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Bolio’s Spanish Log | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Crush Tetraglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5858 days ago 1622 posts - 2299 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto Studies: Basque | Message 41 of 344 22 March 2014 at 6:12pm | IP Logged | ||
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But since six months from now you'll have made a ton of progress, it might make sense to write "Spanish" on the envelope, otherwise you might forget and think that what you're reading is in English. ;)
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| BOLIO Senior Member United States Joined 4651 days ago 253 posts - 366 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 42 of 344 24 March 2014 at 2:43pm | IP Logged | ||
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El Comadreja, thanks for the idea. I will do that.
Crush, HAHA, I hope to be able to form complete sentences in six months. Now, I feel like I am blurting out sentence fragments and something that appears to be grunting noises or possibly an imitation of a wounded animal of some sort. I had a big weekend in Spanish. Friday was work as usual but I did not let it get in the way of learning. I completed UNITS 2 and 3 of FSI BASIC Spanish before and after work(I really enjoyed the drills. Maybe because they were so easy. I am sure the tougher lessons would be less enjoyable). I did 30 minutes of DuoLingo. Friday night I spent 2 hours reading. During my reading, I highlighted every unknown word. Saturday I took those words and put them to an Iversen Wordlist. I am having a problem. There are words I encounter that I do not know the verb and specifically the tense. My dictionary will allow me to find the verb but not have an example of what tense it is or who is doing the action. For example "Faltaba". I think it means missing or lacking or not complete, but I have no idea where we are in time or who it can refer to... so I bought another dictionary and I have come to the conclusion that I will need another one, an even larger one. Online helped me guess but I found no example sentences of context to cement the idea. I spent an additional hour on Duolingo Saturday and called it a day. Sunday (yesterday) was a monster day for me. I spent 6 hours on Spanish. I started by reviewing my wordlist from the day before. I then went back to the book and read for two hours and created more wordlists. It is interesting how many times I saw the words from the previous days list. I could not remember every word right off but I keep my wordlists next to me while I read and could quickly look them up. I think over the long haul that I will cement these words in long term memory by using this method. I completed 2 hours of DuoLingo and made that little owl work. I then went back and re-read several of the first chapters of the book I am covering and getting my new vocab words from. Naturally it was easier and I could move quite quickly. Some may feel like this is not beneficial and that I should be taking in new material. Maybe. But I FEEL like I am making progress. I have read so much about L-R and massive amounts of exposure and I think it would work but I do not have 12 hours a day 6 days a week to spend on Spanish. However, once my vocabulary is to the point where I can undersatnd 70% of the words in a book, I think the level of growth could be amazing thru massive amounts of reading with the audio. EDIT: From Friday thru Sunday, I also watched 8 episodes of Destinos. They are speaking more quickly now and some of the conversations would be lost on me if not for the Closed Captions. Again, I am not counting these hours or time spent listening to the radio or TV in Spanish. 19 hours done/431 to go Adelante! Edited by BOLIO on 24 March 2014 at 2:54pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| nancydowns Senior Member United States Joined 3915 days ago 184 posts - 288 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written) | Message 43 of 344 24 March 2014 at 3:25pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hello Bolio, Thought I'd drop by your log. I like to look in on others' logs to see if they are using a method that might be a help to me. Seems like we are
at a very similar point in our studies. I am on Assimil 31, FSI 9, Pimsleur III 14, Notes in Spanish - 5, Coffee Break Spanish 40 and Destinos 9. I have far too many passive listening things in my list, but like you, I am not counting those as focused study time. I'm at about 26 hours now. Right now, I am focusing all of my efforts on FSI, trying to get through the first volume because I am so far ahead in Assimil that FSI becomes boring because it is so easy. So I want to get it a little closer to where I am in Assimil. That's wonderful that you got that time in Mexico because talking with people is so helpful. I haven't done any active speaking yet, so that puts me behind in that area! I haven't started a list yet, but I would like to do that, and so I wondered how it is working for you? I have added scriptorium this past week, and I love it! :-) Something about pages and pages and pages of handwritten Spanish makes me feel happy! Hope it is making its way into my brain! Buena suerte! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| ElComadreja Senior Member Philippines bibletranslatio Joined 7231 days ago 683 posts - 757 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Portuguese, Latin, Ancient Greek, Biblical Hebrew, Cebuano, French, Tagalog | Message 44 of 344 24 March 2014 at 6:47pm | IP Logged | ||
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you're on the right track with faltaba. It is a past, singular. It might be worth it to look at the wikipedia article "Spanish Grammar" to see all those endings in one place. Also, when you get a dictonary, check to see if there is an entry for 'doy', because if there is that means they show the irregular forms.
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| BOLIO Senior Member United States Joined 4651 days ago 253 posts - 366 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 45 of 344 24 March 2014 at 7:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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NancyDowns, thanks for adding to my log.
Mexico was great and last night, my wife and I, made the decision to reutrn but it will not be to a resort. We are traveling to Querétaro, Mexico and while there we will go to San Miguel de Allende as well as Guanajato. This will be a wonderful excursion where I should be able to push myself into speaking even more. We are four months away from going and it adds to my motivation! The Wordlist has a very mechanical almost ritualistic feeling to it. I like ANKI and will continue to do it. However, the wordlist process described by Iversen has been very beneficial to me early on. I like manually looking up the words in a dictionary vs online translators.I cannot tell you why...it just feels better. I really enjoy getting my vocabulary words from actual books I want to read versus just random vocabulary words. All words are beneficial but I feel like I am chopping down a tree so to speak. "There are X number of words in this book and when I get done, I will know them all." It may sound simple minded but some of the best things are simple. I just started FSI Basic Spanish and I like it. I have an attachment to it. 20+ years ago, after graduating from college, I enlisted in the Military. While I was in the Army, I tried several times to be selected to attend the language school. I was never accepted. I am determined to finish FSI (without having to run,salute,or shoot weapons) :) James29,Crush,Dbag and others have excellent experiences about starting from very little and growing into very good speakers and readers of Spanish. I go back and read them all the time. All the best. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| BOLIO Senior Member United States Joined 4651 days ago 253 posts - 366 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 46 of 344 24 March 2014 at 7:39pm | IP Logged | ||
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ElComadreja, thanks for the article and the dictionary help. I will put it to use! Edited by BOLIO on 24 March 2014 at 7:41pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5255 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 47 of 344 24 March 2014 at 8:29pm | IP Logged | ||
That's why I loved the DLI Portuguese Basic Course (and Haitian Creole) so much! The drills that others find "boring", I found to be very useful. Being ex-military gave me a certain level of comfort with the instruction, despite the lack of military vocabulary. I'm sure you know already, but San Miguel de Allende is "Gringo City"- full of American retirees, many with little or no Spanish. As a consequence, it's not the best place to go to practice your Spanish, but it's a beautiful town. Keep up the good work! Edited by iguanamon on 24 March 2014 at 9:07pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| BOLIO Senior Member United States Joined 4651 days ago 253 posts - 366 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 48 of 344 24 March 2014 at 8:45pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks Iguanamon, I know they have a lot of English speakers but I will do my best to avoid them. I have seen pictures of the city and I looked forward to being there as well as Querétaro and Guanajato. They all look very interesting. I am very focused on increasing my abilities from now to then in hopes of being able to speak without being as much of a burden to the native speaker.
Also, I read many of your posts. Thank you for them. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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