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the old man and the platiquemos | ||
Tags: Platiquemos | Spanish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| sfuqua Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4764 days ago 581 posts - 977 votes  Speaks: English*, Hawaiian, Tagalog Studies: Spanish | Message 17 of 91 03 December 2012 at 7:34pm | IP Logged | ||
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Platiquemos Unit 3/55, track 1/10
dbag, I'm glad to have you experienced people here; please make comments and suggestions, especially in a few weeks when the novelty wears off for me and I start to wonder why I ever started this :) Family interfered with my studies on Saturday; I only spent about 20 minutes. I finished the end of Unit 2 last night, which included some pattern drills. The response drill, 2.31.11, never did roll off my tongue smoothly. After 8 times through, I could complete the drill accurately, with the correct words, but my delivery wasn't smooth, which I suppose proves that I never did memorize it. The translation drill, 2.31.12, was smooth and accurate after a couple of times through, and probably didn't need the 8 repetitions I gave it. I wonder how long I will keep to my mechanical, no thinking, 8 repetitions a track approach... Is it really Platiquemos X 8 = B1 ? I started Unit 3 last night, outside of my regular lesson time. I found it useful to go through the unit with the book the first time. I think I am going to drop my working with the book before listening to the audio. I believe my first time through any of the tracks, I'll do it with the book and the audio together, pausing where I need to read, and then repeat 7X without the book, or even 2X with the book and 6X without. I experimented with the pattern drills in Unit 3, and they seemed easier than the two example ones in Unit 2. I should have these well mastered by the end of 8 repetitions. Since Platiquemos/FSI is a huge course, I plan to keep moving forward, even if I am less than perfect on some of this. I don't want to get bogged down aiming for perfection and reviewing, which I think would be my tendancy. steve Edited by sfuqua on 03 December 2012 at 7:39pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4706 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish | Message 18 of 91 03 December 2012 at 8:06pm | IP Logged | ||
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You go through the drills in the system quite often! I never did more than 4 drills for
an exercise when I stumbled through the dryness that is FSI Swedish. I also varied the amount depending on how fluently it went. It has to be said that Swedish grammar is not very complex, though. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| sfuqua Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4764 days ago 581 posts - 977 votes Speaks: English*, Hawaiian, Tagalog Studies: Spanish | Message 19 of 91 04 December 2012 at 5:12am | IP Logged | ||
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Platiquemos Unit 3/55, track 2/10
Well I did the first part of the basic sentences today, the first track. I did it once with the book, following along. The material wasn't very hard, and the activity repeated the same sentences three times. I did it 6 more times without the book. Since I have an important family duty to do (someone has to open the bottle of wine for the evening), I decided to stop after 6 repetitions without the book for 7 total repetitions. Tomorrow I'll have to decide whether to give the first track another run through to get up to my 8X rule, or if I will call it good enough and move forward immediatedly. It wasn't really very hard at all. I think all of the repetition of American Spanish is starting to have some impact on my pronunciation. My mouth seems to want to move in some new ways, especially on consonants. It feels good and strong somehow. I found an odd word to be a tongue twister, "mineral," as in "agua mineral." Getting my tongue into position for the "r" seems hard. As usual with pronunciation problem, I fall back on what they taught me in graduate school - first just try to "feel" what the native speaker's mouth is doing and follow along. If that doesn't work, analyze what your mouth is doing and what the description of the language says the sound is, and see if there are any differences. Trust your ears before you trust the written page... Well, my mouth feels real clumsy on the word and it doesn't sound quite right, so I've got more work to do. That probably isn't a good reason to repeat a whole track, however. I'll just slice out the line with audacity and repeat it 1000X (I'm kidding, maybe 50-100X), and see if my mouth will start to do it. Chorusing a single line is a good way to kill time in traffic. If you leave the windows down, it can frighten other drivers, however. Now for that wine... steve Edited by sfuqua on 04 December 2012 at 6:12am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Rout Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5711 days ago 326 posts - 417 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish Studies: Hindi | Message 20 of 91 04 December 2012 at 11:23pm | IP Logged | ||
I had the same problem with the same word in the same part of the course. I asked native speakers if it was hard to say (I know, what could I have been expecting, right?), and they all said "no" (of course). I didn't take the action you did, I just repeated it to myself whenever the thought occurred to me. Another tricky one you'll encounter is "dólares". I felt like I sounded Russian whenever I attempt to say it. I worked on this one in much the same way. Discounting that it is an actual loanword, I think it must be somewhat "foreign" to native tongues as well and this is why a lot of Spanish speakers just say "pesos" instead of "dólares". For example, it's not uncommon where I live for a monolingual mother (and not necessarily from a country where the peso is used) to go into the store with her bilingual daughter and ask "¿Cuánto es?" to which the daughter replies "Tres pesos." This is probably kind of slangy and totally beside the point (sorry). :p The point is that I think at least some Spanish speakers think words with /r/, /d/, /l/ clusters are a little "tongue twisty" (like I do) and so use "pesos" instead. If your anglophonically molded tongue is anything like mine then be prepared for words like this. :p [EDIT] Just thought of something. "Dineral", which is more or less an informal way of saying "fortune" (e.g., "¿Buscás un audífono resistente y duradero que no cueste un dineral?" = "Looking for a hard-working headset that won't 'break the bank'?") is one of those words I just can't really say. Thought it was an interesting example since it's a mix phonetically among the worst parts of "mineral" and "dólares", jaja. I'm surprised no tongue-twisters exist with this word. If you can say this word then you know you're getting somewhere. Edited by Rout on 05 December 2012 at 5:40am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| sfuqua Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4764 days ago 581 posts - 977 votes Speaks: English*, Hawaiian, Tagalog Studies: Spanish | Message 21 of 91 05 December 2012 at 6:28am | IP Logged | ||
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Platiquemos Unit 3/55, track 3/10
I'm glad that "mineral" bugged somebody else, too :) I drilled the word as I described, and it seems to have settled down for now. I finished up the second half of the dialog today. It was easy too. I think I'm scaling back my repetitions to 7X. Tomorrow I hit the "real" grammar drills. I'm looking forward to it. Bad news today; my wife was looking at the news from Sinaloa about the murder of Flores Gamez, and said "no family trips to Mexico." I have no interest in danger either, but I have a lot a affection for the Mexicans I know, work with, and teach here in San Jose, and I wish I could see some of Mexico. I've only been a little bit down Baja California, and that was almost 40 years ago. I bet just a couple of things have changed :) I know I have changed; Mexico was the first foreign country I ever visited. I've lived in several since then. I would love to visit Mexico. steve 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| sfuqua Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4764 days ago 581 posts - 977 votes Speaks: English*, Hawaiian, Tagalog Studies: Spanish | Message 22 of 91 06 December 2012 at 5:22am | IP Logged | ||
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It looks like a computer glitch ate the post I just completed. I hope it reappears.
I did my first substitution drill today. No problems. I may drop back to six repetitions track. I also may start doing the whole unit at a time instead of doing it one track at a time. I want to keep moving forward quickly, but I don't want to make it too painful. I don't like pain, especially at the end of a long day :) steve 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| sfuqua Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4764 days ago 581 posts - 977 votes Speaks: English*, Hawaiian, Tagalog Studies: Spanish | Message 23 of 91 07 December 2012 at 5:34am | IP Logged | ||
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Platiquemos Unit 3/55, track 7/11 (the last track is a song)
OK; I had to put out a little effort today. 3.21.12, the response drill had me stumbling around the first few times through. I could understand the prompts easily, and I could easily understand the responses they were expecting, but I kept answering the questions differently than they wanted. I kept answering in "more complete sentences than they wanted. By the seventh repetition I got them all "correct" the way that they wanted. 3.21.13, the translation drill was easier, but still took some effort. Once again I had no trouble understanding it, when I was written down, but I had some difficulty answering at the speed they were requiring. The voice of the woman who was giving the responses sounded like she was about 6 years old, sort of cute. I kept having images of my 6 year old daughter drilling me in Spanish. Having to do a little effort to get through the tracks seems normal; my guess is that an FSI course which took no effort wouldn't be worth the time to do it. I've been daydreaming about doing the regular fsi basic Spanish course, just to see how it differs. Luke did an extremely clear series of posts about the differences between FSI Spanish Basic, Programmatic, and Platiquemos, so I know what the differences are, but I don't really know what they really "feel" like. The accents on the original FSI Spanish Basic course seem a little "alien," which I guess is my way of saying that they don't sound exactly either Spanish or Mexican. I "like" the accent, however. This was not terribly hard, but it was a step back toward the "reality" that my Spanish isn't really that good. Many people say that the original fsi basic Spanish course is too fast, but I don't really find it that way. Fast, but bearable, I would say. I guess those hours of shadowing Assimil had some effect. My wife is continuing to blast her way through Pimsleur Spanish. We can already annoy the children by speaking Spanish. They understand most of our simple "Pimsleur" conversations, but can't take part. My 6 year old daughter is dying to learn Spanish to talk to her friends; I'm not sure how to help her. She doesn't like Pimsleur much... So far, so good. steve One thing I always hear people Edited by sfuqua on 09 December 2012 at 6:01am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| sfuqua Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4764 days ago 581 posts - 977 votes Speaks: English*, Hawaiian, Tagalog Studies: Spanish | Message 24 of 91 09 December 2012 at 5:59am | IP Logged | ||
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Platiquemos Unit 4, track 1
The last few drills in Unit 3 were sort of fun to do. I wasn't too far off the first time through, and by 7 times through, I was pretty close to perfect. I found the response drill took a little effort, but the replacement drills were sort of fun. The variation drill was similarly fun. I tried doing these drills with the regular fsi basic recordings. The brisk speed of the original fsi course was nice, but of course I ran straight into the lack of prompts in the conversations stimulus drill. I shadowed these, badly at first, since they are fast. I'm going to do the drill with the actual Platiquemos prompts tomorrow, but I think I have most of the content down pretty well after shadowing it 7 times. I know myself; if I don't watch myself, I'll set up a review system which will make the course last forever... I need to consider review as I go along. I hope that the course has enough review built in, although I notice that many people go back and repeat big sections of the course. I'm not sure if this is because they have reached a point where the course is too hard to move forward, or if they are concerned that they are forgetting what they learned earlier. For Unit 4, I think I am just going to plow ahead. This course involves many drills where the learner has to create new utterances, plugging words into the structures. The way I did Assimil, I did not really do this, ever. I repeated, I shadowed, I translated. All the time, I was repeating, shadowing, and translating sentences that were already in the book. I wonder if this is a missing skill that is holding me back. I am often painfully slow when I try to produces novel utterances. Many people have commented that the real breakthroughs in speaking come when a person actually starts speaking to communicate. I wonder if what makes this work, is that the learner has to create original utterances to carry out a conversation, and I wonder if this process could not be facilitated by fsi type drills. I hope so When I had my training in applied linguistics in the early '80s, one of my professors had been in the foreign service, and had gone through FSI training in Arabic. He thought that the very audiolingual, drill oriented instruction he had received at FSI had been excellent. He had hit the ground in Lebanon able to communicate and use Arabic for his work. While Krashen was the latest and greatest thing those days, he always reminded us that the good old audiolingual method worked. I certainly hope so. Two weeks, three units done. I wish there was a way to get through this course faster, but my goal for this is not to finish it quickly, but to learn it well. So far, so good :) steve Edited by sfuqua on 09 December 2012 at 6:00am 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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