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Stelle Speaks Spanish and Tagalog | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4146 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes  Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 1 of 384 26 July 2013 at 9:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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December 2014 update: I'm joining TAC again in 2015, even though I hadn't planned on it. I've decided to join
a TAC team for Spanish and another for Tagalog. I've moved away from learning Spanish and am focused on simply using it instead. My current approach is to exclusively use native materials (novels, podcasts, TV shows, conversation partners). The short version: I want to improve my conversational skills; read lots; and understand Spanish movies and television. I'm currently working on the Super Challenge (reading 100 50-page "books" and watching 100 90-minute "movies" in 15 months). I'm also working (very slowly) on learning Tagalog. I started a separate Tagalog log in May 2014, but I decided to merge the two logs to keep updates more manageable. While my focus was on anki, a textbook-and-workbook course (Elementary Tagalog), and conversations on Skype, my motivation completely crashed and burned in Fall 2014. Now I've abdicated all responsibility and am using Rosetta Stone. Yes, I do see the irony in using a program that I've disparaged for the past decade. I plan on finishing all three levels in the next few months and then jumping back into my other resources. my original Tagalog log Thanks for reading! Hello! I'm new to this forum. While I've been teaching languages for years, I never even thought about looking for online language learning communities. Then when I dove into learning Spanish, I stumbled upon one blog, which led me to another, which led me to another, which led me to a forum, which led me to create a blog of my own, which led me to another forum, which...well, I'm sure you understand. Anyway, my goal is to be fluent in Spanish by March 2014, when I'll be heading to Spain for six weeks to walk the Camino de Santiago. Today marks the two-month point since I started studying, so I figured I may as well start a video log - even if seeing/hearing myself on video makes me cringe a bit. I wish I could start over and make videos on day one, and at the end of month one! I'll have to remember to do that when I start learning my next language. Anyway, here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FeVAxybAtNk Until September 11th 2013 (post # 82), I kept a daily log of minutes spent on Spanish, since I was participating in the six-week challenge. As of post # 83, my posts are more general and don't include a daily break-down of tasks. post 83+ Edited by Stelle on 21 December 2014 at 4:17pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4146 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 2 of 384 29 July 2013 at 3:09pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hola! I've decided to ramp up my study time by adding a few 30-minute Skype tutor
sessions. I already do 5 weekly language exchanges (30 mins Spanish, 30 mins French/English) and 2 hours of tutoring, but I need as much conversation practice as I can get. The more I talk on Skype, the less helpful I find other tools. A lot of the "beginner Spanish" activities that I did at first are less helpful now, since conversation practice is helping me progress so much faster. If you're learning a language, I strongly recommend practicing with native speakers! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4146 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 3 of 384 02 August 2013 at 1:59am | IP Logged | ||
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I'm not sure if I'm doing this learning log thing right, but here goes!
I joined the six-week challenge. My goal is to spend 180 minutes (3 hours) every day on language learning. I said that I work part-time, because my schedule is flexible. One day I work lots, the next I don't work at all. Every day, I try to hit five categories: talk to someone listen to something read something write something practice vocabulary Here's a more detailed explanation of how I view those categories: http://www.tobefluent.com/2013/07/29/how-i-self-study-spanis h-dont-overcomplicate- things/ Anyway, here are my numbers from day one: talk to someone: 90 minutes - 60 minutes with Skype Spanish tutor - 30 minutes (half of a one-hour block of time) with Skype language partner listen to something: 26 minutes - 20 minutes listening to two podcasts on Notes in Spanish - 6 minutes listening to my song of the week twice read something: 20 minutes - Charlie y la fábrica de chocolate. I'm almost done this book, and I understand the vast majority of it. Of course, I've read it several times in English already... write something: 10 minutes - stem-changing verbs - chapter 8 of Practice Makes Perfect Spanish Verb Tenses practice vocabulary: 38 minutes - Anki. This is about 3 times longer than I usually spend on Anki, but I've been neglecting inputting new vocabulary, so that took me a long time today. Inputting it was a good review. Tomorrow, I'm going to dig through some of my recent Skype sessions and add some more vocab to Anki. TOTAL MINUTES: 184 Good start to the challenge! 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| kujichagulia Senior Member Japan Joined 4849 days ago 1031 posts - 1571 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Japanese, Portuguese | Message 4 of 384 02 August 2013 at 2:10am | IP Logged | ||
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Good luck!
EDIT: By the way, I like your simplified category system. As someone who is constantly, consistently changing his study schedule, I may borrow that for my own studies, if you don't mind. :) Edited by kujichagulia on 02 August 2013 at 2:15am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Lakeseayesno Tetraglot Senior Member Mexico thepolyglotist.com Joined 4336 days ago 280 posts - 488 votes Speaks: English, Spanish*, Japanese, Italian Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 5 of 384 02 August 2013 at 4:04am | IP Logged | ||
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After seeing your video, I thought your Spanish is unbelievably good for two months. You already had a base, though, so I guess that more than starting from scratch, a lot must have come back to you at the start.
The small details I noticed in it are that you spell R like you would in French, and stumble a bit as to where to use what preposition (as in "soy de ...., estoy en ...., voy a...."). Todo se arregla con práctica. ;) Buena suerte! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4146 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 6 of 384 02 August 2013 at 11:04am | IP Logged | ||
I had to simplify. I found that I was spending as much time at first tweaking my schedule as actually studying! Ha! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4146 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 7 of 384 02 August 2013 at 11:12am | IP Logged | ||
Thanks for the tips and feedback! Yes, prepositions are a huge stumbling block! So are verb tenses. I did have a small Spanish base before starting - although I think that I passed what I already knew within the first week or two. Still, it really helped when I was first starting out. My university course wasn't that great. I was able to conjugate verbs, but couldn't speak, understand, or read much. The verbs, sadly, haven't come back to me yet. I have to do some old-fashioned grammar study, since right now I'm only really comfortable with the present tense. I actually think that my French fluency helps me more than my 15-year-old first year introduction to Spanish course. I use French as a crutch for vocab and grammar. Of course, it doesn't always work - as you can see from the way that I butcher prepositions. Ha! Again, some grammar study is in order. I have two Practice Makes Perfect workbooks: Spanish Verb Tenses and Pronouns & Prepositions. I think that I should commit to spending at least 20 minutes on grammar every day during the challenge. My tutor isn't wild about the Practice Makes Perfect series - too much English, too many translations - but it's what I have, so it's what I'll use. According to my tutor, my fluency level (ease of communication) is somewhere around a B1 right now, but my knowledge of verb tenses and grammatical structures is lower than that. So I'm not sure where I'd be if I tested - maybe A2? Edited by Stelle on 02 August 2013 at 11:14am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| JCTranslator Pentaglot Newbie United Kingdom Joined 4137 days ago 19 posts - 26 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, Mandarin, Italian, French Studies: Japanese | Message 8 of 384 02 August 2013 at 12:44pm | IP Logged | ||
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I used Practice Makes Perfect Spanish Verb Tenses and I found it great! The explanations were particularly good.
It looks like you're making great progress, you have much more gumption than I when it comes to speaking! I'm looking forward to seeing how you get on over the coming year. ¡Buena suerte! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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