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My 3-month Spanish challenge | ||
Tags: Spanish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| janalisa Triglot Senior Member France janafadness.com/blog Joined 6881 days ago 284 posts - 466 votes  Speaks: English*, French, Japanese Studies: Russian, Norwegian | Message 9 of 15 14 April 2011 at 6:52pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks for the comments!
tbone, I've just been using the audiobooks I've found posted on youtube, and it doesn't look like the whole series is available there. Although I do really enjoy Harry Potter, I'm not sure if it would be worth spending a lot of money to get all the audiobooks when there are so many other Spanish materials available for free! Edited by janalisa on 14 April 2011 at 6:53pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| tbone Diglot Groupie United States Joined 4982 days ago 92 posts - 132 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Spanish, Russian | Message 10 of 15 14 April 2011 at 7:29pm | IP Logged |
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Never thought of looking on youtube. In any case, the narrators match for vol I. He's a pro, isn't he? You're right,
though, it would not be worth spending money for the rest of the series, given the abundance of other materials. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| janalisa Triglot Senior Member France janafadness.com/blog Joined 6881 days ago 284 posts - 466 votes Speaks: English*, French, Japanese Studies: Russian, Norwegian | Message 11 of 15 14 April 2011 at 8:05pm | IP Logged |
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Yeah, the narrator for book 1 is decent at least, but he just pales in comparison to the narrator for the French version, who is just *awesome*. He's set the bar so high, I don't know if I'll ever be satisfied with any other version. =P
And vanillabean, if you're learning Spanish as your first foreign language, naturally it's going to take you a lot longer. I have quite an advantage over you since I've studied several languages before and already know French. Otherwise I'd never expect to be able to learn Spanish in three months! You're probably better off than I was in the long run, though-- I started with Japanese and it took me over 10 years to master it. But if you start with Spanish, you can easily learn it in a year or two. Don't be discouraged! Edited by janalisa on 14 April 2011 at 8:07pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| janalisa Triglot Senior Member France janafadness.com/blog Joined 6881 days ago 284 posts - 466 votes Speaks: English*, French, Japanese Studies: Russian, Norwegian | Message 12 of 15 14 April 2011 at 8:51pm | IP Logged |
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Okay, so I've had to go on a bit of a hiatus from language learning for the past few days because I was distracted by other things. "Other things" meaning that I was suddenly inspired to start working on my music (I'm an amateur singer/songwriter) and could think of nothing else for like, three days. Although language learning is probably my biggest passion at the moment, I have several others that may resurface unannounced at any time. Once last year I was suddenly inspired to draw and did nothing but draw pictures for a week. (As a kid I used to spend all my time drawing and dreamt of being an animator.) Then the inspiration just went away as suddenly as it had come and I went back to my normal routine. It's odd, I know, but when this sort of thing happens I have to just go with it, because it's really impossible for me to do any differently. Anyway, I might still keep working on music stuff (I have a LOT of free time right now), but I think I'm ready to get back into language learning.
So I don't have much to report, but I did make a bit more progress in the 2-3 days before this wave of musical inspiration came along. I started going through the grammar book and got to the section on verbs, which I discovered really are as ridiculously complex as everyone says they are. There was a moment when I thought there was no way I could ever master the preterite tense and all its crazy irregular forms, and briefly (very briefly) considered just giving up on this language, which was clearly invented by schizophrenics with way too much time on their hands. Well, okay, maybe I'm exaggerating a little. =P Anyway, I quickly realized that I was probably going to have to actually go through some grammar drills, so I did some of the exercises in the book and also found some online that were really helpful, here: http://www.studyspanish.com/verbs/ and here: http://conjuguemos.com/home/docs/php/list.php?type=fillin&di vision=grammar&language=spanish This is also very useful: http://www.123teachme.com/spanish_verb_conjugation/ If anyone knows of any similar websites, please let me know! I still need to do more drills to learn all the irregular forms, but I'm getting a feel for how the verbs work anyway. Note that I'm not making any conscious effort to memorize anything-- I find that I learn better by actually trying to use the concepts myself. I also read through quite a bit of the children's encyclopedia I mentioned, which is really fun and easy to understand because of all the pictures. It's kind of exhilarating because there are just a couple sentences on each page and so it feels like I'm getting through the book really quickly. Maybe it would be a good idea to read more children's books? I might see what else is available at the library. I also read just a few pages of the "quinceañera" book, which seems interesting but still feels a bit difficult. There aren't too many words I don't understand actually, but it is my first time trying to read a long, unfamiliar text in Spanish, so it might be slow going with this one until I get used to it. Oh, and I watched more videos on youtube (the Harry Potter and Twilight movies... haha), which are fun because I can understand practically everything. =D I think I can say that I've already reached an upper-intermediate (close to advanced) level passively, but actively speaking I'm probably still around a low-intermediate. So I want to focus on grammar for a while (as much as I can without getting sick of it!) while just slowly working through my reading materials to increase my vocabulary. I might not get much done this weekend because my brother is coming to visit and I'll want to spend time with him. Despite little interruptions like this, though, I'm still aiming to learn Spanish in three months! I think I can do it. =D 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| janalisa Triglot Senior Member France janafadness.com/blog Joined 6881 days ago 284 posts - 466 votes Speaks: English*, French, Japanese Studies: Russian, Norwegian | Message 13 of 15 02 May 2011 at 9:24pm | IP Logged |
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Okay! So, I've been completely neglecting this log. I have done a little more work on my Spanish, but not as much as I would have liked to. =/ My problem is that I'm too easily distracted, and I don't keep track of myself well enough.
I've actually just started a new language blog, and will be posting all further updates on my experiment there. After recently starting another, more general blog, I've just found that it's really motivating to have your own website and to track the number of views and comments you get. I think it might be more motivating for me to keep a language-learning journal on my own site rather than here. So if you're still interested in following my progress, please do take a look, and any input or advice you might have is more than welcome! Thank you. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| vanillabean Groupie Canada Joined 4999 days ago 53 posts - 63 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 14 of 15 07 May 2011 at 4:50am | IP Logged |
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Yay, new language blog! I'll definitely follow along =) I agree, it's really motivating to know someone's following
you - I think it also gives you a sense of accountability almost in keeping up with stuff! Keep up the good work... it's easy to get distracted sometimes! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| janalisa Triglot Senior Member France janafadness.com/blog Joined 6881 days ago 284 posts - 466 votes Speaks: English*, French, Japanese Studies: Russian, Norwegian | Message 15 of 15 07 May 2011 at 3:43pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks, vanillabean!
1 person has voted this message useful |
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