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Preparing for an intense month of Spanish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| lackinglatin Triglot Groupie United States randomwritingsetc.blRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5979 days ago 62 posts - 146 votes  Speaks: English*, Esperanto, Modern Hebrew Studies: Spanish | Message 9 of 17 09 June 2010 at 1:34pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I'm sure I will. I started LSLC today--I'm thinking about starting a language log, but I am kind of attached to having more votes than posts, and a language log would quickly eliminate that most likely. Haha. Silly, I know.
I've heard Michael Thomas lacks a native accent, which is an immediate huge turnoff for me--I know the arguments that say it doesn't matter, but I don't agree with them. What is it good for outside of that? Is there anything really unique to it that makes it worth using? I've started doing some Anki decks--Beginner Spanish Sentences, and 8680 most used words. Right now I'm being gentle, because I have finals over the next couple weeks. But I'll ramp it up to as much as I can take during July--what is the limit, do you think? 50 cards? 75? Would 100 be possible? What time frames would we be talking? What *are* Busuu and Livemocha? I've always heard people talk about them, but I don't know exactly what they really are. Are they efficient? What are their strengths? Volte--those factors only, I think I agree. But don't underestimate having grown up hearing the language for years. I think we're at least equal... Though it's not important, and like I said--I have lots of time to dedicate. Regardless! Doesn't this sound like a fun idea to more people? Try and design the most intense one month language program one can? Also... This site would do well to have the various different learning materials for different languages reviewed and compared somewhere, no? Have a couple learning methods outlined for every language open sourced/wiki style? PS: I should mention another factor. I'm in love with this girl whose family I'm meeting. Does that count as something that will help me learn the language? Motivation is 6/10s of the battle. ;) Edited by lackinglatin on 09 June 2010 at 1:35pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6438 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese | Message 10 of 17 09 June 2010 at 2:17pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
It's the fastest course I'm aware of for getting active use for a skeleton of some of the core grammar in a language. It's not as good as a really good private tutor, or what some people can pull off from a textbook, but the first is hard to find, and the second is a skill which it takes time to acquire. I don't find this particularly worthwhile, but if it's something you want, Michael Thomas is hard to beat.
Try and see. Bear in mind that large numbers of new cards per day won't really hit you at first - after a week, when you're dealing with lots of repetitions after a short amount of time from the first set, it'll be much harder than the first day.
Websites; I'll let people who use them talk about their good sides.
Depends on the hearing, really; there are two languages I heard a fair amount of during childhood, which I nonetheless knew next to nothing in (one of which I've since learned, one of which I haven't). Good luck. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| hypersport Senior Member United States Joined 5880 days ago 216 posts - 307 votes Studies: Spanish | Message 11 of 17 09 June 2010 at 2:39pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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You'll enjoy LSLC. Your motivation is really high right now, hopefully it will stay there.
One month will get your feet wet, will give you a taste. I would suggest you call your satellite provider and change your package to a Latino one. No more American T.V. You can get everything you're getting now in Spanish...CNN, ESPN, Discovery, History, Fox Sports, Telemundo, Univision, CineLatino, and a lot more. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| datsunking1 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5584 days ago 1014 posts - 1533 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Russian, Dutch, French | Message 12 of 17 09 June 2010 at 2:40pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I'm never going to say anything is impossible, because someone can achieve anything, especially with languages.
My honest (and humble) opinion would be that you would have to blitzkrieg Spanish for 10+ hours a day of hard intense study. At the end of the month, thats still 300 hours, which is 275 hours short of what FSI says is necessary. Wait, the girl is a native speaker of Spanish? :D I learned portuguese in less than two months because of my girlfriend from brazil, but I already knew Spanish fairly well. Give it your best shot, literally pound Spanish into your head like you're going to war with it. :) That's how I picture my languages :D 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6010 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 13 of 17 09 June 2010 at 3:00pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
You said "I have a strong preference towards material that teaches intuitively," Now, what Thomas does is not to teach intuitively per se, but to teach actively in a way that allows you to use the language intuitively. When most people talk about "intuitive" learning, they mean throwing lots of examples at the student and waiting for the student to work out the difference. This works for some people, but even then it takes a long time. The original advocates of this sort of learning talked about spending a year going to classes without even saying anything. So it's not suitable for you. Thomas breaks things up into the smallest possible units and teaches the individual units first before combining them into more complicated and ever more meaningful statements. So while another course might teach you "my name is" in the first lesson, Thomas doesn't teach it until he has taught all the components of the sentence. "My name is..." is actually quite complicated in Spanish, but Thomas manages to elicit the correct form by asking the student to say "I call myself" and then simply stating that this is equivalent to "my name is". You are never asked to parrot anything without understanding it, so everything must be learned. Many courses say they use the most common words, but many actually fail to do so, because the most common words are almost all so-called "function words" -- "it", "that", "want". By using words with independent meanings (eg "cake"), the courses restrict the reusability of the language taught (eg cake goes with "eat", "make", "buy", "sell" and very specific verbs like "bake", but "it" can go after any transitive verb in the language). Most courses teach vocabulary that then requires new vocabulary in order to be used, and ends up getting stuck with one tense and a few patterns with lots of little bundles of vocabulary. Thomas keeps the vocabulary very general, which allows him to cover the grammar very quickly indeed, insisting that learning more words is very easy in comparison to learning grammar. I agree with that point of view. 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| lackinglatin Triglot Groupie United States randomwritingsetc.blRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5979 days ago 62 posts - 146 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, Modern Hebrew Studies: Spanish | Message 14 of 17 09 June 2010 at 5:01pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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I've decided to start with 20/day from the 1000 most common words (skipped the first 40 because they were words like "el", "tambien", "ser", etcétera) and 5/day Spanish sentences (more intuitive lean towards word/grammar/usage acquisition).
I don't watch TV, haven't for years. But I have started downloading some Spanish movies from Chile (there aren't many, and they don't have the fastest torrents, but I found a few). datsun: That's the kind of encouragement I'm talking about! Haha. Ten hours a day, yeah? I'll try 300 and hope my pre-laid foundation can cover the other 275. (BTW: What level do they expect reached at 575? Perfect fluency? And from someone with nothing but monolingual English, yeah? Good to know...) Cainntear: Intuitive learning fits for certain types of learners--it doesn't really involve just 'figuring it out' *cognitively*, but the idea that you hear the right things over and over in many different ways, and you figure it out without thinking. (That's what I mean, anyways.) The right grammar starts to just 'sound right'. Since I already have that kind of background in the language, I think I'd prefer to capitalize on that, follow that route as much as I can. Further, and this is up for argument, Languages learned later in life exist in a different form in the brain than languages learned as a child. My Spanish, I feel, could lean either way--and I'd much prefer to try and foster intuitive learning as much as possible, to help maximize that 'native' neural pathway I may have the remnants of. It's theoretical, but that's my bent. In Hebrew, I've more or less disregarded most of my classes and just listen and spoke a lot on the streets. In my class, I'm among the best Hebrew speakers. I also have one of the worst grades. It's just my leaning. :\ That being said, I'm very capable of learning a language cognitively. I "get" grammar, and am considering studying linguistics in university... I just don't think that's the best way to study a language I want to *speak* with my heart. YET: There's a level of compromise, indeed, when you want to move quickly. So I need some grammar to speed things up to the fastest speed possible, so there might be a place for Thomas. Parroting things without understanding can hit a deeper part of the brain, however. You can start to understand things without knowing how you understand. That's by far what I really want, especially with Spanish... So there's my rant. I might give him a try. Is there a transcript of Michael Thomas somewhere? I think I might prefer that. LSLC seems to do a good job of giving the grammar so far--which, btw, on Lección 3, it's all pretty easy and I get more or less 100% on all the lessons first time through up to now. I have also read several articles on Chilean accent and slang, and looked up youtube videos comparing the accents, and started identifying what I've read/seen/heard more about specifically in Chilean media--when I repeat what I hear on LSLC, I've begun repeating with a more neutral Spanish accent, and then trying to say it with a Chilean accent--softening "d" between vowels into something closer to "th", almost completely dropping final "s", and just a 'feel' that I have from overhearing her speak it. I've also begun a language exchange with a 50 year old architect in the south of Chile over the past week, and we've sent a couple messages back and forth. Through "My Language Exchange" I have also found two fluent Spanish speakers that I am teaching Esperanto in exchange for having them on access to ask questions (and one of whom contacted the architect I found in Chile for me, since I didn't have a gold membership.) Edited by lackinglatin on 09 June 2010 at 5:15pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| hypersport Senior Member United States Joined 5880 days ago 216 posts - 307 votes Studies: Spanish | Message 15 of 17 09 June 2010 at 5:08pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Sounds good, I'm looking forward to your progress.
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| Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6010 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh | Message 16 of 17 10 June 2010 at 1:45pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I still speak English natively, despite studying the grammar in my early twenties. Languages don't switch parts of the brain. Anyhow, if you've developed a good passive understanding but can't speak, I can't see how doing "more of the same" is going to change that.
You wouldn't. You would then be studying consciously, and it's not designed for conscious study. It's designed as conscious teaching for subconscious learning. Reading the transcript it looks unstructured and the teaching is unclear. If you're happy with the other stuff you've looked at, stick with it. It's better to work on an adequate course that constantly search for the very best and never make a start. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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