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Spanish B1 in 9 months | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Mike_405 Newbie United Kingdom NoneRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 3294 days ago 13 posts - 16 votes Speaks: English* | Message 25 of 60 19 November 2015 at 8:10pm | IP Logged | ||
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Do keep us updated. I'm also using assimil Spanish with ease and find it the best resource I have come across.
Tell me more Spanish version 9 or 10.5 is great for intermediates/advanced learners maybe you could check that out. Rosetta stone purchased the company tell me more and offer a online version of the program as an "advanced level". I picked up a cheap version 9 copy from ebay. Regards, Mike. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Digitalis Groupie Australia Joined 3361 days ago 50 posts - 57 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 26 of 60 26 November 2015 at 10:09am | IP Logged | ||
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Back guys!
I haven't quit yet, though I really felt like it at one stage, and I reckon I took a full break of 1-2 weeks. It wasn't so much out of any sense of difficulty, I was just worrying that I was wasting my time with this whole language learning thing- that I was going to end up with a perpetually bad accent/ grammar etc, and studying autonomously would not get me anywhere. I was also having trouble dealing with my non- language related workload- life, in other words. I should add that I have more than 9 months now to "get to the B1", more like an extra year and a bit now, and I think I am going to need this time. But alas, I am now halfway through Assimil though, and have translated the first couple of first lessons from the active wave. I find that I am sort of enjoying this now. I will definitely finish Assimil regardless of whatever else happens- I am too far in now and I find reading and listening is working fairly well for me (more details later.) I find that I can understand quite a bit of each new lesson as I look at it- Pareto's principle in action I guess-the same words seem to repeat themselves & I now need to use the non-TL translation less. My technique when using the book each day is something like this: *listen to the new lesson a few times to get familiar with it. *Open the Assimil book, I read out each line once, and compare it to the translation, in order to get the gist of what the TL dialogue lines mean. * Listen to the audio while reading the target language around 5 times (although I perhaps I need less repetitions now) I talk along with (shadow) while reading the target audio.) *switch over and listen to the audio while reading the TL around 5 times. *listen to the audio once while not looking at the book, in order to test my comprehension. *Listen to the audio several times while attempting to 'shadow' it. I am generally not too successful at this, but I am getting better with practice. *Do a quick review of the past 3-4 lessons, then call it a day. When doing the first few active lessons, I had a pretty easy time of things. However, I can see that there are a lot of lessons that are going to be quite difficult to translate in the future, and I am going to require a few "waves" through in order to get the contents of the book well established in my head. TO be honest- I gave up Michel Thomas, I just couldn't bear to listen to his advanced lessons. I finished the foundation course when I didn't know any better, and it took me to a stage where I could deal with Assimil (when used alongside Pimsleur.) The method seems to work well for some people, but I just found them too annoying- after around 5 minutes of listening, I would feel like throwing my Mp3 player across the room. But don't take my word for it, a lot of people seem to swear by his method- differnt strokes for different folks, I guess. Personally, if I had my time again, I just would have used Pimsleur and a beginners book of verbal conjugations in order to give me that introduction to the language. I have looked at quite a few different resources now, and I feel that I have have a much better idea of what I am doing now, compared to when I started. You guys might think I am some sort of psycho, but I had a look into the FSI basic, and Another useful book I found was the Living Language advanced course- fast flowing dialogues and it treats the grammar systematically. One thing I did not realize, going into this, is the massive amounts of input I am going to need if I am going to develop good comprehension abilities, as other people have said. I am not much of a TV or movie watcher, even in English. But, maybe I am missing out on something here- when I ask other people I know who have learnt their second language as adults, their answer is usually that they watched a lot of television. My recourse for this, as many other members of this forum have had success with, is probably going to be with audiobooks and perhaps a spaced repetition system. THe listening-reading method, in other words. Other people, David Snopek comes to mine, as do some of the other forum members here, seemed to have alot of success with this method. I also understand that it is going to take a large amount of time- but this is something I really want to give a try. I will probably start off with el principito & Harry Potter y la piedra filisofal and move on from there. The next big step, and it is one that I am going to take sometime sooner or later, is talking to actual people. I am sort of itching to do this, but I am going to sound stupid at first. I reckon I am gonna start with a short in-person course, where there are low expectations. Or perhaps online tutoring, where I never have to actually meet the tutors in real life. THe last point I will make is that I realize that I will certainly plateau, working working on my own, and if I want to get halfway decent, I am going to have to spend significant amounts of time immersed in a Spanish-speaking environment. Edited by Digitalis on 13 January 2016 at 7:17am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Digitalis Groupie Australia Joined 3361 days ago 50 posts - 57 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 27 of 60 26 November 2015 at 10:27am | IP Logged | ||
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By the way? How is Assimil working? Pretty well, I think.
I was watching the first "easy street Spanish" videos on youtube, and I could actually understand a bit of what they were saying without the subtitles, and more with the subtitles. Not much, but a bit. A lot of the comments on this video were saying things like "they speak so fast, I can't understand a word." I reckon that after I get through Assimil and LL advanced, I will be able to tackle these videos head on. The same thing goes with other random interviews I saw on youtube. I also watched the video "Spanish for kids - La Ratita Presumida" both when I first started and very recently, and I can understand a lot more of it now. Videos like this are probably what you can expect to tackle once you finish Assimil, at least for languages like Spanish. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Digitalis Groupie Australia Joined 3361 days ago 50 posts - 57 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 28 of 60 26 November 2015 at 1:54pm | IP Logged | ||
Thanks for the reply Mick. Honestly, with regard to courses, I though they would be the be-all-end-all when I started, but I think that after Assimil + Living language advanced, I will have enough of a basis to start dealing with native resources, such as audiobooks, and I plan on doing exactly that. I still don't know what exactly I will do with regards to grammar study. But I will have a look into the program "Tell Me More Spanish." What does it involve? There are about 5 or 6 I want to get through, and I will definitely use some other input, such as Youtube videos or some cartoons. I agree with your comment about Assimil, I really like it. I haven't finished yet, obviously, but I have gotten to the point where I am seeing quite good results. I agree with DBag's earlier though, it is a slow burner, it's sort of like a weight lifting program at the gym, where it takes like 2 months to start seeing results if you go consistently. However, I will reserve the bulk of my comments on Assimil until I finish the active wave completely, and start having conversations with people, where I can perhaps give some of the people on this forum an idea of where they will end up after finishing it, for someone who is new to language learning. Edited by Digitalis on 26 November 2015 at 1:55pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Peetpeet Diglot Newbie CanadaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 3285 days ago 9 posts - 14 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: German, Spanish | Message 29 of 60 30 November 2015 at 12:18am | IP Logged | ||
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Spanish has sooo many resources. Literally so many. A quick search can get you
watching all of your favourite English shows in Spanish. Telenovelas abound. If you're into online shopping, you can easily order a few Spanish novels and children's books off of amazon. I though French had a lot of resources, but I find Spanish has about twice that. There are several videos on youtube that can give beginner basic conversation with skits. And as someone said previously, as cheesy as it is, Destinos is awesome. One of my favourite things to do when taking the plunge into a new language is to watch a weather channel in that language. There are many visual cues as to what is going on, AND you know that they are going to talk about the weather, which makes it relatively easy to figure out some of what is going on, even if it's just a little. Sure, the weather can get boring really fast, but you can watch it for 10-15minutes and pick up something from it (even if you're unaware you picked up anything.) Also, since it is about the weather, you don't have to worry about too much slang. And they tend to speak more clearly. Take some recipe cards and cut them relatively small, tape them on objects around your house/apartment with the Spanish word of the object on it. Throw un/una or el/la on the card too, if you want to make the gender of the word really stick. Example: Tape a small paper to the lamp with the words "Una lampa" on it. Put it somewhere easily visible. If you want, you can even make them big enough to write a few Spanish sentences on the back involving the object you put it on. (If you happen to see a sentence involving a lamp in a textbook or something, throw it on there.) Want to go the extra mile? Change your phone language to Spanish. Your facebook language to Spanish. Your computer language? Spanish. Some video game consoles also have the option to change the language and some of the games will play in the new language, so you can try that too. (RPGs are great! They're more text-heavy so they'll expose you to much more.) Take it slow though. I wouldn't recommend changing your computer to another language until you really feel comfortable in that language. If something were to go amiss, you might not understand what the computer is telling you is wrong. Small steps. Phone & Facebook first. Don't overwhelm yourself, but don't be afraid of pushing yourself a little bit sometimes. :) Learn your limitations, and then work to overcome them! You got this. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Digitalis Groupie Australia Joined 3361 days ago 50 posts - 57 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 30 of 60 07 December 2015 at 5:34pm | IP Logged | ||
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Well, I finished lesson 56. I am just over half way through the passive wave, and I
have translated the first 10 lessons were not hard. All in all, I expect to finish the passive wave completely in 2 months, and will be done with all the beginner materials that I plan on using in around 3 months. I've been idly watching a few Destinos episodes as well, I let them lapse for a while, I have trouble watching TV in general, even in English. I much prefer to listen to the radio, use the computer or read books. In terms of new courses, the most immediate plans I have include booking a tutor over Skype and buying a comprehensive grammar book & bilingual dictionary- I might go for Barrons, Schaum's or perhaps the "practice makes perfect" series- they are all cheap and seem good. I will try to keeps things fluid with regards to my future plans, but I plan to put in a good 6 months of extra work, at a minimum, after getting through LLA and Assimil. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Digitalis Groupie Australia Joined 3361 days ago 50 posts - 57 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 31 of 60 15 December 2015 at 2:46pm | IP Logged | ||
Sorry for the late reply, peet-peet. I think you are right, with regards to resources. The amount of stuff I have seen online is staggering. I am not much of a TV watcher, with regards to the telenovelas (though I will make some exceptions), but I personally cannot wait to have a crack at reading audio-books- I read David Snopek's article on Natural language learning, and I will get around to reading Stephen Krashen's book on the topic of comprehensible input soon- this is something that I definitely want to try. I will make an exception by watching the news/weather, I am an unrepentant current affairs junkie. Radio/podcasts are something else I like. I have taken up destinos a bit again, but I am having a really hard time getting into it. I felt the same way about Michel Thomas, which a lot of other people seem to find useful. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Digitalis Groupie Australia Joined 3361 days ago 50 posts - 57 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 32 of 60 18 December 2015 at 4:32pm | IP Logged | ||
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Merry christmas and a Happy new year!, I'm up to lesson 63 of Assimil with ease now. Looking through the rest of the Assimil books, Lessons 63-77 look like a slog- Assimil really steps it up after lesson 50. I am going to finish the rest of Michel Thomas soon. After I get through the next 14 lessons, I am going to start reading the audio book "El Principito." I have been listening to native material as a sort of side project, I think it is going to take me ages to adjust my ears to Spanish speech patterns, as Dbag said before in this thread. Another thing I will mention is that Assimil seems to severely vocabulary- you think you are making good progress with it, until you look at a book written for young children, like El Principito, and there is still a lot that you do not know, althought I reckon I could get through it with a translation to use as a reference- one thing I am seeing is the way that thoughts are expressed in Spanish is unexpectedly different to that of English. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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