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Teach Yourself Question

 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes Post Reply
zekecoma
Senior Member
United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 5343 days ago

561 posts - 655 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: German, Spanish

 
 Message 1 of 8
13 June 2011 at 2:40pm | IP Logged 
I had recently bought the Teach Yourself Complete Latin American Spanish book. But I am
confused on how I should use it. Do I use Chapter 1 one day, then Chapter 2 the next, etc. or do I just simply do one page per a day?

Btw a little off topic. Has anyone noticed how the binding for the book isn't so great. I
tend to put my thumb at the bottom and noticed that the pages at the bottom come out a
little.
1 person has voted this message useful



hrhenry
Octoglot
Senior Member
United States
languagehopper.blogs
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Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese
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 Message 2 of 8
13 June 2011 at 2:49pm | IP Logged 
Can't speak for the Spanish TY series, but a chapter a day seems excessive.

When I went through the TY Turkish book it took me about 8-9 weeks to get through 16 lessons comfortably. The chapters had loads of grammar and exercises in addition to the dialogs and I made sure to go through them all. Granted, it's a different language, but still.

I'd say if you're getting through two complete chapters a week, you're making good progress.

R.
==

Edited by hrhenry on 13 June 2011 at 2:51pm

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Arekkusu
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Canada
bit.ly/qc_10_lec
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 Message 3 of 8
13 June 2011 at 4:18pm | IP Logged 
One chapter a day may be too much, but a page a day is going to take you forever.

The book is made into chapters so it's easier to manage, but you can certainly start and stop anywhere you want. The goal is to acquire the material presented; how you do it is up to you, and it doesn't really have a big effect on the end result. Eventually, you'll know all the structures and all the vocab and you won't remember how you learned them or where.

If something is unclear, there is no need to dwell on it; move on, then come back. It's probably better to read the same chapter more than once, than to just stall on something you're not quite getting.

I'd also strongly recommend you pay a lot of attention to all the structures and grammar being introduced. Vocabulary is easier to look up than grammar if you don't remember it later.

Edited by Arekkusu on 13 June 2011 at 4:20pm

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jasoninchina
Senior Member
China
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Speaks: English*
Studies: Mandarin, Italian

 
 Message 4 of 8
13 June 2011 at 4:52pm | IP Logged 
I agree with the above posts. I've been doing about 2 chapters a week. Its taking longer than I thought, but it turns out to be a lot of material. Go at your own pace, but don't get hung up on something if you don't fully get it. I've been using TY as my first exposure to Italian and its been really great for working on my pronunciation and learning some initial vocab.
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arturs
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Latvia
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 Message 5 of 8
14 June 2011 at 1:25pm | IP Logged 
I use Teach Yourself for languages that are considered very hard to learn - Finnish and Arabic, so it sometimes takes a long time to get through a chapter and at the same time remembering at least 80-90 % of the material. Sometimes I would even spend more time on the chapter on purpose, for safety.
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delta910
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
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Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: Dutch, German

 
 Message 6 of 8
18 June 2011 at 7:54am | IP Logged 
Actually, I don't follow the "chapter" system as many do. (i.e. I'll work with these few chapters this day and work my
way through) I go for and look for the content that will be most useful to me right at the start. One thing I do along
side this is listen and read to the dialogues as I'm doing this to build up my overall vocabulary and listening
comprehension.

I guess i just use it differently in my opinion. I have found that if i start at the first chapter and work through all of
the chapters one after the other I loose motivation and I don't get through the book. If I jump around and learn
things that come to mind as I need them I actually finish the book quicker.
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pon00050
Diglot
Newbie
United States
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Speaks: English
Studies: Spanish, Korean*

 
 Message 7 of 8
19 June 2011 at 5:34pm | IP Logged 
zekecoma wrote:
I had recently bought the Teach Yourself Complete Latin American Spanish book.

I am considering buying either Colloquial or Teach Yourself to
learn Latin American Spanish. Since you have purchased the exact book,
could you please tell me the total length of aduio, DIALOGUES only?
The TY Complete Japanese only gave me 30 minutes of dialogue, half
of the length I needed, 1 hour.
Thanks in advance
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hrhenry
Octoglot
Senior Member
United States
languagehopper.blogs
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Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese
Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe

 
 Message 8 of 8
19 June 2011 at 5:40pm | IP Logged 
pon00050 wrote:
The TY Complete Japanese only gave me 30 minutes of dialogue, half
of the length I needed, 1 hour.

I'm curious, why an hour's length of time? Is it just to fill in an hour's worth of time, or is there some other reason?

I would think that the content would be more important than audio running time.

R.
==


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