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Intermediate Spanish, Beginner Irish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Kharis Newbie United States Joined 4188 days ago 8 posts - 9 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Irish | Message 1 of 13 07 July 2013 at 3:37pm | IP Logged |
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¡Hola! Dia duit!
Well, after about a month of lurking on this site I've finally decided to break down and create a log for my various language-learning activities. As the title of my post suggests, I am currently studying Spanish and Irish. I think it would be best to start with a little background on each language first. SPANISH I have been learning Spanish off and on for about twenty years, beginning in junior high, continuing through high school and college. I used to absolutely hate this language, but after getting to a decent intermediate stage (especially in listening, reading, and writing) I have grown to appreciate it more. I owe most of my success in Spanish to two things: an excellent 10th grade Spanish teacher and being married to a native speaker for nine years. Unfortunately, my grammar and speaking skills have eroded, so I have decided to resurrect my Spanish using Assimil I]Spanish With Ease. It's a great book, and I'm on lesson 26 and loving every minute of it. Although I live in an area mainly populated by Latin Americans, I prefer Castilian Spanish and so have decided to focus mainly on that variety, although I do occasionally watch Univision for the local news and a few telenovelas. My strategy for Spanish so far has been an Assimil lesson a day, speaking practice with co-workers, customers, friends, and family, and watching lots of Spanish TV (mainly RTVE, an excellent channel). Every chance I get, I switch the audio on my favorite shows (Game of Thrones, Dexter, Breaking Bad) to Spanish. Whenever I buy a DVD I make sure there is dubbing in Spanish as well. I'm also using Anki to study words from a little book called Mastering Spanish Vocabulary: A Thematic Approach. I'd like to pick up a Schaum's Outline of Spanish Grammar to reinforce some of my weak points and I plan on continuing with native materials (People en español, Juego de Tronos, etc) once I've finished Assimil. My goal for Spanish is total fluency. IRISH This is actually a strange one, because I had no plans on learning Irish, or at least not any time soon. However, my seven year old daughter seems to have inherited the language learning bug, and she wrote a list of languages she wants to learn: French, German, and Irish (apparently she learned about Ireland in school and is fascinated by it). Initially, I thought we could do French together first, but once she realized that Irish was available, her mind was made up. I decided that since my parents were never too enthusiatic about my language learning, I would make sure that my daughter had the resources to learn whatever her heart desires. I'd prefer she spend thirty minutes a day learning any language rather than spending her summer in front of the TV. So I bought a copy of Rosetta Stone Homeschool Irish Level 1. I am well aware of the reputation Rosetta Stone has on this forum, and I can't say I disagree. It´s overpriced and gimmicky, and I know there's better resources out there. It isn't the worst program I've ever seen, but I also would never recommend it to an adult. However, my daughter seems to like it and it's at least whetted her appetite for more Irish. I've also ordered a copy of Colloquial Irish and I'm going to try to track down a copy of Teach Yourself Irish to supplement Rosetta Stone. (I'm also using RS, just to practice along with her. One thing I can give RS credit for is making it easy to keep track of my daughter's progress). We'll be watching Irish TV and speaking together, so it should be fun! My goal is to reach an intermediate stage in Irish where my daughter and I could read something like Harry Potter together with a dictionary. So that's about it for now. I've found a reasonable pace wherein I can study each language for about 30 minutes to an hour a day every day I work or have school and I can devote more time on my days off. We'll see how it goes from here! Edited by Kharis on 07 July 2013 at 10:31pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| LtM Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5862 days ago 130 posts - 223 votes  Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: German | Message 2 of 13 07 July 2013 at 10:39pm | IP Logged |
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Welcome to HTLAL, Kharis.
It's great that you're so supportive of your daughter's desire to learn another language, and that you're even going to work on Irish with her. I wish you both great success! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Kharis Newbie United States Joined 4188 days ago 8 posts - 9 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Irish | Message 3 of 13 11 July 2013 at 2:17pm | IP Logged |
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Go raibh maith agat, LtM!
I have been so busy it's been near impossible for me to post a status update, so here we go: SPANISH I'm on Lesson 29 of Assimil, and I can already tell that my grammar is slowly getting less rusty. I'm remembering more of my tenses (which is probably my biggest weakness) and I'm excited to finally remember how not only to discuss things in the present, but in the future and past as well. I've also noticed that the more I converse with Spanish speakers, the less I hesitate and the less mistakes I make. I've been watching lots of TV shows dubbed in Castilian, like Breaking Bad, so I've been picking up a lot of Spanish slang that my Mexican friends don't understand ( I also try to watch the local Univision station just to balance things out. I might speak Castilian Spanish, but I don't want to be ignorant of the Spanish spoken all around me by Latin Americans). I've made a goal of doing as little in English as possible. For example, whenever I want to watch a movie, I make sure it's in Spanish. Last Sunday I made myself watch the newest episode of Dexter in Spanish (by switching the settings on my cable box), and I understood about 80 percent of it. I try to force my ex-wife to speak only in Spanish...she has this irritating habit of responding to all of my Spanish texts in English! I keep reminding her that her English is fine, it's my Spanish that needs practicing. Luckily, her mom speaks very little English so whenever I talk to her it's almost all in Spanish. Next week I'm going to order a copy of Schaum's Outline of Spanish Grammar to supplement Assimil. I think that by the time I finish Assimil, my Spanish will be back at the high intermediate level it was in high school. IRISH My daughter and I are continuing our adventure in Irish! She's been religiously doing Rosetta Stone five days a week, and her pronunciation and comprehension have steadily improved. I found a used copy of Teach Yourself Irish and I'm on Unit 2 right now. I've been trying to teach her simple phrases for practice, and she seems really eager to learn. The only difficulty is getting her to watch Irish TV for more than five minutes, but I understand it can be boring to watch something that you don't understand. I myself have been watching as much of the news and other programs as possible on TG4 and RTÉ. I also have a copy of Colloquial Irish that I plan on starting today. Well, that's it for now, I'll try to post more regularly if time permits. Edited by Kharis on 11 July 2013 at 2:18pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Kharis Newbie United States Joined 4188 days ago 8 posts - 9 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Irish | Message 4 of 13 13 July 2013 at 5:39pm | IP Logged |
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IRISH
I overslept yesterday so I only got in about 30 minutes of Irish, but today I got in an hour and I got off of work early so I may do another hour later today. I've started using Colloquial Irish. I think the Colloquial and Teach Yourself courses complement each other quite well, although the Teach Yourself course is more thorough and I like the audio better. I wish there was an Assimil for Irish, it really stinks that I have to use two books to cover the material that one Assimil course would cover (and without all of the English on the CDs!) I need to go over the pronunciation section of both books again (well, actually, several times). My daughter is still working on Rosetta Stone Irish and we're getting better at practicing things like greetings with each other. I'd like to get her some other children's learning material to supplement Rosetta Stone. SPANISH Still doing my Assimil lesson per day, I'm up to number 32 I think. I've been practicing speaking as much as possible, and slowly my grammar is becoming less and less rusty. So, to recap: Teach Yourself Irish (3/21) Colloquial Irish (2/14) Assimil Spanish With Ease (32/109) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| liammcg Senior Member Ireland Joined 4606 days ago 269 posts - 397 votes Speaks: English* | Message 5 of 13 13 July 2013 at 6:48pm | IP Logged |
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Ádh mór leis an nGaeilge! (Good luck with Irish) I'll be following this log with
interest. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6911 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 6 of 13 14 July 2013 at 1:34am | IP Logged |
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Ádh mor oraibh!
You may want to have a look at the TAC 2013, Celtic team: "Clan Lugus" thread for some inspiration. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Kharis Newbie United States Joined 4188 days ago 8 posts - 9 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Irish | Message 7 of 13 18 July 2013 at 1:38am | IP Logged |
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Vale, acabo de completar lección 37 de Assimil, y empecé FSI Spanish o Mastering Spanish o lo que sea.
I worked on Colloquial Irish today. I'm on Unit 3, which covers a lot of the same ground as the third unit of the Teach Yourself course. I have to admit, the Colloquial course is a lot tougher than the Teach Yourself course, the dialogues are quite complex and I have to listen to them repeatedly to get the gist of what's being said. And forget about the pronunciation! It's so much more jumbled than the "Offical Standard Irish" taught in the Teach Yourself course (or even, dare I say, Rosetta Stone!) Also, I had a rare stroke of luck today. I went to the local used bookstore to buy an Irish grammar (I found one, also by Teach Yourself), and I was browsing through the French section since that's the language I planned on learning after Spanish (I already have a copy of Assimil El Francés, I thought learning French through Spanish would help). And what did I find? A complete Linguaphone French course from the 1970s in excellent condition for $7.99! I bought it, of course, and now the problem is I want to play with it! I've never used Linguaphone before, but so many people on this forum rave about it. Whether I start now or later, it's good to know I have some decent resources at my disposal. Edited by Kharis on 18 July 2013 at 1:39am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Kharis Newbie United States Joined 4188 days ago 8 posts - 9 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Irish | Message 8 of 13 19 July 2013 at 1:19am | IP Logged |
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Acabo de completar lección 38 de Assimil y estoy mirando los Premios juventud de Univision.
I my daughter and I both did about thirty minutes of Rosetta Stone Irish after I picked her up from camp, and she´s learned quite a bit. This lesson was a hard slog for her, but she is determined, I'll give her that! She really wants to learn Irish...and French, and German... I also worked on the Colloquial course some more. I really, really have a hard time understanding Connacht Irish, but I still think the course is useful, even if I want to throw the recordings against the wall sometimes. I'm almost done with Unit 3 and after that I'm going to switch back to the Teach Yourself course for a few units, I really can't stand the sound of the Cois Fharraige dialect anymore. At least Colloquial has an appendix in the back that shows the forms for Munster and Ulster Irish as well. Well, that's it for now! Slán! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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