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Spanish Log (TAC 2014 Team Lobo) | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Phantom Kat Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5064 days ago 160 posts - 253 votes  Speaks: Spanish*, English Studies: Finnish | Message 25 of 271 06 May 2011 at 2:08am | IP Logged | ||
Cansada is the female version of "tired" and cansado is the male version of "tired". "Married" would be casada and casado, just one letter off. (Soltero(a) would be "single" by the way.) Random fact: Esposas means both "wives" and "handcuffs". :D I don't have a microphone or a camera, but you can always message me if you want somebody to chat with. :) - Kat Edited by Phantom Kat on 06 May 2011 at 2:11am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5023 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 26 of 271 07 May 2011 at 1:21am | IP Logged | ||
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Been messing around with the drills in unit 3, level 1, of Platiquemos for the last hour or so. Just to see what they where like.
Wow! This is hardcore stuff. Its gonna be a serious mission to get through that course. I think I should probably get some units under my belt before September. We'll see. BTW, Thanks for the corrections Kat, Il send you a PM when I get the chance. Edited by dbag on 07 May 2011 at 1:22am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5023 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 27 of 271 13 May 2011 at 12:52am | IP Logged | ||
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Im up to lesson 58 (passive) and lesson 9 (active).
The active wave lessons have been going quite well. I have done them in writing as well as verbally most days. I would actually recomend this aproach, as you often notice small mistakes that you would probably gloss over if you did them verbally. An example: a few days ago I realised I actually have very little understanding of when and how to use the verb "haber" even though this is covered several times in the book. So now I now I need to revise this point, and I pay particular attention every time it crops up. I have been quite tired lately and have found Ive ben falling asleep before Ive listened to my passive wave lessons as much as I would like. I will make sure to revise thesse lessons at some point, but Im not too worried about this. I think I will be working with this book in some way for at least a year, and for me, the initial active/passive wave pass through the book will be just the beginning. I think it would be quite difficult to effectivlty internalise the content without further work. I have also been messing around with unit 3 of Platiquamos a little. I actually really like this course, and find doing the drills to the point of automaticity quite satisfying. I can see this will be the course that actually gets me SPEAKING. I am going to really try and master the material in each unit before moving on. My interpretation of "overlearning" is not simply getting 100% of responses correct before moving on, but actually getting 100% right, then repeating several times so the responses become a deeply ingrained habit. My parents have been on holiday in Spain the past week, and have bought me back a childrens book by the name of " querias vaciones stilton?" about a mouse called Geronimo Stilton. There are many things about this book which make it a brilliant resource for learners, but as Im tired, I guess I'll have to write about that another day. Good Night, and best of luck to any one else reading this who happens to be studying Spanish. Edited by dbag on 13 May 2011 at 12:54am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5023 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 28 of 271 15 May 2011 at 1:38am | IP Logged | ||
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11 (active) 60 (passive)
No major problems on the active wave, although Im feeling increasingly disconnected to the lessons on the passive wave. Reading through peoples posts on Assimil, this seems to be a common theme. But considering I still have nearly 100 active lessons to go, Im not too worried as Im sure things will even out. A funny thing happened today. I managed to roll an R, without even trying to. It actually took me by complete surprise. This is something I always struggle with. Im not really sure how, or why this happened (Im not complaining!) perhaps its something to do with all the listenening Ive been doing. Ive still been messing around with unit 3 of Plati a little. Surprisingly, I find it quite enjoyable, far more engaging than, say Pimsleur. The feeling of mastering a drill is so satisfying, and actually quite addictive. I havent done unit 1 or 2, throughly. although I have done parts of them. Im trying to find a native speaker to help me with thesse parts. I contacted a tutor a couple of weeks ago, who hasnt replied, so I guess Ill have to continue searching around. When Im done with Unit 3, Il go back to 1 and 2 just to make sure theres no grammar or vocab Ive missed. I should be finished with my essays sometime this week, and so free to study Spanish to my hearts content. To be honest, Ive been studying loads despite being so busy. I dont seem to be able to help myself, which is kind of weird. Im looking forward to getting into some kind of rhythm balancing the study of Assimil with plati. Ive decided not to give myself any deadlines for plati units. I just want to make sure Ive throughly learnt everything before moving on. If, somewhere down the line, I start to get bored, then Ill just switch to another course for a little while. I dont really see any problems with doing this, as long as im getting some exposure to Spanish every day. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5376 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 29 of 271 16 May 2011 at 2:26am | IP Logged | ||
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dbag, I just read your whole log. It is nice to see you are so excited about your Spanish study. Keep it up. Assimil's Spanish With Ease really is a great course. I will be watching to see how you continue to like Platiquemos. It seems like FSI/Platiquemos is really a big undertaking. I agree with your assessment that tackling a course like that would be best done after doing a few other courses so it seems "easier." Good luck.
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| dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5023 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 30 of 271 18 May 2011 at 1:13am | IP Logged | ||
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A minor milestone?
I just decided to take a look through the Spanish word frequency dictionary, the 1000 most commonly used words in Spanish. 1 - 500 I think there where perhaps 3 or 4 I needed to look up, although I had seen them somewhere before. I got well into the 700s before there where clusters of words I didnt know, although again I had some familarity with most of them. There didnt seem to be to many words on the whole list that I didnt know, although I should say this list does include different verb forms. Im quite happy with this. I remember Michel Thomas's comment that one only needs something like 600 words in their everyday vocabulary. (I doubt thats really the case though!) Also, theres loads of words I know that were not in that list. Not that its the size of your vocab that counts, but I think it shows me Im getting somewhere. James29, thanks for taking the time to read through my log. I have also enjoyed reading about your Spanish journey. Im still playing around with unit 3 at the moment. If I wasnt so busy this week, I could be well ahead. The drills are not as hard as I thought they would be, and are actually quite enjoyable. Far too early to judge though as these are the first ones in the course. but from what I understand, they are not intended to be difficult. I think seing rows of drills written down in the Books that come with the course can be quite intimidating, but their not as bad as I thought. Responses are rolling of my tonque with absolutely no consious thought of my own, which is quite a novel experience. I'll let you know how I get on. Edited by dbag on 18 May 2011 at 5:12pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5023 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 31 of 271 21 May 2011 at 12:55am | IP Logged | ||
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Its been a good week for study so far. Ive done a few long drives for work, so Ive had plenty of time to do fsi drills. I am still on unit 3, but only because im busy doing essays for work (still!)
I should be done with the essays sometime tomorrow, and then Ill move on to unit 4. I reckon Ill be able to do about 2 units a week. Maybe a bit more. I am considering going travelling in South America in Spetember, up until about christmas time. Im not sure yet. My employment now seems somewhat unsecure. If I was to lose my job, I would probably go straight away. I have a friend who is in Colombia at the moment, and will be in peru/bolivia around the time I may want to travel. Im still not sure about all of this as yet, but if I decide I want to go, then the study hours will be ramped up accordingly. Assimil active wave lessons have been going well. The passive wave lessons dont seem to sink in quite as well though. Perhaps its because im splitting my time between courses. It shouldnt be too hard to catch up over the weekend. I need to concentrate on these damn essays! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5023 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 32 of 271 26 May 2011 at 2:47pm | IP Logged | ||
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Essays sent off yesterday! So glad to have thosse off my back.
Ive been messing around with unit 4 of Plati this week. I would say Ive got about half of the drills down quite well. I havent played around with the responses drills much. I answer them correctly, but its not always the answer plati wants (there are often multiple ways of answering thesse.) The audio is not great, which is not a massive problem. But it does help to have a transcript handy, as sometimes its quite hard to discern between important parts of the dialogue. For example, your'e often left wondering wheter the narrator said "esta" or "esatan" "Senores" or "senoras" etc. Ive been doing thesse drills in my car, so things like that are quite annoying. I think with future units, I will run through with the transcript, just to get in the rhythmn a little. There are still a few minor parts of unit 3 I need to make sure I have overlearned. I find the conversation stimulus and dialogs quite dull, and they take longer than the drills as well as seem to yield far less in terms of learning. I love the substitution drills. An excellent way to learn grammar, I really feel I have learnt something after running through thesse. They give you an example sentence like "Son cautro pesos" Then the narrator will say a word which you have to plug into the sentence, for example "senores" so you say: "Son cautro senores" But! Then they say something like "senorita". If your not paying attention, you might say something like " son una Senorita" or something, when obviously the correct response is: "ES una Senorita" Then Senor "Es UN Senor". They continue in this fashion for quite some time. After a couple of runs through you are spitting out correct answers without even thinking about it. I think this kind of thing is exactly what I need at the minute. I understand all of thesse rules in theory, but I think this is the only way I have of making them automatic, without having native speakers to correct me. Assimil is also going quite well. I really do think you "need" to spend more than half an hour a day with it. Yesterdays active lesson was (I think) 22 , which went fine. The active wave lessons highlight areas you need to work on. I have found that some elements I used to struggle with I have "assimilated" simply due to the massive exposure to them that the book gives you. At the moment though, I think I would struggle to use much of the material in a real life setting. Still, I cant think of any other courses with this much quality Spanish material in them. I will be working with this little book for a long time to come. I notice there are some posts on this forum, in which people have given up with assimil because they dont feel the method works for them. I dont quite understand what they do afterwards. Other than fsi, I cant see theres any real serious alternatives out there. Sure, there are plenty of good courses, but to me there just good supplements. I think if I didnt like the method (I do though) then I would just use a different method, but use the same book. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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