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Amy’s Spanish Viaje | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5367 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 33 of 104 08 February 2014 at 2:39pm | IP Logged |
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That's a great point, Crush. One of the great joys of courses is the sense of accomplishment and learning. Early on, every morning when I was done with Assimil or FSI I'd say to myself something like "wow, I really like learning Spanish." Early on working from great courses like these can be a lot more satisfying than struggling with native materials or things that make one feel like they are hopeless.
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| AmyinBrooklyn Senior Member United States Joined 4043 days ago 87 posts - 122 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 34 of 104 09 February 2014 at 7:42pm | IP Logged |
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It was so nice to come here and read all of your encouraging messaging and suggestions. I can't tell you how much it meant it to me. All in all, this has been a really hard week. I had an allergic reaction to an antibiotic that I was taking (for a sinus infection) and ended up in Urgent Care for a couple of shots. I’m now on a steroid and Benadryl course. I’ve been on so much Benadryl the past few days that I’ve had a lot of trouble concentrating and working. I was still determined to not let up on my Spanish, but my study wasn’t as intense so I spent a lot of time with Destinos. (I watched 11 episodes this week - so about five and half hours - I'm actually finding the show more interesting and it's not quite as dull as before). I also watched a lot of Spanish language movies (but with English subtitles so I didn’t count those hours in my log.). I do want to recommend a fantastic movie that is streaming on Netflix now called Valentin. It is about a little boy in Argentina. I love the way they speak Spanish in Argentina - it sound like Spanish with an Italian cadence.
I did manage to squeeze in three italki lessons this week (How, I’ll never know) (My teacher does want to have a session entirely in Spanish - she has been suggesting that.I think we decided that next week, the first half hour will be totally in Spanish.) I feel like the sessions have been helpful - even though I pronounce nearly every word incorrectly. I picked her because she is from Peru and she had a couple thousand teaching sessions under her belt. She was a little more expensive than some teachers - $15 per hour, but I think it is really beneficial. For the past few sessions, I've been writing a story in Spanish, then I read it to her, pausing after every sentence so that she can correct me. Then, she'll ask me questions about the story in Spanish, and I'll try to answer. We also work on different vocab. -food, airport stuff. I'm just too shy right now to do a language exchange. I spent a lot of time reading other people’s logs when I didn't have much energy and just despairing over my slow progress (which is - note to self - not productive) But I feel pretty low about it all today and I feel like I don’t have an excuse because I live with a native Spanish speaker. But everything is just feeling overwhelming and difficult. I made it through the entire past tense section of my Spanish grammar book (Practice Makes Perfect) but now I just feel like all the conjuncations runs together and all of that work was for naught as I just need to redo it all because I can’t seem to remember anything. I just feel like I’m plateauing at a A1. And I’m so jealous of those who are able to speak after three months (Stelle, your progress is amazing) and just don’t know what I’m doing wrong. I’m throwing myself a little pity party right now as you can see. I’m just so discouraged. I'm sure all the meds that I'm on are not helping. 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 35 of 104 09 February 2014 at 9:05pm | IP Logged |
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Oh no. :( I'm sorry you've had such a hard week.
Don't be discouraged…be proud of everything that you've accomplished. I'm impressed by how much Spanish you've managed to fit into such a difficult week! And I know it's easier said than done, but try not to fall into the comparison trap! Don't forget - I'm a fluent French-speaker with 10 years of language teaching experience. I can't express how much my French helped me when learning Spanish. It would have been *much* more difficult in the beginning if I were coming to Spanish from an English base. I think that you should just dive in with conversation with your tutor. I really do believe that it will be the best use of your time. Here's a trick that I used to help me in the beginning, when conversation exchanges were still painful: I showed a picture of a family member and described him/her. Name, age, likes, dislikes. Then my tutor/partner would ask me questions about that person in Spanish and I would do my best to answer. It let me practice basic sentence structures, and I felt reassured by the structure (and the picture as a prop). If you try it, and you like it, you can use it as a crutch for a few weeks, since you can describe all sorts of people (and animals, por supuesto) who are important to you. Buena suerte! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| BAnna Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4614 days ago 409 posts - 616 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Turkish | Message 36 of 104 09 February 2014 at 9:27pm | IP Logged |
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I think Cavesa's log (the drunk snail's journey) has the best title of all to capture the path to learning a language. There's an alternating sense of overconfidence ("this is easy!") and complete despair and embarassment ("I don't understand anything").
Stelle's advice is right on: comparison really is a trap. If you can just keep going, one foot in front of the other, no matter how winding the road gets and you will improve (at your own pace, no one else's). And of course, take good care of yourself. Espero que te sientas mejor pronto. 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 37 of 104 10 February 2014 at 7:40am | IP Logged |
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Conjugations seem like they'll be impossible to learn, and they are really hard at first. Soon enough you'll realize that it's actually one of the easiest parts of learning a language, the biggest issue is just that it takes a long time to get used to the structure. All it is is memorizing, though, and as you progress you'll find patterns you never saw before and it becomes really simple. It's also hard to learn from charts, if you're not using them, actively trying to conjugate or decipher a text, it'll be much more difficult. As your knowledge grows and you use the language more, you'll realize that you're speaking and conjugating without even thinking about it. It might take a little while, and of course you'll have to actually speak to get there, but it will come.
I also found that when i had the grammar down and didn't have to spend so much time thinking how to conjugate this verb, what tense that verb should go into, which word order to use here, etc. that my pronunciation improved drastically, as you have more time to prepare yourself for the sounds you're about to make. For now, i just hope you get better. ¡Que te recuperes bien pronto! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5014 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 38 of 104 10 February 2014 at 11:40pm | IP Logged |
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I have been meaning to stop by here for a while now. It sounds like you are making amazing progress! As Stelle points out, you just can't compare your progress to hers in any meaningful way. I dare say her background in French and in language teaching means that she finds things like conjugations and the difference between the past tenses, which you are struggling with now, a breeze.
I think it is natural to struggle with these issues for a long while, as they are just not present in English. All that hard work will pay off though, and one day they will seem easy. I have some suggestions for specific resources which may help you with the specific problems you have mentioned. You say that you have a problem with getting your mouth around the sounds, and that you have problems with conjugating. I imagine that you would benefit from some serious work with one or two of the listen and repeat style audio courses. Pimsleur would probably be to slow for you right now, but a really excellent course in the same vain is "learning Spanish like crazy", which moves faster and covers a lot more ground than Pimsleur. I think it has something like 30 hours of audio, and will really help wip your conversational Spanish into shape. In particular it has loads of awesome chapters on the past tenses. You could also try the Paul Noble course. I only ever used it as a review to pass away a rainy day (you start doing things like that when you get into it) but from what I remember, it actually starts with the past tenses, and has quite a lot of audio drills. Both of these courses will get you used to speaking, while working on your knowledge of conjugations etc. They will probably be of much more use to you right know, and in the run up to your trip, than working with the grammar books. Also, while the practice makes perfect books are really great, I think the problem with them in the early stages is actually that they are too thorough. By that, I mean you don't necessarily wont to spend days and days just working on one tense, for example. The other problem I think is that they have too much vocab. That's great later on, but what you want right now is to get the structure of the language into your brain in the most efficient way possible. For that I can recommend the excellent "Margarita Madrigals Magic key to Spanish". It sounds cheesy, but also starts with the present tense, uses a limited but very useful vocabulary, and gives you an excellent way of thinking about the difference between the past tenses and of memorising irregular verbs, among other things. In fact I hear that it influenced the Michel Thomas course, which considering how into your Spanish journey you are, is well worth considering investing 12 hours or so going through. You wont find a quicker or easier method of covering a lot of grammar anywhere, although I bet his accent will craze you! Also, about "La Reina del Sur". I tried it last year and think its actually quite hard, although I didn't have the English version to help. I don't think you will need a lot of the vocab in that book for a while. What killed me is that the author doesn't seem to use many paragraph breaks. In fact I remember paragraphs going on for 2 or 3 pages at a time! Any way, good luck, it sounds like things are going good guns, even if it doesn't seem like it right now. BTW, what part of Peru are you going to? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| AmyinBrooklyn Senior Member United States Joined 4043 days ago 87 posts - 122 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 39 of 104 11 February 2014 at 2:57am | IP Logged |
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I can't thank you all enough for your encouraging words. I know I shouldn't be getting so discouraged, but it's so difficult when all I want to do is understand more and I'm seriously putting in the time. There are moments when I just think that these conjugations will not stick in my head. But then I was just looking back over my log and realizing that a few months ago, I didn't even know personal pronouns or colors. I knew absolutely nothing. I need to keep reminding myself of that. I am so determined to do this. Thank you all so much. I can't tell you how much your words lifted me up.
@Stelle - Thank you for your encouragement. I know that I'm on my own journey and I shouldn't compare myself, but sometimes, it's so easy to fall into that trap. But you're right - you've put in countless transferable hours and so it doesn't make sense to even go there. I love the idea of showing family pictures to my tutor and describing them. My tutor has actually been very good about continuing to talk to me in Spanish - even if I don't understand - she doesn't switch to English. She just continues repeating herself. And if I need extra help, she types the question so that I can see the words spelled out. @BAnna- Thanks for your suggestion to check out Cavesa's log - I think I'm reading quite a few logs where the people are much, much more advanced than me and while it's great. It's hard when I don't see myself making the same sort of progress that I anticipated. @Crush - Thanks for your encouragement. I just need to remind myself that I will get there. Even if it's one verb at a time. I'm determined. (And thanks for your well wishes re my health. I think the fact that I also haven't been physically feeling well is part of the issue) @dbag - Thank you so much for coming by. And thank you for your resource suggestions. I had the Madrigals Magic key to Spanish in my Amazon cart and on your suggestion, I just downloaded the e-copy. I'll take anything that will help me. I'll also check out Learning Spanish like crazy - that sounds good. I have done the Michel Thomas Basic Course - my library didn't have any of the others and I wasn't sure which one to go for - but if you think it's worth it, I'll definitely buy it. Which version would you recommend? (They have so many options, that I can't figure out what's what) And thanks for your words on Reina del Sur. I'm glad that I just let that one go. It was much, much too difficult for me. I'm much happier with Despereaux - and I think the fact that I can read it aloud to my boyfriend and get pronunciation help will be hugely beneficial. As far as Peru, I write about interior design for work. So we're really going on a textile hunting mission. We're going to the Cusco region, to visit markets, meet weavers and see some of the textile museums (as well as Machu Picchu) and then we're just spending the rest of the time in Lima - where my boyfriend is from. In Lima, we're just staying with his friends and family so one of the reasons for working so hard and pushing myself is just so that I'm maybe able to understand the gist of conversations. Honestly, back in October, I thought that would be possible. And I think one of the reasons for my despair is that it just doesn't seem likely that I'm going to understand much of anything. But one thing that I can say, is that I'm certainly doing the best that I can. 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 40 of 104 11 February 2014 at 4:04am | IP Logged |
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If you're boyfriend is ok with it, have you tried converting more of your conversations into Spanish or an English-Spanish mix? I know it's hard when you've always spoken English with someone to speak to them in a different language, especially when what you want to say is personal or just really important to you, but it's definitely one of the best ways to get those verbs down. For me it took a few days for me to really loosen up when i first started speaking Spanish, so it might help to loosen up a bit now before you head to Peru :)
I'm jealous you're going to Peru, though. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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