Emerald Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom languagedabbler.blog Joined 6236 days ago 316 posts - 340 votes Speaks: Hindi, Gujarati*, English Studies: Spanish
| Message 1 of 62 27 April 2010 at 11:58pm | IP Logged |
I started learning Spanish on April 24, and my goal is to be able to converse and read
at least at the Intermediate level by December. I am going to Tenerife for 2 weeks in
beginning of December and it was a good enough incentive to focus on a language and
make it a priority.
I am still working on coming up with exact order of study plan, and which material to
use in which order.
I have started with Michel Thomas Foundation course, and I listened to the first unit
of FSI today. But I am not sure whether to put FSI off until after Michel Thomas.
These are the materials I plan to use at the minimum
Michel Thomas Foundation
Michel Thomas Advanced
FSI Programmatic Volume 1
FSI Programmatic Volume 2
Pimsleur I
Pimsleur II
Pimsleur III
Considering:
Assimil
Michel Thomas Language Builder
Michel Thomas Vocab
Online resources (Live Mocha, Byki, etc.)
Also, once I have finished couple of beginner's courses, plan to start reading either
bilingual texts or books I already know in English (i.e. Harry Potter in Spanish), and
to watch movies in Spanish.
My goal is certain - how I get there is a matter of experimentation until I figure out
what works best for me.
Edited by Emerald on 03 May 2010 at 11:15pm
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goosefrabbas Triglot Pro Member United States Joined 6359 days ago 393 posts - 475 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: German, Italian Personal Language Map
| Message 2 of 62 28 April 2010 at 12:59am | IP Logged |
If I could give some advice...
Michel Thomas Language Builder and Vocabulary are largely useless. Advanced isn't completely useless, but probably not worth the price if you bought it. You can definitely get through MT quickly - easily within a week. If you already have Pimsleur, I'd recommend starting on that. And Assimil Spanish is great, and you can find it pretty cheap on Amazon. If you do decide to get it, maybe you could start it after Michel Thomas while still doing one Pimsleur lesson per day. I haven't worked with FSI that much, but if you have difficulty with a certain aspect of grammar, you could use it to drill the concept.
Good luck!
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Emerald Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom languagedabbler.blog Joined 6236 days ago 316 posts - 340 votes Speaks: Hindi, Gujarati*, English Studies: Spanish
| Message 3 of 62 28 April 2010 at 9:58pm | IP Logged |
goosefrabbas wrote:
If I could give some advice...
Michel Thomas Language Builder and Vocabulary are largely useless. Advanced isn't completely useless, but probably not worth the price if you bought it. You can definitely get through MT quickly - easily within a week. If you already have Pimsleur, I'd recommend starting on that. And Assimil Spanish is great, and you can find it pretty cheap on Amazon. If you do decide to get it, maybe you could start it after Michel Thomas while still doing one Pimsleur lesson per day. I haven't worked with FSI that much, but if you have difficulty with a certain aspect of grammar, you could use it to drill the concept.
Good luck! |
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Thanks, goosefrabbas. I have already started with MT, so I think I will start Pimsleur after MT Foundation.
Okay, I will pass on Language Builder and Vocab course. They were just optional, but general consensus does seem to be that they are not very useful. Assimil is the only one I haven't got - the book - so I am still deciding if I should buy that book, or just do the courses I have and then buy actual books in Spanish, or bilingual literature text. Still thinking about that.
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Emerald Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom languagedabbler.blog Joined 6236 days ago 316 posts - 340 votes Speaks: Hindi, Gujarati*, English Studies: Spanish
| Message 4 of 62 28 April 2010 at 9:59pm | IP Logged |
Progress so far...
Michel Thomas Foundation
I am on Disc 3
FSI Programmatic
Listened to Unit 1
Today, also plan to start with scriptorium for MT Foundation to make sure I learn correct spellings
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Mafouz Diglot Groupie Spain Joined 5316 days ago 56 posts - 64 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English Studies: German, Japanese, French
| Message 5 of 62 29 April 2010 at 3:02am | IP Logged |
Visit the Spanish speaking forum as soon as you get some confidence...
y... ¡Bienvenido!
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Emerald Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom languagedabbler.blog Joined 6236 days ago 316 posts - 340 votes Speaks: Hindi, Gujarati*, English Studies: Spanish
| Message 6 of 62 29 April 2010 at 11:46pm | IP Logged |
What I did today:
Pimsleur 1 - Unit 1
MT Foundation - Finished Disc 3, Disc 4 (Tracks 1 - 3)
MT Foundation Scriptorium
Harry Potter y la Piedra Filosofal - Chapter 1, listened to audio while reading the text.
I like doing this because even though I barely understand anything, I start picking up
new words, and pronunciation, and because I know the story, I don't get bored, and in
fact it helps in learning new words.
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Emerald Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom languagedabbler.blog Joined 6236 days ago 316 posts - 340 votes Speaks: Hindi, Gujarati*, English Studies: Spanish
| Message 7 of 62 30 April 2010 at 6:57pm | IP Logged |
MT FOUNDATION
Finished Disc 4 (Tracks 4 - 10)
PIMSLEUR 1
Unit 2 - 3
WATCHED
Stargate: Ark of Truth in Spanish
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Emerald Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom languagedabbler.blog Joined 6236 days ago 316 posts - 340 votes Speaks: Hindi, Gujarati*, English Studies: Spanish
| Message 8 of 62 01 May 2010 at 12:30am | IP Logged |
Harry Potter y la Piedra Filosofal - Chapter 2
It is fun how many words I pick up, and kind of a challenge to see how long it would take
before I can actually "read" this book in Spanish.
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