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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| estrella172 Diglot Newbie United States wontletitpassmeRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6006 days ago 17 posts - 17 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Ancient Greek, French | Message 1 of 10 07 June 2008 at 2:20am | IP Logged |
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Well, I'm new here, my name's Valerie and I'm American. I'm a Spanish Education major in college, and I'm going into my senior year in August. I've just come back from a five month study abroad semester in Granada, Spain, which was AMAZING, but my main concern at the moment is that I'll forget a lot of what I've learned in the past five months.
However, even though I do want to improve my Spanish vocabulary and brush up on a couple tenses I keep having trouble with, my Spanish is actually quite good. So, since I've always done the whole dabbling in various languages thing, I figure now would be a cool time to start learning at least the basics of another language or two, cause I just love learning languages period. SO. The two other languages I'd like to learn are Italian and (I know, I'm crazy) Swahili. Italian: I've always kind of assumed that once my Spanish got to a certain level, I'd start in on Italian. I think I was previously worried that I'd confuse them, but I don't think I will now. Though I feel like this one will be fairly easy to learn because the vocab and grammar are SO similar to Spanish. When I was in Spain, I visited England and actually found an Italian grammar book in a used bookstore for like 60 pence. I was so excited that I actually started working on it on the plane back to Spain. Swahili: I know, I know. It's like Spanish...Italian...and....Swahili?!?! I don't know why, really. I remember hearing about Swahili when I was about 10 years old, and I just thought the name sounded cool, and then a few years ago I happened to find a website with some information about the language and it sounded even COOLER. I know it sounds crazy, but it actually seems like a very pretty language, with fascinating grammar. Plus it's different. There's no way on earth I will mix it up with Spanish or Italian. As for how I'm going to learn it, I found a website for learning Swahili a few days ago. It tries to throw a lot at you at once, so I've been skipping around on it and spacing it out. Sooo, I figure I can have a goal or two for each language for each week. So for this week... Spanish: Do the chapter on commands in my Spanish grammar book, and finish the children's novel I've been reading. Italian: Review what I had done up to this point. Swahili: Review what I've done so far, practice the present definite tense, and possibly learn a bit more vocabulary. (I get the idea that either Italian or Swahili will fall to the wayside by the end of the summer, but we'll see. Depends on which one I like better. :) ) Also, note- If anyone knows of any online Italian or Swahili resources, please let me know! I'd especially appreciate websites with simple paragraphs or stories in Italian, since I figure I'll get to that point pretty quickly with it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| estrella172 Diglot Newbie United States wontletitpassmeRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6006 days ago 17 posts - 17 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Ancient Greek, French | Message 2 of 10 14 June 2008 at 11:17pm | IP Logged |
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Well I haven't been quite as studious this week as I'd have liked.
Spanish: I read about 30 pages of the book I've been reading ("El misterio de la isla de Tokland" by Joan Manuel Gisbert), and started looking up the words I didn't recognize. I got a little bored though cause there were so many, and because half of them weren't in my dictionary so I'm going to have to go to wordreference.com and look them up or something. I have watched a couple Spanish soap operas though, and have been listening to Spanish music. My goal for this week is to learn the vocabulary from the book that I didn't know and to read another 30 pages from it. Also to continue watching Spanish soap operas. Maybe I should pick one and watch it regularly. I also would like to start reviewing the imperative as that's the one conjugation I never can remember. Italian: Only one lesson behind where I had been. I would like to do that lesson and then do two more this week. I would also like to try to find some basic online audio exercises. Swahili: I actually didn't do too bad with Swahili, I learned the present definite tense and practiced my vocabulary, though apparently there's a negative present definite tense too which is quite different. So I think this week I will learn that and work on the M-/Wa- noun class. (AKA vocabulary) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| estrella172 Diglot Newbie United States wontletitpassmeRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6006 days ago 17 posts - 17 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Ancient Greek, French | Message 4 of 10 16 June 2008 at 12:08am | IP Logged |
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Yes, I did the home stay, it was sort of a requirement at least with the program I went with. I actually thoroughly enjoyed the home stay. It was a little awkward sometimes because my señora insisted on doing all our (mine and my roommate's) laundry for us, and she would sweep and mop our room and make the beds once a week. She also cooked all our meals though and they were DELICIOUS, she was an amazing cook. Really though, it depends on the family- sort of the luck of the draw. I will say though, that if you're interested in studying abroad, Granada is absolutely amazing. There's la Alhambra and the Albaicin, plus Seville, Cordoba, Malaga, and even Madrid are all close enough to take weekend trips to. Of course there's plenty to do in Granada too, plus the tapas are free! If you're interested in Granada, you should definitely go to the University of Granada website and look up the Centro de Lenguas Modernas. The classes were really great, and I'm pretty sure there are programs that don't require the homestay, or you can even attend the CLM as an independent student instead. Several people I took classes with had gotten an apartment with roommates, some of them with roommates from other countries in Europe who didn't speak English, so they could practice their Spanish that way too! Either way, Granada is an beautiful city, I highly recommend it! Edited by estrella172 on 16 June 2008 at 12:14am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| estrella172 Diglot Newbie United States wontletitpassmeRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6006 days ago 17 posts - 17 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Ancient Greek, French | Message 6 of 10 16 June 2008 at 6:10pm | IP Logged |
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Oh! Sorry, I should have clarified. In Spanish bars, they give you some pretty interesting appetizers with your drinks. In most cities, these "tapas" (the appetizers) cost money in addition to the drink, but in Granada, the appetizers are free! You could get a pretty decent amount of food just buying a couple drinks (not necessarily alcoholic drinks either, they had Coke or Fanta, etc). In one tapas bar we went to a couple times, they gave us a small toasted ham and cheese sandwich each, a pile of french fries, and some pasta, just for buying one Fanta each. That made it only about $2 or 3 each for the drink and the food. Pretty awesome.
As for where else I've been, I'm afraid my traveling experience (in Spanish speaking countries at least) is limited to Spain. While in Spain, I did visit Madrid and it seemed like a great city as well. I also went to Seville and have a couple friends who studied there and seemed to love it. Salamanca also has a good study abroad program. Quite a few people from my university end up going to Buenos Aires, though several of them have told me that the accent in Argentina is practically impossible to understand at first. One friend of mine went to Mexico City for a few weeks and said it was wonderful. Really it just depends on what you're looking for, or what sounds the best to you. Just about any of these cities you go to will probably be a wonderful experience, and be a great help in practicing and improving your Spanish. Hope this helps! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| estrella172 Diglot Newbie United States wontletitpassmeRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6006 days ago 17 posts - 17 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Ancient Greek, French | Message 8 of 10 22 June 2008 at 12:40am | IP Logged |
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Allright, so it's been a week since I put my goals for the week, and well, a lot has changed in the past couple hours that made me decide something very difficult for me. For the time being, I am going to stop learning Swahili and Italian.
See, I'm a Spanish Education major, about to enter my senior year of college. This fall (August to December) I will be teaching two or three periods of high school Spanish each morning (don't know yet what level). In the spring (January to May), I will be doing my student teaching at a high school, teaching Spanish III and AP Spanish. Having been to Spain, I figured I was prepared for this. What I didn't take into account however, is that I had horrible Spanish teachers in high school. Last November, I went to a foreign language teachers conference and received two free teachers editions of textbooks. One of them was pretty good, but the other is AMAZING. I know, I know, I'm such a teacher, but trust me, this is the awesomest Spanish textbook I've ever seen in my life. Anyway, as soon as I saw it, since this is the year for my state's schools to pick new foreign language textbooks, I hoped my district would pick this one. Well, I just found out that they did!!! I'm ecstatic. This book puts the old book, Paso a Paso, to shame. Which granted, wouldn't take much. Anyway. As excited as I am, I got to skimming the book again, especially the table of contents at the beginning which also includes the table of contents for the Spanish III and AP Spanish books. Kinda started freaking out. See in my high school Spanish classes, they never even MENTIONED subjunctive. I got a bit of a rude awakening upon arriving in Spanish 211 in college. This textbook does subjunctive in Spanish III. And not just a general overview but a detailed all-year EXTENSIVE study of all forms of subjunctive. The AP Spanish book is more literature than anything else, very little of which I am familiar with. I've never even read Don Quijote. Basically I'm starting to freak out a bit. So. I've decided that in order to better do my job this coming year, I need to focus on my Spanish, especially the topics in this textbook that I know I will be teaching with. As fun as it will be one day to learn Italian and Swahili, this is not the time to do it anymore. Perfecting my Spanish is more important, because even though my Spanish is quite good, there's a difference between instinctively seeing a sentence and knowing the grammar is right, and being able to explain how the grammar works and why the sentence is right. SO. New goals for this week: 1. Review commands! 2. Begin review of subjunctive 3. Make sure I am good to go on the first three chapters of this Spanish I book (I'm familiar with the vocab and the grammar and the cultural information, etc) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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