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Spanish journey | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| irrationale Tetraglot Senior Member China Joined 5992 days ago 669 posts - 1023 votes  2 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Tagalog Studies: Ancient Greek, Japanese | Message 65 of 73 04 December 2008 at 12:56pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Starting Unit 53.
Just to disclose, I will NOT being learning the "vos" forms at this time. They simply aren't needed in my Spanish. The vos forms are covered in these last lessons, and if I need them, I will simply go back and learn them. BTW, for anyone interested I posted a clip of me speaking Spanish. It was unprepared, and I'm sure I can work on my accent. If any NATIVE SPEAKER has some advice, let me know what I can do to improve my accent. I can take criticism. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| irrationale Tetraglot Senior Member China Joined 5992 days ago 669 posts - 1023 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Tagalog Studies: Ancient Greek, Japanese | Message 66 of 73 08 December 2008 at 4:38pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Unit 53 "done" (didn't do vos forms).
Dead easy unit, just took awhile to get around to it with all the Mandarin. Already knew most everything except the "lo cual, el cual, a quien" relator pronouns. Knowing these will help, thanks FSI :). Continuing to memorize around 20 to 30 words and phrases a day out of the wikipedia frequency list. Moving on to 54.... EDIT: Just bought my first 2 books in Spanish, "Stories From Latin America", to get me warmed up, and the main course will be "La Otra Cara da America" about immigration issues. Also, I bought "Spanish Subjunctive Up Close" because I realized I need to brush up on the imperfect subjunctive, as well as with particular cause relators. Edited by irrationale on 08 December 2008 at 9:34pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| irrationale Tetraglot Senior Member China Joined 5992 days ago 669 posts - 1023 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Tagalog Studies: Ancient Greek, Japanese | Message 67 of 73 18 December 2008 at 4:54am | IP Logged | |||||
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Ok. This is it...The moment I have been waiting for. I feel so....
....unexcited?! I am writing to say that I am basically done with FSI. Unit 55 covers things that I have already known for a while. The only thing in Unit 54 that I need to know are the correlative sentences, which forms I simply memorized and will use when I can. I will obviously review now and then, but I am basically "done". I will maintain this log much less now, only if something notable happens. My full attention is on Mandarin, a beast of a language which, in terms of work, is making Spanish look like alphabet soup. Before, about 4 months ago, I imagined that I would be super-excited and relieved to be done with FSI. I pictured it as some sort of marathon, and I would finish the race panting after breaking the ribbon. In actuality, it is more like I ran past the ribbon a long time ago, feel comfortable running and could do so forever. I am thinking...who cares? That is the best part of this, it got easier and easier until it wasn't even work anymore...because I have this language now, it was like doing an English exercises (ok, not quite that easy but you get the point). As for my goal, I have achieved it...in part. Not sure how to estimate my vocab, but on the 10,000 most common word list I hit about 1 every 30 words I don't know. These include conjugations. I can now have advanced conversations on any topic, philosophical, political, etc. The only thing is that I sometimes have to prepare my vocab a little bit before. I can't spontaneously join in on an advanced conversation, and this is frustrating, but understandable because I need a native level active vocab to do this. I can, and do, think in Spanish. I have been called "fluent" "bi-lingual" on several occasions by both natives and English speakers. Its flattering, but I don't really call myself "fluent". Honestly, I don't know what "fluent" is anymore, I just know my new goal, and it is this; I want to have the same exact command in Spanish that I do in English. I want total educated native fluency. I will call myself "fluent" when I reach this goal. Thats right, I said it. Crazy? I don't care what you think about it, I'm aiming for it. I will continue to memorize words, phrases, and read until I get there. I don't care how long it takes. I will constantly try to get faster in what I say until my rate of speech, vocab command, etc are on par with my English. Passive vocab will obviously take forever, I know this, but active vocab shouldn't take too long. To anyone reading this thinking of studying Spanish, I want you to know that FSI didn't make me "fluent". Neither did Pimsleur, or any other program. Nothing got me to where I am except me. This is one of the things I am taking away from this, is that you are the one who has to put things into action, use them whenever you can, etc. I imagine this is why some people finish Pimsleur or FSI and might be dissapointed....if you passively take it in and don't use it, it isn't worth much, in my opinion. The drills didn't really do so much as make me memorize the forms that I would later USE, in situ. The very paradox of this is that you really don't need FSI at all, or any program. I am confident now that if you have a willing native speaker, a dictionary, and a grammar book, you can learn the language just as fast, if not faster. When I learn Tagalog, I will test this idea and put it to use, but that is a another thread for another time. Yet, there is still so much more to learn. I am absolutely not "done" with Spanish. Not mentioning the tons of words, but the colloquialisms, slang, regional phrases, etc. My listening ability needs work as well. It will definitely never end as long as I have opportunities to use Spanish. Also, my fire for language learning has definitely been ignited. Being able to think of things in a different way verbally, is an awesome experience, as well as the sounds of the language and musicality which appeal my ears. But the main reason I will continue to learn languages is to communicate with people, this brings me the most excitement. I want to communicate with as many people and cultures as I have the chance to. So now I go forward into an extremely rich, world-language; my journey really has just begun. I can't wait for the moment when I can converse with poetic fluency, know all the lingo and slang, and pass myself as a native...but then again..when I get there I will probably say the same thing as I am saying now... ..who cares?! Thank you all who have been reading this :) PS: By the definition of this site, I am at "advanced fluency" now. Again, I don't really consider myself fluent but I will change it anyway. Edited by irrationale on 18 December 2008 at 5:08am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| GoldFibre Diglot Senior Member Kuwait koreaninkuwait.com Joined 5921 days ago 467 posts - 472 votes Speaks: English*, Korean | Message 68 of 73 18 December 2008 at 5:05am | IP Logged | |||||
Congratulations on what you have achieved so far.
I think it is a good goal. Have you set a time frame for achieving it? Oh, and I don't think you're crazy. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| irrationale Tetraglot Senior Member China Joined 5992 days ago 669 posts - 1023 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Tagalog Studies: Ancient Greek, Japanese | Message 69 of 73 18 December 2008 at 5:20am | IP Logged | |||||
Hehe, thanks :) By total fluency, I want to have all the language abilities of an educated native. I want to essentially be a native in every respect (perhaps a little accent is ok). Some people (including linguists, I think), don't think this is possible. I am ignorant on the reasearch at the moment. I have no time frame...as long as it takes. My time frames are with Mandarin right now and they are tough. Mandarin is taking up a huge chunk of time right now, but I still memorize Spanish words and phrases everyday. Its unclear what is going to happen when I run out of 10,000 words on the list...I guess pick up words by reading, which I am doing now. I realize that part of the "native" puzzle is the context, not just the amount of words. I don't know of the fastest way to build this ability at the moment, so I will just keep on going... Thanks for your encouragement ;) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| irrationale Tetraglot Senior Member China Joined 5992 days ago 669 posts - 1023 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Tagalog Studies: Ancient Greek, Japanese | Message 70 of 73 19 March 2009 at 9:21am | IP Logged | |||||
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A milestone to report. Today I was called on by my boss's boss to act as a translator for a Spanish speaking coworker in order for her to take a test in English. It went very smoothly. This is my first "being a translator" experience and it was great!
Also, I am now regularly being asked either "were you born overseas?" or "are you Mexican?" by non-natives or non-speakers (not good enough yet to be asked that by native Spanish speakers, hehe). It pumps the ego, I won't deny it, but it is sad that in my country a white person must not be American if he speaks another language. I have stopped going through the list, now just learn words as they come...I would say about 3 a day. I am constantly running to the dictionary at work. I have also noticed that my Spanish ability has surpassed that of most bilinguals raised in America that I meet. A lot of US born bilinguals have a surprisingly low vocabulary. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| maddas Newbie United States Joined 5703 days ago 34 posts - 37 votes Studies: English | Message 71 of 73 29 March 2009 at 3:05am | IP Logged | |||||
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congrats on finishing the program in record time...did you use the reading materials that came with the program? having a friend who you can speak with is very important. i thought it was funny how you thought after pimsleur 1-3 you were already fluent...que broma...lol...throughout the program you continued to think you were fluent, but i am glad to see you realized you weren't after the end of this...good luck moving forward with Spanish...i ran through pimsleur 1-3 and quit on 3 around #20 after realizing i was getting played a fool...i was thrown for a loop with platiquemos when i first got it...i check it out and then did not touch it for weeks..i then made it through unit 19 where i stopped again and figured to take an immersion week at berlitz (what a huge was of money $2500). I then went to south america and realized i could not speak or understand voz, etc...ouch...at that point i took 10 1 hour courses at a local language school who introduced me to the book repaso and getting into ready...moreover, my wife is from SA and i still have a tough time w/ the accent...anyway...i am moving along again w/ platiquemos and doing one unit a week and now next week starting unit 38...i spend a lot of time w/ learning the vocab and the readings...i try to catch Spanish radio, etc...i am by far fluent...the news is still a bit difficult...but i can understand my family better and better everyday...
puede me aconseja algo pa mejorar mi espanol? suerte.. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| irrationale Tetraglot Senior Member China Joined 5992 days ago 669 posts - 1023 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Tagalog Studies: Ancient Greek, Japanese | Message 72 of 73 31 March 2009 at 4:09am | IP Logged | |||||
Bueno, quiere ud que escriba en español? Pues, cual es su objetivo en aprender español? Solomente yo le recomendería a ud que practique su conversación ves y otra ves. A mí, es muy importante prestar atención en esta area, y es la sola manera para alcanzar "fluency"; no tiene nada que ver con completar las lecciónes (sin embargo, las le apoyarán). En mi opinión, leer el texto que lleva con Platiqemos no es tan importante, ni gramática. Si complete todos los ejercicios totalmente en audio, sería basicamente la misa cosa, pedo mas rápido. Actualmente, creo que no escribía nada sobre Pimsleur porque este log empezó depues de terminar. Si ud lo lea, averiguaría que dije alcancé la abilidad hablar fluidamente casi un mes (mas o menos) depues de terminar Pimsleur, o cerca de lección 30 quizas? Esto no fue por Platiquemos, necesariamente, sino que por hablar constantemente en la situación con nativos, y "circumlocution" de gramática. Aparte de eso, solo siga a practicar y progesar adelente. ¡Torture su mismo! Jaja, esto es mi método. Disculpe faltas de ortografía que yo tenga. Escribo rara vez.. Edited by irrationale on 31 March 2009 at 1:08pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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