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Lorren’s Language Log | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4195 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 17 of 212 10 July 2013 at 9:41am | IP Logged | ||
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It's been a while since I have been able to do much with Spanish; my days have been preoccupied with packing, moving, and now, for one last week, for cleaning up the old house and getting the last few remaining items moved into the new house. I was able to get a little bit done today. The good news is that I haven't really forgotten it in the last few weeks. There still is much more to learn.
Rosetta Stone 5 unit 1 lesson 1 talks a lot about different industries like construction, mining, coal, etc. Not really something that I will be using on a regular basis, but it seems like the everyday things have been covered now, and it's time to get more in depth with topics. Before the move, I ordered a National Geographic en Espanol off eBay; I finally had a little bit of time to unwrap it and start working on it. I don't know of a way to subscribe to it in America, which I think is a little odd, considering how many people speak it in this country. I don't think that I can really get through an entire magazine every month anyway, so I suppose that eBay works fine. I read the editorial page, which was talking about how the author had a friend that thought that paying for space exploration was a waste of resources, and the author disagreed. Although it was only two paragraphs, I had to look up a lot of words using Google translate. I write down the words that I don't know, and their translations, in a Spanish notebook that I have. I had almost one side of a notebook page filled with words that I didn't know. I'm sure that that will get smaller the more that I learned. I was pretty happy to hear that a radio show that I listen to regularly in English will add a Spanish edition at some point in the future. They're not sure when they will start, but that will help my listening skills quite a bit. I'm sure that I'll be lost in the beginning, but like anything, it will get easier the more that I continue. I wasn't sure that I would have anything that I was interested in to listen to once I finished the entire Rosetta Stone set, and I didn't even know if there was any reason for me to work on my listening skills, since most of the Spanish I'm interested in using is written, but I guess that I do have some motivation to be able to hear it as well now. I still have a few more intense days of moving related house cleaning until I can finally relax and get back into a normal routine (while unpacking at the new house), but once this major deadline has passed (we turn in the keys on Monday), I can get back into the final level of Rosetta Stone and knock that out. At that point I figure that I can improve my Spanish through translation and later the podcast, while I start working on Russian. I'd like to get through three levels of that by Christmas. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4195 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 18 of 212 10 July 2013 at 6:40pm | IP Logged | ||
I get the impression that a lot of people on this site don't think that RS is a good program, but I guess whatever works for a person best is what matters. I think that language programs (and even university courses) do people a disservice when they give people the impression that if they finish the course, then they'll be fluent afterwards. That's just not true. While I can go to Mexico and get a room, buy stuff at the grocery store, and eat in restaurants without having to use a lick of English, I would have a hard time reading a newspaper or watching television in Spanish. I have the tools to do all of that stuff now, but the vocabulary will take a while. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4195 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 19 of 212 12 July 2013 at 10:40am | IP Logged | ||
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I´m starting to work my way through the National Geographic en Español that I bought, which is a lot more fun than Rosetta Stone (although I am still working on that). I'm not always understanding 100% of what I'm reading, even with my handy dandy Google Translate dictionary, but I'm getting a good idea of what it is saying.
There are so many words that we don't use on a daily basis, but we just know during the rare times that we use them. Like the words tadpole, eyelid, and eyelash. While I learned how to say frog and eye using Rosetta Stone, the more specialized words are things that most native English speakers understand, but I didn't really come across before in my language learning. I took my kids to the pool this evening, and a little boy said hello to my son in Spanish. I encouraged him to say hola back to him. It turned out that the other kid knew about as much Spanish as my son did, but here, you never know when you're going to run into a non-English speaker. It felt good to me that I now know enough Spanish that if the kid did speak only limited English, I would have been able to do a little bit of translating... unless the other kid wanted to start talking about tadpoles or eyelashes. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4195 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 20 of 212 16 July 2013 at 10:30am | IP Logged | ||
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We're done moving, so now I can spend more time doing interesting things, like learning languages. I still am working on finishing Rosetta Stone level 5, but reading my magazine is much more interesting. I discovered that you can subscribe to National Geographic en Español in the US, so I decided to do that; I can get 12 issues for less than I would pay for three on eBay.
Today I managed to get through an entire one-page article, about a blind guy who uses echolocation to get around, as well as the captions to an article about the Curiosity rover that went to Mars. I'm starting to see some of the new words that I'm finding in the magazine multiple times, which is helpful. I'm entering the new words that I'm finding into Anki, so I can study them and won't forget them. The next article in the magazine, about the Mars rover Curiosity, is a lot longer (four pages). I'm not sure if I'll be able to get through the whole thing in one day, but then again, there will probably be quite a few words that are repeated, since it's an article on one subject. If not, then I'll probably at least be able to read a section. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4953 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 21 of 212 16 July 2013 at 11:28am | IP Logged | ||
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Looks like RS works surprisingly well for you. Reading a magazine is a really nice achievement, congratulations. Of course you look up a lot of words, that is normal at the beginning of reading, but I wonder how is your grammar having used most of the RS? And the active skills?
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| HermonMunster Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4577 days ago 119 posts - 211 votes Studies: Spanish | Message 22 of 212 16 July 2013 at 9:42pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hello Lorren,
Nice log. Congrats and progressing through RS. The only thing that matters is that it works for you. It's great that you have the confidence to speak Spanish. How are you memorizing/practicing your new vocab words? If you have a smartphone I think that downloading Anki would help a lot. I spend about 20-25min everyday reviewing a part of words I've added to my study list. It's a good way to fill down town time, waiting in line or something like that. I walk around a pond at work during lunch while reviewing my words. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4195 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 23 of 212 17 July 2013 at 9:26am | IP Logged | ||
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I have had to look up certain grammatical concepts that didn´t seem to be fully explained in RS, but there are a lot of resources for that. While I was moving, I found my old Spanish textbook from college, so I can use that as a reference as well. RS v.3 is a lot better than RS vv. 1 and 2, which was organized completely different and didn't have sections focusing on speaking, reading, grammar, etc.
I do have Anki installed on my desktop, which is where I do most of my studying. At some point I probably won't be so dependent on my "Google translate" dictionary, and can probably read wherever, just noting the words that I don't understand and looking them up later, but for right now this is working. My main focus with language learning will be written; I'm on the introverted side anyway, and even in English I'm more comfortable with the written word than with speaking. That being said, I do know one or two native Spanish speakers, and I guess that next time I see them I will be practicing on them ;-). I will probably start doing more listening when a podcast that I listen to a lot starts their Spanish broadcast; right now I occasionally will listen to a CNN en Español video, but I don't pick up a lot there yet. Today I did get through the entire four-page article on the Curiosity's exploration of Mars; I didn't know if I would be able to do that or not. The next article has eight pages of text, plus several pages of photos with captions, so it will probably take me at least two or three days to read and translate. I watched a video on CNN en Español today, and noticed three words that I have recently learned in the last week through reading magazine articles (in the text on the screen, not through listening). Listening to full-speed speech is still pretty challenging for me, but I'm sure that it will improve over time. My little boy seems to have begun to get an interest in Spanish; he's been saying things like "hola! Como estás?" and knows the difference between amigo and amiga (he's six). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Lorren Senior Member United States brookelorren.com/blo Joined 4195 days ago 286 posts - 324 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish Studies: Russian | Message 24 of 212 19 July 2013 at 9:03am | IP Logged | ||
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I started working on this eight page article on the origins of the solar system. At times it seems like I can read nearly a whole paragraph without having to look up a word, but then I'll run into a sentence where I can't figure out what it's saying. I'm running into words that I've recently come across and either understand, or at least it sounds familiar.
My Anki deck is starting to get a little big, at least for words that it wants me to review the next day. While some words are very easy, there are some that my mind just goes blank on. I suppose that will get easier over time. If I'm already starting to run into words that I recognize while I'm only about 1/4 of the way through a magazine, I can imagine that I will start to see more and more words as I progress. I'm glad that I was able to get a subscription, rather than to buy each individual issue off of eBay. I'm 1/4 of the way through reading this magazine, in about a week. My subscription probably won't even start until September, and this is probably going to be the hardest one for me to read. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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