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Spanish Log (TAC 2014 Team Lobo) | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5021 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 33 of 271 28 May 2011 at 1:53pm | IP Logged |
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Well its the begining of the bank holiday weekend here in the UK, which means 3 whole days to devote to study.
I have a little list of things I need to do: 1) Order another cheap copy of "with ease" which I can carry around with me, and I dont mind getting a little battered. 2)Order a copy of "Easy Spanish Reader". I think this book will help me a bit more than my current bilingual story book. I want to get a lot of reading done at my level, rather than use anything challenging at the moment. The trouble with challenging texts, is that running to the dictionary really breaks the flow, which seems counterproductive at the moment. 3)Edit the Assimil tapes. Ive no real idea how to do this at the moment, so this might take quite a while, but its reached the point where I feel the need. Dont get me wrong, I still love Assimil, but the honeymoon period is well and truly over. Those massive gaps in the audio sometimes make reviewing previous lessons SO tedious. I suppose they are put in, because they allow you to look back at the book. They are really getting on my nerves though. 4) Buy some Spanish DVDs with English subtitles. I wish I could find Destinos on DVD. If I could watch it on TV while sitting on the sofa, rather than watching it on my computer, I would watch it a lot more. 5) Finish the unit 4 drills in plati, and review parts of unit 3. I would like to make a good start on unit 5 as well. We will see what happens. I think I will be able to do 2 units a week, but I need to find my rhythm. The problem is I have been doing it in my car, which makes it hard to repeat drills. I am thinking first run through needs to be with the transcript, and repeated several times. Then, in the car you can overlearn. 6) Need to buy some cheap computer speakers. This means I can listen to Assimil dialogs in my sleep. (I have spaekers for my computer, but I need some bedside ones as well). Any advice on using Assimil in conjunction with plati, or how best to use plati, would be warmly appreciated. I will probably update this log a few times over the weekend. Edited by dbag on 28 May 2011 at 1:54pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5021 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 34 of 271 28 May 2011 at 2:57pm | IP Logged |
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Oh dear!
As I suspected, it looks like editing the Assimil files is going to be a real headache. Not only do you have to dowload Audacity, but then something called Lame. As is usual in these circumstances, I have followed the instructions to the letter, and things still dont seem to work. I think I need to get some actual language study done and come back to this later! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5021 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 35 of 271 29 May 2011 at 1:26am | IP Logged |
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Well, I havent got anything done on my list yet.
But! I think Ive pretty much nailed unit 4. Im gonna give it a quick run through again tomorrow in the morning, then get cracking on unit 5. Ive also done plenty of Assimil today. Ive realised im going to have to change my study habits a bit to make the most of both of these courses. I'll write more on this tomorrow. I think I'm only just begining to realise how good the Michel Thomas course is. What bought this home is looking at how Platiquamos explains the difference between Ser and Estar. Completly confusing, I think I'd have to read it through several times if I wasnt already familar with it, and I'm sure even then i'd still be hazy. Also, I dont understand why people keep saying there isnt much grammar in Assimil. There is LOADS! Il be honest, a lot of the grammatical terminology is well over my head. Im interested in finding a book which can explain to me some of this terminology, i.e imperfect tense, pluperfect, stuff like that. I think it will help me in future language study. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| getreallanguage Diglot Senior Member Argentina youtube.com/getreall Joined 5470 days ago 240 posts - 371 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English Studies: Italian, Dutch | Message 36 of 271 29 May 2011 at 1:55am | IP Logged |
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Hello there.
The names of the verb tenses are just that - names. They are used to refer to the tenses without having to mention examples all the time. They are, to some extent, arbitrary names. If you want, I can help you out by giving you a systematic list of all the names of the tenses with examples of each - this will help you navigate the fact that not all the resources out there use the same names for them. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5021 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 37 of 271 29 May 2011 at 11:38am | IP Logged |
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@ getreallanguage wow! that vwould be fantastic if you could, if it wasnt to much bother?
I think it would help me understand things on different levels, which I find helpful. Well, after my post last night I ran through the unit 4 drills with almost no mistakes. Then I ran through all of the unit 3 drills again, no mistakes at all and some of the sentences I was answering incorrectly last week where a breeze. Its good stuff this fsi! Then for good measure I did all of the unit 4 drills again, then re did my passive and active assimil lessons (verbally). It was gone 2.00 in the morning when I finally got to sleep! So I am no trying to memorise the basic sentences in Unit 5. There are still a couple of drills in Unit 4 I want to solidify a little, but that can wait till later. Ive done an hour of Assimil study already this morning while laying in bed, just with the book, not the audio yet. I am feeling a lot better about assimil today. Both the passive and active lessons where easy. I also spent a lot of time reading through old lessons. This is useful as it exposes you to lots of diferent verb forms in a short space of time. I was begining to get quite anxious that things wernt making sense anymore. Im lucky to have this forum to refer to, a flick through old posts shows that lots of people feel this way at some point in their studies. Its really helped me work through it. I am definetly picking up loads though Assimil. Things wouls be difficult without it, undoubtedly. Onwards with unit 5! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| draoicht Groupie Ireland Joined 6312 days ago 89 posts - 146 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 38 of 271 29 May 2011 at 1:11pm | IP Logged |
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Hi Dbag,
Here’s a quick rundown on the Spanish verb system in English terms, Michel Thomas covered most of these. For a complete overview, two books I’d recommend are Spanish Verb Tenses by Dorothy Devney Richmond and Spanish Irregular Verbs by Eric Vogt. You mention pluperfect, this is just another term for past perfect. I have to say, as a result of studying Spanish I know more about English grammar than I thought I would. Simple Tenses: Present Past Imperfect – used to, was + -ing, would, always Future Conditional - would Present Subjunctive Imperfect Subjunctive Compound Tenses Present Perfect – I have Past Perfect – I had Future Perfect – I will have Conditional perfect – I would have Present Perfect Subjunctive Past perfect Subjunctive These are formed using the verb Haber – to have and the past participle. e.g. he comido – I have eaten, habia comido – I had eaten. There is one other compound tense that is no longer used and the last two are rarely used but maybe getreallanguage could clarify that. Other Imperative – commands. Gerund – ing, combined with the verb estar, e.g. estoy hablando – I am talking. Passive - Sentences with no named actor or agent e.g. Food is sold at Tescos. Eric Vogt in his book has a great system for remembering the form of any verb in any tense. You only need to remember 6 forms of any verb to work out all the other forms. You would need to know the endings and patterns but once you know these the system is simple to use. I’ll do another post later on Vogt’s system later. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| draoicht Groupie Ireland Joined 6312 days ago 89 posts - 146 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 39 of 271 29 May 2011 at 3:18pm | IP Logged |
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Eric Vogt’s System
To work out the form of any verb in any tense and person, you only need to remember 6 forms. You need to already know the endings and patterns, so if you don’t know them, a run through of a grammar book would be necessary. Only five verbs need to be learned separately: dar, estar, haber, ir, saber, and ser. The six forms, using hablar as an example, are divided into four systems: Present System: First person singular present (yo form): hablo Second person singular present (tú form): hablas Infinite System: Infinitive: hablar Preterite system: First person singular preterit (yo form past): hablé Participial System: Gerund: hablando Participle: hablado Present System Knowing the first person singular in the present will allow you to conjugate the present subjunctive and knowing the present subjunctive will give you most of the forms of the imperative. The second person present will enable you to conjugate the rest of the forms in the present and give you the affirmative tú command by dropping the final s. Infinitive System By adding the relevant endings to the infinitive, you can conjugate the imperfect, the conditional and the future. Also the affirmative vosotros command is conjugated by dropping the final r and adding a d. Preterite system The first person preterite will tell you how the conjugations work in the other persons of the preterite. The imperfect subjunctive is conjugated by taking the third person plural (ellos/ellas) of the preterite, dropping the –ron ending and adding the relevant endings. Participial System Gerund: Knowing how to conjugate estar will give you all the progressive (–ing) tenses. Participle: Knowing how to conjugate haber will give you all the compound tenses. So for the verb hablar you would only have to remember: hablo, hablas, hablar, hablé, hablando and hablado. In summary: hablo → Present subjunctive and the imperative hablas → Present and the imperative hablar → Imperative, the imperfect, the conditional and the future. hablé → Preterite and the imperfect subjunctive. hablando → all progressive tenses. hablado → all compound tenses. I hope this is helpful for you. P.S. Have a look at Professor Jasons’ Youtube channel, he has some great videos on Spanish verbs. Link 5 persons have voted this message useful | |
| dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5021 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 40 of 271 30 May 2011 at 10:03pm | IP Logged |
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@draoicht
Thanks for the info on verbs, thats so helpful! Well, I didnt get as far yesterday as I had intended, but I guess I still managed 2.5-3 hours. Its going to be much easier to cram the hours in when it gets around to winter. If you get nice weather in the UK, you just have to go out and take advantage of it. Ive done maybe 2.5 hours again today, 1/2 Assimil 1/2 fsi. I am listening to the basic dialog of FSI Unit 5 as I type this. I;m going to get away from the computer in a bit, and try and get in a quick 1/2 hour of drilling. My long term intentions are to complete both with ease and using Spanish, as well as complete every unit in Platiquamos. I have no real time frame for this. I am going to need to organise my time a little better to make this happen though. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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