign language and knowing what's going on, but I do want to learn other languages too, and as Spanish gets easier for me, then I would like to spend a little more time with another language. I'm still going to continue with the Super Challenge though. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4243 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 155 of 212 19 August 2014 at 12:47pm | IP Logged |
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Today I got quite a bit of Spanish study done:
I read from Divergente. In the English book, I would be at page 338 now. I listened to Notes in Spanish Intermediate on the way home from taking my kids to gymnastics today. I was amazed at how much easier it is to understand now, probably from reading so much recently. I figured that reading would improve my listening skills a little, but I was surprised at how much and how quickly it is improving. I read an article on the Yukon today in National Geographic en Español. It was about 7 pages of text, and I had to look up 23 words, including off white, prospector, moose, hoof, and scurvy. It's strange how sometimes I can read quite a bit and not have to look up many words, while sometimes I have to look up a lot. I guess that I haven't read many things with the vocabulary used in this article. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4243 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 156 of 212 20 August 2014 at 7:36am | IP Logged |
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¡Hola! I had the day off work today, so I got a lot done.
I listened to an hour and a half of Notes in Spanish Intermediate today. One of the podcasts, Zafiros, I had to listen to twice, because I didn't really get it well enough the first time. I'm getting to the end of the Notes in Spanish Intermediate podcasts, but I downloaded the first 32 of the advanced podcasts, and then I'll try out Buenos Dias America as well. I'm not much of a movie watcher, but these podcasts are very useful. I read an article called Karma Collectivo in National Geographic. It had about 4 1/2 pages of text in it, and I looked up 10 words, including heart disease, twelfth, Spartan, sin, and jostle. Much better than the 23 words that I looked up yesterday. I work tomorrow, so I won't be reading more from National Geographic until next Monday. I don't add a lot of vocabulary from Divergente, so I have another week to bring down the amount of words that I do daily in Anki. Even after adding all those words in the last couple of days, I only have 185 words to go over tomorrow (I try to keep it under 200). I haven't read from Divergente yet today, but I'd like to read chapters 27 and 28 tonight before I go to bed. That will allow me to mark off another book segment as read for the Super Challenge. I'll probably finish it in the next week or so; then it will be time to get Insurgente and read that. Since I'm reading them on my iPad, I don't have to order them ahead of time; I'll just download them when I need them. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4243 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 157 of 212 22 August 2014 at 12:08pm | IP Logged |
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It's amazing how sometimes you can see clear results about how your language skills are improving. Today was one of those days.
My boy is learning Spanish, and my daughter is learning French. Anyway, I set up a "Super Challenge" of my own for them. Instead of 100 book segments and 150 hours of their language, I'm having them watch 300 hours of movies in their language... although if they do read books, they can take time off their movie watching. Anyway, I was showing my son things that he can watch in Spanish on YouTube, and I did a search for Arthur in Spanish. As I was watching, I was surprised at how much I understood. Not just from seeing the action on the screen, but I was understanding a lot of the words as well. Not exactly the complete sentences, but I was getting more than I thought I would. Later, I was watching some Spanish songs from Disney movies with my husband, and we watched "You Ain't Never Had a Friend Like Me" from Aladdin. I was getting a lot out of the song as well, even though it goes pretty fast. I'm guessing that the more than 350 pages of reading that I've done in the last couple of weeks has something to do with it. I also did my flashcards today. There was a lot of them since I just added a ton of new words in the last couple of days. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4243 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 158 of 212 25 August 2014 at 11:25am | IP Logged |
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¡Hola! Despite having work the last couple of days, I have made some progress with Spanish.
In Anki, I got my deck down to 157 cards tomorrow. It's normally closer to 180s, but I try to keep it under 200. Today I was getting a ton of words right. Tomorrow I have the day off though, which means that I'll be reading more from National Geographic en Español, so I'm probably going to end up adding words again. But it's nice to get more of these words down. I only have about 34 more pages to read in Divergente, if I was reading the English print version. Since the Kindle book doesn't have page numbers, that's all I can measure it with. I'll probably finish it tomorrow, and get started on Insurgente, which I already bought. My Amazon/Dragonlance attempted purchase has come to a resolution. One of the books that I tried to purchase was already refunded to me; the other book that I bought was not refunded. They didn't bother to pay for tracking on their package, but I know that my old address is within the 18 month window where they will automatically ship packages back to the sender, notifying them of my new address. When I told Amazon that I didn't receive the package, they offered to refund the money to my account. I'll get Leal (the third book in the Divergente trilogy when I get close to finishing Insurgente. I still want to get the Dragonlance books, but I think that I will avoid the shipper that didn't bother to put tracking on their package when they sent it to me. I've also been listening to Notes in Spanish Intermediate. I've almost listened to all of the Intermediate podcasts, then I'll start tackling the advanced ones. My ability to understand the podcasts has increased a lot since podcast 1; I think that has a lot to do with all of the reading that I've been doing. I thought that the movie part of the Super Challenge would be the most difficult for me, but with all of the podcast choices that I have, it won't be as hard to do as I thought. My husband signed up for Netflix again, and I found out a way to search for videos with Spanish audio tracks. There are a lot of Disney movies with this feature. A lot better than trying to find actual Spanish movies to watch, especially since I'm not particularly interested in the R rated movies. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4243 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 159 of 212 26 August 2014 at 12:52pm | IP Logged |
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Short update today. I finished reading Divergente, and started the next book. I listened to Notes in Spanish Intermediate, and started listening to the Advanced podcasts. I was still able to understand quite a lot, although they spoke a lot more quickly. I worked on my Anki cards.
I didn't get around to reading from National Geographic. Probably tomorrow. My kids found episodes of some show that they like to watch in both Spanish and French. I guess that will help them as they work on their "Super Challenge." 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4243 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 160 of 212 27 August 2014 at 7:54am | IP Logged |
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Today I did Anki; that was about it. Even though I had the day off, I spent the day reading English.
I wouldn't have even bothered to update, but it looks like I will be going down a journey to French, in a way... even though that is a few rungs down on my list of languages to learn. I still have Russian and German that I really want to concentrate on first... However, my daughter is learning French. We were listening to part of Frozen's "Love is an Open Door" in French on the way home from my husband's birthday dinner. My daughter has been watching cartoons in French. So, while I'm not really officially learning it, by the time I actually do start working on it, I will more than likely have a head start. My husband is my daughter's main French teacher, while I have the task of teaching my seven-year-old Spanish. He's having trouble with pronunciation. Even though I'm sure that I'll have an American accent forever, I am able to help him pronounce things. Maybe I actually am getting better with the accent. Rosetta Stone didn't always like my pronunciation, and I don't think that I'll ever be able to roll my r's, but listening to it a lot, and hearing it in my head as I read, probably helps. So I guess that my Spanish journey is now somewhat interwoven with my kids' Spanish and French journeys. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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