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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| hypersport Senior Member United States Joined 5887 days ago 216 posts - 307 votes  Studies: Spanish | Message 41 of 73 25 October 2008 at 11:39am | IP Logged |
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Hola irrationale. Very interesting read, nice job.
I've been studying Spanish for almost 3 years now. Started with Rosetta Stone 1 and 2 Latin America, and then found LSLC. Did LSLC Vol 1 in its entirety around 30 times as I waited for Vol 2. Then did that one completely around 20 times. Vol. 2 really hammered the subjunctive, really did it nicely. Like you, I have had the luxury of working with native speakers almost the entire time I've been studying, and so I've been conversing in Spanish from the get go. There's been times when I've worked with Mexicans that spoke no English, and as a supervisor, I had to fully train them and communicate everything in Spanish, a huge accelerator. I also speak with Mexicans in many restaurants and in the Gym, the opportunities to speak are endless where I live here in Boise, ID. Another thing I did was change my dish package to Spanish, so I watch about 95% Spanish tv too, that really helps. So does reading novels out loud. Anyway, what really caught my attention with your post was that you're doing FSI now. About 2 weeks ago I decided to give FSI a go as I've heard so much about it. I don't have any of the written materials, I'm just doing it on the fly from their website. But I have to say, I really like the way the drills work. I started on lesson 23 of programmatic and am currently doing 34. Some of these lessons I'll do 2 or 3 times before moving on, some of them just once. What I do is just try to repeat over the speaker everything I hear, and then of course answer the question. I really like the massive usage of ud. as LSLC was so heavy with tu, and the fact that I've always used tu with my friends this is really helpful. Really enjoy being addressed as ud. in the drills, and then responding to the questions. It's new for me, although I have a Colombian friend here that always addresses me as ud. and that has always thrown me. Interesting that your friends aren't using the subjunctive. My friends use it all the time, no more and no less than any other tense, it's just speaking. I personally can't see how you can express yourself using Spanish if you don't have a handle on all the tenses. Anyway, sounds like you're doing just fine, keep it up! And I'm going to continue with this FSI as I'm really enjoying it...I really like some of these drills where they give you a model, and then they change the subject, the pronoun, or the indirect pronoun and you have to change the sentence on the fly, that's some very effective stuff. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| irrationale Tetraglot Senior Member China Joined 6056 days ago 669 posts - 1023 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Tagalog Studies: Ancient Greek, Japanese | Message 42 of 73 26 October 2008 at 12:39am | IP Logged |
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Hola! Thanks for the message.
Working with Spanish speakers is great isn't it? I can repeat some of your very same experiences. It is amazing how many people in the US completely ignore a language (high school Spanish doesn't count sorry) that a good 16% of us speak. Today for example, I was in a fast and furious Spanish convo with 4 speakers, and there were 2 "grigos" standing by listening to the racket. I felt so happy that I had the opportunity to engage with some of my fellow humans and not be left out! Great idea with the TV and novels. Actually, I am planning to start reading a young adult novel, perhaps harry potter, in Spanish. Do you know of any daily news shows in Spanish, similar to ABC /NBC nightly news? I don't watch much TV, but I want to start watching the news in Spanish (daily), and perhaps a telenovela. I need to work on my listening skills the most; rapid, impromptu Spanish over kitchen noise is still a challenge for me. About the subjunctive...yes it is strange what I hear and don't hear. By the way,, I am speaking of the subjunctive mood; isn't a tense, but a "mood", so you don't have to use it. For example, recently learned how to use conditional clauses like; No puedo aprender sin que me traduzca, o; Vamos a comer despues de que ellos llegen. I told that last one to my Argentine friend, and he said there is no difference between using "llegen" and "llegan"! Absolutely none! He said it was not necessary. Meanwhile, FSI says it is "obligatory" to use the subjunctive in this case! They do use the subjunctive, but just "de vez en cuando", and not in the places I am being taught. Right now it seems somewhat arbitrary when not and when to use it, based on what I hear from them. I'm sure I will figure it out eventually with some time to listen to them and pick up on when they use it, plus FSI's help with the basics. Definitely continue with FSI, it is great. You have been studying and speaking for much longer than I, so you will probably go through it very fast, but it will definitely give you plenty of review at the least, and lots of practice and material. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| hypersport Senior Member United States Joined 5887 days ago 216 posts - 307 votes Studies: Spanish | Message 43 of 73 26 October 2008 at 12:45pm | IP Logged |
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Yeah, Telemundo aires their nightly news twice with Pedro Cevcec. They also have a nightly news/entertainment program called Al rojo vivo which isn't bad.
I go back and forth between those programs and CNN en español. I have the latino dos package with dish network, so I have a huge amount of Spanish channels, the nightly news comes through probably 10 different channels. Getting a newscast similar to what's offered here nationally is no problem, you have Univision and Telemundo. NBC owns Telemundo btw. As far as the subjunctive goes, I think once you get a feel of when it's required and you start using it as such, you really feel weird if you're not using it. I was talking to a mexican girl on the phone looking for her brother, she told me he wasn't home. So this is what I said...por favor, cuando lo vea, digale que me llame. So here I had to use the subjunctive twice. Some examples: Cuando sepas, por favor avisame. Por favor, dime cuando lleguen. Yeah, si hubiéramos tenido más tiempo, habríamos podido completarlo a tiempo. Hmm, si yo tuviera que adivinar....diría.... Sí, les dije que me dieran si no fueran a tener suficiente tiempo... ¿Ha llegado la carta? No, puede que llegue mañana. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| irrationale Tetraglot Senior Member China Joined 6056 days ago 669 posts - 1023 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Tagalog Studies: Ancient Greek, Japanese | Message 44 of 73 02 November 2008 at 5:34am | IP Logged |
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Started Level 7, Unit 43 yesterday.
Extremely easy lesson, already know the contents. I'm not exactly sure if I just picked it up or learned it from Pimsleur. Anyway, nice break from the subjunctive and for me to study more Mandarin. The vocab in this lesson is silly, all about cars and car parts. Thanks FSI; next time I need my car repaired in Spanish, I'll thank you. On the brightside, I learned how to talk about car accidents, which is good small talk. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| irrationale Tetraglot Senior Member China Joined 6056 days ago 669 posts - 1023 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Tagalog Studies: Ancient Greek, Japanese | Message 45 of 73 04 November 2008 at 6:07am | IP Logged |
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Unit 44 started today.
Already the majority of this lesson from Pimsleur, but it is becoming clear to me that the difficulty of the grammar being learned is dropping, and this makes sense considering FSI's general strategy of fundamentals first. I can expect that what they will be focusing on are the other parts such as reading, audio, and vocab. I am debating now whether to return to doing the units in 2 days instead of 3. This was different from what I expected, that the end would be the hardest. Actually it is the opposite (perhaps besides the subjunctive which is still fairly difficult for me). Mainly what I spend time on now is the reading, which are becoming longer by the lesson. The new audio-only lectures are GREAT, since I really need to bring my comprehention up to par. I am also spending a lot of time these days on figures of speach, idioms, and words with a TON of meanings (I am looking at you "ECHAR") 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| irrationale Tetraglot Senior Member China Joined 6056 days ago 669 posts - 1023 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Tagalog Studies: Ancient Greek, Japanese | Message 46 of 73 08 November 2008 at 7:39am | IP Logged |
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Starting Unit 46.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| irrationale Tetraglot Senior Member China Joined 6056 days ago 669 posts - 1023 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Tagalog Studies: Ancient Greek, Japanese | Message 47 of 73 10 November 2008 at 12:26pm | IP Logged |
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Unit 46 was fairly difficult, I must admit.
I learned about comparisons of similarity, which isn't hard in theory, but the drills were very difficult to do automatically, because they involved these comparisions in long sentences with past tense, and other grammar. Having to essentially immediately translate these (you have 1 to 2 seconds) is on par (or perhaps better) than a native bilingual. The other topics such as word order were easy, but refleshing, because I often wondered about this matter in Spanish. I think I may keep the mp3s of the 2 or 3 difficult drills on my player and move on. So I am starting Unit 47 today. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| NYC_Trini_Span Diglot Groupie United States Joined 7229 days ago 60 posts - 66 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish | Message 48 of 73 10 November 2008 at 1:01pm | IP Logged |
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I need to get to where you guys are with FSI- I've finish all my LSLC and am done with have the Complete Grammar from Prctc makes PErfct series.
Hyper- good to see you're here, too! Parece que nos estamos tratando de mejorar en los mismos lugares. I began the first LSLC thread here looooong ago! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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