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TAC 2010 - Team F - DaraghM | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6153 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 25 of 74 30 April 2010 at 11:25am | IP Logged |
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I've lost my internet connection over the past week, which is more than a tad frustrating. My study is still 100% Spanish, and likely to remain so until I return from my trip to Bilbao in May.
I've been make a lot of use out of the various all Spanish grammar books, and some other materials. I picked up a copy of "Using Spanish" by Bachelor and Pountain. This is a very good book, and covers mainly vocabulary topics. It has a nice section on Spanish verbs that cannot be expressed as single verbs in English. E.g. Buscar, Estrellar, etc. It also covers a lot of falso amigos, the different registers, and some grammar topics. It provides a good complement to the Benjamin and Butt grammar book. Time to Spanish Target: 216 hours 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6153 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 26 of 74 07 May 2010 at 10:50am | IP Logged |
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I can't believe I'm still without the internet. The company said they'll be dispatching a technician today. I didn't realise how much use I'd been making of online resources until they were withdrawn.
While ploughing through the various Spanish materials, I started wondering what would I bring to a desert island. Obviously, under the rules of this game, I can't bring everything, so what is my minimum ? I think I've narrowed it down to four books. A good dictionary, the Benjamin and Butt grammar book, the recently purchased Using Spanish, and a copy of Don Quijote. The problem is all my other languages. I'd need books for them as well. Time to Spanish Target: 205 hours 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6153 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 27 of 74 18 May 2010 at 11:00am | IP Logged |
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My trip to Bilbao is hopefully going to happen this weekend. My main concern is the flight restrictions due to Eyjafjallajökull, and it's ash cloud. I feel sorry for news readers when they've to try and pronounce the volcano's name.
I can't believe I'm almost finished Platiquemos. I'm over half way through the last unit, Unit 55, and will be finished it before I leave. I started the course on the 12th February 2009, however I did a lot of other study in between. The course definitely covers enough grammar for basic fluency, but lacks an extensive vocabulary. I'd estimate the total vocabulary at around 5,000 - 6,000 words. When I return from Bilbao, I'll move onto another language. While I should brush up my Russian, Hungarian or French, I'm very tempted to try out a brand new language. My next trip after Spain is to Copenhagen in July. Is is insane to dabble in Danish for that interim period ? Considering they all speak very good English, would I be wasting my time? Time to Spanish Target: 184 hours Edited by DaraghM on 18 May 2010 at 11:01am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| nogoodnik Senior Member United States Joined 5571 days ago 372 posts - 461 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Modern Hebrew, Biblical Hebrew, Russian, French | Message 28 of 74 18 May 2010 at 7:19pm | IP Logged |
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Finishing Platiquemos is a huge milestone in your Spanish studies! You must be very close to basic fluency if you are not already there.
As for dabbling in Danish, I'd say you earned it after your accomplishments with Spanish. Russian, Hungarian, and French are all great languages too though so I'd say go with what sounds the most fun. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6153 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 30 of 74 21 May 2010 at 3:28pm | IP Logged |
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Muchas gracias por vuestras respuestas. :-)
I officially finished Platiquemos yesterday. I think I must've drilled every track of the last 10 units at least 15 times each. I can confidentally say I really know the material backwards. Since finshing Platiquemos I returned to Assimil, reviewing, and listening to lessons 60 to 80. I forgot how much vocabulary is crammed into Assimil. With a couple of listens, I remembered most of the words, and feel they've swept back into my active vocabalulary. It also felt beneficial to hear authentic peninsular Spanish accents. Platiquemos is mainly Latin American Spanish. I've also picked up a copy of Teach Yourself Danish. I've never studied a Germanic language before, so this should be interesting. My only quip is the lack of audio, which is their standard two CD's. I haven't listened to any of it yet, but I'm hoping they haven't filled it with much English. There seems to be a large dearth of materials for Danish. Time to Spanish Target: 177 hours Edited by DaraghM on 21 May 2010 at 3:31pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6153 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 31 of 74 31 May 2010 at 12:11pm | IP Logged |
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My trip to Bilbao was a great boost to my Spanish. Their northern Spanish accent is quite easy to follow. While the city is generally not high on the tourist priority list, it's very much a Spanish city, and a great place to immerse in the language. The only place with a large number of tourists was the Guggenheim. I have to say, I really enjoyed the place.
Since returning my Spanish has been mostly on the back burner. In its place, I've started into my new language for 2010, Danish. I feel I should've researched the language a bit more, before diving in. The biggest challenge with Danish so far is the orthography. While the language seems quite logical, the spelling and phonetics seem distances apart. As I've never studied a Scandanavian language, I wasn't sure what to expect. My primary resource is Teach Yourself Danish, with Berlitz's Danish in 60 minutes, as my back up. The TY course seems good apart from the lack of audio. Unlike some TY courses, this doesn't skimp on the grammar, and plunges you straight in. While the written language seems straight forward so far, it's the spoken language I'm finding very hard. The TY course begins with an introduction to Danish pronunciation, but I wished it went further. I'd love to hear a lot more examples contrasting the glottal stop. Other sounds that I'm finding hard are the Danish 'd' in such words as 'hedder'-named, and 'med'-with. For me they almost sound like an 'l', especially the Irish 'l' in 'An bhfuil'. Time to Spanish Target: 166 hours Time to Danish and Others Target: 92 hours 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6153 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian | Message 32 of 74 02 June 2010 at 12:30pm | IP Logged |
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I found when I'm studying a new language, I seem to put in a lot more time at the beginning. Danish is now my dominant language, with just a small bit of Spanish creeping in at the sides. I would strongly advise anyone slowing down on one language, to enjoy a short holiday in another.
Since switching to Danish, my style of study has changed. My preferred method is for FSI style audio based drills, covering grammar points, using a huge number of examples. With just two CD's for the Teach Yourself course, this wasn't an option. I tried over learning the material by looping each dialogue a number of times, but this didn't seem to work, and I became slightly frustrated. My new approach involves working through the course at a quicker pace than normal. I now listen to the entire audio for CD1 when I'm out walking. I've also been repeating the dialogues, but not as many times as before. This has helped a lot as I can recognise words in future dialogues, I've previously learnt. It also means I'm hearing a number of instances of some words I found hard to distinguish. E.g. toget - the train. As briefly mentioned previously, Danish pronunciation is tricky. I decided to do some research on the soft 'd', as what I was hearing, didn't correspond to any phonetic transcription I'd read. Most courses state the soft 'd' sounds like the English 'th'. It doesn't. This has generated a bit of a debate on wordreference. The soft 'd' tongue position seems very close to the Irish 'l' ending. My normal English 'l' finishes with my tongue touching my teeth, but the Irish 'l' finishes with my tongue touching near the roof of my mouth. If I pull it away a trace of a 'd' like sound is added, and I think this sounds like the Danish soft 'd'. Time to Danish and Others Target: 85 hours Edited by DaraghM on 02 June 2010 at 12:32pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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