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Sentence Mining Spanish TAC 2014

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39 messages over 5 pages: 1 24 5  Next >>
BaronBill
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 Message 17 of 39
28 October 2013 at 10:45pm | IP Logged 
Stelle wrote:

I *love* my Spanish italki tutors. Let me know if you need any recommendations! I've worked with 3 very good
teachers, all of them from Spain. They're priced anywhere between 10 and 15 dollars per hour - and very well-
qualified.


Thanks Stelle! I will definitely let you know.
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BaronBill
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Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Persian

 
 Message 18 of 39
30 October 2013 at 4:12am | IP Logged 
So, today at work I listened to about 12 Coffee Break Spanish Podcasts (started on lesson 15). They were fun and I did learn some stuff. I think I will listen to some more tomorrow.

I continued my ANKI quest and it is still going strong. I really need to focus on verbs for a little while. They are the glue that holds everything together.

I studied some grammar tonight for about an hour reading Webster's New World Spanish Grammar and Exercises book.

I have also just received in the mail "Breaking Out of Beginner's Spanish" by Joseph Keenan. I have to say it is quickly becoming one of my favorite books. If you are studying Spanish, you should definitely pick this book up.

I am continuing to read Harry Potter and am really enjoying it.

Thanks for reading!
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BaronBill
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Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Persian

 
 Message 19 of 39
31 October 2013 at 3:45am | IP Logged 
Ok, so I finally recorded my first Spanish video! It is pretty short, but at least I will have something to compare my progress with later.

Comments and feedback are encouraged.

My Spanish Video
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tastyonions
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 Message 20 of 39
31 October 2013 at 11:58pm | IP Logged 
Nice! I think I'm going to upload some audio soon, but I've never worked up the courage for a video (though there are lots of videos of Verbling classes with me in them floating around YouTube now, heh).

One pronunciation thing I'd recommend working on besides the usual things we Anglophones tend to have trouble with (making our vowels pure, the RR...) is changing your "D" when it comes between vowels (called "intervocalic"). In Spanish the intervocalic D is often similar to the English TH in the word "that", rather than a typical English D. A native speaker told me it can even be kind of confusing for him, because *our* intervocalic D sounds a lot like a Spanish single R to him. :-)

Here's a file to give you an idea (obviously it's not perfect, since it's me saying it!): https://www.dropbox.com/s/4f59ewx0nus7p4z/ciudad.mp3 (second version of "ciudad" is with normal English D)

Another thing: in Spanish when you say that you've been doing something for a certain length of time, you don't use "por." Often "for" (for example, "for a few months") is just left untranslated: link. On the other hand, Spanish uses "por" in situations where we wouldn't use "for", as in expressions like "por la tarde" or "por la mañana" (which I often mess up as "en la mañana").

Edited by tastyonions on 01 November 2013 at 2:01am

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tastyonions
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 Message 21 of 39
01 November 2013 at 2:00am | IP Logged 
Oh, I forgot to mention this excellent site given to me by a Spanish guy!: http://www.uiowa.edu/~acadtech/phonetics/#
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BaronBill
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 Message 22 of 39
01 November 2013 at 3:25pm | IP Logged 
Thanks tastyonions! I appreciate the feedback. That definitely gives me some things to work on.
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BaronBill
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Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Persian

 
 Message 23 of 39
19 November 2013 at 10:04pm | IP Logged 
I'll you all thought I had given up! Nope. Still going strong. My vocab is getting somewhat better, but I have primarily been focusing on verbs and their conjugations. SO MANY CONJUGATIONS! I know Spanish is supposed to be all easy (especially for a French speaker) but honestly, I had an easier time with German cases than I am having with Spanish verbs.

I'm still working on islands (small multi-sentence prepared monologues designed to help fluidity in speech as well as build confidence) as well as ANKI vocab.

I still have not booked an Italki lesson yet, but I plan to this week.

All in all, this is kind of the boring part of language learning. Just trying to get my vocab and grammar up to the point where I can actually do something with it.

Hopefully I'll be getting another video up soon to record my progress.
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BaronBill
Triglot
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Joined 4690 days ago

335 posts - 594 votes 
Speaks: English*, French, German
Studies: Spanish, Mandarin, Persian

 
 Message 24 of 39
16 December 2013 at 3:29am | IP Logged 
TAC 2014 Spanish Thread Starts Here

Well, it doesn't look like I achieved everything I wanted to with this challenge, so I decided to run an experiment and use the 2014 TAC to help keep me motivated and on task. So, this will start my 2014 TAC Spanish log:

My Spanish plan this year will be an experiment in sentence mining. Everyday, I plan to learn 10 new sentences. Each of them will contain either a new structure or a new vocabulary word. I will put them into ANKI and review everyday. This will be the extent of my formal study. I will toss in a few Skype conversations a month as well as 2 live Spanish meetup groups per month. I am curious how this will work for me as I already have a reasonable foundation in grammar and vocab.

I will post more as the Challenge kicks off on 1/1/13!


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