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My journey in Spanish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Vestis2 Newbie United States Joined 4809 days ago 13 posts - 13 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 1 of 19 30 May 2013 at 3:13am | IP Logged | ||
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Ok, so here's the deal. I've wanted to learn Spanish forever. I've been married to
a native Spanish speaker for 10 years...nothing. I've been around her exclusively Spanish speaking family for years....nothing. Heck, I live in Houston Texas where I'm practically surrounded by Spanish....nothing. And I can top that, I've worked in Mexico for a total of 6 months....nothing. Don't get me wrong, I could get around enough to order a meal, drink, find the restroom, etc. But that's far from good enough for me. So after trying LSLC, Pimsleur, Rosetta Stone, Michel Thomas, and a very VERY brief go at FSI, (none of which I finished), I decided to give Assimil a go. I hesitated to try Assimil mainly because It's not the dialect I'm most interested in but after trying it, I like it and don't really care about the dialect anymore. In the long run, I think that I'll be understood and be able to understand any Spanish after a little exposure. So since I've failed to finish any of the other programs I mentioned above (or even get half way through them) I'm going to use this log to try to stay accountable and actually complete Assimil. I actually LIKE the method for a change though so I think that should help immensely. I've completed up to lesson 10 passively, doing one lesson per day. On day 7 I've decided that listening to all of the audio for the 6 lessons prior couldn't hurt. I tried that a few days ago and was pleased by the results. I understood about 90%. But anyway, I'll try to update this log at least in periods of 7 (every review day) and We'll see how It goes. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| watupboy101 Diglot Groupie United States Joined 4905 days ago 65 posts - 81 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 2 of 19 30 May 2013 at 4:13am | IP Logged | ||
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I used Assimil's Spanish With Ease as well, hesitating for the same reason's you listed. I coped with that by not
mimicking the "th" sound for "c" as they do in spain, other than that habit, you can easily develop a different accent later in your studies, and you don't even need to copy the Castilian accent at all if you choose, you may just wish to want to recognize the differences, and use that to compare it with other accents, which may end up strengthening your knowledge of accents allowing you to choose which one, which is sort of what I did, I live near a lot of Spanish speakers with a Mexican accent, but if I had to say which accent I "copy" the most, per say, it would be the Costa Rican Accent, I find that they talk clearly, annunciate all syllables well and speak fairly slow. It has nothing to do with the fact that I am particularly fascinated with their culture it's just that I find it a fairly neutral dialect in terms of mutual intelligibility. But as I come in to day to day contact with more Mexicans I may try to change my accent, but I'm in no rush. BTW that's a very good course but come lessons 60-80 be prepared to bear down a little bit, unfortunately I quit around that time, slightly regretting it as I probably would have progressed much faster than I have ever sense stopping the course around 7 months ago, but I'm happy to say that it was easily one of the best things I ever did for my Spanish and I could only imagine what it could've done had I had stronger will power! If you need any more tips I may not be the best guy for them but I can sure remember being in your same place about a year ago, and I'm happy to say that I now can communicate quite well in Spanish. So I've been there LMK if you would like any help! Good Luck. Study a little bit every day and it will come a long way. (I just made that up and it rhymed :))) Edited by watupboy101 on 30 May 2013 at 4:19am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5377 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 3 of 19 30 May 2013 at 8:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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Good luck to you. I would not worry a bit about the Assimil accent. There is a lot of discussion about Spanish accents on this website that I think is kind of silly. I have a good Spanish accent, but every time I have asked a native speaker what type of Spanish accent they think I have they all say "you sound like an American." The underlying English will always be more noticeable than which Spanish dialect you choose. Word choice, however, is noticeable. You will pick up the differences in word choice over time. Assimil is a great course and you can always follow it up with FSI or something else with Latin American audio.
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| Vestis2 Newbie United States Joined 4809 days ago 13 posts - 13 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 4 of 19 31 May 2013 at 3:07am | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks for the responses Watupboy101 and James29. I was kinda under the impression that
the accent wouldn't matter too much this early on in my studies and I didn't even imagine that when it was all said and done, I'd probably sound like an american anyway....how...natural :) as for an update, I just finished Leccion once and It didn't go too bad. I've been using the method that's printed in the Assimil dutch book to go through the book and it's effective but I'm wondering if I should be grinding the information into my head until It's like instant recall or just kind of go with the flow and do the steps i've been doing. by the time i finish with all of the steps i've been doing, I understand the material I've been studying but the translations don't come to my head instantly. but anyway, on to leccion doce en la manana (i don't know how to put the squiggly line over my "n" ) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| 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 5 of 19 31 May 2013 at 3:24am | IP Logged | ||
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¡Bienvenido al foro, Vestis2! I agree with everyone else. Don't worry about the Iberian accent. You'll have plenty of exposure to Latin American and Mexican accents.
To type using Spanish accented characters, you'll need to install the "US International" keyboard for windows. Here's some sites to help you figure it out. It takes a bit of getting used to, but it's worth it. Accents keyboards Using US-International keyboard to type accented letters á é í ó ú ñ ¿ ¡ ü ç ê If these sites don't help you, just search til you find one that does. ¡Buena suerte con tus estudios en español! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Vestis2 Newbie United States Joined 4809 days ago 13 posts - 13 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 6 of 19 01 June 2013 at 6:18am | IP Logged | ||
Thanks for tip! Leccion doce completed.....that's all 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Aguacero Diglot Newbie United States Joined 4205 days ago 10 posts - 13 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 7 of 19 01 June 2013 at 6:51am | IP Logged | ||
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Hi Vestis2, I'll be following your progress and I'm routing for you! Hopefully, knowing
that other people are following you will give you that extra accountability you are looking for. If you have an number pad on your keyboard you can type ñ with ALT + 164 but it has to be number pad keys and not the numbers above QWERTY. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Crush Tetraglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5867 days ago 1622 posts - 2299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto Studies: Basque | Message 8 of 19 01 June 2013 at 2:06pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'd just use the international keyboard layout, it's much more convenient if you actually want to write in Spanish rather than type individual words. I think you don't even need to install anything, just change a setting.
Personally, i find that the Spanish of the Americas is generally much easier to pronounce, and the speakers on the Assimil tapes have a pretty neutral accent anyway. Just pronounce everything as an "s" and you should be fine. Regarding the accent, if you can get a grasp on the "r" the rest of the sounds are pretty easy. The biggest thing i've noticed with English speakers (apart from the r) is that vowel sounds aren't always pronounced very clearly, thus "gracias" might sound like "grass-ee-ous" instead of "grah-see-ahss". I generally get told that i have a Peruvian accent that at times strays towards a Mexican accent... Good luck, i love seeing new Spanish learners :) I think the Assimil Spanish course is pretty good, though i just flipped through the Using Spanish course. The contents were pretty interesting, i hope you have fun and enjoy learning Spanish. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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