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Messy Learning | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| josht Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6295 days ago 635 posts - 857 votes  Speaks: English*, German Studies: French, Spanish, Russian, Dutch | Message 9 of 30 31 May 2009 at 4:00pm | IP Logged | ||
I learn in a very similar manner. I tend to use Assimil courses as the backbone of my studies, but then allow myself to dip into whatever I want with the rest of my time. Some days that involves learning words from a dictionary or vocabulary book; other days, reading something that has caught my interest in one of my grammar books. This works for me, as the variety of resources tend to play off of each other quite well. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 Keith Diglot Moderator JapanRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6626 days ago 526 posts - 536 votes 1 sounds Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Mandarin Personal Language Map | Message 10 of 30 31 May 2009 at 4:16pm | IP Logged | ||
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It looks to me like you are not doing very much on the weekdays. Some days you have only 25 minutes of activity. Couldn't you do some listening during your lunch? I think if you made Spanish a priority, you could find more time to squeeze in more input.
Personally, I don't think the music is going to help much. Most people listening to music aren't even hearing what's being said anyway. They are usually thinking about something else. I suggest staying away from any translation activities. I've no idea what your word games are like, but if they are bilingual they are going to hurt you. You are far enough along in the language to be able to learn without needing any more translations. 15 minutes of Michel Thomas? Is that, like, half in English? I like this quote!
That's kind of like saying, I'm faster than the slowest type of learner. If you're not already reading it, I suggest you start reading the posts over at Spanish-Only dot com. Here's a good article from that site: You’ll Never Learn Spanish If It’s Not Part of Your Life I hope my reply can inspire you to do more. Of course, I'm just trying to be helpful here, so please don't take any of my comments negatively. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| eoinda Tetraglot Senior Member Sweden Joined 5797 days ago 101 posts - 113 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, Spanish, Mandarin Studies: French | Message 11 of 30 31 May 2009 at 4:16pm | IP Logged | ||
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I don't think jumping between materials is a problem. Í jump a lot myself and I'm a lot less structured in my
learning than you. Despite this (or because of this) I'm making rapid progress so you should be fine. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Lizzern Diglot Senior Member Norway Joined 5758 days ago 791 posts - 1053 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Japanese | Message 12 of 30 31 May 2009 at 5:02pm | IP Logged | ||
You'd be surprised... Those of us who use it extensively learn a lot from it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ashiro Groupie United Kingdom learnxlanguage.com/ Joined 5651 days ago 89 posts - 101 votes Studies: Spanish | Message 13 of 30 31 May 2009 at 5:24pm | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks everyone. Some good points and I'll try to answer a few.
Music - I've found it very helpful indeed. I can't stop my mind from locking onto the words and deciphering the meaning. If I don't take a break or switch off then I get exhausted. So its quite the opposite problem - I find it hard NOT to listen actively to it. Could Do More - Its true I could fit more in my day and I am slowly but surely cramming Spanish into every niche in my life. However, I also don't mention the obsessive compulsion I have to write little Spanish sentences on scraps of paper or say Spanish phrases to collegues (who don't know Spanish themselves but I just want to say it!). Spanish Only - Its funny you mention this because the first 2 I already do! My computer is running in Spanish. I listen to Spanish-only music. I partially do no.3 but I find it taxing sometimes to read and comprehend all Spanish news. My ability isn't at a level where I can comfortably read a passage without needing to translate chunks of it. So one news article can take 15-20mins and gets very frustrating. Tip 4: I can't find any panish TV online but if anyone knows of any I'd be very appreciative! I do listen to some Spanish radio (Radio Nacional de España) Tip 5: I don't read enough books. I plan on getting some childrens and teenage books to solve this. Though it seems expensive importing books from Spain (15euros delivery is a lot!). Tip 6&7: I do have some MSN conversations with a Peruvian and some messaging with an Argetine woman on Interpals. I could do more but I'm chronically shy. Tip 8: Folling Spanish Twitter users is something I shall do right now!! Never thoguht of that! Backbones - I'd say my backbone language materials are LiveMocha and Pimsleur and althoguh I don't listen to them everyday I find my comprehension and progression is good because I don't cease learning between each lesson. Translation Games - They are indeed about translating and althoguh I see where you're coming form I do find them very useful. They've helped my verb conjugating-ability massively by drilling me in an enjoyable way. So much so that I plan on developing my own similar drills and games for pronouns! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6758 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 14 of 30 31 May 2009 at 5:59pm | IP Logged | ||
Same here, I'm jumping between all kinds of sources myself. What one course ignores may be fully explained in another, so it would just be stupid not to use several sources. I just can't imagine sticking to just one course at a time, e.g. doing Pimsleur for three months, then FSI, then Assimil et.c. "Chaos" is my way. :D 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Julie Heptaglot Senior Member PolandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6752 days ago 1251 posts - 1733 votes 5 sounds Speaks: Polish*, EnglishB2, GermanC2, SpanishB2, Dutch, Swedish, French | Message 15 of 30 31 May 2009 at 10:27pm | IP Logged | ||
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First of all, you're happy about the way you're learning, which certainly is good. However, you don't seem very eager to adjust your methods (it's just my impression from this thread, I hope you don't mind) and it looks a bit like you're looking here for a confirmation that what you're doing is right.
Well, in my opinion you could do better, even if you're already progressing faster than ever (as someone in this thread has already written, it's not the best idea to compare oneself with the slowest type of learner). I'm a similar type of learner as you, I never stick to only one method and I'm often on the search for something new. But for most of methods 15 or 30 minutes every week is in my opinion just not enough. You could do the whole Michel Thomas course in one or two weeks, without even working very hard, you could do Pimsleur more intensively - and you would probably be able to see a real difference. With 15 minutes a week it's going to take forever until you will have finished a few CDs. As someone in the thread has already suggested, I would take one method (e.x. Pimsleur or Michel Thomas) and do it every day (+ flashcards), and then add the whole other stuff (and the fun stuff, like movies and music). I'm also not sure if 2 hours of grammar exercises are very effective. But well, everyone has his own methods of learning :). 1 person has voted this message useful |
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