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Necronos’s Spanish Journal | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Necronos Newbie United States Joined 4478 days ago 37 posts - 41 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 17 of 31 22 April 2012 at 9:35pm | IP Logged |
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Well, I woke up my wife yelling in Spanish in my sleep last night. I see that as a great
sign, but of course she doesn't feel the same way! I wish I knew what I was dreaming about though. I got up early this morning and went through CD 3 of MT's Spanish. Now I get to spend the rest of the day (at work) reviewing what I learned and showing off my new conversational skills with the Spanish speakers. Hopefully I'll have time and won't be too tired to do some more work in 'Spanish for Reading' when I get home tonight. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Necronos Newbie United States Joined 4478 days ago 37 posts - 41 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 18 of 31 23 April 2012 at 10:53pm | IP Logged |
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I finished off Chapter 1 in 'Spanish for Reading' last night and was delighted when I
got to read a whole page of Spanish text and understand most of it. I answered 8 out of 10 questions correctly when I was done, and I still disagree with one of the answers. Anyway, I'll review chapter 1 before moving on, there are a few phrases that I like that I'm going to drill so I can use them in conversation. I cracked open 'Practice Makes Perfect - Basic Spanish' and read through a bit of the chapter summaries. It looks like it will be a fun addition to my studies. While I was first focusing on my conversational skills, with Pimsleur and Michel Thomas, I've realized that it won't hurt to progress in the other skills. I tire out after about an hour of listening and speaking, so going at a more relaxed pace with a book can be a nice change. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Necronos Newbie United States Joined 4478 days ago 37 posts - 41 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 19 of 31 26 April 2012 at 7:41am | IP Logged |
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I've been busy at work lately, so while I had hoped to update this and get three CD's of
MT Foundation Spanish, I ended up not updating my log (until now) and only doing two CD's of MT. I'm definitely getting a lot of out the few hours I've spent with MT, though I still find myself getting really annoyed with the dumb student and MT's slurry voice and hard hearing. I'm rethinking repeating the Foundation course when done and just jumping into the Review course. I'll see how it goes. Right now the plan is to finish the final 3 CD's by Friday night. Then I'll spend Saturday playing around with everything I've learned so far and start constructing my own conversational 'pre-made' sentences. Forward and upward! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Necronos Newbie United States Joined 4478 days ago 37 posts - 41 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 20 of 31 27 April 2012 at 4:43pm | IP Logged |
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I only did CD 6 of MT's Foundation Spanish so far, so today is going to be a 2 CD day.
I've got a lot of information swimming around in my head thanks for MT but it's not going to be useful for me until I sit down and start making connections and practicing using what I know. That will be Saturday's goal (and probably Sunday's too!) I've also picked up a phrasebook. I was hesitant to do this because I didn't like the idea of using 'canned' phrases, but after reading through the book I'm glad I did. Yes, it has canned phrases, but with the Spanish I already have I can actually translate the phrases and I'm finding they don't match the English translation exactly. It isn't a huge difference but I'm glad I know what it really says exactly. It's going to give me some specific vocabulary to learn too. Some of it I don't see as terribly useful for me at the moment, since I won't be travelling through Spanish speaking countries any time soon, but much of it can be applied to what I'm doing right now. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Necronos Newbie United States Joined 4478 days ago 37 posts - 41 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 21 of 31 28 April 2012 at 11:13pm | IP Logged |
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I finished Michel Thomas Spanish Foundation!
Now I've been reading through the booklet that came with the course and playing around with the verbs and the vocabulary to make new sentences and such. It's a lot of fun. I'll probably wait a few days before going through the review CD's. I'd like to gain a stronger command of what I've learned and to get it fully integrated in my mind before using the review as a test of my retention. I plan on going through the Paul Noble Spanish course before moving through MT's Language Builder/Advanced/Vocabulary courses. I've wondered how the courses compare to each other and so I want to do them both fairly close to each other so I can give a good report of each course's strengths and weaknesses. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Necronos Newbie United States Joined 4478 days ago 37 posts - 41 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 22 of 31 30 April 2012 at 7:20pm | IP Logged |
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I've spent that last few days setting up my Anki decks and figuring out how to use the
program. Right now I have enough set up to keep me moving, and I'm sure I'll learn more about Anki that I can get more uses out of it later. I've been using the material I learned from MT Foundation Spanish, as well as some of the basics (such as family, numbers, adjectives, etc.), to fill out my decks and get me in practice of using them. Last night I repeated chapter 1 in Spanish for Reading. I'm getting a bit more comfortable reading. Since I understood most of what I was reading, I used google translate (on my phone) for figuring out some of the words I didn't know but was guessing its meaning from the context. I pushed through about 1/4 of chapter 2 this morning. I think I'll do MT Foundation review tonight or tomorrow, depending on energy levels! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Necronos Newbie United States Joined 4478 days ago 37 posts - 41 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 23 of 31 01 May 2012 at 11:00pm | IP Logged |
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I finished chapter 2 of Spanish for Reading last night. While I didn't understand as
much of the reading comprehension exercise at the end of the chapter as I would have liked, I did understand enough to get 9 out of 10 of the questions correct. I'm not happy just getting the gist of the passage, I want to understand it deeper. This morning I started to repeat chapter 2, taking more time to learn the prepositions and adjectives that I was missing before. Last night I downloaded some SpanishPod101 podcasts and listened to a few while I had some down time. They were certainly enjoyable, and I'll keep listening to them, but I'm not counting them as anything other than just enjoyable non-structured learning. I'm going to get a few more podcasts to listen to in my down times. I've found a problem with my Anki decks - I'm not taking the time to learn the material the first time before plugging it into a deck. I need to do this! I read my first book for Super Challenger this morning! Huevos Verdes con Jamon, por Dr. Seuss. Since it is only a children's book, I'm going to read it a few more times before counting it as 1 book for the challenge. Actually, I read it once and understood about 2/3 of it, then I re-read it with a dictionary to understand the rest of it. I'll reread it a third time tonight to see if I can do better. I'll count it as complete after another read through or two. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Necronos Newbie United States Joined 4478 days ago 37 posts - 41 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 24 of 31 04 May 2012 at 7:27am | IP Logged |
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I'm still here, plugging away and having fun!
Yesterday I finished reading Huevos Verdes con Jamon, por Dr. Seuss for the 3rd time and so I'm going to count it as 1 completed book for the Super Challenge. It might be seen as a soft achievement by those who are at a higher level, but I'm still proud of it. At my current level the book was a challenger for me. Next is Un pez, dos peces, pez rojo, pez azul, again by Dr. Seuss. Last night I watched the first 2 episodes of Destinos, a Spanish educational telenovela. I figure that I'll count 3 episodes of the show as 1 movie watched for the Super Challenge. That is roughly 1.5 hours of show time, there is some English but a good majority of it is in Spanish. Currently it is going over some materials that I already know but I'm not against over learning anything. Today I worked through 2/3's of Chapter 3 in Spanish for Reading. I feel myself getting lost in some of the material so I'll definitively repeat this chapter at least once. While reading the Spanish exercises I'm trying not to mentally translate them into English but rather just allow myself to understand their meaning. I'm hoping this will get me thinking in the language quicker, which is a goal of mine. Lastly, I'm still using my Anki decks and I'm really seeing a difference. The app just updated on my phone today and allows me to put a widget on my home screen that shows what I have due. I love it! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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