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Need some help making a plan | ||
Tags: Study Plan | Spanish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| GoVols86 Newbie United States Joined 5011 days ago 8 posts - 8 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 1 of 6 28 February 2011 at 12:49am | IP Logged | ||
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Hey there guys here’s my deal. A couple of years ago I decided that I wanted to learn the romance languages starting with Spanish. I had taken Italian in college but my knowledge of it was fading fast and Spanish would be more useful to me in the immediate future. I had listened to the Michel Thomas method and then proceeded to buy a bunch of different Spanish materials without a plan. Really they have just sat around for a couple of years.
However, now I can devote some more time to studying Spanish, but I am wondering how to work these materials together into a study program. I currently have the Pimsluer cds, Living Language Ultimate Beginner, Cortina Method Master Linguist Spanish, Madrigals Magic Method, and a bunch of the Practice makes perfect books. What would be the best way to work these materials together into a plan of study? Also I have seen the FSI programs online and have heard great things about the Assimil Spanish with Ease. Should I use these as well? Or am I just overloading on stuff here. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5122 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes  Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 2 of 6 28 February 2011 at 1:48am | IP Logged | ||
My opinion, but you're extremely overloaded. Pick one, just one. And follow through with it. Then you'll have a much better idea of what you need to do next. R. == 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Jinx Triglot Senior Member Germany reverbnation.co Joined 5685 days ago 1085 posts - 1879 votes Speaks: English*, German, French Studies: Catalan, Dutch, Esperanto, Croatian, Serbian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Italian, Spanish, Yiddish | Message 3 of 6 28 February 2011 at 4:57am | IP Logged | ||
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I've heard that Living Language is pretty good for Spanish, although I've never used that course myself.
People on this forum say the FSI for Spanish is one of the absolute best products out there, but if you haven't used FSI before you should be warned that it's a bit dry. Extremely effective, though, if you're really serious about learning. Assimil, as far as I know, mainly teaches Castilian Spanish. Seeing as you're in the US, you might prefer choosing a method that teaches Latin-American Spanish. Personally, although I respect hrhenry's advice as well, I always find it a benefit to have lots of different materials. When you get tired of one, you can move on to the next one, and also review recently learned material in this way. Also, hearing audio recorded by various speakers will help improve your listening skills. I say, the more the merrier! Sorry, no concrete advice here since I'm not studying Spanish myself, but I hope some of my thoughts might help you make your decision. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Elexi Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5557 days ago 938 posts - 1840 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, German, Latin | Message 4 of 6 28 February 2011 at 8:59am | IP Logged | ||
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I it was me, I would finish the Pimsleur first, then do Living Language and supplement the excercises at the end of each chapter with the equivalent exercises from the Practice makes Perfect books. That should take you to next year and you can use the other books you have to build on solid foundations.
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| TerryW Senior Member United States Joined 6349 days ago 370 posts - 783 votes Speaks: English* | Message 5 of 6 28 February 2011 at 4:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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Although Madrigal and the Practice Makes Perfect books are very good, I think you would be better off putting them aside until you've used one or more of the courses with audio for awhile. Spanish pronunciation is very regular, and once you pick up how to pronounce Spanish words, you can go to the written-only type. Otherwise you will most likely be pronouncing words wrong "in your head," and reinforcing that.
For the audio courses, I think you should try each one for a chapter or two, one at a time. That way, you can see if you really like (or hate) one or some more than the others and work with the ones that motivate you the most. Then you can work with the one you like the best, or work with two of them if you feel like it. Not sure if you should go to three, at least at first, because once they get past the easy beginning parts, it might take too long to get very far in any one of them, opening a tendency to put them all aside and not do any of them for a while. (I know from experience) From your list, my recommendation would be to start by only using the free FSI Programmatic Volume 1 course, even if you only get to lesson 10 (of the 25 in Vol 1) and then move on to something else. It's easy because it's in small bite-size steps, and focusses on pronunciation to a ridiculous degree (don't be too turned off by the PA-pa vs. pa-PA in Unit one, the course moves along steadily to where you may have to repeat a lesson to absorb what it's teaching). Units 1 to 3 are only 1/2 hour each and then the rest of the Units are about an hour (plus some additional text and drills in the Student Text that are not in the audio which gets substancial somewhere around lesson 10). Sticking with Vol 1 and going on to Vol 2 would give you a great background in Spanish, but you'll want to check out all the other stuff you have to see if you like them better. Edited by TerryW on 28 February 2011 at 4:15pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| GoVols86 Newbie United States Joined 5011 days ago 8 posts - 8 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 6 of 6 01 March 2011 at 1:23am | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks guys, some good advice here.
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