Kunji Newbie United States Joined 4044 days ago 19 posts - 24 votes Studies: Spanish
| Message 1 of 18 17 November 2013 at 6:27am | IP Logged |
I have been watching an interesting kind of Spanish learning program called Bueno
Entonces. It is all video based. It is very entertaining and I am really enjoying it,
but I don't feel like I am learning anything.
They don't actually 'teach' in this method that I can tell. They will throw some
words at you really fast in a lesson and never talk about them again. If you don't
remember a word from being exposed to it once you won't really pick up on anything.
Well, I have learned "por ejemplo" and "hola oyentes" which is said in every single
show. I am on lesson 18 of 30 and I can't think of anything else I have retained. Some
of the grammar lessons are good and I feel they have helped solidify a few things.
I am hoping someone here has had some experience with these lessons and can let me know
if it helped them, how they used it, or home many times they had to watch each video
before they picked up any new vocabulary. I like the videos and feel like I should be
getting more out of them. Maybe I need to watch them all the way through a few times
(that would be about 18 hours to make it through 1-30 each time!) I would need someone
who has done this before to tell he how it worked before I dedicated that much time to
this program not seeing much results the first time!
Edited by Kunji on 17 November 2013 at 6:27am
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James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5378 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French
| Message 2 of 18 17 November 2013 at 11:57am | IP Logged |
I watched one of those videos. It seems pretty cool, but, I doubt it really does much in terms of teaching. There is a member on this forum (dbag) who watched those videos and liked them, but I recall him saying something very similar to you. Cool idea and enjoyable to watch, but probably not the greatest use of time for learning. There is no active component and being active in the language seems important in the early stages.
I saw you are doing Pimsleur. Pimsleur -> Michel Thomas -> Assimil -> FSI is a recipe for success in Spanish (in that order). With those four programs you really don't need anything else to get to a good solid level.
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Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6600 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish
| Message 3 of 18 17 November 2013 at 3:10pm | IP Logged |
For a fun video-based course with a lot of revision try Destinos, a telenovela for learners. It's available online for free (legally).
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I saw you are doing Pimsleur. Pimsleur -> Michel Thomas -> Assimil -> FSI is a recipe for success in Spanish (in that order). With those four programs you really don't need anything else to get to a good solid level. |
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Unless Spanish speakers are unusually hard to find in your area/state, an important component is actual practice with native speakers. Actually, the four programs seem like overkill to me. Have a look at iguanamon's posts.
Edited by Serpent on 17 November 2013 at 3:46pm
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Warp3 Senior Member United States forum_posts.asp?TID= Joined 5538 days ago 1419 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Korean, Japanese
| Message 4 of 18 17 November 2013 at 5:27pm | IP Logged |
Your description of "Bueno Entonces" sounds a lot like my experience with "Let's Speak
Korean" (a TV series that originally aired in South Korea that teaches Korean in 10-minute
episodes). They covered a lot of useful material, but never really reviewed anything (unlike
courses like Pimsleur that do so intentionally, but also have to cover less total material in
the same amount of time as a result).
As such, once I realized how little I was retaining from LSK, I started the series over and
started adding any new info from each episode to my SRS (Anki, in my case). This way I
extracted the parts I wanted to learn and put them into a form that will repeat them for me
until I learn them.
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James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5378 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French
| Message 5 of 18 17 November 2013 at 6:47pm | IP Logged |
"an important component is actual practice with native speakers"
The poster is having difficulty with lesson 27 of Pimsleur. Speaking with natives is going to be a huge waste of time at that level. Spending an hour with Michel Thomas for a non-linguist beginner is going to be about 10 times as efficient as speaking with natives.
The courses I mentioned are extremely efficient, fun and they are all different from each other. If they are done in the order I suggested they will limit the odds of burn out and maximize the chances of success with the language. On just half an hour a day, those courses can all be completed in less than two years.
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Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6600 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish
| Message 6 of 18 17 November 2013 at 7:14pm | IP Logged |
But what's the point of knowing all the obscure grammar if you can't understand a regular movie? As I said, have a look at iguanamon's posts. Spanish was also his first foreign language, and unless I'm mistaken he's not a linguist.
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Kunji Newbie United States Joined 4044 days ago 19 posts - 24 votes Studies: Spanish
| Message 7 of 18 17 November 2013 at 9:14pm | IP Logged |
Hi James29, Thanks for the advice. I agree about speaking to natives. I tried that
via Skype with no success. Only frustration. When you mention completing Pimsluer
then Michel Thomas, do you mean just Pimsluer level 1 or all 3 levels? And then Michel
Thomas and his advanced course or just the first course? i wanted to do Assimil, but
it does not have a Latin American version of their program and the material text I saw
was not very clean or professional looking. Maybe I saw some screen shots of an old
version.
I have tried FSI since it was free online and it seemed really dry and boring. Have you
tried it? Is it a fun way to study? If I am not enjoying the study I won't stick with
it. I wish i was more driven and I could force myself to do things I do not enjoy. I
don't mind spending a few hours a day on it as long as I am enjoying it. Usually I
spend 2-3 hours a day on Spanish. An hour in the car (to and from work) and an hour or
more at home.
Hi Serpent, what is this iguanamon's posts you mention? Do you have some additional
keywords to narrow down a search?
Edited by Kunji on 17 November 2013 at 9:45pm
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James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5378 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French
| Message 8 of 18 17 November 2013 at 11:17pm | IP Logged |
Pimsleur 1 & 2 are worthwhile. If you like those then 3 would be good also. I have not done 4, but can only imagine it is more of the same.
They certainly do not teach "obscure" grammar in Pimsleur. They only cover fairly basic grammar.
Michel Thomas Foundations (or Beginner) is a great eight hour course. The "advanced" course reviews the eight hour course and covers all basic grammar. Despite the name, it is not "advanced." The foundations course is very helpful up front. I like the advanced course as a short break right after Assimil.
Assimil is very good. It is fun and easy. After Pimsleur and Michel Thomas it is pretty good. Again, it covers all the basic grammar points, but it also has a lot of vocab.
FSI is a lot of drilling. My preference is to recommend it after someone has a very solid base in the language. This course does get into more obscure parts of the grammar.
If you want to learn Spanish as efficiently and as fast as possible those are your best bets. After doing those courses you will be speaking and understanding the language.
I have only studied one language so maybe it is different depending on experience, but I cannot imagine understanding natives or even coming close to understanding a regular movie without the basics of grammar and a decent vocabulary under my belt. I tried watching TV early on and was totally hopeless. In fact, I tried watching Destinos when I was about where you were (somewhere in the middle of Pimsleur) and it was too challenging to understand the videos.
Think of your journey as a bookcase. Build the structure and then let everything fall into place. If you develop a strong base in the grammar (the bookcase) and everything else (vocab, comprehension, etc) will fall into place nicely.
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