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| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5376 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 145 of 668 22 June 2012 at 1:55am | IP Logged |
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Thanks for the input and questions. Yes, FSI was quite a project. In actuality, I really did not do unit 4 as thoroughly as I should have. I really needed to do those lessons at least three or four times (instead of just two). Nevertheless, I still consider myself done with it.
I don't really have many problems communicating as long as the other person is patient and does not mind re-phrasing some things and speaks relatively slow. Often I can speak with quite a bit of fluidity... particularly with some of my long standing skype partners with whom I feel quite comfortable. That being said I am sure I really butcher much of the time and I don't know a lot of the idioms or customary ways of saying things. I still screw up when to use ti, le, and some other seemingly basic things. I always pause when conjugating verbs in one of the past tenses. I often forget to conjugate plurals because I so often just speak one on one (e.g. I often say estaba instead of estaban or estabamos when talking about two people). When I need the conditional I find myself stopping and trying to think of the word for "would" and I come up with deber and then realize that I am being stupid. Sometimes I get a mind block and just cannot say what I want to say and then I get frustrated and it gets worse. Getting to B-2+ level is indeed going to be a major challenge. I am starting to shift my thinking on my goals and realizing that my limited access to native speakers is going to be a bigger and bigger problem advancing my speaking ability. I am going to likely focus more and more on my listening/understanding and try to get that closer to perfection... and work on speaking when I have the opportunity. It seems to me that with books/audio and movies/TV getting close to a C-1 type level should be doable for me. I think I would prefer to have a higher level of understanding than speaking... now I would say my speaking is better than understanding. I saw the PMP subjunctive book at a bookstore a few months ago and was quite impressed. It is likely the most thorough thing out there for the subjunctive. I read most of the first chapter and it appears quite thorough and easy to read. It has very good reviews on Amazon and it was very cheap (about $7 I think). I don't think I will work on it for a while, but when I do I will let you know how I like it. In terms of picking travel locations I have found that a very important factor for me is the impression I have gotten from people I talk with on sharedtalk or skype. I have talked to many people and when I think of a certain country I often think of the conversations I have had. It just happens that the people from Spain and Ecuador I speak to are always very nice. I have also spoken to some real fruit loops from some other places which will go nameless. Argentina, Chile and Peru are objectively good options. Uraguay seems like it would be a very cool place to go also. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5376 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 146 of 668 22 June 2012 at 2:05am | IP Logged |
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Randomreview... thanks for the input on the three advanced courses. I really appreciate it. You really are helpful and somewhat of an inspiration... although, I must say, thinking of all the courses you have makes me think there is so much out there to do and learn.
I own Using Spanish and will definitely do it some day. I have not written this before in this log, but I have been putting it off until I get to a point where I feel burned out and need to get motivated... I have very high hopes. I have read some of the lessons and I really don't see why people complain so much about the translations... it seems they are extremely literal which I like... but I have not done much of it so maybe I will be disappointed when I do it for real. I took your advice and I am looking for a cheap copy of the Living Language book. My library has the program and I will borrow the audio from them (as soon as it gets returned). I do think I will work through that too. I like the structure of working with a course and I think I learn best if I see the same thing explained in multiple different ways... rather than going over the same thing numerous times. Anyway, thank you for your input. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5376 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 147 of 668 22 June 2012 at 2:10am | IP Logged |
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One more thing... dbag, you are right about that French log (French - taking it to the next level)... that guy is great... I started reading his log last night. I also really like the input he gives on this forum. It is very helpful.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5784 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German | Message 148 of 668 22 June 2012 at 3:54am | IP Logged |
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A lot of my books were mistakes I wish I had never spent money on, then there are
plenty (including Breaking out of beginner's Spanish) which I read out of interest, but that have not turned out to be a big part of my learning. The number of books that I consider to have been or currently be essential is less than 10. Having said that (you'll laugh) I do have the pmp subjunctive book, I don't rate it very highly but it's the only thing out there of its kind (that I know of), hence it was useful for the exercises. I don't know what you'll make of it, but here's how (and it's an ongoing work in progress) I attack the subjunctive (you'll have to remove the spaces from the urls): There is no perfect approach I know of, but two approaches both come quite close IMO (they have more in common than either author acknowledges). 1) Jose Ruiz Campillo http://marcoele.com/el-subjuntivo-es-logico/ http://www.cervantes-muenchen.de/es/05_lehrerfortb/Actas05-0 6/3JosePlacido.pdf http://www.sierrapambley.org/alumnos/wp-content/Intermedio-U nidad-4.pdf 2) Francisco Matte Bon http://marcoele.com/descargas/6/mattebon.pdf (watch this wonderful video, which isn't on the subjunctive, first to see what Matte Bon's approach to language is all about and you'll understand his argument on the subjunctive better: http://comprofes.es/videocomunicaciones/%C2%BFqu%C3%A9-model o-de-gram%C3%A1tica-de- las- enumeraciones-desordenadas-de-evidencias-superfi?page=1). 3) Ruiz Campillo wrote a paper arguing against Matte Bon's view http://www.marcoele.com/num/7/02e3c09b670b9b303/jpruizcampil lo_valor_central- subjuntivo.pdf but I think he slightly misunderstands Matte Bon's view and that the two approaches are pointing at the same thing...but that's just my opinion. I am not aware of any reply by Franscisco Matte Bon. 4) More from Ruiz Campillo (just in case you found him useful) http://marcoele.com/descargas/5/pasados/index.html 5) More from Francisco Matte Bon (again, just in case you found him useful). http://cvc.cervantes.es/ensenanza/biblioteca_ele/antologia_d idactica/descripcion_comuni cativa/matte01.htm 6) other papers I found interesting: http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/PUB/WPL/02papers/jary.pdf http://www2.uah.es/leonetti/papers/AhernLeonetti04.pdf http://marcoele.com/descargas/8/jm.real_gramatica_la_metafor a_del_espacio.pdf Edited by Random review on 22 June 2012 at 4:07am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5376 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 149 of 668 25 June 2012 at 1:22am | IP Logged |
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Well, randomreview, you have just given me quite a bit of very useful looking homework to do. I will have to incorporate it into my studies. I looked at the pdf, but I find it hard to read Spanish in the evenings... I find it hard to do anyting that requires hard "thinking" or brain power in the evenings. I am much more of a morning person. Anyway, thank you very much. The subjunctive is something I will eventually find some time to study intensively.
In terms of my Spanish studying, I still manage to do some every day. I finished Breaking out of Beginner's Spanish. The last two chapters were not too great (the ones about history). I will skip them if I read the book again. It does feel good to finish the book. I also listened to the last two stories of Cajas de Carton on a long drive. I did not do these two in my previous drive. Combined they were about 1.25 hours. I did a couple very long skype talks. One in English and the second in Spanish. The Spanish one was about two hours. I think this is the longest skype talk I have done in Spanish. I felt extremely comfortable in the language by the end of the talk. I read two short books in the Bible with Spanish audio and English text. No meetups this week. I did continue with Anki, but I am wondering if this is something I am going to stick with or not. I am not too sure how useful it is for me. I much prefer seeing words in context. I am reading the English text of Queen of the South. When I finish it I will watch the telenovela. I have read almost 60 pages now and it is interesting. It is very different than the types of books I have read, but I like it. I think it will really help me understand the telenovela if I read the book first. Reading randomreviews post made me take a look at my bookshelf. I have accumulated a ton of stuff for Spanish. I have a bunch of stuff I totally forgot I picked up... like my bilingual edition of Pablo Neruda's poems with audio. I also have three Assimils and three bilingual Bibles. I even have an 1800s interlinear bilingual text of the Gospel of John. I have tons of stuff I have not used yet... Using Spanish, Atlas Shrugged text and audio, four boxes of TV shows, a book on Spain (in Spanish), a book on the Dominican Republic, a Rich Dad book (in Spanish), and many more. What started out as a cheap hobby has started to add up. I don't mind because it is much cheaper than other things I could be doing. Tomorrow is Monday and I don't know what I will do. I am tempted to do another light week before I dive into something challenging again. Edited by James29 on 25 June 2012 at 1:29am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5784 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German | Message 150 of 668 25 June 2012 at 3:04am | IP Logged |
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Yeah, I did kind of let my enthusiasm carry me away and dump on you there (sheepish
grin). If you are interested try the powerpoint presentations rather than the papers...they were designed for learners like us (whereas the papers were written for ele teachers) and so easier to follow. Also, Matte Bon is easier to follow on video. Breaking out of beginner's Spanish is a more interesting book than I made it sound above, great for reading when you're too tired to study. A similar book (but organised in a dictionary format) is Gerrard "Colloquial Spanish". I went through a phase where I'd fall asleep flicking through it. There's a copy on Abe books right now for 1 dollar plus 2 dollars 63 cents for shipping within the US, it's a bit dated but I really enjoyed it and it's at least as useful as Keenan's book. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5376 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 151 of 668 02 July 2012 at 2:42am | IP Logged |
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OK, I'd say it was a pretty good week. I did a few hours of LR with the Bible and read more than half of Exodus. I also, today and yesterday, I did about six hours of Atlas Shrugged.
I am glad I decided to tackle Atlas Shrugged. I am enjoying the story this time for different reasons than when I read it in English. There are so many things that are happening early in the story that don't take their importance until much later in the story. For example, knowing who the boy whistling Halley's Fifth Concerto is at this time makes the book interesting... and Francisco doesn't tell Dagny what he is doing at college, but having read the book I know what he was doing and it explains so much about why he "leaves" her. Even little things that slip in there like when Dagny asks Francisco if he made any friends and he says "two"... it seems to have such more importance this second time through. Anyway, this is going to be a lot of fun. I wish I could say that six hours made a dent in the book, but it really only scratched the surface. At first, I thought the narrator would be a bit dull, but he is turning out to be quite good. He is much more subdued than the narrator of the da Vinci Code, but he slips in some emotion and emphasis every now and then and it really adds to the excitement. The big problem is that he just uses his regular voice for Dagny. It seems too bad that Dagny does not sound more Dagny-ish. I also did some good skype talks and I went to a good meetup. I am definitely getting better in regular conversations. I can notice my listening comprehension improvement. I would still like to improve my listening even more. It feels like I really have to concentrate very hard to understand. I'd like to be able to simply relax and watch TV or listen to an audio book. It is happening slowly. I found it quite relaxing to LR Atlas Shrugged, but, at this stage, of course, I am using the English text so that makes it easier. I have been reading the English text of The Queen of the South. It is a good story. Extremely different than what I would ordinarily ready. I would never read this book if I was not studying Spanish. I learned something quite helpful when reading this book... the English seems strangely written and I think it is simply because it is a translation from the Spanish. I can see how translations must really take something away from the original. When I finish the book I hope to watch the telenovela. I have not watched any TV in Spanish for quite a while. I would like to get back into it and, hopefully, La Reina del Sur will be the ticket. I did watch about an hour of a new economics course series. I really liked it and the professor spoke so clearly that he was quite easy to understand. I would like to continue with it, but I think I will put it on hold for a bit. I have also not been doing any Spanish on my drive to work. This is irritating because all I do is listen to the same stupid morning news show or just flip through the radio stations. Maybe I will try to get back into listening to Assimil dialogues on the way to work. I checked out Gerrard's Colloquial Spanish on Amazon as recommended by randomreview and it looks great. I think I will slowly more more toward that type of book. I did not buy it, however, because I simply need to stop buying things for a while. Once I start looking at something on Amazon I end up looking at a whole bunch of other books and I want to buy all of them. It drives me crazy how many things I want to buy and read. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5376 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 152 of 668 09 July 2012 at 2:36am | IP Logged |
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OK, I have been slowly working my way through Atlas Shrugged. That is really the primary thing I am doing now. I am about one quarter of the way through now. It seems easy to follow and that I have a decent mastery of the Spanish. Unfortunately, I picked up the Spanish book for a little test and it seemed somewhat difficult. There were many words I really did not know at all.
I also tried to shadow a bit. I put the audio on 50% and it was still tough for me to shadow at that pace. The audible slow down seems pretty good and does not distort it much at all even at that slow speed (although there is an odd crackling sound). I decided to start an Atlas Shrugged log and will make notes on the content of the book there. I also did a couple nice skype chats. I can understand some people very easily, but others are very difficult. Some of the South American accents I still find very hard (like Chile and Ecuador). Spanish speakers seem extremely easy to understand. That is probably because I spent so much time with Assimil. I put the Assimil dialogues on my new phone so I will be able to listen to them in the car on the way to work. I would really feel good if I could make use of that commute time... even if it is just listening to old Assimil dialogues. As I was downloading the dialogues I listened for a while and feel like they are quite easy to follow and the audio seems slow now. I purposely went to lesson 23 because the first time through Assimil I hit a wall at that lesson and I remember thinking it was way too difficult. This time through it, of course, seemed stupidly simple. That made me feel good. I started listening to Spanish radio again at work. I am much more able to understand the ads and DJs now. Some of the ads are very easy to understand. I don't think I did any other Spanish. I did read quite a bit of the English text of the Queen of the South. I am only reading it as preparation for the telenovela so I consider it part of my "Spanish time." It is a good story. Reading it made me think how diverse my reading material is... this book, the Bible and Atlas Shrugged. I swore off purchasing any more Spanish material for the rest of the year. I really wanted to get through the piles of stuff I already have. I promptly then purchased Assimil's New French with Ease. I really should have thought it through because if I ever learn French I think I would like to do it with the Spanish based Assimil book. Oh well. I worry a bit that all this passive studying I am doing may negatively impact the fluidity of my speaking. I am not really too worried about it because I really want/need to continue to focus on listening/understanding. Eventually I would like to go through FSI again for my speaking/fluidity. That was really a great course. I kind of miss it. It was quite long and I only did each lesson twice. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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