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Diversion into Programmatic Spanish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7148 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 9 of 17 01 September 2006 at 6:44pm | IP Logged | ||
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Week 6.
I finished FSI Basic Spanish unit 46. Unit 47 still eludes me a bit. Many of the sentences are longer than normal. 47 is on the past and past perfect subjunctive. Maybe it will come together after vacation. In Assimil Using Spanish, I went through units 36-42 as per the schedule. At times I've thought I could dig into wikipedia articles or google to do more investigation of the subject of each lesson. For the moment though, that's not in the cards. Maybe next year when I've finished FSI Basic. I may listen to Using Spanish units 43-60 in the upcoming roadtrip, but only if I feel like it. No pressure. In Programmatic Spanish, I edited the audio for unit 32 and read the preliminary explanations and listened to and repeated the dialogs. Not much more than that though. In the audiobook I went through pages 104-122. That leaves 2 of 5 cassette tapes left to go. I may listen to them on the upcoming roadtrip, but that's not a given. I have my study knapsack packed for the roadtrip. Well, almost. I'm still running Notes In Spanish podcasts through the Audacity compressor and burning them onto CDs. The plan is to listen to a lot of interesting audio and not necessarily take out any milestones in this thread, though I won't be surprised if I listen to the 2 cassettes for the audiobook and the 1 CD left in Using Spanish and then report that this diversion is complete. We'll see. It really depends on how much time I'm in the car aside from the "there and back again" legs of the journey. I'm hoping I can keep my hands off the FSI lessons. I've hit a frustration point that almost makes me want to set the entire course down for a while and do fun things. I never should have told the boss I'd finish it this year. Edited by luke on 07 September 2006 at 7:19pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7148 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 10 of 17 11 September 2006 at 7:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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Week 7 - end of this diversion.
I was on vacation last week and didn't do anything with FSI Spanish. I started listening to unit 47 again today, and it didn't magically come together after not doing any FSI for a week. I did listen to Assimil Using Spanish units 39-60 in the car on the way home. Although I don't have the Using Spanish course down, I'm putting it down for now. Nothing happened with Programmatic Spanish either. I've decided to put it down for the time being. I did listen to cassettes 4-5 in the audiobook at the start of my roadtrip, and cassettes 1-5, which is the whole book on the way home. I could tell a significant difference in my understanding between the chapters I had studied methodically and those I'd done a double speed pass at - the approach discussed in week 3. So, based on that experience, this is a good approach for me if I want a detailed understanding of an audiobook: a) Read out loud in Spanish. b) Silently read English translation. c) Read out loud again in Spanish. d) Read out loud with tape, trying to shadow. I had used even more plodding approaches earlier, and they worked well, although they were even slower. Doing the double speed (steps b and d) was noticeably less effective. I was probably spending less than 1/4 of the time when I went to this approach, as I looked up fewer words, etc. Anyway, I'll keep this in mind for future audiobooks. What did I learn during this adventure? FSI units get easier as they are repeatedly reviewed. I think some space between reviews is helpful. I.E. if I was to listen to a unit 20 times during the course, I get more from the unit if I did something like the schedule below, rather than 20 times over 10 days: 10 times 3 months later 5 times 3 months later 3 times 3 months later 2 times As noted the 4 steps process (a-d) with audiobooks works well for me. Assimil Using Spanish has about 3 major flaws for me: 1) The translation to English is horrible. 2) The topics are mostly centered around Spain and there is very little on Latin America. 3) It uses peninsular pronunciation. Item 1 probably hurts everyone using the English based course. 2 and 3 may be an advantage for my European friends. I prefer material that's a little more relevant to my life. I'll come back to this beast one day. It has some useful vocabulary that I haven't grokked yet. Programmatic Spanish is fine, and it was just getting into the part where the instruction was starting to be in Spanish too, but it's a big enough course to require more focus than I wanted to give it at this point. I may tap PS again when I've gotten through unit 55 in FSI Basic Spanish. I'm making another 8 week or so study plan and I'm going to use a new thread for it. Edited by luke on 11 December 2006 at 6:17am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7148 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 12 of 17 12 March 2008 at 8:52pm | IP Logged | ||
I haven't been counting. I had left FSI alone for about 6 months. I have not done much with Spanish during that time, but I'm going to dust it off and shine it up. One good thing about getting FSI lessons down well is that, from comments I get, one can develop a decent pronunciation as well as sufficient grammatical correctness that it is noted when in a group of beginners. My current plan is to focus more on audiobooks and do a few minutes of FSI drilling, but not have drilling be the centerpiece of this phase of my development. Edited by luke on 12 March 2008 at 9:02pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7148 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 14 of 17 13 March 2008 at 9:32pm | IP Logged | ||
I don't know much about FSI FAST, other than what Don Casteel (Platiquemos) posted for free on his website, but doing Programmatic before Basic makes sense to me, with the previously mentioned caveats about learning and life styles. I'm quite sold on the Listen-Reading method, or some variation thereof; using a book and audiobook that you Love so much you would be happy memorizing it. To each his own. In a nutshell, FSI Spanish to get started, then some sort of intensive Listen-Reading when FSI becomes too painful to continue, then return to FSI for finishing and continued reinforcement of grammatically correct speech. If I hadn't already started with FSI Spanish, I would have been happy to begin with Listen-Reading. I do think FSI Spanish is good for the beginning student. It provides a base while enthusiasm is still high, which perhaps is typical during the "pink cloud" (initial) stage of learning. Edited by luke on 14 March 2008 at 5:48pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7148 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 16 of 17 14 March 2008 at 5:56pm | IP Logged | ||
The book for the Listen-Reading method should always be a personal choice based upon the student's love for the material. What works for me is unlikely to be of real interest to others. At some point I will revisit the FSI courses in a more rigorous manner. For the moment, the "real world" material that Listen-Reading advocates really fits more closely my temperament. The grammatical correctness and practice that FSI offers is of interest to me, but for the time being, a more intuitive approach with timeless material will be my fare. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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