Spanky Senior Member Canada Joined 5958 days ago 1021 posts - 1714 votes Studies: French
| Message 1 of 18 26 March 2013 at 4:07am | IP Logged |
I have started studying Spanish, with a view to learning as much basic conversational Spanish as conveniently possible before leaving for a one week vacation to Mexico on July 19th. Possible study approach contemplated at present for the next 17 weeks:
BBC's Mi Vida Loca - well-produced video course for complete beginners. Tried episodio una already and like it. Hope to work through all of it.
FSI Spanish, Programmatic Course. Would like to get through Volume 1 of the 2 volume course if possible by the time of the trip, and the balance of the FSI Spanish material in due course.
Michel Thomas Spanish - Foundation or beginners series (I assume 10 discs similar to his French and German material)
Destinos - will give this a try and see if it is of interest, time permitting. I understand it is similar to French in Action, only in some utterly incomprehensible language.
Edited by Spanky on 25 April 2013 at 3:34am
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Brun Ugle Diglot Senior Member Norway brunugle.wordpress.c Joined 6622 days ago 1292 posts - 1766 votes Speaks: English*, NorwegianC1 Studies: Japanese, Esperanto, Spanish, Finnish
| Message 2 of 18 26 March 2013 at 8:15am | IP Logged |
Yay, Spanky! Another Spanish convert.
FSI Programmatic is great. I tried Basic, but it was too difficult to start with. Maybe I'll try it as a supplement when I'm a little further along.
The tapes for lesson 13 are reeeaaallly sloooooooow. The originals were stretched or something. I ended up just reading that lesson and not listening to the tapes. They were just too horrible. Other than that, everything has been really great so far. The quality is amazing considering these are old courses that people have borrowed from libraries and such.
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Spanky Senior Member Canada Joined 5958 days ago 1021 posts - 1714 votes Studies: French
| Message 3 of 18 17 April 2013 at 5:34pm | IP Logged |
Thanks Brun Ugle! From the little I have done so far, I am loving it. My work projects extended a little further than expected, so I have been slow off the mark on Spanish, but I should have considerable more opportunity for Spanish study on a go forward basis now.
There are about 12 weeks remaining before our trip to México, and I figure I can put in about 2 hours a day of study so I really don't expect to acquire much facility in the language, just enough to make the week more interesting from a language perspective.
I will aim for 200 hours of Spanish language study; I figure I have put in about 7 hours already over the last approx three weeks, including the following:
FSI, Spanish – Programmatic Course (units 1 and 2)
BBC, Mi Vida Loca – units 1 and 2
Destinos- Episode 1
Spanish.about.com – unit 1
- Alphabet and pronunciation
- Greetings
- Plurals
- Gender
- Noun-Adjective Agreement
- Introduction to the Definite Article
- Introduction to Pronouns
Miscellaneous
– Global Access: Mastering Spanish – disc 1 (listening on the bus)
- Figuring out a Latin American keyboard
- Also, learning that Mexico is not pronounced "Mexico", but rather as "Mexico" (honestly, this makes more sense spoken than written)
Edited by Spanky on 18 April 2013 at 4:27am
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Spanky Senior Member Canada Joined 5958 days ago 1021 posts - 1714 votes Studies: French
| Message 4 of 18 17 April 2013 at 5:37pm | IP Logged |
handy-dandy temp resting spot for links:
spanish.about.com - beginner's course
BBC Spanish course - Mi vida loca - warning, music autostarts and your boss will probably hear.
FSI Spanish Programmatic Course - thanks Eric!
Destinos
Edited by Spanky on 18 April 2013 at 4:38am
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James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5377 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French
| Message 5 of 18 17 April 2013 at 7:51pm | IP Logged |
Good luck. Sounds fun to go to Mexico. For a 12 week workup you may want to look at Living Language's Ultimate Basic-Intermediate course. It has 40 lessons (so you could finish it before your trip on one lesson a day) and is a fairly well rounded beginner/intermediate course. Michel Thomas is great too. Enjoy.
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Spanky Senior Member Canada Joined 5958 days ago 1021 posts - 1714 votes Studies: French
| Message 6 of 18 18 April 2013 at 4:23am | IP Logged |
Thanks James. I've never been to Mexico (apart from a harrowing day trip to Tijuana with my buddy right after high school graduation many years ago) and am looking forward to it.
I will look into the Living Language material in the near future, after I run through Michel Thomas. I like the Living Language material generally, and I have seen the Ultimate Spanish Advanced materials locally, but not yet the Basic-Intermediate.
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Spanky Senior Member Canada Joined 5958 days ago 1021 posts - 1714 votes Studies: French
| Message 7 of 18 18 April 2013 at 4:26am | IP Logged |
Week 1 - April 17th to 23rd
Hours this week: 11:35
Total study time: 18:35
Material studied this week:
FSI Spanish Programmatic – units 3 and 4
BBC, Mi vida loca – unit 3
Michel Thomas – Finished discs 1, 2 and 3; started working on disc 4
Destinos – episodes 2 and 3, plus practice material for ep. 1, 2
Spanish.about.com – finished unit 1; working on unit 2
Flash card work
Watched El laberinto de fauna with English subtitles - tried to focus on
listening to the language as much as paying attention to the hobgoblins.
Edited by Spanky on 24 April 2013 at 4:22am
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Spanky Senior Member Canada Joined 5958 days ago 1021 posts - 1714 votes Studies: French
| Message 8 of 18 20 April 2013 at 5:36pm | IP Logged |
I am thinking of signing up for Spanish classes with this professor at our local
community college (Greendale).
Senor Chang
But I am also thinking of not signing up....
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