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Shadowing Spanish from scratch experiment | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| TehGarnt Diglot Newbie Germany Joined 4853 days ago 33 posts - 63 votes  Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish | Message 9 of 14 05 October 2013 at 12:59pm | IP Logged |
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So I completely neglected this log. Que pena. Despite this, I went through with the
"experiment" of going through the entire volume of Assimil Spanish With Ease using only shadowing. In this first post I´ll write down my progress and plans, and I´ll put my insights, for what they´re worth, separately after. The results of the experiment? Kind of disappointing. Although I shadowed everything enough that I could understand everything I was repeating and writing down, for me this didn't produce much speaking ability or really a good grasp of the grammar - it seems I was able to learn the meaning of the material without inferring the rules. After shadowing and writing down the entire book, my next step was to review the entire book (i.e., reading through each lesson again), but also to copy the exercises for each lesson, with audio, into Anki, as a kind of grammar drill. This did help with production abilities to some extent. After this, I have now (almost) gone through the entire Linguaphone Complete Spanish course, shadowing the dialogs and practicing the grammar drills to automaticity. I did this at a balanced pace, in that I started on the oral drills for each lesson directly after I was able to shadow and comprehend it easily. I'm satisfied with the results: I can now have a (clumsy) conversation in Spanish with more or less correct grammar, and recognize most of the vocabulary that I've learnt. I had a holiday in Spain a couple of months ago, and handled all the hotel, car hire and restaurant stuff entirely in Spanish. My ideal next step would be to go through the Linguaphone advanced course, but that costs €€€ and I already have a copy of Assimil Using Spanish, so I'm going to shadow that. ¡En marcha! Edited by TehGarnt on 05 October 2013 at 4:01pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| TehGarnt Diglot Newbie Germany Joined 4853 days ago 33 posts - 63 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish | Message 10 of 14 05 October 2013 at 1:00pm | IP Logged |
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If I do this again for another language I will improve the shadowing-writing technique
in two main ways: First, I would drop the step of copying all text, either by hand or typing, as it just takes up too much time that could be better used. I admit that my handwriting isn't very fast, although it's got a lot better. Second, I would accompany the shadowing with some kind of grammar practice at an early stage. Maybe the 'active' translation step of Assimil would be enough for this, although I like both audiolingual methods and concentration on specific rules, so the Linguaphone oral exercises are great for me. Grammar practice I believe has benefits for both production and learning vocabulary from new material; for instance, to recognize new verbs from Spanish text or audio requires being able to decode the various declinations that they are usually hidden behind, and being able to use these declinations makes it much easier to do this. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4829 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 11 of 14 05 October 2013 at 3:57pm | IP Logged |
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Just noticed your thread (because you updated it, obviously :-) ).
Interesting, and intriguing, since I am just about to start the Assimil for Danish, mainly inspired by the Prof's work, because I feel I need to kickstart my Danish again, especially speaking, which I have neglected. I'd previously done TYS, but that doesn't really get you speaking all that well, and doesn't really lend itself to shadowing in the way that Assimil would seem to, so I had high hopes of it. But it sounds like you are disappointed with Assimil. I wonder if I may point you to a system I'm currently using for Welsh, but they also have the beginnings of a Spanish course (also Dutch). Since you mentioned Michel Thomas in what seemed to be a favourable light, you might like this, since it's all about listening and speaking, and you have to produce the target language in response to an English language prompt. (Is that the same as Pimsleur? - never done Pimsleur, but got that impression). Anyway, there are at least some free lessons, so you can try it out risk free (other than your time). You have to register to get the first 5 free lessons of the "tourist course". There are also weekly practice sessions which seem to be free. Then there is a regular course which you have to pay for. However, you can get the lot if you subscribe at the rate of £3.95 per month. Based on my experience with their Welsh course, it definitely gets you speaking, and if you wish, you can shadow the native speakers. The format is as follows: 1. Prompt in English 2. gap for you to produce the Spanish. 3. Female native speaker gives correct Spanish. 4. Male native speaker gives correct Spanish. So what I've tended to do for the Welsh is - say my piece at point 2, - listen to the female speaker - shadow the male speaker. However, if I'm feeling particularly confident, I'll shadow both female and male speakers. There is also sometimes time for you to repeat the phrase after point 4, and before the next one, if you want to practice getting your mouth around those unfamiliar vowels and consonants again. So it can be quite a good verbal workout. The Welsh lessons tend to be about 30 minutes long. I imagine these are similar. BTW, I have no connection with them except as a satisfied and enthusiastic student of their Welsh course. EDIT: Forgot the link, which is: SSiS ("Say Something in Spanish") Anyway, buena suerte y hasta la vista. p.s. How does the method for "Assimil using Spanish" compare with the "made easy" course? Is it the same, just with more advanced language? EDIT2: Possibly worth mentioning that if the lessons are ~30 minutes each, with the 20 lesson main course, that's 10 hours of audio, and with the 20 lesson tourist course, that would be another 10 hours of audio, which I believe amounts to significantly more audio than the basic Assimil course (although admittedly, it includes gaps for speaking). Edited by montmorency on 05 October 2013 at 4:39pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| TehGarnt Diglot Newbie Germany Joined 4853 days ago 33 posts - 63 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish | Message 12 of 14 05 October 2013 at 7:23pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks for the tip (and the link). The format does sound similar to Pimsleur, which was
the first step in my successful study of German, and gave me useful speaking ability and confidence in the early stages. After over a year and half of study I suspect the lessons are below my current ability, but I would try it if I was starting a language that "say it in" was offering. I might have given an overly harsh impression of Assimil, and of shadowing. My disappointment was more the results of shadowing in the optimal method as described by Prof Arguelles in the Shadowing Step by Step video, which gives the impression that this is all you need to do. My experience is that there needs to be a serious effort to activate grammatically unfamiliar languages. Maybe this would be less of a problem for an English speaker learning Danish. Shadowing itself though is still my favorite method of learning vocabulary and pronunciation, and Assimil is great for what it is. The 1987 Spanish course wasn't as fun and memorable as the 1950s German course I did, but I'd still recommend it. "Using Spanish" has indeed a very similar format to the "Spanish With Ease" - extensive dual language text interspersed with various types of exercise. As shadowing material it looks excellent. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4829 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 13 of 14 06 October 2013 at 1:47am | IP Logged |
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Thanks for the Assimil, and Pimsleur info, and expanding on your experiences.
I would not discount SSiS though, even given that you are not a beginner. I'm actually doing something similar in German, in which I'm far from a beginner, but the way I learned was very book- and grammar-oriented, and (perhaps because I was lazy, but also because there simply weren't all that many speaking opportunities, and audio- based courses either weren't available, or I wasn't aware of them), my spontaneous speaking ability has always lagged far behind my listening comprehension and even my writing ability. So what I've started is something called "You Speak German", which has a very similar structure to "Say Something in...". None of the material I've so far encountered has been unknown to me, but what I didn't have (or didn't have well enough) was that ingrained mental pattern, so in speech, I could very easily make, for example, word-order mistakes (forgetting to put the verb at the end in subordinate clauses, etc), and also just getting my mouth muscles moving in the right way spontaneously enough. Speaking was always an effort, in other words. I'm hoping that the verbal workout I get from YSG, will to some extent make up for the lack of speaking practice I had in the early days. This is still a bit of an experiment / work in progress for me. I'm also trying to shadow other things in German, e.g. audiobooks for which I have the text. But having to produce the target language from a native language prompt is a bit harder than simply shadowing when you have the text in front of you...you really have to think "on your feet", and I think that comes about as close to practicing active language skills as you can get without a live human language partner. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| TehGarnt Diglot Newbie Germany Joined 4853 days ago 33 posts - 63 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish | Message 14 of 14 06 October 2013 at 5:59pm | IP Logged |
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I agree that being challenged to produce something is the best practice for developing
speaking ability. I'll sign up for at least the trial in SSiS; although I can make this kind of exercise from the Assimil courses this is somewhat time-consuming, so a ready- made collection could be a useful resource. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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