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ElectronicMonk’s Language Log | ||
Tags: Spanish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| electronicmonk Newbie United States Joined 4253 days ago 8 posts - 8 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 1 of 11 02 November 2014 at 2:02am | IP Logged | ||
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I decided a few months ago to start learning Spanish again. As many students in the US I grew up with some Spanish in school and later had to pass a Spanish CLEP exam for my college major, but never really engaged much with Spanish. In my current profession though and especially in the region of the country where I live it has become more advantageous for me to learn Spanish. I currently am at the point where I can understand a fair amount of Spanish spoken around me, but my speaking and reading abilities lag quite a bit. I somehow found reading in French faster and easier than Spanish, but perhaps my motivation was stronger then.
Anyway, as I currently work roughly 60-80 hours a week I mostly just try to get in a little new material everyday. I have been using Duolingo and Language Transfer's complete Spanish course. I usually wake up and listen to the next LT track and do a new Duolingo lesson with some practice later during the day. On weekends and weeknights I have more time I also watch an episode of Destinos in addition to Duolingo and LT. So far I am happy with this. It takes about 20 minutes a day unless I watch Destinos which is about right for now. I also sometimes read with Lingocracy and am working my way through the first Harry Potter book. As I already know the story fairly well it makes it easier to figure out the Spanish. Today I listened to tracks 24-26 of LT and watched episode 10 of Destinos in addition to practicing with Duolingo. I plan to just log things occasionally about my progress. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| electronicmonk Newbie United States Joined 4253 days ago 8 posts - 8 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 2 of 11 09 November 2014 at 6:32am | IP Logged | ||
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Met my planned goals for the week. I just finished track 34 of LT and continued with duolingo. I also finished episode 12 of Destinos.
In addition I have been going through some basic grammar concepts. I think reading about the concepts and then hearing them explained via LT is quite effective. I never thought I would like someone explaining a language to me, but I think the connections he makes between English and Spanish are interesting. On a different note I got wonderful opportunity to hear my thoughts communicated via a Spanish translator this week and realized it will probably be a very long time before I could ever come up with something even half that complex. So it is. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| electronicmonk Newbie United States Joined 4253 days ago 8 posts - 8 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 3 of 11 18 November 2014 at 9:10am | IP Logged | ||
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As of today finished track 44 of LT and have continued with duolingo. I watched episode 13 of Destinos last week as well.
Played around with lyrics training a little bit yesterday, it's kind of fun. For duolingo my method has been to do one new lesson a day and one practice session a day to reach at least 20 points/day. When I originally did the French tree I went through it in a little under 3 months and while it was great for introducing me to the major French verb forms it did little for helping me to internalize the patterns. I also was dreadfully slow at coming up with responses in timed practice making that impossible to use. So for Spanish I decided to go much slower. Probably too slow to be honest, but I am not really in a hurry. After I finish a branch of the tree I make sure I can complete three consecutive rounds of timed practice without missing more than 2-3 answers each round. If I am missing more than that then I need to practice whatever it is I am weak on before moving on. So far it seems to be working for me and is forcing me to really practice with the language and not move too quickly. I am also at a more rapid pace reading through the grammar explanations on the studyspanish website. Currently I am in unit 5 I believe, not really attempting memorize any of them, more or less just exposing myself to the different major grammar points in Spanish and filling in holes that are not being learned either through LT or duolingo. If I were attempting to memorize them all I think that would drive me crazy, but I like getting a basic overview with the understanding that it will take many more repetitions to truly learn the material. That's it for this past week. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5533 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes  Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 11 18 November 2014 at 1:44pm | IP Logged | ||
Welcome to HTLAL!
Yeah, I feel that way about grammar, too. :-) I don't mind reading about it haphazardly, but I really dislike memorizing more than, say, a single table of endings at any given time. I can learn a lot just by paying attention to input, and only reviewing grammar in small doses. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| electronicmonk Newbie United States Joined 4253 days ago 8 posts - 8 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 5 of 11 24 November 2014 at 2:35am | IP Logged | ||
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Thank you for the welcome.
So far I am through track 50, past the halfway point. I also read through the grammar explanations on study Spanish for the subjunctive... I have never thought about using a verb tense like that before. As I am on vacation I have not done much else though I did work my through an illustrated children's fairy tale book. Not too bad for the week. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5376 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 6 of 11 24 November 2014 at 2:58am | IP Logged | ||
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Congratulations on your progress and keep up with the log. I'm interested in hearing what you think about the Language Transfer course. I've heard good things about it.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| BOLIO Senior Member United States Joined 4659 days ago 253 posts - 366 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 7 of 11 24 November 2014 at 5:32pm | IP Logged | ||
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Welcome! And please keep going with the log. It is always fun to read of others' experiences.
I really liked the Language Transfer course having done the first 20 lessons. I think it is a very good course that can lead someone down the right road. Again, welcome, and I look forward to following your log. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| electronicmonk Newbie United States Joined 4253 days ago 8 posts - 8 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 8 of 11 01 December 2014 at 6:33pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thank you both for the welcome.
I am through track 58 of LT. Just got into learning about preterite tense. It is interesting that it introduces imperfect before preterite, but I like that it takes time to explain the purposes of the different tenses making them feel more natural. Doing this with duolingo really does make learning the structures much easier though I can't imagine using an audio course all by itself. I also read the book "El Soñador" (The Dreamer) by Pam Muñoz Ryan in Spanish and am working my way through The Magician's Nephew in Spanish. The Dreamer was quite sad. Reading always becomes a bit complicated for me. At first I am just glad to be able to make sense of any of it and then as I get a bit better at it become frustrated that I don't understand more. That being said the main reason I keep at it is because as I learn new structures through other courses the text makes more sense and the words stick better. Plus I just like to read so there is always that benefit. I watched episode 15 of Destinos as well. Edited by electronicmonk on 01 December 2014 at 6:37pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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