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Team Lobo TAC14 - Emily learns Español | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Tsopivo Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4464 days ago 258 posts - 411 votes  Speaks: French*, English Studies: Esperanto | Message 41 of 60 12 September 2013 at 6:18pm | IP Logged |
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Okay, here are a few links for free online books:
- http://fr.feedbooks.com/books/top?lang=es : it is a commercial website but they offer many books from public domain for free. The link I posted should be for books in Spanish but they have French, English and presumably other languages as well. - http://www.liberliber.it/online/opere/audiolibri/ : I think they have ebooks and audiobooks but that's all I know. I have not looked into this website yet since it is in Italian and I have never studied it. - http://www.booksshouldbefree.com/language/Spanish?type=ebook : ebooks and audiobooks from the public domain. This is the link for Spanish but they have French and a few other languages. - http://www.novelas.rodriguezalvarez.com/index.php/listado-no velas : bilingual / multilingual books. The website seems to be Spanish or from a Spanish speaking country so most books are available in Spanish. Audio available (in what language ??) - http://albalearning.com/ : very ugly Spanish website but hey, it's free Note that I have only used the 1st link so far so I have no clue on the quality of the other links. I would be interested in knowing what you thought of 30 vies and Les parents. I'll post other recommendations later (remind me if I forget). 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Emily96 Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4421 days ago 270 posts - 342 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Finnish, Latin | Message 42 of 60 20 November 2013 at 6:55am | IP Logged |
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Wow i've been neglecting this. The past few months have been way busier than i expected. Who knew grade 12
would be so time consuming?! On the plus side, half of my classes are languages. I am rather frustrated with my french teacher. She's just so different from my teacher last year, whom i loved dearly =) The most annoying thing is that she can't understand us when we talk... like i realize that we have some pretty horrible anglophone accents, but it's not incomprehensible. After all, i survived 3 months in quebec, and they all understood me! I was talking to my exchange twin about it and she suggested that it was because my teacher is from france, and that they're not as used to our accent. To be fair, i've discovered i suck at understanding French accents too - we did a listening test and i only got 7/13. I'm sure that if i had the same test but with a quebecois accent, i could have got perfect. I'll have to work on broadening my ear for accents from different regions. At least we get to read good books and watch good movies. The best so far was the play Bashir Lazhar, made into a movie titled Monsieur Lazhar. I highly recommend it. Very touching! Peer tutoring Spanish was an excellent decision. I love the class, and the teacher. Even better, he's recently arranged for me and a few other students to get credit for Spanish 12 by doing extra projects on the side. This is really generous of him. Our school has had some major budget cuts and we've lost a lot of teachers, which is why the course isn't actually being offered, but he's still taking the initiative to offer this option to us, at no benefit to himself. Hooray for teachers that care! As far as Spanish at home is concerned, i've finished reading the Harry Potter books but still have to watch the last two movies. My listening comprehension has greatly improved. I'll try to put a percentage on it when i watch the next movie. Now i'm not sure what to do... there are a few series i have in mind, based on other's recommendations, but i don't have a lot of time and i'm not sure if i'll be able to keep up with them. I'd also like to get into more advanced books but i'm not sure if i'm ready for it. I guess i'll just have to try and see what happens. Here is a random paragraph i wrote at school about a month ago during free time - i had no dictionary and haven't edited it, so it should be a pretty accurate representation of my skills. I also guessed at some conjugations that i only know passively: Estoy en la clase de francés. Acabo de hacer una prueba, y los demás están escribiendo todavía. No me gusta esperar. Hay muchas cosas que podría estar haciendo en este momento! Leo el séptimo Harry Potter, y tengo que terminarlo pronto. Deb ía devolverlo a la biblioteca el domingo, pero me faltan doscientos páginas hasta el fin. Espero que pueda leer mucho hoy y devolverlo mañana. Sin embargo, tengo una clase de guitarra hoy a las cuatro, y no practiqué toda la semana. Soy una mala estudiante... Preferiría estar en la clase de español ahora. Me encantan los alumnos, y pienso que a ellos les gusto también. Bueno, si no me equivoco, los demás están a punto de terminar. Vamos a hacer una actividad juntos. Tengo que ir, hasta luego! It took me maybe fifteen minutes to write. If anyone feels like correcting it, i would appreciate it! My English class is also enjoyable this year. The teacher is really different from last year's, and i can't actually decide which one i like better. But i've realized that i really love analyzing literature... is that weird?? I'm a little ashamed to admit that i've fallen off the Finnish wagon... i just really don't have time. I'm considering trying to commit to 10 minutes a day but i feel like that's not enough to break out of beginner zone. I guess at least it would keep what i have fresh in my head until i have more time to devote to it. I'm also disappointed that it's going to be pretty much impossible to finish the super challenge in time... i'll see what i can manage. Either way it's been a great experience. Thats all for now folks. I really need to remember to update this more often! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Emily96 Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4421 days ago 270 posts - 342 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Finnish, Latin | Message 43 of 60 11 December 2013 at 5:53am | IP Logged |
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I'm still here... not studying much besides school work but still reading people's logs and checking in on the forum
every once in a while. French is going well. We recently had an oral assessment and my teacher complimented my speaking (mostly the grammar, not the accent!). In Spanish i'm noticing that i can understand things quite easily and even express myself mostly fluidly, although i still have to stop and think to avoid interference from french. I keep saying "comme..." when i'm thinking! My biggest problem in peer tutoring that class is not being confident. The students ask me how to say something and i give them my best attempt but then second guess myself and have to check with the teacher, who confirms my initial response. I'm not sure how to get over this. I guess just practice practice practice, and more exposure. It's funny though, i was just noticing the same thing happening to the students. They would ask how to say something that they actually already knew, but hadn't learned explicitly so they were unsure. The look on their faces is priceless: "wait... really? it's that easy??". All in all i'm still enjoying this decision and plan to continue with the class in my b block spare next semester. With the end of the year approaching and TAC/super challenges ending, i'm starting to dream about next year! I'm planning to ask for a latin textbook for christmas =P and i'd really like to get back into Finnish. I'm going to try my hardest to avoid wanderlust besides those two for at least the first half of 2014. Off to finish more homework now, i'll try to update at least twice before the end of the year! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
 songlines Pro Member Canada flickr.com/photos/cp Joined 5202 days ago 729 posts - 1056 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 44 of 60 11 December 2013 at 9:00am | IP Logged |
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I myself haven't post in quite a while, Emily96, but glad to see you're hanging in there!
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Emily96 Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4421 days ago 270 posts - 342 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Finnish, Latin | Message 45 of 60 07 January 2014 at 1:36am | IP Logged |
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Thanks Songlines!
Man i'm bad at finding time for this! I promise i still love you, HTLAL! The end of the year went by in the blink of an eye, as usual. I didn't come anywhere close to completing my super challenges, with Italian at 36% (although i intentionally let that slide once i decided i'd rather focus on the other two), French at 36%, and Spanish at 41%. In total that's 63 "books" and 30.9 "movies", which is still impressive, considering i started half way through. It's interesting that i read more than i watched... i know that for most people it's the other way around. I should have seen it coming though; i love reading! I'll definitely sign up again in May with a very reasonable goal for french just to make sure i maintain it and a more challenging goal for Spanish. I miiiiight do a tiny goal for Finnish, but i don't think it'll be worth it. I did end up asking for that latin textbook and my sister ordered it for me but the "guaranteed" shipping by christmas has not come through. It's a shame, but i probably wouldn't have much time for it anyways. Oh well. Once i explained the concept behind it to my sister, she said she wants to borrow it too! Just for fun. I've decided that this year instead of setting year long goals i'm going to play it month by month. That goes for all of my new years resolutions, not just language learning. I guess you could say that my resolution is to accomplish one goal in each area per month. This is what my language goals for january look like: French: - study for the french provincial at school! those test writers are very sneaky. almost unfairly so. - read one book - catch up on Les Parent, and keep it that way (EDIT: just checked the website, and they haven't put up any new episodes since the last one i watched so i'm not behind after all! however, they have randomly posted all the episodes from the last five seasons so i think i'll try to download them all to watch at my leisure before they get taken down again, as the website has the reputation of doing without warning) Spanish: - keep up with all school work and such - read one book - have a "song of the week" ( = four songs by the end of the month) this involves learning the lyrics, any new vocabulary, identifying grammar concepts, and reading a little in Spanish about the artist/style of music - watch the last two Harry Potter movies! I've been procrastinating for too long. Latin: - IF i get the textbook soon, 10 minutes of reading a day. That is all. Finnish: - might be put in the mix next month I'm also imposing on myself as homework to keep updated with HTLAL. I've let myself be distracted with other stuff and then i miss out on things here. And i know that being involved in this community is a large part of what keeps me motivated when studying languages. So, more forum time = more motivated language study = greater advances = satisfied Emily! OH, and shoutout to my new TAC team: Los Lobos! I've recently identified wolves as my spirit animal so this team has even more meaning for me, haha. I love you guys already and it looks like this year is going to be amazing, with lots of active members supporting and encouraging each other. I really appreciated the comradeship of the Romulans last year, even though it sort of petered out after a while. Here's to a successful 2014! Edited by Emily96 on 07 January 2014 at 1:38am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Emily96 Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4421 days ago 270 posts - 342 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Finnish, Latin | Message 46 of 60 11 January 2014 at 8:51pm | IP Logged |
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I got the textbook at last! it's smaller than i expected, but still beautiful. Here's the
amazon link if anyone's interested. I'm not going to start reading it until February, so that i have a better chance of keeping it consistent. This month will be crazy with finals and everything. I've just found the first two seasons of Les Parent on Netflix so i'm no longer in a rush to steal them from the website. That should keep me busy for a while. Also, i've started reading a very random french book that someone gave me last year. It's about a viking girl. Looking at the date, it's definitely time for a Song of the Week! I'm cheating a little and using the one that i did for a project in december, but i still don't have all the lyrics memorized, so i think it's ok. The title is Fruta Fresca and it's by a columbian artist, Carlos Vives. The song is an example of pop music mixed with traditional columbian vallenato music. There were only a few words that i had to look up and i think i understood all of the grammar concepts (for my project i picked out examples of el subjuntivo). You can give it a listen here. My favourite part is definitely the guitar solo at 3:00. Tonight i'm hoping to watch part 1 of the 7th harry potter (finally!) in Spanish. So far i'm still on track with my january goals! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Emily96 Diglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4421 days ago 270 posts - 342 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Finnish, Latin | Message 47 of 60 17 January 2014 at 3:31am | IP Logged |
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Half way through the month, time for a new update. I'll probably aim for once a week once i get my schedule
figured out. So far i'm still doing well with my january goals. I've not yet finished my french book. It's definitely too easy for me, but I haven't had much time to read it. I could probably finish it in an evening if I had that much time. I should probably make a new goal for Les Parent... let's say 4 episodes by the end of the month. That's definitely reasonable. As for Spanish, I've already watched both parts of Harry Potter 7. I was surprised to realize how much I understood! My comprehension level is easily over 90%, probably more like 95%, even 97% or 98%. That was very encouraging. Then, while reading a team mate's log (thanks dbag!), i discovered an argentinian tv series called filosofia aqui y ahora. I looked it up and watched the first episode. It was so interesting that i had to start taking notes! The guy speaks incredibly fast and takes no pauses, but i can understand pretty much everything if i concentrate. I was worried about not being able to follow the subject matter if they use big subject-specific words, but thanks to my philosophy class at school, I have enough background knowledge to keep up. I did take down a few new words and expressions though (angustia, pavada, seguir la corriente). The combination of listening, taking notes (writing), reading youtube comments, and learning new words is exactly what i need right now to practice all my skills. also, i'm happy to learn to understand a new accent. sometimes i find that his argentinian accent sounds almost Italian... something about the way he stresses the words. Finding this series reminded me how important it is to be interested in what you're listening to in your target language. It should be something you would listen to in your native language. (contrast: notes in Spanish intermediate. almost too easy and a little boring, but i like listening to her Spanish accent so i'll probably keep going with it for a while. unless i find that i can understand the show Isabel no problem, then i'll switch to that instead). Anyways, i think that a good way to continue with my languages is watching more captivating videos (like tedtalks! does that exist in other languages?) and podcasts. Then i can study my languages while learning about something else i'm interested in! two birds with one stone. (now i have to find out how to say that in Spanish...). I think i'll try to squish in another episode before i go out tonight. i'll update soon with the next song of the week. Hasta luego! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4137 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 48 of 60 17 January 2014 at 10:00pm | IP Logged |
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Emily, this is a great log!
If Notes in Spanish intermediate is too easy, maybe you should try the advanced podcasts. The topics are more interesting, and the speed and vocabulary are a bit more challenging. I'm listening to the Gold Audio now, and find most of the topics pretty interesting. Isabel is a *great* show. But the language is a bit odd, since it's old Spanish. They use structures that are no longer in use in modern spoken Spanish. Still, I highly recommend it - it's a riveting show with really good actors. Just keep in mind that the characters on the show don't speak the way that people speak in the real world. Yes, Tedtalks exist in other languages - or TedX, anyway: TedX Spanish Thanks for mentioning the philosophy show! I'll have to check it out! Anyway, again - great log. I look forward to following along! 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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