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Tibbles Is Learning Spanish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| tibbles Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5196 days ago 245 posts - 422 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Korean | Message 9 of 23 11 September 2011 at 8:33am | IP Logged | ||
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Yikes. It's been like 75 days since I last posted an update here. So far so good with the Bolivian tutor. I am continuing the one-on-one classes with her, and the format of the class is roughly 30 minutes of conversation followed by 30 minutes of focused work on a grammatical area, eg. adjectival clauses using subjunctive, etc which are conducted in a back & forth or give & take drilling method. My homework consists of writing an essay and doing whatever exercises are assigned from the grammar workbook. I also went and did the entire FSI Programmatic Spanish course workbook (both volumes). The second volume has a lot of tricky stuff. One thing I like about that workbook is that many of the exercises force me to make a choice between two things (por vs para, preterito perfecto vs imperfecto, indicativo vs subjuntivo, etc) whereas most other workbooks pretty much say "Fill in the blank with the present subjunctive of the provided verb" requiring little thought other than knowing how to conjugate. I am still watching various Spanish shows downloaded from the internet, and based on suggestions seen elsewhere in these message boards, I am listening to the "Rojas Spanish" podcasts and just started reading Paulo Coelho's _The Alchemist_.
Assessing my current progress: some time in the past two weeks something happened. I can't put a finger on when it happened because the effect was subtle. I have realized that now I am internalizing what I hear or read almost instantly. In other words, I don't have to think hard on all the words to get the meaning. I'm also speaking with more confidence, much thanks to the skype sessions. My weaknesses continue to be my spotty conversation ability and of course the wide gulfs in my vocabulary. I really like the spontaneity and free flowing nature of the skype conversations because it forces me to find ways to deal with topics in which I know few if any words about in Spanish. Edited by tibbles on 11 September 2011 at 8:39am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tibbles Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5196 days ago 245 posts - 422 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Korean | Message 10 of 23 17 September 2011 at 4:58am | IP Logged | ||
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Since the last update from only 5 days ago, I've done a bunch of hours of skype conversation, including a 2.5 hour session all in Spanish with a very kind gentleman from Costa Rica. We just kind of lost track of the time and kept on talking about new things. I owe him a marathon in English in return some time in the next few days. And then just today I did a 3 hour session with someone from Colombia, split more evenly between the two languages. It was this guy's first time to try one of these 50-50 language exchanges, and he was quite nervous during the English half. But he did fine. One thing I have noticed that facilitates this format is that it is good for the native speaker (of whichever half) to guide the conversation somewhat. By that I mean if the L2 speaker happens to get bogged down, the native speaker can bring up a new line of discussion to keep things flowing.
Also, I'm continuing where I left off with my old Practice Makes Perfect (PMP) workbooks with my other workbooks completed already -- even though my tutor says those PMP books suck. The verbs and pronouns/prepositions books are quite easy now, but I just pace myself and write out the answers in longhand. The PMP Advanced Grammar book has a good deal of tricky stuff in it that I haven't seen before, so I'm enjoying the challenge of that one. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Crush Tetraglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5870 days ago 1622 posts - 2299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto Studies: Basque | Message 11 of 23 17 September 2011 at 12:56pm | IP Logged | ||
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You might be interested in the FSI Spanish Basic Course (essentially the Platiquemos course), which is far more thorough than the Programmatic one.
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| tibbles Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5196 days ago 245 posts - 422 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Korean | Message 12 of 23 01 November 2011 at 7:42am | IP Logged | ||
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For the past 1.5 months I have been hitting the Skype conversations pretty hard, going to my tutor, and finishing my first Spanish novel -- pretty much a repeat of the previous log entry.
However, late last week an unexpected opportunity arose, and I went to Mexico City for 4 days! I spoke Spanish everywhere, all the time. Lots of unexpected and complex situations arose in which there was no possibility of falling back on English, such as when I dealt with the mobile phone store employee to figure out how to purchase, cut, and configure a SIM chip to get Mexican phone service on my iPhone. I hired a driver to take me to the pyramids for a day, and that ended up including a personal tour of the basilica which included a ton of background history, hours of conversation during the car ride, and then a Spanish-only tour of some local artisans who create Meso-American inspired works. The other thing I did throughout my days there was put myself on the spot and try new foods from the street vendors and restaurants. Since I didn't recognize all the foods being served, I had to ask and sometimes get more detailed explanations before ordering. Prior to the trip I was concerned that people would try to speak English to me because I had encountered this annoying phenomenon in other countries like Denmark and even Italy. Luckily for me, people in Mexico City were happy to speak Spanish to me even when they had some capacity of English. Of course I didn't speak Spanish perfectly. But I got my points across, was able to carry on conversations, and in general felt that I understood 90% or more of what was said to me, no matter what the subject. This experience has been a confidence booster because I handled every situation thrown my way. My strategy is to continue the skype conversations, the tutor sessions, and all the reading. This stuff keeps me engaged and interested. And I'm trying to figure out how soon I can get back to Mexico City. I think 4 days there is equivalent to a month of study here. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5380 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 13 of 23 02 November 2011 at 12:48am | IP Logged | ||
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Great news about your trip. That sounds like a blast. What did you think of Mexico City? Did you feel safe there? I am starting to think about taking a trip for learning Spanish, but I had not considered Mexico City.
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| tibbles Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5196 days ago 245 posts - 422 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Korean | Message 14 of 23 02 November 2011 at 1:47am | IP Logged | ||
Mexico City was great, and I felt safe there. I just used common sense. Those pessimistic sounding State Department profiles of various countries need to be taken with a grain of salt. There is a lot to do and 4 days barely scratched the surface. My #1 recommendation is to ride the Metro in Mexico City. It is a pretty cool and unusual experience to say the least. Plus it is insanely cheap and a lot more reliable than the Metro in my hometown. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tibbles Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5196 days ago 245 posts - 422 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Korean | Message 15 of 23 03 November 2011 at 1:54am | IP Logged | ||
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So when I was in Mexico City last Friday, I popped by CU (or more formally la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México) to visit the modern art museum. As it turns out they offer six week courses in intensive Spanish there. The cost is like USD 400 for 90 hours worth of instruction:
Admissions The only requirements are to be 18+, show your passport, and take a placement test. They have 8 different levels of courses: Levels I'm going to do more digging to see what people's impressions of these courses are. What I do know is that the independent Spanish language schools located in Mexico City aren't very good and are over-priced. So maybe something rigorous like this CU curriculum along with living in Mexico City for six weeks might be just the thing to propel one into the realm of fluency. Also, I am aware of some pretty good Spanish schools in other parts of Mexico, but the allure of this one is that it is no more than a non-stop flight and a taxi ride from where I live in the States. Edited by tibbles on 03 November 2011 at 1:55am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tibbles Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5196 days ago 245 posts - 422 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Korean | Message 16 of 23 11 February 2012 at 8:12am | IP Logged | ||
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As usual it's been a while since my last update. So what is new with me? At the end of December I quit my Spanish tutor/class. I feel that I can get enough conversation practice through skype and other avenues now. One such avenue is that my local veterinary office has a vet tech from Mexico. Now whenever I stop by, he makes sure to practice with me in Spanish for a good 10-15 minutes or so. Also in December when I went to a local Spanish restaurant, the waiter immediately started speaking to me in Spanish and even asked me if I used to live in a Spanish speaking country. Then at a Chinese restaurant, the busboy who happened to be from El Salvador asked me how I knew how to speak Chinese, and this turned into another Spanish conversation. Ha ha, I'll accept every one of these little successes because so much of language learning, especially the early phases, is such an exercise in humility.
So the activities I spend the most time on now are skype, reading El País and El Universal, and podcasts. I discovered in November a podcast called PuroMac which is pretty much two guys gossiping in Spanish on all things related to Apple products. One interesting thing for me is that these guys use the vos, so it's nice to be exposed to that. I polished off all of my grammar books prior to the end of 2011. These included the grammar book recommended by my tutor as well as three Practice Makes Perfect books (verbs, prepositions, and advanced grammar). So, I"m going to keep on doing what I have been doing. I still have in the back of my mind the idea of spending 6 weeks in Mexico City. However, there are some serious upheavals occurring at my place of work, so now is not the right time to consider taking such a "sabbatical". I'll post again if anything new develops. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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