Merv’s language learning log (Language Learning Log) Language Learning Forum

Merv’s language learning log
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Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log

18 messages over 3 pages: 1 2 3

Merv Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5264 days ago 414 posts - 749 votes Speaks: English, Serbo-Croatian Studies: Spanish, French	Message 17 of 18 30 March 2011 at 2:20pm \| IP Logged
	Since my last post, I haven't done much on the French and have focused mostly on Spanish. After not having touched French since pretty much the last post, I went through the audio of 4 French Assimil lessons, and I'll continue going through some more before I open the book, hopefully in a week or two. I tried listening to a Spanish newscast (1 hr long) and a Mexican telenovela clip and understood maybe 75% of the words. As I alluded to in another thread, I found the speed just too great to catch all the words I know, much less to make out those I don't. Not surprisingly, I understood the Castilian better than the Mexican, although I don't think the sound adjustment of th > s for c and z will be that hard to make. I will definitely keep listening comprehension in mind in the coming months, even as I continue to read and build up vocabulary. I finished reading The Magician's Nephew in the Narnia series, having highlighted all the words and idiomatic constructs. I also just received a Franklin Merriam-Webster Spanish-English electronic dictionary and started looking up those highlighted words. Finally, I've been practicing writing online over MSN messenger approximately once per week for several hours, talking about things like the theory of evolution, the Libya crisis, and Japan tsunami. I think it's been going well, since all of the conversations are in Spanish and neither my language partners nor I are switching to English. I'm not entirely sure if I will continue with the Narnia series or shift to more genuine native material. I know that if I stick to this series, I will get a lot of clean fine prose, "normal" sentence structures (assuming the translators are doing their job), and vocabulary. If I could write like that some day (obviously on more sophisticated matters, if necessary), I would be very pleased with my writing ability. It seems that some of the authentic classic works (Marquez?) bear a very strong imprint of the author's voice and playing with words that are not necessarily representative. Obviously, I'll have to get to these too someday but I'm thinking maybe a year from now is better than right now. My experience over the past two months has confirmed some of my earlier suspicions about language learning. At least as far as I can tell, reading and writing and speaking cluster as one group of competencies and listening as the odd one out. This is consistent with the complaints many have made on this site that once they went to foreign country X, they could converse and follow conversations with one individual, but when many were talking at once (e.g. at a party), they had difficulties. I have yet to speak in front of a native speaker (or really anybody in conversation), so I still am not sure how good my pronunciation is. That'll be something to do in the coming months as well. Edited by Merv on 30 March 2011 at 2:27pm 1 person has voted this message useful
Merv Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5264 days ago 414 posts - 749 votes Speaks: English, Serbo-Croatian Studies: Spanish, French	Message 18 of 18 08 April 2011 at 5:17am \| IP Logged
	Not that much to update in the past week, other than that I watched a Spanish soap (Amar en tiempos y revueltos, or something like that) and was very discouraged because I understood only perhaps 15% of it. I'm not sure if the issue is that I don't know enough vocabulary, I'm not parsing the grammar, or it's the crazy speed. As I thought before, listening comprehension, especially with conversations between many different kinds of voices, is going to be my toughest challenge. I suppose this is something that's naturally picked up when in an immersion environment, but with only a few hours here and there of programming, it's hard. I suppose I need to watch movies regularly to improve. Another issue is vocabulary. I find myself discussing issues online that force me to find that extra word. Often I'll search for it in an online dictionary during the chat conversation and then just insert it. But what about real life situations? I'm trying to acquire vocabulary by looking up words in the book(s) I'm reading and also playing word and conjugation games in my electronic dictionary, but it I find that the words I do learn there aren't the ones I need in conversation. So I need to find a way of learning useful and frequent vocabulary. Regarding French, I'm still just immersing myself in the pronunciation. I'm noticing new details I hadn't seen before every time I listen, usually to the same few clips. I opened the Assimil French book and completed lesson one. I just need to find the time to move on in French while growing in Spanish and maintaining my other activities (work, most of all, but also various fiction, nonfiction, and philosophy books I'm reading). Edited by Merv on 08 April 2011 at 5:19am 1 person has voted this message useful

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Merv Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5264 days ago 414 posts - 749 votes Speaks: English, Serbo-Croatian Studies: Spanish, French	Message 17 of 18 30 March 2011 at 2:20pm \| IP Logged
	Since my last post, I haven't done much on the French and have focused mostly on Spanish. After not having touched French since pretty much the last post, I went through the audio of 4 French Assimil lessons, and I'll continue going through some more before I open the book, hopefully in a week or two. I tried listening to a Spanish newscast (1 hr long) and a Mexican telenovela clip and understood maybe 75% of the words. As I alluded to in another thread, I found the speed just too great to catch all the words I know, much less to make out those I don't. Not surprisingly, I understood the Castilian better than the Mexican, although I don't think the sound adjustment of th > s for c and z will be that hard to make. I will definitely keep listening comprehension in mind in the coming months, even as I continue to read and build up vocabulary. I finished reading The Magician's Nephew in the Narnia series, having highlighted all the words and idiomatic constructs. I also just received a Franklin Merriam-Webster Spanish-English electronic dictionary and started looking up those highlighted words. Finally, I've been practicing writing online over MSN messenger approximately once per week for several hours, talking about things like the theory of evolution, the Libya crisis, and Japan tsunami. I think it's been going well, since all of the conversations are in Spanish and neither my language partners nor I are switching to English. I'm not entirely sure if I will continue with the Narnia series or shift to more genuine native material. I know that if I stick to this series, I will get a lot of clean fine prose, "normal" sentence structures (assuming the translators are doing their job), and vocabulary. If I could write like that some day (obviously on more sophisticated matters, if necessary), I would be very pleased with my writing ability. It seems that some of the authentic classic works (Marquez?) bear a very strong imprint of the author's voice and playing with words that are not necessarily representative. Obviously, I'll have to get to these too someday but I'm thinking maybe a year from now is better than right now. My experience over the past two months has confirmed some of my earlier suspicions about language learning. At least as far as I can tell, reading and writing and speaking cluster as one group of competencies and listening as the odd one out. This is consistent with the complaints many have made on this site that once they went to foreign country X, they could converse and follow conversations with one individual, but when many were talking at once (e.g. at a party), they had difficulties. I have yet to speak in front of a native speaker (or really anybody in conversation), so I still am not sure how good my pronunciation is. That'll be something to do in the coming months as well. Edited by Merv on 30 March 2011 at 2:27pm 1 person has voted this message useful
Merv Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5264 days ago 414 posts - 749 votes Speaks: English, Serbo-Croatian Studies: Spanish, French	Message 18 of 18 08 April 2011 at 5:17am \| IP Logged
	Not that much to update in the past week, other than that I watched a Spanish soap (Amar en tiempos y revueltos, or something like that) and was very discouraged because I understood only perhaps 15% of it. I'm not sure if the issue is that I don't know enough vocabulary, I'm not parsing the grammar, or it's the crazy speed. As I thought before, listening comprehension, especially with conversations between many different kinds of voices, is going to be my toughest challenge. I suppose this is something that's naturally picked up when in an immersion environment, but with only a few hours here and there of programming, it's hard. I suppose I need to watch movies regularly to improve. Another issue is vocabulary. I find myself discussing issues online that force me to find that extra word. Often I'll search for it in an online dictionary during the chat conversation and then just insert it. But what about real life situations? I'm trying to acquire vocabulary by looking up words in the book(s) I'm reading and also playing word and conjugation games in my electronic dictionary, but it I find that the words I do learn there aren't the ones I need in conversation. So I need to find a way of learning useful and frequent vocabulary. Regarding French, I'm still just immersing myself in the pronunciation. I'm noticing new details I hadn't seen before every time I listen, usually to the same few clips. I opened the Assimil French book and completed lesson one. I just need to find the time to move on in French while growing in Spanish and maintaining my other activities (work, most of all, but also various fiction, nonfiction, and philosophy books I'm reading). Edited by Merv on 08 April 2011 at 5:19am 1 person has voted this message useful