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Amy’s Spanish Viaje | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| AmyinBrooklyn Senior Member United States Joined 4049 days ago 87 posts - 122 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 25 of 104 21 January 2014 at 3:32am | IP Logged | ||
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Stelle and nj24 -
Thank you so much for the link! I don't know what I couldn't find it with a google search. Anyway, it was a big help to have. Stelle, I love the workbook too! I just made my way through a beast of a section. PHEW! Thank you both! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| AmyinBrooklyn Senior Member United States Joined 4049 days ago 87 posts - 122 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 26 of 104 27 January 2014 at 1:26am | IP Logged | ||
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Week Hours: 16 hours 28 min.
Grand Total: 209 hours 41 min. Another week. I’ve finally passed the 200 hour mark. Whew! So this week was another bad week for Assimil. I only managed to make it through three sessions. I did, however, have two italki sessions! And the second one was a lot better (in terms of my speaking). I really felt much more comfortable (not like I’m not stumbling all over myself). I just felt a little more confident. I’m going to try to schedule three italki sessions next week and maintain a sold three session a week until my Peru trip. I have to say, I know that everyone says that you MUST begin to talk right away, but honestly, for me, I’m glad that I have a little base. Once I relax, I’m amazed by how much I know. It’s amazing how a new language works. With your first language, it just happens. But with a second language (particularly as an adult learner) every word is an effort (some more than others). Anyway, it’s just all amazing to me that I’m learning enough words to string sentences together. I’ve also been working a lot on my past tense verbs. I’m not not moving as quickly through Practice Makes Perfect Spanish Verb Tenses as I would like, but I’m doing a lot of memorizing so I’m trying to give myself a break. I’ve also taken everyone’s advice and really been watching Destinos. I think I’m on episode 20. It’s a nice break from the memorization and definitely more my level than the other things that I was trying. I’ve been watching it with my boyfriend - who commented how slow people are talking (I just responded that it was basically the speed that I needed him to talk to me!) but it’s a nice thing to watch together because if there’s a word that I don’t know, I can just hit pause and ask. With all my memorization, talking and Destinos watching, I did feel like the three sections of Assimil that I made it through were much easier. I'm not sure if this is a result of the other study and of everything just coming together a bit more in my head or if it's just because these particular sessions were easier - but whatever the reason, I'll take it! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| AmyinBrooklyn Senior Member United States Joined 4049 days ago 87 posts - 122 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 27 of 104 03 February 2014 at 5:41am | IP Logged | ||
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Week Hours: 16 hours 33 min.
Grand Total: 226 hours 14 min. This week I had the final meeting of my Spanish I class. The class felt a bit like season of the show Survivor. The first class had 15 people in it and by the end, there were only two of us. (Which was actually great because we spent nearly the entire hour and half practicing) While I liked having the foundation of the class - It was nice to practice with other people, in a group - I’m not signing up for Spanish 2. I think it’s much more efficient to move forward with solo study. I’m committing to three italki tutor sessions per week for Spanish - I think that’s a lot but maybe I’ll even crank it up to 4 as it gets closer to my trip. I’m amazed at how tiny my active vocabulary - I think even calling it a vocabulary is a stretch because I can barely pronounce even the few words I know. (I know, I know - Spanish is phonetic. Well, my tongue has not got that message yet.) This week, I also got Despereaux on Stelle’s suggestion. I parallel read the English and the Spanish texts and then I read the section out loud to my boyfriend who corrects me and helps me when I stumble over words. As of now, I’m not adding words from that book into Anki - but we’ll see. My work with Assimil has really slowed down and I’m feeling guilty about it but it’s just the last thing I want to do. Things are definitely getting easier for me as I devote time to working on memorizing verbs and understanding grammar, but it’s not my first choice in my study time. I’m going to aim for 4 Assimil days next week. It would be nice to make a bit more headway in it before I leave for my trip. I’m also still watching Destinos. It’s super boring but I think it’s really good for me. Hopefully, it helps improve my listening skills. Edited by AmyinBrooklyn on 06 February 2014 at 6:59am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Crush Tetraglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5863 days ago 1622 posts - 2299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto Studies: Basque | Message 28 of 104 05 February 2014 at 6:44pm | IP Logged | ||
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Maybe you've mentioned it before, but was is an Anki tutor session? I don't know if you meant to write italki or if there is an Anki tutor.
It takes a while for your tongue to unravel, r's and rr's still trip me up. I can definitely feel that my tongue isn't as loose as native Spanish speakers', at least. I'd like to do some pronunciation work, myself.. As for Assimil, i've found the older courses tend to be more interesting, there was more emphasis put on humor. While it is a nice course, if you find it boring you might as well spend that half hour elsewhere. But you will start to see the words and things from there start popping up all over the place, and that's always a really nice feeling. If you have any questions, feel free to post them here and someone will come by to answer them :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| AmyinBrooklyn Senior Member United States Joined 4049 days ago 87 posts - 122 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 29 of 104 07 February 2014 at 7:01am | IP Logged | ||
Thanks so much Crush. And you're right! I meant my italki teacher! I have so many things going on that I can't keep them all straight. (I've fixed my log above) And thank you for your advice on James29's log - I really appreciate it. :) Here's to hoping that my tongue unravels soon! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Crush Tetraglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5863 days ago 1622 posts - 2299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto Studies: Basque | Message 30 of 104 07 February 2014 at 7:20am | IP Logged | ||
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I hope so to. I remember feeling like i'd never get there when i first started out, but there comes a day when you just realize that you're understanding pretty much everything that you hear, that you can follow along with conversations and actually communicate, and it feels really great.
How are you finding the italki sessions, btw? I did a couple for Mandarin and they were pretty hit or miss, though i did find a really nice teacher that i wish i'd stuck with. Things just got too busy... I don't know that italki would be the best place to look for a pronunciation tutor, but it's something i'd really like to find. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5530 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 31 of 104 07 February 2014 at 12:37pm | IP Logged | ||
Be very careful with stuff that's "super boring" but "really good for" you. As Khatzumoto likes to point out, maybe it really is good for you, but if it makes you stop studying all together, then it really wasn't good for you after all. :-) So let's see what's really working for you right now. From the sound of it, the following things are paying off: 1. iTalki solo tutor sessions. 2. Reading aloud from parallel texts. 3. Memorizing verbs and grammar. 4. Listening to Destinos (but it's super boring). It's perfectly normally that, at any given point in time, some things will pay off and some things won't. You're totally allowed to focus on whatever is (a) fun and (b) paying off. No need to feel guilty about making slow progress on Assimil if you're putting in the hours elsewhere. So here are some ideas. Feel free to ignore these, try these, mix and match these, whatever—you're the person who has the best grasp on what you need. - If you can afford three iTalki sessions per week, this sounds like a no-brainer, because it will help activate your passive vocabulary. Have you tried holding the sessions mostly in Spanish? - If you like reading aloud, have you considered listening/reading? Here's what you need: (a) a book that you really love, in English, (b) the same book in Spanish and (c) the Spanish audio book. Take a section of the book, reading it in English and in Spanish, and then listening to the audio book. Feel free to read it aloud, like you're doing now. And if you want to work on listening comprehension, feel free to loop pieces of the audio a bunch after you've gone through it the first time. The key is finding a book you really love, and which will hold up under repeated listening. (For people who really like Harry Potter, it's an excellent choice, because you can buy the ebooks and audio books at Pottermore.) In general, anything which you enjoy reading and listening to several times is a huge asset, because you'll get more out of it each time—and even if they speak much faster than Destinos, that won't matter so much if you can enjoy multiple passes through the material. - If the memorization and grammar study is paying off, keep doing it. Just make sure it doesn't get too horribly boring and painful. Boring and painful are warning signs. :-) - Have you found any Spanish music you love yet? It might be fun to listen to the same albums a whole bunch, and to go through the lyrics to some of the songs in detail. Music is really sticky, and you can listen to it a lot if it's good. One thing that I always found super helpful was simply making sure I was exposed to lots of semi-comprehensible French with lots of contextual clues. This made the vocabulary and grammar all feel really familiar the first time I actually "studied" them. The same for Egyptian: the more examples I see and more-or-less understand, the easier everything else gets. Anyway, these are just some ideas. They may not be right for you, or at least not at this moment in time. But do feel free to focus more time on what's working, and what's enjoyable, and to blow off stuff that you're just doing out of "duty", but which is actually kind of agonizing and pointless. You're totally going to rock your trip to Peru. Edited by emk on 07 February 2014 at 12:38pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Crush Tetraglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5863 days ago 1622 posts - 2299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto Studies: Basque | Message 32 of 104 07 February 2014 at 7:01pm | IP Logged | ||
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Great post, emk!
One thing i'd like to add is that when i was going through Platiquemos it wasn't always that interesting. However, after completing a level i could tangibly feel the progress i'd made, i could use a new tense, new grammar structures, new vocabulary, and even better, i came across what i had learned all the time in native materials. Being able to feel my progress after every level was what kept me moving through the course. Sometimes a boring course can still be inspiring when you can feel how it's helping you. If a boring course is making you dread studying, though, then by all means you should drop it or consider taking a break from it. 3 persons have voted this message useful |
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