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James29’s Spanish Log | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5260 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 545 of 668 25 October 2014 at 5:31pm | IP Logged | ||
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James, I totally agree with Crush. I do business in Spanish, with some clients in Puerto Rico. I made it a point to learn the necessary specifically related vocabulary and how to say what I need to say and respond to the typical questions.
An online tutor is cheaper than you think. If you need business-specific help it's out there. Even one session per week with the right skype tutor would be helpful. Italki is more pricey than Nulengua and PQLE in Guatemala, at $10 US an hour. Email them to see if they have someone who can help with your specific needs. If you set up a weekly role playing scenario, I think that would help a lot. Check the various forums related to your business in Spanish. Also consider asking someone in your field in a Spanish-speaking country if you can hang out with them for a week (offering to pay, of course) is another option. Don't get discouraged, get practice. You probably felt bad because you just haven't done this kind of conversation in Spanish very often and as a consequence you got hit with a lot of vocabulary and constructions to which you're just not accustomed. Happens to all of us :) 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| sfuqua Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4763 days ago 581 posts - 977 votes Speaks: English*, Hawaiian, Tagalog Studies: Spanish | Message 546 of 668 25 October 2014 at 6:13pm | IP Logged | ||
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Lang-8 can help you check if you are saying
something correctly. Of course the random people who correct you may not know specialised vocabulary from a technical field. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5530 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 547 of 668 25 October 2014 at 6:42pm | IP Logged | ||
This reminds me a lot of using French in Montreal, actually. There's a large number of French speakers with excellent English, so people are inevitably going to switch. But that doesn't mean that knowing French is useless, or that it would be polite for me to rely on other people always doing all the work. I find that the best way to approach these situations is with an attitude that says, "I'm perfectly happy to speak French. But if you'd rather speak English, that's totally cool as well. Let's share the linguistic burden however makes sense." It also helps to downplay my abilities: "Je peux me débrouiller. / Oh, I can usually get by." In business terms, you can't expect to just jump in and carry on detailed, persuasive negotiations like a native. The mere fact that you're happy to speak Spanish at all will probably make a bigger difference than anything you might say. But there are other short-term advantages: When I wanted to translate my company site into French, I didn't need to hire a translator. Instead, I did the raw translation myself, and I hired an actual French copywriter (whom I picked because I liked her style) to produce the final copy. There's a lot of "back office" stuff where B2 will take you really far. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5373 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 548 of 668 26 October 2014 at 1:56pm | IP Logged | ||
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Great advice from all of you... and it is much appreciated. Sometimes I procrastinate and simply don't do things that I really should do. I've never really studied vocabulary for work or done any specialized training. I've always felt that just improving my general Spanish would be time better spent. I did write a few website pages in Spanish for my business and that helped a great deal... in fact I am amazed that just putting a short/simple Spanish page out there has actually generated some phone calls in Spanish. Now I'm at the point where I think it would help to actually make a more focused effort.
The "problem" I have is that when I speak to customers it seems that I have the worst possible set of circumstances: It is always on the phone and sometimes with a bad connection - I've never spoken to the person before so I am not adjusted to the way they talk - usually my customers are very excited and emotional when they call me - they are often of limited education and speak with slang - I never have a clue what they are going to talk about when they call. When I speak to customers in English I often have a hard time understanding them for these very same reasons and adding Spanish on top of it is what makes it more difficult. These factors are striking when I contrast my initial conversations to the conversations I have later on when I know what the person and their situation is all about and I meet with them. Later, after I am used to talking to the person and know what their situation is I can have very productive and helpful conversations. Spanish speakers seem to be incredibly forgiving and appreciative of people who have learned Spanish. I have never had any negative experiences. It makes me realize that there are simply not enough people out there to service Spanish speakers. I really like the idea, but need to keep from neglecting the regular business and not focus my growth efforts too much on Spanish speakers. I have resisted doing tutoring due to the cost, but maybe it is time to do some weekly focused sessions. I like the idea of doing simulated telephone calls because that is really what I need to do. One thing I have been thinking of doing in Mexico is go to a Spanish school and ask for some focused sessions related to my work. Watching something like Caso Cerrado would be helpful because the people are always different and their situations are always new/different. For some reason, however, I never have any problems understanding the TV show. Maybe I should just listen to it and not watch the video part. I started The Hunger Games book yesterday and am loving it after the first three chapters. It has that factor that I love... when I finish a chapter I want to read another. Hopefully it remains as interesting throughout the entire book. I had a bit of a difficult time understanding the first chapter, but after I got used to it I don't really seem to be having any problems. When I look up a word it seems that more often than not it is a word that is a made up word for the book. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5373 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 549 of 668 02 November 2014 at 3:29pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm chugging through The Hunger Games. For the last couple days I've been devouring it. I just finished the second part today. The last couple days I've been reading four-ish chapters a day. It is nice to find a book where I just want to keep on reading and reading. It is easy enough to understand that I basically skip words I don't know. There are certainly some words I don't know, but it doesn't really interfere at all with my understanding. I read a short English chapter summary after each chapter and I really don't miss anything important.
I also watched the Alex Rider movie in Spanish. It was not bad, but certainly not that great. Very different from the book. I'd say it was simple to understand... I was familiar with the basic story so that made it easier. I'm still listening to the VOA news every work-day morning. I watched the first episode of Extr@ Spanish on youtube. I like it. It is obviously simple to understand, but worth watching. I may continue watching it because I think I'll go through the French series sometime. I wish I knew about this series when I was more of a beginner in Spanish. It seems well done so far. I am surprised it is not mentioned more often on this forum. I also watched the first French episode. I had a decent meetup with a nice chat with a native speaker. I don't have talks very often with natives so when I do I see it as somewhat of a test for my Spanish. I need to have more conversations. I did have a nice Skype talk. One on one conversations are fairly easy for me now. I just need to do more of them. I'm starting to think more and more about what I'll do when I finish The Hunger Games. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4142 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 550 of 668 04 November 2014 at 9:06pm | IP Logged | ||
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The Hunger Games is definitely a page-turner! I'm glad you're enjoying it!
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| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5373 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 551 of 668 06 November 2014 at 1:46pm | IP Logged | ||
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I finished The Hunger Games today and also finished my goals for 2014. Mission accomplished. My final update of my 2014 goals:
Read any 15 books in Spanish. -> COMPLETE (15 DONE - Anthem, Joven Abogado #1 and #2, Narnia #1, Harry Potter #2 and #3, Alex Rider #1, CHERUB #1, The Hunger Games #1, Man, Economy and State, Think and Grow Rich, Cuando Era Puertorriquena, Short Stories in Spanish by New Penguin, Stories From Puerto Rico and El Intermediario). Watch any 100 30 minute TV episodes in Spanish -> COMPLETE (well over 100+ done) Re-read Cassell's Colloquial Spanish -> COMPLETE. Re-read Practice Makes Perfect "Subjunctive Up Close." -> COMPLETE. Discussion: I really liked The Hunger Games. In a way I am surprised I did because the plot seems a little nutty. There are some great characteristics of this book for language learning. I really liked that it was in the first person. It made it easy to follow. The perspective does not change so it is harder to get lost. The chapters were almost all the same length. This made planning/scheduling easy as I knew exactly how long it would take to read a chapter (roughly 25 minutes for me). Unfortunately the length meant that one chapter was not quite enough for me each day and two was too much time for my morning study. It really felt like a "real" book. The version I had had 400 pages and the pages felt like real solid pages. At the same time, however, I was able to feel like I was making regular progress through the book. Anyway, regarding my goals and Spanish development... I have thought a lot about how this year has helped me. I really needed to do something like this (read a bunch of books and do work on comprehension/listening). There is simply no substitute for a massive amount of content. I definitely boosted my vocabulary a ton. I am a lot more confident with my understanding and my reading. I have realized that, at least for me, that listening comprehension is going to be the biggest thorn in my side. My level of speaking is good enough to get by in most any social or work setting. Listening is what is going to hold me back in the future. The problem seems to be that it is the hardest skill to master. The good news is that it seems as though it is the easiest thing to work on without easy access to a native speaker. It is convenient to just flip on the computer and watch something in Spanish. Also, there are tons of resources available to watch/listen. I'm probably going to just mess around with a few things for the rest of the year and not embark on any new goals until the new year. I'd like to watch a season of The Simpsons and some episodes of Caso Cerrado. I also may do some more work on grammar as I have totally avoided active study this year with the exception of working through the subjunctive book. I've got the Gramatica del Uso book for the B1/B2 level that would be something nice to start working on. Maybe I'll start that. I think I'll set the books aside for a while. I'll definitely come back to them. I now have a nice stack of young adult books in Spanish to work through. I'll stick with things like The Hunger Games, Theodore Boone and Alex Rider for a while. Just between those three series I've got another eight or so books I can read. That should, hopefully, get my reading up to the next level where I can comfortably start reading books that are more directed toward adults. Well, the good news is that I still have the desire to continue working on my Spanish. I really have no urge to quit. Occasionally I feel like spending some of my Spanish time studying French instead, but those urges seem to be temporary. I've been re-thinking the business aspect of my Spanish. Spanish is definitely an asset for my business, but right now it is really not making much of an impact at all. I often think to myself "If I just quit studying Spanish and devote that extra hour a day into my business I'd be a hell of a lot better off." But, then I realize that I'm doing Spanish for me and I really enjoy learning the language and all the adventures it has given me. Some point in the future it may really help out my business and I'll certainly keep things moving in that direction, but for now I'm happy with what I'm doing and don't want to stop. Well, I've babbled enough. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| sfuqua Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4763 days ago 581 posts - 977 votes Speaks: English*, Hawaiian, Tagalog Studies: Spanish | Message 552 of 668 06 November 2014 at 10:44pm | IP Logged | ||
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I learned Samoan to a pretty high level quickly when I was in Peace Corps. After 2 years I tested at the equivalent of a C2 level, although an FSI test only covered conversation. Even at the level, my Samoan was not at the level of the English of some of my Samoan friends who had been educated overseas.
Even when we didn't speak Samoan, I think speaking it changed my relationship with Samoans. I remember talking to a famous Samoan author (who writes in English) early in my time in Samoa, before I spoke very well. He treated me as an ignorant outsider. Five years later I introduced him to the crowd when he gave a talk on one of his books. He didn't remember me. We chatted in Samoan for a couple of minutes before the crowd settled down, and then he began his talk in English. A couple of times during the discussion, he asked me questions (in English) about what I thought of certain points about his book and Samoan culture, treating me as an insider. The only thing I can think of that had changed is that my Samoan was much, much stronger. James, I am sure that your study and love of Spanish affects your relationship with Spanish speakers in many positive ways, even when you speak English. You might not even realize the effects until later. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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