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Kerrie TAC 2015 Team Caesar SP BrPT ASL | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4142 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes  Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 153 of 246 05 January 2014 at 9:43pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks for describing your approach to vocab! I actually find myself drifting away from active vocab study, but I
think that I really, really need to recommit to it. I like your very simple approach of a notebook! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Kerrie Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Kerrie2 Joined 5393 days ago 1232 posts - 1740 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 155 of 246 19 January 2014 at 9:20pm | IP Logged | ||
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@DDL I think team Lobo has been doing really well, even though I've been AWOL the past few weeks. We have a great team. :)
I apologize for not being around, especially at such a busy time of the TAC year. Life has been rather unpleasant to me the past few weeks, but hopefully things will start to settle down over the next week. I spent part of this weekend catching up on logs. I think I got through most of team Lobo and Triomphe, and some of Gumiho. The rest I plan to catch up on next weekend. So, I ended up missing the sign up deadline for the +1Challenge, but I'm going to do it anyways. My goal is to start speaking Spanish. I've mentioned it before, but I have this horrid fear of ... I don't even know. Making a fool of myself? Making mistakes? Sounding stupid? It's all rather silly, because that is how we learn. And I know that. So why do I have that irrational fear? So for the next three months, my goal (for the +1Challenge) is to start talking in Spanish. Aloud. I was going to sign up for the iTalki 20 lesson challenge, but it's really outside of my budget, so I'll have to settle for finding free chat partners. There are enough sites that I can find random people to chat with, if nothing else. And I will talk in Spanish at least a little every day, even if it's only 5 minutes to myself in the car on the way to work, or in the shower. 2014 is the year for me to overcome this. I had thought of doing French or Korean for it, but realistically, I do not have a lot of time right now as it is, and I'm hoping to sell my house and move in the next 3-4 months, so it is not really the time for intense focus on any language. Right now, I'm focusing on getting my world put back together, getting out from under this house, and moving to a place that I can afford. Then I will have a lot more time (both free time, and mental time) to focus on funner things. Like languages. :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Kerrie Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Kerrie2 Joined 5393 days ago 1232 posts - 1740 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 156 of 246 19 January 2014 at 9:27pm | IP Logged | ||
Oh, I forgot to mention. Part of my challenge to myself is to log 20 hours of conversation (with a partner) by the end of April. That will take me well into my conversation goals for Spanish for the year, and it will help me get over this stupid irrational mindset of mine. :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Kerrie Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Kerrie2 Joined 5393 days ago 1232 posts - 1740 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 157 of 246 19 January 2014 at 9:28pm | IP Logged | ||
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Placeholder for Super Challenge / 2014 goals
for reading, listening, and speaking Spanish Books Divergente (Veronica Roth) 464pp Insurgente (Veronica Roth) 448pp Leál (Veronica Roth) 496pp Movies Frozen (El Reino del Hielo) El Señor de los Anillos: La Communidad del Anillo Edited by Kerrie on 31 March 2014 at 12:26am 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 158 of 246 19 January 2014 at 10:01pm | IP Logged | ||
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Sounds like there's a lot of stress going on in your life right now. :( Take care of yourself - that's what's most
important. If you're nervous about talking to people at first, you might feel better if you do a little bit of prep. My first week speaking Spanish, I showed a picture of a family member to my partner, described him/her and then answered some of my partner's questions. Having a "prop" helped me get over my feelings of silliness and discomfort. It was a useful crutch. And I was able to use it for as long as I needed to, since I could just show a picture of a different person every day. ;) 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Kerrie Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Kerrie2 Joined 5393 days ago 1232 posts - 1740 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 159 of 246 28 January 2014 at 1:51am | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks, Stelle. Things are mostly starting to settle down. My car is fixed, the financial issues are starting to iron themselves out, and my job is okay now.
I had a "4-day long weekend" this weekend, and I had planned to get on Skype or Verbling or other chat exchange and just *do it* and talk to some random people to get started, but ... alas ... we got hit with snow again. Lots of it. Ridiculous amounts of it. We've had about 80 inches of snow in the last two months, and we are going into our second round of "polar vortex" air. Yea, it's winter. But I've never seen a winter like this before, it's unbelievable. But alas ... the children had Friday off of school for the weather, and then my long weekend all of a sudden became much less productive. Then last night, we got another 10 inches of snow dumped on us, and alas ... the children had Monday off school too! So much for any quiet time to get anything accomplished, really. Plus, the neighbor kids came over, so instead of my regular two kids, I had four. However, all was not lost. While I was shoveling the knee-deep snow from behind my car (so I can get out and go to work tomorrow morning), I was talking to myself in Spanish. Of course, I was talking to myself in my head, because I was out of breath, throwing shovelfuls of snow into piles that were already 5ft high, but I was talking to myself in Spanish! It's actually relatively effective to talk to yourself, because you realize words you don't know. Like "to shovel" - which is actually fairly easy to figure out, if you know the word for a shovel. :D I like your suggestion of having a picture or prop as a crutch as first. I wouldn't even call it a crutch, just a tool. I think I will try it, too. :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Kerrie Senior Member United States justpaste.it/Kerrie2 Joined 5393 days ago 1232 posts - 1740 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 160 of 246 01 March 2014 at 10:08pm | IP Logged | ||
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My girls and I normally go out to breakfast on Saturday. One of the local churches hosts a free pancake breakfast every week, and we've been going there for a year or two. It's really cool, and I've gotten to know a lot of the women who volunteer there, since we go regularly . This morning, Faith was telling me that she was trying to learn Spanish, and that she kind of didn't care for Rosetta Stone, because there's no translations, and sometimes it's hard to figure out what they're trying to teach. Plus, she hates sitting at the computer. :D Of course, I groaned when she said Rosetta Stone. She's in her 40s or 50s, and trying to learn her first language. She really has no experience with this sort of thing. I suggested she try the Michel Thomas course and Assimil - I really like both programs, and I think they would work better for someone with her more active lifestyle. I went on Amazon to try to find the original MT foundation course for her, and I realized that they have all new sets out. From a lot of the reviews, it seems that the new (blue packaged) courses are actually conducted by a different teacher. Looking for the older foundation courses done by Michel, I found you could still get them, but they are exorbitantly expensive. Worse than Pimsleur expensive. Of course, they are "out there" if anyone wants to get them, and I'm always happy to let someone listen to the first CD or two (to see if it's right for them), but I always encourage folks to buy something if they are really going to use it. I was really sad to see that the original courses are not readily available anymore. I directed her to Spanish With Ease and Duolingo, which I think are far better than Rosetta Stone, and to SprachProfi's 72 Ways to Learn Spanish for Free. Anyone have any other ideas where to direct her? She's at a really basic beginner level, and it seems like so much of the advice here is for people who at least have a clue what they're doing when it comes to learning languages. :D 1 person has voted this message useful |
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