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| dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5023 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 49 of 668 16 August 2011 at 12:06am | IP Logged |
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Sounds like you are still making great progress James. FSI really is superb isnt it?
I am on unit 14 now, but I must say I have to do most drills more than 2 or 3 times. You may find as I have that some units are very easy, and may only take a few hours to complete, whereas as others will take significantly longer. Your idea to do a learning trip in Madrid is superb. I am definetly going to spend several weeks in Spain and other Spanish speaking countries at some point. I have been told though, that somewhere like Sevillle can be more suitable for practicing Spanish, as the people in shops and bars generally have more time to talk to you. I am not sure if their are many schools their though. Either way, you will find Tapas bars fantastic places to relax and talk to people. Best of luck! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| rjtrudel Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 6828 days ago 36 posts - 56 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish | Message 50 of 668 16 August 2011 at 7:39am | IP Logged |
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Just wait to you hit unit 47, thats were the pain starts! Long sentences with verbs containing multiple tenses.
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| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5376 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 51 of 668 16 August 2011 at 11:00pm | IP Logged |
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Dbag and rjtrudel - thanks for the comments.
FSI certainly is a great courses so far. The only thing I really regret is that I was "afraid" to do it. I cannot imagine doing it as a beginner, but doing it now seems really great. It really feels just like what I need at this stage and the fact that it is not too hard yet fits right in with my approach to make this whole Spanish learning process as "fun" as possible. I feel like I am going to drop Assimil entirely and just do FSI until I am done with it. I really like the idea that I can do the entire daily lesson in less than an hour. I read the dialogue and the grammar notes each day before doing the lesson. The first day I look at the book if I need to and the second day I try to do all the audio without the book. I am doing each lesson twice now and I think I am going to have to skip the 100% rule because I really need/want to move through this course at a reasonable pace and even at 2 or 3 times per lesson will take me a long time. I don't really make mistakes on the second tme through yet... they are more of just tongue tied problems. I have a feeling I will start doing them 3 times each pretty soon. I am wondering how people find the FSI 4 audio. It is not on the website. What do you guys do? If it is in the public domain why does it not seem available anywhere? Any suggestions would be appreciated. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5376 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 52 of 668 21 August 2011 at 3:21pm | IP Logged |
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O.K., I finished FSI level 9 this morning. I still think it is great and I am learning a lot. It is exactly what I need. It seems to be tying everything together pretty nicely and is getting me thinking automatically in Spanish. I have noticed that I really need to work on esto/eso/este/estos/esta/estas/aquel/aquellos/aquella/etc/et c. I know how and when to use them, but I seem to make many mistakes with them during the FSI lessons.
I can see why FSI has a reputation for burning people out. Man, it is like putting your brain on turbo. Every lesson at about 35 minutes I look at the computer to see how much longer I have to do it. I really like it and I hope I can keep it up. I get that feeling after every lesson that makes me want to say, "I love learning Spanish." It is just really rewarding. I think I will continue with FSI. I will need to buy the second Barron's book pretty soon. I hope I do not burn out. I think I can continue with 2 or 3 lessons per week for a while, but I will not mind slowing down if I need to. I want to continue to have this be rewarding and fun and not feel like work. It would be great if I could finish FSI before making my winter trip. I think I spoke a little too harsh of Assimil in my last post. I did not mean I was going to drop it entirely... I only meant I was going to drop it from my morning primary method. I have been doing some Without Toil lessons in the evenings this week and I really like doing it in the evening. I think I will continue to do them in the evenings. My morning meetup got canceled and may not meet anymore. This was very bad news because I really liked it. The evening meetup may also be fizzling out. Oh well. I tried doing some language exchanging on sharedtalk.com and I was pleasantly surprised. It was very easy to find someone to talk to. I simply logged in as wanting to talk to a native Spanish speaker and every time I did it someone contacted me in less than five minutes. I periodically looked at who was available to talk and there are rarely native English speakers learning Spanish so that is why it seems easy for me to find speaking partners. The quality of the sound was fine and the people were very motivated to talk and help. I am still not sure I really value language exchanges because there is so much time spent in English. I also found it quite interesting (and a little depressing) that everyone I speak to is trying to learn English in order to try to find a job or a better job. They are ambitious people and they are discouraged by the economical situation in their own country. I read a few more chapters from my New Life Biblia. It is really just free reading now and I occasionally need to check a word. I like it and the chapters are short enough that I can read for 10 minutes and get a chapter done. I have not worked too much on straight reading without audio so this is good. I read a Using Spanish lesson and was impressed how much I knew. I think I could do the course now and really enjoy it. I may eventually do it, but I am not in any major rush. I am actually now thinking that I will put off Using Spanish for quite a while as a way to keep me motivated with other things I want to do. It is kind of funny how I used to want to do it so bad that I could not wait to do it and now I want to do it so bad I am putting it off as a way to motivate myself to complete other things first. I was looking through the Guatemala University website for some more classes to watch and I found an online economics exam. I took the first 10 questions of the exam. I was very pleased that I could understand all the important things and I could accurately guess at the words I did not know. I passed the exam, but made a few mistakes because I simply did not understand some of the Spanish. This really pleased me. On this point I note that I also finished my 2011 goal for my self study of economics. That pleased me this week also. I did a lot of searching for Spanish schools abroad. Cost is going to be a factor. When factoring in the price of the flight, Madrid is much more expensive than places in Latin America. Puerto Rico and the Dominican are definitely the cheapest. I am looking at Guatemala also because I am somewhat interested in the country due to the courses I have been watching. Also, I found a school there that is quite cheap and offers one on one instruction for less than the price of group instruction in the other countries. Guatemala does not seem like it would be as much of a "vacation" as Madrid or Puerto Rico, but I realized that I really want to decide on where to go based on learning Spanish because this is going to be primarily for Spanish and no matter where I go I am probably not going to have too much "fun" without my family. Just after writing in my log last week that I was not going to do French I felt very guilty and I did the first full disc of Michel Thomas's French Foundations. Boy, he is great. It is amazing. I then promptly quit French again. Right now I simply want to really focus on Spanish and get my Spanish to a higher level. Eventually I may learn French, but right now I will stay away from it. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5376 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 53 of 668 30 August 2011 at 2:33am | IP Logged |
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This past week went fine. I did either an FSI lesson or an Assimil every day but one; however, I doubled up a couple times on Assimil so I did not fall behind. Also, I had a nice hour long skype talk on the day I did not do Assimil.
I finished FSI lesson 10 on Tuesday of last week. At that point I think I had done FSI every day for about 10 days. I would not say I was burned out, but I needed to take a break from FSI. The first time I did lesson 10 I thought it was very difficult, but the next day I got through it with almost no mistakes. I had some traveling to do after Tuesday so the Assimil lessons were very welcome. FSI can be draining and 10 days in a row was too much for my laid back approach. I am no longer going to try to do more than two FSI lessons per week now. I will eagerly continue with FSI, but I will simply pace myself from now on. I ordered the second book from Barrons and I hope I finish the whole FSI course eventually. Spanish Without Toil is starting to get fairly challenging. I am on lesson 74, I think. I am learning a good amount of vocab and grammar. The lessons are not too long either. I did look forward and they get significantly longer pretty soon. I still don't know what I will do on the Assimil front when I finish this passive wave. Like I said above, I did a good skype talk. One of my partners simply likes to talk about the US and does not mind talking entirely in Spanish if we talk about the US. This is fine with both of us so it is great. On one long drive I listened to the last 30 or so Spanish Without Toil lessons. On another long drive I listened to all of the Living Language Beyond The Basics dialogues. I had forgotten how good a course BTB was. I may read through the book sometime if I am looking for something to do or take a plane trip. I read the first chapter of El Leon, La Bruja y El Ropero. I was surprised how well I could read it. It was certainly not "easy", but it was very enjoyable. I really liked just reading along at my own pace and found myself getting into the story. I then listened to the audio three times following along with the Spanish twice and the English once. I tried watching some Univision shows online (I don't get it on TV). I realized that regular spoken Spanish is way way different than courses and the meetups I go to. I watched a judge show and, man, I barely understood anything. I went to a meetup, but it was kind of a flop. I think the meetups are not going to be going much longer. I am still usually listening to a Spanish radio station at work. It is really only background music, but I note that I am starting to get better at understanding the commercials. Edited by James29 on 30 August 2011 at 2:43am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5376 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 54 of 668 05 September 2011 at 2:04am | IP Logged |
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O.K., I have been doing pretty well. I finished FSI lesson 12 today. I find it interesting how much easier the second day on each lesson is. I like FSI and hope to stick with it. I will continue to be careful not to do too much. I finished Spanish Without Toil lesson 77 also. It is at quite a good level now for me and I feel like I am learning a lot in each lesson, but, at the same time, it is not "hard." I find that, for some reason, it seems to take me forever to do the review lessons. I had to split up lesson 77 into two days. In some respects I am feeling Assimiled out. I doubt I will do an active wave of Without Toil right after finishing this passive wave.
I feel like the language and vocabulary of Without Toil is too outdated. I note that this is merely a feeling on my part and I only note anecdotal instances where skype partners have said I use old words. The way the sentences are structured feels slightly strange. I note in the English there are words and idioms that are way out of date and I can only presume the Spanish is the same. If someone ever said "by jove" to me I would now know that they probably learned English with something from the 50s. Don't get me wrong, it is a great course and I am glad I am doing it... but I just wanted to mention this because I think about it often. I read four chapters of El Leon, La Bruja y El Ropero. For each chapter I read the Spanish at my own pace and then listen to the audio while following along with the Spanish text. I don't feel I need to review the English anymore. I would not understand it if I just listened to the audio and followed along without having read the Spanish first. I like the book and enjoy the story. The quality of the audio is great. I feel it is better than Cajas de Carton. This is a better book than Cajas for a beginner audio book. I am also surprised how much I like to just read the Spanish. It is satisfying. I listened/read a chapter or two from my Dios Habla Hoy Biblia. I am getting to the point where I don't really need the English translation too much, especially if I know the basic gist of the chapter. I tried watching Seinfeld with Spanish dubbing, but I did not like it. I don't know if I had ever watched dubbing. I found it hard to follow. If I watch more TV it will be shows that were initially recorded in Spanish. I went to a Mexican restaurant and spoke a little with the waitress. It really makes me realize that I really can function in Spanish. I don't think I did anything else this week. Edit: I just re-read my post and must note that some of the stuff in FSI is, of course, outdated also. Edited by James29 on 05 September 2011 at 2:10am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5376 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 55 of 668 12 September 2011 at 2:12am | IP Logged |
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FSI seems to have become my only primary method now. I did not do any work with Assimil this week. I did my first run through FSI lesson 15 today so I will finish the first book tomorrow. There were two days this week where I did not work from either FSI or Assimil, but those were the days I went to meetups so I don't really mind missing those days.
I have the second FSI book and I am definitely going to continue with it. I found most of lessons 14 and 15 relatively easy, but some of the drills were extremely difficult. Some of the drills on 15 I could not even do following along with the book. We will see how it goes tomorrow on the second time through. It would probably be better for me to be going through each lesson three times, but I am going to stick with two because I do not want this to take forever. FSI is great for me right now. It is exactly what I need. I wish I would have started it a little earlier. I should have started it after my second active wave of Assimil Spanish With Ease. I read seven chapters of El Leon, La Bruja y El Ropero. When I was reading it today I tried to figure out how much I really know. I realized that there is much vocabulary that I don't really know. I can easily understand the story without knowing all the words because I know the story. I did not listen to any of the audio this week. I will try to get caught up with that sometime. I went to two meetups. I am not sure how much longer these groups will be meeting, but for now they are pretty good. I like the meetups because they are "real". It is nice to just talk with interesting people for an hour in Spanish. I rarely have a hard time making myself understood and I can talk about most things. I sometimes have a hard time understanding regular speaking. I did a long skype talk and a text talk. In a way I don't even consider skype as time that I should count. I enjoy it because I am learning a lot about foreign countries and I can speak Spanish without it feeling like "work." I still listen to Assimil With Ease dialogues on the way to work about 2 or 3 times per week. I don't really count this time either because sometimes I just let it be background noise. I am listening to the lessons on the third (of four) CDs. I am pretty close to being able to flawlessly shadow all of them. I think I will need to spend some time with the book before I can really shadow them as well as I would like to. Then I will move on to the lessons on the fourth CD. I read a few threads on this website about why people learn foreign languages. It really made me think. Someone wrote about how learning languages does not have a good return on investment. That made me think about my approach to Spanish and how I really make this "fun" so there are not any "costs" I am incurring in my studies. In fact, I really enjoy learning Spanish and just about every day when I am done with my lesson I actually say to myself that I cannot believe how much I enjoy it. I do not ever want to lose the positive aspect of learning Spanish. I really feel like my return on investment is infinite because I have made it such a fun and positive process - the "investment" is minimal so the return on that investment is very high. Edited by James29 on 12 September 2011 at 2:19am 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5376 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 56 of 668 17 September 2011 at 10:09pm | IP Logged |
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The middle of this week was not too great. I missed one day entirely. There was not really any reason for it other than it would have been somewhat inconvenient to do a lesson because I had a long drive very early in the morning. I did not even listen to any Spanish on that drive. There was another day I had a long drive and that day at least I listened to an hour of Assimil Spanish Without Toil. This week I also finished the first book of FSI and did lessons 16 and 17. That is it for my primary sources this week.
I listened to a few chapters of El Leon, La Bruja y El Ropero. I got confused because I am a reading ahead and then doing the audio later. When I was listenting to the audio I was getting confused because I was remembering what I read which was already ahead of where I was in the audio. I should be doing it differently.... maybe next time I will read straight through and then listen straight through. This is a great book and it is really helping me to be reading/listening to it. I did not go to any meetups this week. I missed the morning one due to a long drive for work. I did a very long skype text. It was fun. It seems like it is not work. When it is fun it is just a nice effortless way to use the language and not even think about it. I also did a skype voice chat. I feel lucky that I found a partner who actually prefers to speak in Spanish the whole time. It must be helping because we talk in Spanish the whole time. In a wierd way, however, it does not feel like I am "learning" anything because we basically just talk and I don't often ask questions about Spanish. I still listen to Spanish radio at work. I find that I understand more and more of the songs and the DJs, but I rarely even try to think about what they are saying. It is just mostly background noise and occasionally I listen to see how much I really understand. I am thinking that maybe I should start listenting to something else at work... I just don't know what yet. I still listen to Assimil With Ease on the drive to work. I feel this log is getting repetitive. I am saying the same thing every week. I did some more planning for my trip. Unfortunately, things at work are looking somewhat unpredictable. This is unfortunate because I do not feel confident scheduling a trip yet. I am now thinking that I will have to go to Puerto Rico and just schedule it at the last minute. I will be able to have the time, I just cannot plan on which weeks I will be able to go yet. One of my friends at the meetup says that everyone in Puerto Rico speaks English so it is not the greatest place to go to learn Spanish. Oh well, I think it will be good for me and I am looking forward to it. I have been doing this Spanish thing for almost two years now. October 1 will mark the completion of my second year. Today I happened to recall what I was doing exactly a year ago (it happens to be a significant date) and I remember how totally incompetent I was in Spanish a year ago. I have really come a very long way. If I can advance next year as far as I did last year I would be extremely pleased. I am definitely going to continue with FSI. That will take me a while so I don't really need to worry about what to do after that. The thing I am thinking about now is if I will be able to finish FSI before my trip. At the rate I am going (roughly 2 lessons per week), I should be able to finish FSI in about 20 weeks. That would be roughly the end of January. I would LOVE to finish FSI before I go on my trip, but I do not want to rush it. I would like to somehow advance my listening/understanding skills a little more. I feel my listening ability is what holds me back. I do not speak perfectly, but I can make myself understood and I can talk about most things that I want to talk about. However, I cannot understand TV or movies or radio very well at all. At meetups I do not understand everything that is said. This week I overheard a woman on her cell phone speaking Spanish and I tried to see if I could understand. I basically understood nothing. I understood isolated words, but I did not have a clue what she was talking about. It all just seems so fast and slurred. Well, this was a "bad" week for me and it was still GREAT. I had a lot of fun. Edited by James29 on 17 September 2011 at 10:15pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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