Chicken_Monster Newbie United States Joined 3788 days ago 26 posts - 27 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish
| Message 1 of 11 30 July 2014 at 4:13am | IP Logged |
I am going to list several language-learning systems and techniques I am aware of (and may own or
use). I would appreciate your comments on any or all of them. Please let me know if there are some
good systems or techniques I am leaving out, or some I mention that may not be worth my time.
Although I am specifically interested in Spanish for now, a lot of the systems on the market are
produced for several languages. I should probably repeat this post in the Spanish-only section. Any
help is greatly appreciated.
In no particular order:
Systems
Teach Yourself [language]
Michel Thomas
Pimsleur
Marcus Santamaria products (Synergy Spanish, Bola de Nieve 1 and 2, etc.)
Learning [language] Like Crazy
Rocket [language]
Rosetta Stone
studyspanish.com
spanishpod.com
spanishpod101.com
Techniques
Shadowing (Dr. Arguelles)
Scriptorium (Dr. Arguelles)
Reading bi-lingual texts (Where can I obtain these?)
Edited by Chicken_Monster on 30 July 2014 at 4:15am
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luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7204 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French
| Message 2 of 11 30 July 2014 at 4:24am | IP Logged |
Systems
Audio-Lingual - Foreign Service Institute
Techniques
SRS - Anki
Listen/Reading
Edited by luke on 30 July 2014 at 4:25am
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Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6596 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 11 30 July 2014 at 4:32am | IP Logged |
GLOSS, Destinos, lyricstraining
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glidefloss Senior Member United States Joined 5967 days ago 138 posts - 154 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, French
| Message 4 of 11 30 July 2014 at 7:09am | IP Logged |
you don't need bilingual texts for 'listening - reading'. generally, you read in English and listen in your target
language.
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Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5008 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian
| Message 5 of 11 30 July 2014 at 10:13am | IP Logged |
Or you read or listen or both in the target language without English. With proper choice of material, you can
start doing that very early and to great results ;-)
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iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5261 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French)
| Message 6 of 11 30 July 2014 at 2:13pm | IP Logged |
First, welcome to the forum, Chicken_Monster. Second, I assume you are a native English-speaker. You might want to change your profile to reflect that you are not "studying" English. You can change it by clicking on "English" and changing it to "speaks". It's a little thing but it helps to clear up confusion.
Third, systems: Systems tend to be limiting. I prefer an approach, but it must be tailored to the individual. We all learn differently. As lauded as Professor Arguelles and his methods are, he is not the sole authority on language learning. There is a zen koan- "When you meet the Buddha, you must kill him.". Not literally, but figuratively. This means to me that no one has THE answer- not Professor Arguelles, youtube polyglots or me.
I tend to look at language learning as a visit to a buffet restaurant. A little from here, a little from there, getting all the food groups and I may end up with a satisfying meal. Have a look at my post on the Multi-track approach which explains my philosophy in more detail. It is customizable to individual tastes.
My advice is not to become so enamored of any one "gimmick" or "system" that you close your mind to what may work better for you, simply because it is not a part of a specific "system". Like the buffet restaurant, pick and choose what works, but make sure you get enough of each food group for a nutritious meal. There are many aspects to develop in order to be proficient in a language. Neglecting any of them (speaking, listening, reading- writing is perhaps less important) may lead to being "incomplete" in a language. One doesn't have to equally dominate all aspects, the mix is up to each individual.
The most important part of language-learning is to get started and keep going. Try to be consistent and persistent in whatever you do. Good luck!
Edited by iguanamon on 30 July 2014 at 5:03pm
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shk00design Triglot Senior Member Canada Joined 4443 days ago 747 posts - 1123 votes Speaks: Cantonese*, English, Mandarin Studies: French
| Message 7 of 11 30 July 2014 at 3:10pm | IP Logged |
Personally, I don't like to rely on 1 learning systems. I'd be mixing several to get a wider range of words
& phrases into my head.
The last learning system you'd get into is Yabla Immersion online. These sets of videos come with
captions in the native language and subtitles in English. You can access their dictionary by clicking on a
word in the caption. The link:
Yable Spanish
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tristano Tetraglot Senior Member Netherlands Joined 4046 days ago 905 posts - 1262 votes Speaks: Italian*, Spanish, French, English Studies: Dutch
| Message 8 of 11 31 July 2014 at 2:10pm | IP Logged |
memrise, lingua.ly
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