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James29’s Spanish Log | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| BOLIO Senior Member United States Joined 4656 days ago 253 posts - 366 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 457 of 668 15 July 2014 at 4:43pm | IP Logged |
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I don't mind at all. I am a stockbroker and they have moved here to the States. Most are business owners and one is a doctor. They do miss Paris. However, they do NOT miss the high rate of taxes. French would be great to know. It does have a certain "cool" factor to it.
I wonder when (if I live long enough) I get to a B2 level of Spanish, will I have the same desire to learn another language. I don't know. I have to force myself some days to find 15 minutes just to say that I did not skip a day of study. Would I do that for a language besides Spanish? There would have to be something driving me more than just knowing the language. Spanish is easy...1)wife is native speaker along with entire family. 2) I want to vacation as much as possible in Spanish speaking countries. 3)Some say that my part of the USA is a Spanish speaking country :) 4) I want to retire in Mexico, Costa Rica, Ecuador or some other Spanish speaking country. Motivation is built in. Oh, if I were at your level, I would find a huge amount of joy from the language. Heck, I am not anywhere near your level and I love it. If all I messed up was pronouns and prepositions and irregular familiar commands I would crown myself king of the Spanish speaking world and have a parade. I spit out sentence fragments and grunting sounds. Yesterday, my neighbor, who is from Colombia, came by my office. He said he will speak to me only in Spanish and asked me to do the same in order to help me progress. I made his ears bleed from trying to describe my upcoming trip to mexico. I was trying to explain to him about the aquaducts of Querétaro, Mexico and the story of forbiden love by the man who built them and the nun he loved but could not have. He was very nice and helpful but it was painful for both parties. I was not embarrassed but disappointed with my production. The funny thing is my assistant was amazed with my speaking. She said, "Wow, you really speak Spanish." I told her that was not Spanish but a butchering of a beautiful language. I think this language learning is like golf. Two golfers score a Bogey on the same hole, one is mad and the other is happy. It is all relative I guess. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5373 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 458 of 668 15 July 2014 at 5:49pm | IP Logged |
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Yes... one thing I have noticed is there are a number of Americans I have met over the years where I initially made the mistake of assuming they were native Spanish speakers largely because I heard their Spanish as extremely good and automatically assumed they were native. Now, as the years go by, I see these folks again and can clearly note the challenges they have with Spanish and in many cases their Spanish now is painful to listen to. I am not writing this to slam on them, but, rather, because it makes me realize that many other people listen to me and assume I am "fluent" because I can rattle off Spanish pretty fast and with a pretty good accent even if it is something like "hey, man, please slow down or I am not going to understand anything you say." When I say something like that in Spanish I sound pretty good :)
I can totally relate to the internal motivations of learning Spanish... I have them... but I don't really have them for French. Your comment about getting better service for knowing/trying to speak in Spanish is definitely true. Don't discount the fact that it goes both ways too. There are few Spanish speakers around here, but there is a major network and if you can be "the" Spanish speaking stock broker it can really be helpful. Just by word of mouth I am becoming the "go to" guy who "speaks" Spanish for what I do. Small things go a long way. your business is a lot different than mine, but you'd be surprised. Very recently I was in my Mexican restaurant and I sat next to another American guy like me who learned Spanish and he was there because the owner of the restaurant wanted to hire him as his stock broker. If you just keep plugging away at Spanish you can/will get to B2-ish level pretty fast and without too much pain. It seems to be the step from there to C1 that will be a marathon. It blows my mind how slow the progress is at that point. By the way, are you aware of any companies that do their quarterly conference calls in Spanish? A while back I searched and searched for Mexican and Spanish companies that might have investor webcasts or conference calls online with audio and a transcript but I could not find anything. I don't think I'd have time to use them, but it might be something fun and useful for you to do. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| BOLIO Senior Member United States Joined 4656 days ago 253 posts - 366 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 459 of 668 15 July 2014 at 8:37pm | IP Logged |
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Interesting...I had never thought of that. The first company that came to mind was Telefónica. I will check on that and I am sure other companies based in the US offer company news in Spanish. Thanks for that.
As far as becoming the "go to guy" that speaks Spanish, that is my ultimate goal. We have a large influx of wealthy people moving here from Mexico and I hope to inter that arena. Most think that that space will only be filled by a native speaker. I disagree. The largest and most sought after real estate broker in that space is a Gringo who speaks beautiful Spanish according to my wife and our friends from Mexico and Colombia. One day it will be me. Onward and Upward! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| sfuqua Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4763 days ago 581 posts - 977 votes Speaks: English*, Hawaiian, Tagalog Studies: Spanish | Message 460 of 668 15 July 2014 at 9:43pm | IP Logged |
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James, I'm a couple of years behind you. I've bombed out a couple
of times on fsi, getting impatient about results versus the effort I put in. I'm actually much stronger in Spanish than ever before, but my fluency is still very weak, probably from inadequate practice in courses and the real world. A few months ago you gave a beginning learner advice on what to doto develop basic fluency in Spanish. I think it went Pimsleur, -- >Michel Thomas, >assimil>, fsi or something like that. Could you repeat your advice ? 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5373 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 461 of 668 15 July 2014 at 11:03pm | IP Logged |
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Bolio, I totally agree with you about gringos being able to fill professional spaces for Spanish speakers. I have done a lot of work in this area and in numerous professional service areas it does not seem to make much of a difference. There are some things that matter, but being a native does not seem to make much of a difference. Somewhere I actually have some studies on this that are quite interesting. I also belong to a group of professionals that tell me the exact same thing as verified from their own businesses.
Sfuqua... I remember what you are talking about and I suspect I suggested more or less the following: Pimsleur 1 and 2 Michel Thomas Foundations x 2 Assimil Michel Thomas Advanced x 2 Second Assimil Active wave (I think this could be done two lessons per day) FSI (each lesson three times). I basically plan to follow this scheme for French. I am doing it differently now, but will fall into this plan when I hit Assimil. Edited by James29 on 15 July 2014 at 11:05pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5260 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 462 of 668 15 July 2014 at 11:27pm | IP Logged |
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I too, often do business in Spanish. Sometimes, it is absolutely necessary. Other times, it is just a matter of courtesy. Also, perhaps explaining "foreign" concepts in a familiar language seems to make them a little more easy to grasp. I know it is always appreciated and my referrals amongst the Spanish-speaking community here are always appreciated by me.
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| sfuqua Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4763 days ago 581 posts - 977 votes Speaks: English*, Hawaiian, Tagalog Studies: Spanish | Message 463 of 668 16 July 2014 at 2:55am | IP Logged |
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Thanks , James.
I never have done Pimsleur or FSI properly. Neither Assimil nor Michel Thomas demand speed. Speed/fluency is what I lack. You've already given me good advice on how to fix this :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5373 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 464 of 668 16 July 2014 at 1:45pm | IP Logged |
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sfuqua, what do you mean by "speed"? I think of these programs as providing different foundations for the language.
Pimsleur is great for a beginner because it is "dummy-proof." You just turn it on and do it for half an hour a day and you can feel/see progress. It gets the learner motivated at the beginning instead of discouraged. It is a false sense of progress, but it works. Also, it seems wonderful for getting a basic foundation of the basic words/phrases and, also, provides training for a good accent which is much more important than beginners realize. Michel Thomas is great for providing the basic framework of the language. It provides the basic grammar that allows everything else to fall into place... it is like building the bookshelf that you will later fill up with the contents in an organized way. It is a fast and fun way to get this information. I think Paul Noble might be a good substitute for the Pimsleur/MT step, but I cannot recommend it because I have not done it. Assimil is where things seem to really get supercharged. At first, for a beginner, Assimil seems somewhat crazy and unorganized. But, if the learner has faith that it will work and is willing to put in the 5.5 months it works great. I have recommended Assimil to friends and they all quit because they get overwhelmed and they just cannot see the value of it in the first month or two. I think that is why doing something like Pimselur at first really is important. Assimil provides the "real world" use of the language that can fall into place around the basics from Pimsleur and Michel Thomas. Having done MT before Assimil makes Assimil so much more useful, in my opinion. Assimil provides a good amount of basic and useful vocabulary. I found that even after finishing Assimil I was still somewhat "lost" in my Spanish language studies. I then did Michel Thomas Advanced a couple times and got very confident with the grammar and structure of the language. This was immensely helpful. Then with another active wave through Assimil I felt like I was off to the races with Spanish and nothing could stop me. Things really started to fall into place. I spoke slowly and screwed up a ton of stuff, but I felt confident and I felt that I was starting to get my arms around this huge tree and I was starting to be able to manage it. FSI is simply an amazing course. But, I cannot imagine learning the language from scratch or near scratch with FSI. Wow, that would blow my mind. Doing it after having a very solid grounding in the language is perfect, in my opinion, because you can do FSI and not have to worry about learning the vocabulary or the basic grammar. You can just focus on doing the drills and getting the major benefit of the course. If you do FSI thoroughly (especially after thoroughly doing Assimil) you will feel very comfortable in the language. I tried tons of other courses and many of them are very good (like some of the Living Language courses). I admittedly did too many courses, but I did not know what would really work for me. Now I know. Too bad I cannot go back in time and save about a year of studying the things that did not help too much. Anyway, I am babbling too much. Enjoy. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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