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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Fabrizio Pentaglot Senior Member BelgiumRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5187 days ago 103 posts - 157 votes  Speaks: Italian*, EnglishC2, French, SpanishB2, Portuguese | Message 17 of 40 24 March 2011 at 7:06pm | IP Logged |
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Great, I'll have a look at it! I seriously need to practice my written Spanish... :)
Gracias! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| vanillabean Groupie Canada Joined 5013 days ago 53 posts - 63 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 18 of 40 27 March 2011 at 10:20pm | IP Logged |
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Iguanamon, THANK YOU for the Lenguajero suggestion! I signed up and have been using it quite a bit! It's
wonderful to get continuous feedback on my written Spanish... although humbling, because I have so many mistakes! lol. This week was great - I feel really good about how much I accomplished. The only thing I'm finding challenging is not knowing all the different tenses yet, so I feel very limited in what I can communicate. I constantly have to "rephrase" what I want to say because I don't have the knowledge yet to say it in certain ways. Anyway, I know that will come with time. I completed up to lesson 22 in Pimsleur and will likely finish off the first unit by the end of this week. I downloaded Anki and have been using it every day. LOVE IT. It really, really helps to be familiar with most of the words and by the time I do my next lesson in Pimsleur, I can concentrate more on the sentence structure/pronunciation rather than the content. I've also been using StudySpanish.com's grammar lessons until my books get here... they have little quizzes you can take as well, so those have been helpful in going over the grammar and technicalities than Pimsleur doesn't address. I also watched a few more episodes of Destinos, listened to some Spanish vids from LoMas TV and have been using Lenguajero quite a bit. It's amazing how much vocabulary I can actually remember when I've USED it in an email or story. Hopefully as my speaking improves, I will be able to use this site to Skype with a few people as well - I'm not there yet! I'll update later this week - and hopefully I'll get a chance to meet my friend for coffee and practice some spoken Spanish. She's about the only person I dare to speak with right now! :-) Edited by vanillabean on 27 March 2011 at 10:21pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| vanillabean Groupie Canada Joined 5013 days ago 53 posts - 63 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 19 of 40 04 April 2011 at 11:03pm | IP Logged |
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It's crazy how fast time is flying by. Last week was great! While I did not get as much Pimsleur done as I planned, I felt like I was extremely productive anyway. My books arrived, so I now have something called "The Big Red Book of Spanish Vocabulary" which has been really helpful (if only for sorting words into subjects, which I find easier to learn). I also got a couple books from the Practice Makes Perfect Series - Pronouns and Verb Drills. So far, extremely helpful.
Other than that, I got to Lesson 27 in Pimsleur so I should be done the rest of Unit 1 in the next couple days. I watched a few hours of Spanish movies and a couple TV episodes. Last week, I started searching for a conversational Spanish meetup group in my city, only to find out there wasn't anything available...seriously! So, I did the craziest thing ever: I started one myself. Ok, it's not THAT crazy, because my Ecuadorian friend is helping me! :) I should be able to learn a lot, but it's pretty intimidating to organize something like that when I'm SO new to the language. Additionally, it turns out that there is a lot of demand for this kind of group, as 10 people have already joined since yesterday! My friend has been coming over quite a bit and basically asking me questions in Spanish that I have to answer - it's been good practice. I'll update later this week! My goals are to get through the first few lessons of Pimsleur Unit 2, a few more sections in my grammar books, practice my vocab using Anki, read at least 30 minutes of Spanish per day (right now I'm reading Harry Potter y la piedra filosofal) and maybe a few more episodes of Destinos. I also need to work on my spoken Spanish a lot more considering the first "meetup" for our group isn't too far away! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Jinx Triglot Senior Member Germany reverbnation.co Joined 5698 days ago 1085 posts - 1879 votes Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Catalan, Dutch, Esperanto, Croatian, Serbian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish, Yiddish | Message 20 of 40 05 April 2011 at 4:06am | IP Logged |
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Wow, I am really impressed – you are taking the initiative with your learning! Good on you starting the conversation group, that's a fantastic idea!
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| vanillabean Groupie Canada Joined 5013 days ago 53 posts - 63 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 21 of 40 10 April 2011 at 1:32am | IP Logged |
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Thanks Jinx. We'll see how it goes... the first coffee meetup is tomorrow night, so I'm pretty nervous but
hopefully it will help me learn! Progress this week was good for the most part, but sometimes I feel like I'm moving backwards. I'm not sure if that's actually true, or I'm just impatient. I study some grammar and vocabulary, do my audio with Pimsleur and feel like I'm really making progress. I AM recognizing a lot of words I didn't know before. Then I watch a couple shows or a movie and feel like I'm lost all over again - I'm not comprehending very much of what's spoken, so I'm hoping this will improve with more exposure and time... but it can be disappointing. I'm just barely into Unit 2 of Pimsleur. I got a few more books this week from the Practice Makes Perfect Series (Complete Spanish Grammar, Sentence Builder). I actually really like them. They have tons of exercises and I'm remembering a lot more. The only problem is with having so many different resources (and switching back and forth between them), I don't always feel productive. Even with things like vocabulary, it's hard to know which words are important to know first. I'm on approximately page 30 of the first Harry Potter book. It's going painfully slow, but I think the reading is helping because I'm recognizing a lot more than I could before. The language seems pretty basic, which is good for me. :) I'll update tomorrow maybe after the meetup group... it will either be the best experience or the worst experience... haha. :) Edited by vanillabean on 10 April 2011 at 1:33am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| vanillabean Groupie Canada Joined 5013 days ago 53 posts - 63 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 22 of 40 14 April 2011 at 4:29pm | IP Logged |
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The meetup group went great! I was so nervous leading up to it, expecting a lot of questions as to why I was organizing a group with such an elementary knowledge of the language, but my friend has been a huge help (and is co-organizer). We're really getting into it and have already organized a whole bunch of events in the next couple months. We have a coffee/conversation meetup once a week and then a few other things in between, such as Spanish movies or dinners out. It should be a lot of fun. I was also amazed and how much I picked up in JUST one night... it was SO helpful to hear things from native speakers (rather than just audio) and be able to converse at a very basic level.
I'm not much further along in Pimsleur, unfortunately... I've done a few lessons this week but haven't made huge strides ahead. I'm still reviewing my vocab everyday with Anki and am feeling really motivated to know more. Still getting through Harry Potter, although slowly :) My second meetup is tonight so hopefully that goes well. I'll update later. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| vanillabean Groupie Canada Joined 5013 days ago 53 posts - 63 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 23 of 40 19 April 2011 at 5:42pm | IP Logged |
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I've completed up to Lesson 7 in Pimsleur II. I noticed for a while it seemed to get a bit harder each lesson, and now it's starting to get easier again, as the other learning I'm doing is overlapping with Pimsleur.
The meetup group is going so great! The second meetup went really well, everyone was so enthusiastic and basically left excited for more. :) We have a range of levels including native speakers, which really adds to the group. We even had a woman offer to host a group cooking class (authentic Mexican cooking) which should be pretty fun. I'm starting to get more comfortable with my speaking - at first I was super nervous and thought extensively about what I was saying before I said it. After encouragement from my friend to just "go with it" and blurt out whatever comes to mind, it's starting to flow more. It's pretty neat how sometimes you know things and don't even realize it. I went to the library last night and got out a few Spanish books which I plan to start reading - I need to do more of it since I really believe it really helps me learn. The words I know the best so far are the ones I've actually read in context. Edited by vanillabean on 19 April 2011 at 5:43pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5267 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 24 of 40 19 April 2011 at 8:08pm | IP Logged |
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You're welcome, vanillabean, por nada. I'm glad lenguajero is working for you. Keep going with your multi-track approach in learning Spanish and you'll do fine. I like that you are not waiting until you are "ready" to start speaking the language with native speakers. Speaking will teach you so much more than any course or book ever will, in my opinion. I too, am impressed with your rapid progress. keep up the good work! Edited by iguanamon on 19 April 2011 at 8:11pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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