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You Claim I Can Do What? - Spanish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Ender Newbie United States Joined 5421 days ago 22 posts - 23 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 17 of 20 02 March 2010 at 5:08am | IP Logged |
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UPDATES TO METHODS: I skimmed the rest of my college textbook in lieu of exercises about some hypothetical professor and classmates. I thought I might get more out of reviewing grammar through translation...and I was bored with the text.
I'm reading a translation of a middle-school book called Monster Blood by R.L. Stine. I also checked out the English version (six of these translation pairs are available!). Each day I'll translate a couple of pages by pen and paper and then check my work. Then I'll read for about 30 minutes or so, "checking" page by page to make sure I'm catching meaning and tense. I'll make flashcards for all words I do not know. I'm mindful of pounding more voculary each day after reading the 'how many words do you learn a day' thread where the average daily word count ran to the tune of 'oh please shoot me cuz you people are crazy'. I pulled 39 words from Sangre de Monstruo, 10 from Angel, and did my daily 50 from my textbook (they are mostly review from college rather than new vocabulary). My current "lesson plan" is a pimsleur lesson each day, flashcard deck review through ANKI, translation work of Sangre de Monstrue, and one episode of Angel twice through. Twice a week at work I listen to BBC Mundo podcast (8 times in a row) and attempt a bit of convo with the native Spanish speakers. I'm still having trouble figuring out how I should work my TV watching. I start by watching the episode with both dub and sub. The subtitles help me follow the dubbing, but it's also distracting since I'm mostly reading and the audio usually doesn't match. I've been trying to drop the subtitles for the second pass, but if there is a lot of talking (like this last episode), I can get easily frustrated and miss a lot. Last season, I did two passes of dub and sub. Afterwards, I'd do a third pass of the entire season with Spanish audio and English subtitles. I really don't know the best way to go about it though. I don't want to get sick of the series, I'm already watching each episode THREE times through. In any case, I tried to download the program that allows you to rip audio, save it as an mp3 file, and listen to it incessantly. It didn't download for me. Maybe that's a sign (of laziness?). I dunno. I'm NOT an audio learner. I'm the opposite (I only learn through writing/reading). Therefore, I'm kinda confused as to the best way to utilize my Angel subs and dubs with my particular learning strengths/weakness. I'm disappointed that BBC Mundo Radio does not offer a transcript, because it would help me GREATLY. It would solve the problem of finding an audiobook to follow along with at least. It's too bad that I can find nothing in the library system to listen to without wanting to yack. Perhaps I can wait on this though...I already have a lot of different things going on at once in my "lesson plan". I also have made an internal commitment to attempt Spanish conversation with native speakers at work. They seem both thrilled and amused by my efforts. I also realized that I work with some very crazy people. Any suggestions/advice on my current methods greatly appreciated. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Ender Newbie United States Joined 5421 days ago 22 posts - 23 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 18 of 20 05 March 2010 at 1:39am | IP Logged |
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I'm so sick of 300 words everyday from ANKI. @$#@&#^%@!!!!
It's starting to feel as though it's harrassing me. Edited by Ender on 05 March 2010 at 1:40am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Ender Newbie United States Joined 5421 days ago 22 posts - 23 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 19 of 20 07 March 2010 at 5:09am | IP Logged |
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I finally downloaded Audacity successfully. Yesterday, I cut together all of last week's BBC Mundo Radio podcasts into one file and slowed it down by 85%. It's an hour and a half long and easier for me to understand, although the guy filling in for the main host sounds a bit like Charlie Brown's teacher when he speaks that slow (and even when he speaks at a normal pace). I realized that my main problem is that I currently do not have the vocabulary to understand all of it. But, I'll get there.
I had a good day. Instead of listening to BBC Mundo Radio at work, I talked on and off the entire six hours to two native speakers (who both talked slowly for me). I learned a lot and I think I improved a lot just in those six hours, though by the fifth hour my brain hurt. Then I came home and did some translating of Sangre de Monstruo, flashcards, and TV watching. So, then it hurt even more. Pimsleur is helping me a loooooooot. I'm only on lesson #11 of the Beginner CDs, but already it's helping me correctly set some word order patterns and work on a lot of little details I screw up on. Anyway, today was a good day. I can see the improvements I'm making, though I still have a loooooooooooong way to go to hold a REAL conversation with anyone. I realize that my biggest problem right now that impedes listening/comprehension is vocabulary. I started looking around for a frequency dictionary, but I have so far been unsuccessful. :/ 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Ender Newbie United States Joined 5421 days ago 22 posts - 23 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 20 of 20 15 March 2010 at 1:56am | IP Logged |
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Two changes to my "lesson plans": 1) I have finished inputing all the vocabulary from my college textbook into ANKI and 2) after a week and a half, I've stopped translating excerpts of the book I'm reading by pen and paper. It was a very helpful exercise to do at first, but now I've gotten the hang of things and it's just wasting valuable study time that I could be using more productively.
In addition, I'm adding two things to my arsenal. Since reading on this site that newspaper articles typically use the 5000 most frequent words, I've decided to work smarter and cull some of my daily vocabulary words from online news articles. In addition, I am going to write down and translate some of the BBC Mundo podcasts (and pull new vocabulary from that if I'm able). I need to work on my listening skills, so I think that will help. I'm working on coming up with a new study schedule. I'm spending too much time studying each day (on average 6 hours a day). I'd like to get it down to four. Just Pimsleur and watching&rewatching an episode of Angel adds up to 2 hours. I want to do both of those every day. In any case, I can go a little overboard sometimes, and I have other things I'm trying to work on (like learning how to play guitar). Everything else has been pushed to the side. :/ 1 person has voted this message useful |
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