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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| BOLIO Senior Member United States Joined 4660 days ago 253 posts - 366 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 281 of 344 25 November 2014 at 5:03pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Crush, I-Mon... Thank you both for taking the time to respond. It means a lot.
As far as Assimil and repeating it, I really cannot imagine going through it again. It is a great course and I could see myself using it for another language such as German or Russian but I really have zero interest in doing the Spanish again. WHen I finish FSI where I can correctly answer the drills within the time allowed, I SHOULD be to a point where I can use the language and just native materials to advance. I-mon, I recently reached out to a local tutor. I have taken a test for him to determine where I am in my learning. He said I was at an "early intermediate" stage. I have no idea what that means. I am giving it serious thought and will continue to discuss it with my wife and see if I can incorporate it into my schedule and budget. I still don't know what I don't know in Spanish. I had this idea that when I finished MT and Assimil that I would have been really good at Spanish. NOPE. However, the reason others here may have had more fruits from their Assimil experience is because the drilled it and I did not. I like FSI and now want to get the most out of it. I am now using the pause for the first go through and then it must occur in the allotted time until it becomes "automatic". Thanks again for your time, BOLIO 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5534 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 282 of 344 25 November 2014 at 6:18pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Let me just chime in to agree with iguanamon: There are some awesome Skype tutors out there for very reasonable prices. And it's awesome being to just Skype from home without a lot of driving around. italki is a good place to start looking.
Contrary to what Assimi's marketing may sometimes suggest, the goal of their courses has always been to get you just far enough that you can "fend for yourself". As I said in my review of My Tailor is Rich:
Some people may get more out of Assimil, but I didn't. Instead, the best way forward is to start using your skills in new, more "realistic" ways: - Keep doing L/R and News in Slow Spanish! These are great ideas. - Start looking for more easy books or graphic novels to read. - Find a way to speak Spanish regularly: Either a tutor or a meetup or something else. - Consider writing something short on a regular basis. - Consider joining something like the Super Challenge. Basically, you've reached a point where you can make your Spanish better by just going out there and using it. It won't take long—a couple books, a few dozen hours of conversation, a TV series or two—before things start getting a lot easier. And yeah, it's going to be awkward for a while. Second languages are like that, especially where you are now. But at least you can aspire to newer and more impressive sorts of awkwardness soon. :-) ¡Buena suerte! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5264 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 283 of 344 25 November 2014 at 6:55pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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De nada, Bolio. Seconding myself and emk, the cool thing about a skype tutor is the ability to share links in real-time. This is huge. Also, a school like PLQE.org is a fair-trade organization dedicated to making the lives of the Guatemalans in their charge better in many ways. You can improve your Spanish and know that you are helping in a demonstrable, concrete way.
Also, seconding emk, remember we've suggested lang8 a few times to practice writing. This is a great way to work on your output, get corrections and even meet people with whom you may want to do a language exchange. All it takes is writing a short paragraph or two (at most) on a variety of topics. There are two keys to get this to work, in my experience: 1) post regularly, at least twice a week. 2) give great, above the bare minimum, detailed explanations of corrections for Spanish-speakers' English writings: Ex: "You said "x" here and there's nothing really wrong with the words. I understand what you want to say, but it's awkward to a native-speaker's ears. If you would rephrase it in this way it would be better". Think Crush. You'll win friends on the site like this and will receive better, more detailed corrections and explanations yourself. It's worth every bit of time you spend on it for becoming more proficient. It gives you a good excuse to learn new vocabulary because you'll need it to express yourself. Edited by iguanamon on 25 November 2014 at 6:58pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Crush Tetraglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5867 days ago 1622 posts - 2299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto Studies: Basque | Message 284 of 344 26 November 2014 at 8:39am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Lang-8 is a nice resource, though personally i enjoy it a lot more now that i can work on nuances and collocations rather than straight up grammar. Posting once or twice a week is a nice goal, though i've seen people using it as their main resource and i'm not sure that it's quite that useful. Like a lot of things, it's a nice supplement.
Another way that lang-8 is nice is that you'll have a nice chart of your progress, in particular as you get further along in FSI you can look back at your old entries and smile. "(Yo) quería él hacer (I wanted him to do...)?!?! Haha what was i thinking? It's obviously Quería que (él) hiciera!". Regarding giving thorough feedback on others' writing, this is crucial in my opinion. When someone gives you really nice feedback it's that much more motivating to look over their entries. And especially for people studying English, many of them will have uncorrected entries from months ago. Spanish entries generally get corrected within an hour, in particular if you're writing in a Spanish time zone (and with Spanish speakers on both sides of the Atlantic, you almost always will be). And one last thing, especially in the beginning when you know you will be making mistakes (and don't be afraid to try out new structures, it's a great way to get feedback and help cement it in your mind!), do try to limit what you write to one or two paragraphs. Having to correct a huge wall of text can be daunting. If you want to write more, try splitting it up into multiple entries. You'll be much more likely to get corrections that way. I never used it as much as i should, since December of 2008 (my first entry) i've got just over 110 entries (spread throughout Spanish, Russian, French, German, Mandarin, and Catalan). I like one phrase in particular from my first entry "y lo he gustado ya desde". Whoops. (EDIT: That was about three or four months into my studies, haha) Edited by Crush on 26 November 2014 at 8:43am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| epictetus Groupie Canada Joined 3884 days ago 54 posts - 87 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 285 of 344 27 November 2014 at 12:34pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Should you give the corrections in English or Spanish? I would think one person would need to be much better at their L2 for the process to work. Will the person I'm correcting understand my English? Crush has written to me in Spanish which I understood but if it's a very new learner to English, I'm not sure how that would work. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5264 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 286 of 344 27 November 2014 at 1:23pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Obviously, it depends on your level of Spanish and the level of the text-writer's English. If you are at a beginner's level in Spanish, you would want to be correcting Spanish-posters who post in English (using your English) who have a higher level of English than you do in Spanish- intermediate and above. Of course, this presupposes that you know what you're doing in English. At this level, the Spanish-speakers can understand your response because most have a higher level in reading than they do in production- that's why they're on lang8, to practice writing. If you see something like: "I learn English 3 years in the school. Am no to speaking well because have no chances to talk English peoples." You can correct this person if you want, but he or she needs more instruction than correction. You can correct the English and probably safely assume the person won't be able to understand your detailed English explanation. This is best left to someone who has a higher level of Spanish than you do to really help, but you could still correct it without going into an elaborate explanation. Later, when your Spanish is adequate enough to explain mistakes in English properly to a Spanish-speaker, help these people. They will be able to help you with your posts in Spanish. It's a different matter when you see a text like this: "Last week I went to the zoo with the family. We seen tigers, elefants and chimpanzies. I thought the chimpanzies were almost like human childs". Here, this person can use the past tense and has a larger vocabulary and would benefit nicely from a "beyond the minimum" explanation written in English. This is the type of poster (at this level and above) to whom you want to give attention. If you can't explain that "seen" is the past participle of "to see" and that "saw" is the past tense form of "to see", that "children" is the plural for "child"- then you need to refresh your knowledge of English grammar. As an aside, I believe that all beginning language-learners could benefit from a quick refresher in their own native language's grammar. Edited by iguanamon on 27 November 2014 at 1:35pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| epictetus Groupie Canada Joined 3884 days ago 54 posts - 87 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 287 of 344 27 November 2014 at 1:48pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I never really considered how I might choose whom to correct. Luckily, I dun reel good with English so far. I like
teaching people (and being taught) so I'll probably enjoy correcting the upper intermediate and advanced learners. The subjunctive is still the most challenging and satisfying thing for me, both in Spanish and English. It's more subtle in English, I think. Thank you for the advice. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Crush Tetraglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5867 days ago 1622 posts - 2299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto Studies: Basque | Message 288 of 344 29 November 2014 at 3:23am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Personally, i try to keep all of my corrections in English, especially if i know a person will understand. For absolute beginners it's a bit more complicated and i may translate certain parts of my correction to try to help their comprehension a bit or give a short summary in Spanish afterwards. For example, here's how i might correct iguanamon's post:
------------------------ I learn English 3 years in the school. "I have been learning English for three years at school" -In English, we say "I have been learning X for Y years" (he estado estudiando X durante Y años) to talk about how long we have been doing something (cuanto tiempo llevamos haciendo algo). For example: I have been reading for five minutes. He has been sleeping for 12 hours. We have been walking for thirty minutes. Am no to speaking well because have no chances to talk English peoples. I don't speak well because I have no chance to speak with English people. -To say "(yo) no hablo", we usually need "do not" or "don't", eg. "I don't speak". Some more examples: no canto - I don't sing no quiero - I don't want (to) no tengo - I don't have (any) no camino - I don't walk -In English, a verb always needs a subject (un verbo siempre necesita un sujeto). In Spanish it isn't necessary, but in English it is necessary. For example: es necesario - IT is necessary (not: "is necessary") tengo un mapa - *I* have a map (not: "have a map") tienes dos casas - YOU have two houses no está triste - HE/SHE is not sad ------------------------ I try to keep the language simple and stick to words that are cognates as much as i can, which luckily most grammar words are cognates ;) EDIT: I also try to comment on what they've written, for example if they wrote about their day i'll say something like "sounds like a fun day!" or something more if i can comment on what they wrote. Sometimes we have a few messages afterwards just talking about what they've written (ie. not corrections, just a short conversation). And i tend to end it with something like "Feel free to ask if you've got any questions!" (or for iguanamon's post, something like "Si algo no te ha quedado claro no dudes en preguntar!"). Edited by Crush on 29 November 2014 at 3:29am 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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