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Bolio’s Spanish Log | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| BOLIO Senior Member United States Joined 4660 days ago 253 posts - 366 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 65 of 344 31 March 2014 at 3:04pm | IP Logged | ||
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The trip was fun and I had a good time with friends. However, I did not spend as much time on my Spanish as I thought I would have done. Oh well, a new week is here. Yesterday, I did get caught up on my ANKI. I am working through 6 different decks.
Weeks' goals; Listen while reading 5 chapters from my book (Highlight unknown words) Iversen wordlist the words from book FSI Units 4 and part of 5 ANKI decks every other day 4 Passive Assimil lessons Duolingo daily during down time 32 hrs done / 418 to go 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| BOLIO Senior Member United States Joined 4660 days ago 253 posts - 366 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 66 of 344 31 March 2014 at 8:45pm | IP Logged | ||
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I wanted to share a surprise. I just bought tickets for me and the family for Mexico. We are traveling to a part of Mexico that I knew very little about. It is in the State of Chiapas. We have family that has taken an extended trip down there and have fallen in love with the people. They live in San Cristobal de las casas. We will be leaving the first week of June for 10 days. My family and I are very excited! I am super motivated to study as much and as hard as I can for our trip. I am certain I can schedule 15 hrs of study per week (times 9 weeks = 135 hrs of study). I hope I can improve a lot between now and then. Our family says the area does not have a huge "Gringo" population compared to other areas in Mexico and they claim in will be quite easy to avoid English while being there. I am studying as much as I can about the area and I have always been fascinated with Pre-Columbian cultures. There are places to see sites from the Mokaya,Olmec and Mayan cultures.
This means we will have to put off our trip to Querétaro until next year. However,it will be worth it because we will be with our family in Chiapas. And Querétaro gives me something, as far as Spanish travel, to look forward to for next year. ¡Adelante! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5377 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 67 of 344 01 April 2014 at 1:47am | IP Logged | ||
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Chiapas is a great destination. It is near the top of my list for spots to go in Mexico. It has huge advantages... fascinating culture, wonderful people, great food and I believe it is the cheapest place in Mexico too. That's motivating. Enjoy.
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| Crush Tetraglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5867 days ago 1622 posts - 2299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto Studies: Basque | Message 68 of 344 01 April 2014 at 5:05am | IP Logged | ||
I was actually surprised to see nancydown's explanation of the English present perfect, you must be an English teacher! I don't know many people who can actually explain their native language's grammar, especially not something as complex as a verb tense! In Spanish, i believe it's generally called the "pretérito perfecto compuesto" or sometimes "antepresente". Anyway, Bolio, it's exciting to hear you'll be going on another trip! EDIT: And just to clarify, if you just follow the English rules for the present perfect you'll generally be fine in Spanish. The real trouble tenses are the imperfect and preterite! Edited by Crush on 01 April 2014 at 5:08am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| nancydowns Senior Member United States Joined 3924 days ago 184 posts - 288 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written) | Message 69 of 344 02 April 2014 at 4:19am | IP Logged | ||
Ha! Not an English teacher, but I do like grammar. I think that may be a good thing and a bad thing in learning languages. I think I get too focused on grammar too early, and it also hinders me from wanting to speak because I want to be proper. I wouldn't say anything (except colloquialisms) in bad grammar in English, and I don't want to in another language, either. I probably know quite a bit of Spanish grammar for my level of learning because I have focused on it so much, but I don't have the vocabulary that someone at my level should have because I left that on the back burner... so now I need to learn some words! :-) But really for Bolio, don't worry too much about the names of the tenses and being perfectly proper. You have some absolutely wonderful opportunities to just speak and to hear, so you will start picking up the correct way to get your point across. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| nancydowns Senior Member United States Joined 3924 days ago 184 posts - 288 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written) | Message 70 of 344 02 April 2014 at 4:22am | IP Logged | ||
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Wow, Bolio! I am so glad you get to go to Mexico! That is sooo wonderful. You are definitely going to be speeding ahead of me, especially
if you put in 15 hours a week on Spanish. That's where learning two at once isn't doing me any favors! :-) But I will enjoy seeing your progress, and it will motivate me to keep going! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| BOLIO Senior Member United States Joined 4660 days ago 253 posts - 366 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 71 of 344 02 April 2014 at 5:56pm | IP Logged | ||
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I have fallen behind schedule for the week as far as hours. Monday was OK with 2 hrs but yesterday was horrible. I had 15 minutes for the day and that was forced into my schedule so that I could continue to say that I study Spanish every day. However, today will be a big day as my schedule allows me Wednesday nights for more study and as of writing this, I already have an hour under my belt before coming to work today. I will finish unit 4 today in FSI along with 2 hours of Reading/Listening/wordlisting tonight. Also, I am two days behind on 6 decks of ANKI.
I have also dug up My Michel Thomas Spanish for time in my vehicle. I love the structure of the tapes but the UK Student grinds on my nerves to the point I have never finished the course. Also, MTs accent is tough to listen to but the design of the course is very nice. I will complete it while traveling to and from work and while I am out and about. Hours Completed 35 Hours to go 415 Edited by BOLIO on 02 April 2014 at 6:57pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Crush Tetraglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5867 days ago 1622 posts - 2299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto Studies: Basque | Message 72 of 344 03 April 2014 at 2:20am | IP Logged | ||
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Another option is the Language Transfer Spanish course. It's not finished yet, but it's free and just has one student who probably won't have as many mistakes. The Greek course is wonderful, though i've never done the Spanish one (it came out a bit too late for it to really be useful for me). It's a similar style to Michel Thomas, but with a much better accent (probably an Argentinian accent).
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