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Spanish (and maybe a bit of Italian) | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Biscuit Diglot Newbie Norway Joined 4892 days ago 11 posts - 12 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Spanish | Message 1 of 4 01 July 2011 at 2:23pm | IP Logged |
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So I decided a week back, or thereabouts, that I would learn Spanish. As with most things I do this too was one of those spur of the moment decisions that I live and breathe for a while, and then little by little I start struggling with motivation. I haven't quite reached that point yet but seeing as I know it will crop up sooner or later I might as well be prepared.
I did consider learning Italian first. I have given the language a half hearted go twice already, and I do sort of feel like I owe it to my blood (I'm part Sicilian) to try and master it to such a degree that I will be able to converse with the locals when I visit Italy. Another good reason to study Italian first is that I'm going to Italy this summer. I visited Sicily in April and thoroughly enjoyed using my extremely limited vocabulary to buy train tickets and sun screen lotion. In fact it appears that I know far more Italian than I was aware. This I put down to my geeky love for words in general. If I pick up a word in any language I tend to remember it by comparing it to similar words in other languages and pondering the connection and history behind them. I also enjoy boring my family with monologues on the subject of language history. They love me…. despite of this. However, as much as I love words on their own, and listening to languages in general, I hate, hate, HATE grammar. By that I mean I hate studying grammar. I am fortunately blessed with an 'ear' for languages, which means that if I'm only exposed to a language over a period of time I'll be able to hear what words to use without knowing the actual rules. Anyway, the reason I ended up deciding to study Spanish first was that I wanted to be able to help my children learn the language. They have to study Spanish in middle school and my eldest starts next year so I figured if I got a head start I'd be able to support them better. After I had this idea I started thinking, why wait till middle school? I have three kids starting Y8, Y5 and Y1 this Autumn. If I can drip feed them, so to speak, some Spanish from now on it will be all the easier for them when they have to study it in school later on. I'm only a week in but I've already got hold of some Dora the Explorer for my 5 year old and I love hearing him shout 'azul' or 'rapido' to the telly, trying to help Dora and Boots out. :) The best thing is I'm learning too! And Dora is a very nice break from Pimsleur's endless repetitions. I find it hard to forget about Italian altogether though. Whenever I learn a new word in Spanish I will compare it to the Italian one if I know it, and it will actually help me remember the Spanish one. As I mentioned before this is the normal way of memorising words for me, so I'm still not sure whether the universal truth of 'studying Italian and Spanish together will confuse you' applies to me. Right now I'm on lesson 9 of Pimsleur's Spanish 1 and I have purchased the MosaLingua SRS app for my iPhone. With my fondness for learning new words flashcards are my idea of heaven :) I do find it hard to pace myself though, and only after doing 120 words in three days did I realise that I ought not to learn more than 20 a day. Oh well…. I have also ordered the Easy Spanish Reader off of Amazon and am eagerly awaiting its arrival :) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Biscuit Diglot Newbie Norway Joined 4892 days ago 11 posts - 12 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Spanish | Message 2 of 4 03 July 2011 at 5:26pm | IP Logged |
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Still only at lesson 9, Pimsleur. It is starting to get on my nerve a bit. I've got the Latin American version and they keep going on about dollares and pesos. I get that they're teaching me the numbers but I think after five lessons of it that I've got it.
I have been checking out Mi Vida Loca over at BBC and found the first episode both educational and (slightly) entertaining. The continental Spanish does sound a bit daft to me with all the lisping and everything but so far I haven't come across any major differences in vocabulary so I plan to just keep picking and mixing. I do tend to pronounce words without the lisping even when echoing European Spanish speakers though. Do you think I'm stupid to not pick one type of Spanish and stick with it? The European type sounds a bit more sing-songy too, if that makes any sense, which I like better than the more monotone sound of Latin American but that may be due to the individuals reading the different courses and may not reflect the real languages. I don't know. Like I mentioned in the first post I am secretly teaching Spanish to my kids as well, my 5 year old in particular. He loved the Dora episodes I got him and now he goes around naming all the red things in our house. So to keep him going I downloaded two different apps for kids on my iPhone. 123 colour is a very simple app where the object is to colour in pictures by a) numbers - teaching the numbers in Spanish, b) letters - upper and lower case or c)free will - teaching the names of the colours. This app is very diverse because in 'settings' you can choose between several primary languages (US English, UK English, AU English, Spanish, Italian, French or German!) and then you can set a secondary language as well. We started out with Spanish and UK English but later remover the secondary language as it distracted us when we were trying to echo the word in the primary language. Play2learn is a bit more advanced in that it teaches vocabulary by categories. You can get this app in several languages but I obviously got the Spanish one. Here you can choose between Spanish and Latin American and you can change between them at playing level meaning you can instantly hear the differences. The categories are the house, the body, veggies, fruit, the face, clothes, jewellery (!) and computer equipment. It may be a bit too advanced for my 5 year old yet but I've already learned loads :-) I'm also still pressing on with my SRS. Today I impressed myself by remembering the words for key (la llave) and open (obierto). :-) I seriously hope my Easy Reader turns up tomorrow. I feel the need to see some real text soon! Edited by Biscuit on 03 July 2011 at 5:30pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Biscuit Diglot Newbie Norway Joined 4892 days ago 11 posts - 12 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Spanish | Message 3 of 4 04 July 2011 at 2:00am | IP Logged |
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Late night studying (again). I just finished two more episodes (2 and 3) of BBC's Mi Vida Loca :) They're going kind of slow too but the plot is thickening, and I'm actually pondering squeezing in one more episode before I nod off just to see if I can work out what's going on.
Edited by Biscuit on 04 July 2011 at 2:01am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Biscuit Diglot Newbie Norway Joined 4892 days ago 11 posts - 12 votes Speaks: Norwegian*, English Studies: Spanish | Message 4 of 4 04 July 2011 at 7:19pm | IP Logged |
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Hooray! My Easy Spanish Reader arrived today :) I couldn't wait to get stuck in, and to my great surprise it was even easier than I had expected, without it being too 'simple' if you catch my drift.
The book is divided into three parts. In the first one you get to know Enrique and Maria, two seniors at a high school in the US. The first chapters have introduced me to them and their families as well as their school. The language gets more complex as you go along. - The second part is a history of Mexico, which I am sure will prove interesting. I had a sneak peak at it and I really can't understand much at all but I guess when I'm done with Enrique and Maria I will be able to :) - The final part is an abridged adaption of "Lazarillo de Tormes", a piece of classic Spanish literature. I really like the exercises that follow each short chaper as they get me thinking and writing in Spanish. ETA: I ordered the Easy Italian Reader together with the Spanish one because I had a hard time making my mind up about which language to study first. I read the first chapter of the Italian one and I can no longer fool myself that I know much Italian. Either that or I have learnt an amazing amount of Spanish over the past couple of weeks because Spanish is a breeze compared to Italian now! Edited by Biscuit on 04 July 2011 at 7:23pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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