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| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4145 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes  Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 41 of 118 21 January 2014 at 11:23am | IP Logged | |||||
I know that a lot of people swear by background listening that they can't yet understand, but I'm of the opinion that Spanish that you can't understand at all isn't really much use - especially if it's boring. I think that music is definitely the way to go if you're looking for background noise! And then you can save the podcasts for when you have time to focus on them and try to understand what they're saying. What podcasts are you listening to? I think I need to branch out, but there are so many Spanish-language podcasts that I find it a bit overwhelming to sift through all of them. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Warp3 Senior Member United States forum_posts.asp?TID= Joined 5536 days ago 1419 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Korean, Japanese | Message 42 of 118 21 January 2014 at 12:26pm | IP Logged | |||||
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That depends on how early you are in your studies. If you are still early enough in the
process, almost any native audio is beneficial since it gets your brain used to the natural prosody of the language which makes it easier for your brain to separate words in audio. Once you've hit the point where you brain can do that pretty easily, though, then I agree that you are much better off with something you can at least kind of understand. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| ryanl321 Groupie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4365 days ago 94 posts - 101 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish | Message 43 of 118 22 January 2014 at 4:44am | IP Logged | |||||
Thanks for your comments! I can understand about 50-80% of the podcasts when I'm paying attention but honestly I'm usually tuning it out when I'm working and if I'm not paying attention I won't understand anything. I didn't know if there was a subconscious benefit at least. Based on what I gather here, probably as much as I'm thinking. However, I have realized that even though I'm not paying attention, I will dart off into space or take a quick break and catch a few moments of the podcast and notice several words, recall and/or bring deeper into my brain. I think from this standpoint, if I didn't have the podcast running in the background, those moments wouldn't happen. Quantifying the value vs. possibly doing other things even more enjoyable is tough. I use podcasts that I imported into lingQ, these are podcasts from my wife's church that I told her I would listen to if they were in a language I was learning!! So they're like 15 minutes long. I listen to other podcasts from LingQ but I do get bored with them. I do have music that I enjoy, from Shakira and Sandoval. Need to start dinging for some new Spanish materials.. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| ryanl321 Groupie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4365 days ago 94 posts - 101 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish | Message 44 of 118 22 January 2014 at 4:46am | IP Logged | |||||
Thanks for your comments Warp3. I'm just a bit past the basics and can understand about half of the material. As I replied to Stelle's post, I think there is a benefit to playing the podcast in the background. I just think I could find something more enjoyable. I need to be on the hunt for some new materials! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| ryanl321 Groupie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4365 days ago 94 posts - 101 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish | Message 45 of 118 22 January 2014 at 5:01am | IP Logged | |||||
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I wonder how people go about their Anki deck - is it quality or quantity? For example, if I have a word "verhalten
sich", and I miss it, should I develop a mnemonic, understand how the inseperable "ver" and the reflexive "sich" normally impacts the infinitive, whereby developing a strong connection that takes a few minutes or just power through the deck? I did both today and I forget the mnemonic just as easily as the word as time passes? Perhaps I should bring out my "Moonwalking with Einstein" book and develop better memory castles… German - met Duo goals and got through a big portion of my Anki deck. I didn't reduce the deck. I really want to get through this 300 card deck this week so I can power through my podcast. I want to understand the entire 15 min podcast before the end of this week. Did about 30 minutes of listening on my way to a client. As I mentioned above, I've been considering developing more a mnemonic tool to my learning. I go back and forth with this and the benefits. Quality vs. quantity is something I struggle with regarding my language learning. Spanish - met Duo goals and did 30 minutes of podcasts on the way home. No Anki as of yet, will try to power through this if I can get through my German deck. I hate spending this much time on Anki but I really want to understand this one podcast in both German and Spanish by this week. I don't know if it's possible but I'll try. The spanish one maybe a little improbable at this point. French - Almost caught up with my reading and pronunciation assignments, I'm only behind one now! Did 30 minutes of Pims this AM and met Duo goals. My Duo goals were way behind. That took a lot to get caught up today. Need to power through Duolingo this week. I made a Lingot bet to get 400 points this week so the extra motivation doesn't hurt!! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| ryanl321 Groupie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4365 days ago 94 posts - 101 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish | Message 46 of 118 23 January 2014 at 7:15am | IP Logged | |||||
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Actually stayed home sick today. I wasn't that bad and I never really take time off so in essence I sitll worked
but just stayed home. However, for some reason I had no problem getting through all my Anki decks and finishing my Duo goals! German - I didn't realize I could get the Deutsche Welle Video Thema's through my apple TV. I finished half of the Ticket Nach Berlin segments and got through a lot of Video Thema's. Nice to have this now but I'm not sure how much it helps my learning. I'll just have to keep going back to it and ensure I pick up stuff and can measure my progress. I'm really excited to start measuring my progress through the use of LingQ and the podcasts on dw.de. After I finish this podcast and get through the Anki deck for it, I'll do shorter Top Thema's. Learning a 15 minute podcast is just too much time on Anki. I despise spending too much time on Anki. Also, my Saturday German partner and I agreed to focus on idioms for Saturday. Looking forward.. Spanish - nothing to report new here, watched movies in the background with my daughter. Should have put the Spanish subtitles on Alvin and the Chipmucks so I could have looked up every now and again and gotten some good Spanish practice. Hind sight is great... French - Did only 10 minutes of Pims while I was getting ready, I did a lot of Duo catch up here so I'm not too disappointed. Need a committment for French on LingQ. I just don't think I'm ready yet.. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| ryanl321 Groupie United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4365 days ago 94 posts - 101 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Spanish | Message 47 of 118 24 January 2014 at 5:58am | IP Logged | |||||
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Was a busy day of work today but I managed over the course of the day to put in 55 minutes of Anki, blah!!
However, I find that Anki is much more fun if it is one or two words and I can move through it fairly quickly. Need a total of 200 more points on Duolingo to beat my goal for 400 total points this week, I would say I'm a little behind. German - made a new Brieffreundin, spent about 10 minutes emailing back and forth. I haven't done that in a while and I would my active spelling and recollection of written words has certainly regressed. Just one of the many things I need to pick up again. Have about 120 cards left in Anki to complete before this weekend. Listened to about 15 minutes of songs and will hit Video Thema tonight. Met Duo goals. Spanish - Met duo goals and listened to about 10 minutes of music. Have 160 cards left in my Anki deck, I could finish that by Sunday but it'll be tough. Tomorrow, active learning, active, active, active. Take a few words from Anki and make up a subject to talk about, just do it! French - got through about 50 minutes of Pims this AM and driving to my client who is a bit away. Have reviewed this lesson now already at least 2 1/2 times, I can't grasp how to negate a sentence very well and I can't count very good either. Such a beginner. Surprisingly the one lesson I did on LingQ still sticks like crazy, "Quel est votre nom?" Not sure if that is right but if it is that's pretty good for me.. Guess it's going to be a long weekend, I still need to get in 3x swims, 1 long bike, 2 weights, and 2 runs. Going to do lot's of dual purpose activities in the next three days. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4145 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 48 of 118 24 January 2014 at 11:36am | IP Logged | |||||
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re: anki. I put a word, with one - or perhaps two - definitions on each card. I go from L1->L2, and I make the cards
myself, so I rarely have dozens and dozens of news cards in a day. (That also has to do with my own particular learning style, though. I'm more slacker than OCD, so I'm very unlikely to create more than 5 or 10 new cards at a time, and even that doesn't happen every single day.) I've discovered that my "sweet spot" for anki is about 15 minutes per day. Any more than that, and I find myself dreading doing it. So if my cards are bunched up and I find myself with too many reviews one week, I'll just add fewer new cards until things settle down again. At the beginning, I was getting anki words from everywhere, since everything was so new. Now, I mostly take them from tutoring or conversation sessions. I figure that those are the words that are most useful to me while speaking, which is really what I'm aiming to improve by studying anki. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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