kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4887 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish
| Message 17 of 28 24 September 2012 at 9:21pm | IP Logged |
The Hump
This is the hard part. My courses have covered all the tenses (or at least, it sure
feels like they have), and now it's a matter of keeping them all straight. I'm going
to cruise for a bit with Assimil and Pimsleur, and let things assimilate and settle,
and then go back and hit the more intense courses.
Progress the last week:
Michel Thomas Espagnol Perfectionnement - to Lesson 2. The first two hours were
fine, and I enjoyed going from French > Spanish. The teacher is not Michel Thomas; he
sounds younger, and a bit less gruff. I like him. I ran into trouble with the third
hour when they started mixing the subjunctive, conditional, future, and past tenses in
each lesson. Part of the problem is that I don't hear them that well in French, so I
was constantly getting them wrong.
I use audio tapes while commuting, as an add-on to my studying. If they get too hard it
doesn't work - I need to focus somewhat on my driving or biking. I'll come back to
this in a few weeks.
Pimsluer III - to Lesson 3. So I started this on my commute. It has the same strengths and weaknesses as all the Pimsleur. Parts are just irritating; they over-
drill some of the most dull phrases - I think I've had to say mi esposo es un
ingeniero ten to fifteen times already. But there will be something new in each
episode, and I honestly finish the half hour a little ahead of where I was before.
Assimil - to lesson 72. It's just as Gothic as I remember. The lessons are
longer, and I have to do the active and passive phases in two sessions now. It's too
tiring to try and do them back to back - it's taking me 30" to 45" just to work through
the passive lesson.
I've read that lessons 60-80 is the hardest stretch. I hope so! I'd like to finish the
passive phases before we head to Guatemala.
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Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4666 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali
| Message 18 of 28 25 September 2012 at 1:58am | IP Logged |
''mi esposo es un ingeniero''
I think in Spanish, names of profession don't take the article, unless an adjective is used ;)
Edited by Medulin on 25 September 2012 at 1:59am
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kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4887 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish
| Message 19 of 28 25 September 2012 at 3:54am | IP Logged |
Yeah, you're right.
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sfuqua Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4763 days ago 581 posts - 977 votes Speaks: English*, Hawaiian, Tagalog Studies: Spanish
| Message 20 of 28 25 September 2012 at 5:26am | IP Logged |
I'm at passive 104, active 55 in Spanish with Ease, so I'm right at the end of the
passive wave. The passive wave really eases up after lesson 80, and I'm back down to
finishing both the active and passive waves in 45 minutes. I'm learning new vocabulary
steadily, but I don't feel like I'm learning new grammar.
Spanish with Ease does ease up at the end, but I'm less satisfied with it now; like it's
going to end with a whimper instead of a bang.
steve
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justonelanguage Diglot Groupie United States Joined 4460 days ago 98 posts - 128 votes Speaks: English, Spanish
| Message 21 of 28 25 September 2012 at 7:50pm | IP Logged |
I don't know if somebody pointed it out yet, but it should be, "Mamá acaba DE morir en la bañera."
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sfuqua Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4763 days ago 581 posts - 977 votes Speaks: English*, Hawaiian, Tagalog Studies: Spanish
| Message 22 of 28 26 September 2012 at 9:05pm | IP Logged |
Kanewai, I'm finding Michel Thomas Spanish very easy, but still useful even though I'm
right at the end of the passive wave in Spanish with Ease.
Do you think it would be worthwhile to go through Pimsleur at this point? I've got
Pimsleur 1-90.
steve
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kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4887 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish
| Message 23 of 28 26 September 2012 at 10:01pm | IP Logged |
Steve - yeah, if you already have it then Pimsleur would be an excellent suppement. I'm
finding even the third level pretty easy at this point, but it's a nice as a refresher.
I would definitely recommend that you use it as an addition, though, rather than
as a replacement for anything else. I'll put it on when I'm cleaning, or commuting, or
when I have down time, or even if I'm out for a walk. I don't think I could stay awake
for a whole lesson if I did it while sitting down and actively studying.
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kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4887 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish
| Message 24 of 28 03 October 2012 at 11:38pm | IP Logged |
Week 11 (Round 6): Still on the Hump
I'm studying around 90" a day, and yet my progress has slowed the past two weeks. I
feel like I'm finally on the cusp of entering into a new phase of Spanish knowledge.
B1 is still a ways off, but it is finally in sight! This is the point where I've
stalled before - I know a lot, but it's all kind of jumbled and random. Last year I
pushed past this same barrier in French, so I have a lot more confidence now that I'll
be able to it with Spanish.
But it is a barrier - and I think I'm going to have to sit down and do some actual old-
fashioned studying to get past it. Assimil and Pimsleur and MT can only help me so
much. I really need to get a better grasp of some of the verbs tenses. In particular, I
keep stumbling on the preterite and imperfect of estar, haber, hacer, ir, ser
and tenir. I need to get these down if I'm going to move forward.
It'll be like High School Latin again - anyone else remember drilling amō amās amat
/ amāmus amātis amant until it became second nature?
Pimsleur 3 to Lesson 15. This is the first one I've had to repeat, but most of
my problems came from not listening to the English close enough to do a proper
translation.
Assmil through Lesson 80 (passive) / 31 (active). It's now taking me several
days to get through each pair. I can read the lesson just fine, but it's not sticking!
I thought I could finish the passive wave before November 8; now I'm not sure.
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