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Platiquemos,Assimil, News in Slow Spanish | ||
Tags: Learning Strategy | Spanish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| srh9592 Newbie United States Joined 5706 days ago 14 posts - 15 votes Studies: French, Spanish | Message 1 of 10 23 January 2014 at 9:38pm | IP Logged | ||
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After years away, I'm returning to studying (European) Spanish and would love feedback on my strategy. I'm
focusing on input, variety, and taking it slow and steady. 1. Reading text along with the audio of one episode of News in Slow Spanish each day (about 30 minutes). I'm doing the news stories only; skipping grammar lesson and phrase lesson. 2. A couple lessons from Assimil Spanish with Ease each day (about 15 minutes). When I get to the end, I'll start over. 3. Reading along with one lesson of Platiquemos audio each day (about one hour). I do the same lesson each day for a few days until I feel "comfortable" with the lesson and "ready" to move on to the next lesson. I'm not trying to master responses to the audio drills... just trying to understand the lessons and absorb vocabulary, phrases, and patterns. I know Platiquemos isn't European Spanish, but I already own it, and it's great for showing me patterns. I can't imagine trying to do four hours of Platiquemos each day; I'm hoping variety of programs will allow me to keep going without "burning out." When I'm done with Platiquemos (in about 6 months), I plan to start practicing output (speaking); maybe going going through Platiquemos again at a faster rate (one lesson per day). I've been doing this program for about a month, and I like it so far. I'm on lesson 12 of Platiquemos; I feel like I'm "absorbing" the language instead of "memorizing" it. I'd love comments from anyone who has tried a similar study approach. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5377 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 2 of 10 23 January 2014 at 10:16pm | IP Logged | ||
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Depending on your level, you may want to start by whizzing through Michel Thomas's "Advanced" course. It is only about 5 hours and covers all the grammar. It is a super review.
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| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5264 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 3 of 10 23 January 2014 at 10:28pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'd dump the News in Slow Spanish and switch to something at native-speed like Práctica Español (España) (with exercises) or a newscast with a transcript like this weekly podcast from Ammistía Internacional (España). There's no grammar lesson available for this one.
Listening from the beginning is very important. I don't think you are doing yourself any favors by getting accustomed to unnaturally slow audio. I know it's easier to understand because it's clear and slow, but in the long run I think it will do more harm than good, especially because you need to train listening. There are other newscasts with English versions available but they're from the Americas, which doesn't seem to interest you. If you are interested: NHK World Spanish News has a daily 10-15 minute news podcast in Spanish with native-speakers- one is from Spain, and a transcript. You can also visit their English site for pretty much most of the same stories, so you'll know what's going on before you listen to the Spanish. I did this daily for Portuguese with NHK and it was very useful. There's also Democracy Now en español with a transcript as well. Same goes for DN. Their English site has the same stories. The audio is very fast. Then again, so are native speakers. I'd pick one of these for daily listening. The transcript is available. The English is available, The Iberian accent isn't. The rest of your program looks good to me- good, thorough courses and you are adding in something from outside- very important. Edit: You'll need to open audio player in new tab to listen and read with the transcript. Edited by iguanamon on 25 January 2014 at 2:00am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| 1e4e6 Octoglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4292 days ago 1013 posts - 1588 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Italian Studies: German, Danish, Russian, Catalan | Message 4 of 10 23 January 2014 at 11:57pm | IP Logged | ||
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Native news:
Informativo de Madrid Full daily news at native speed without reservation in Peninsular Spanish. It served me for at least five years. Edited by 1e4e6 on 23 January 2014 at 11:58pm 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| srh9592 Newbie United States Joined 5706 days ago 14 posts - 15 votes Studies: French, Spanish | Message 5 of 10 24 January 2014 at 7:46am | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks for the feedback and info on other content sites... I'll take a look at them.
Just so you know, News in Slow Spanish lets you listen at slow speed and at regular speed. In addition to reading along with slow speed audio everyday, I've been listening to regular speed audio in the car, and sometimes reading with no audio. I'm still hope for some feedback on how I'm using Platiquemos, since I'm not trying to master the drills. Has anybody used FSI or Platiquemos in this manner? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7207 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 6 of 10 24 January 2014 at 6:16pm | IP Logged | ||
You feel like you're "absorbing" the language, and that's the most important thing. My own experience was I focused a lot on Platiquemos/FSI Basic Spanish early on in my study of Spanish. Although it's an effective program, I think multiple tracks like you are doing is the best approach. Professor Arguelles talks about "learning styles". The important thing is to find a program that is suited to your learning style to get you started. What he suggests for later on, is the "other" styles to help learn the language with complementary methods and that helps different facets of the language. Platiquemos is good for the "learn by doing" student. Assimil and News in Slow Spanish are good for the student who learns "intuitively". The other category is the student who learns best through focus on grammar. Edited by luke on 24 January 2014 at 6:17pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| srh9592 Newbie United States Joined 5706 days ago 14 posts - 15 votes Studies: French, Spanish | Message 7 of 10 24 January 2014 at 7:36pm | IP Logged | ||
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All, Thanks for the great advice and sources of Spanish content. Very helpful.
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| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6599 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 8 of 10 25 January 2014 at 7:13am | IP Logged | ||
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Sounds too slow overall. (and boring apart from Assimil, but YMMV)
These are my favourite Spanish resources: http://lyricstraining.com/ (read about this site here) http://gloss.dliflc.edu/Default.aspx - free lessons with interesting content http://www.uiowa.edu/~acadtech/phonetics/# http://www.learner.org/resources/series75.html - Destinos, a telenovela for learners http://albalearning.com/ 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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