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Thinking in Spanish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| K.C. Groupie United States ksclay.net Joined 6995 days ago 42 posts - 46 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 1 of 11 28 March 2008 at 12:41pm | IP Logged |
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Okay, so maybe it's not much but I was thinking yesterday about how hard it was when I had to pick a major in college, because I'm interested in so many different things, and all of a sudden this pops into my head: "Quiero estudiar todo de las cosas." I don't know if it's entirely correct, but I'm excited that my brain was trying to think in Spanish at all. I've only been back to studying it for two weeks and when I stopped studying it a year ago I was still very much at a beginner level. I've also noticed that when I watch Spanish language television they no longer seem to be talking too fast, and I can actually pull out words and phrases even if I don't always know what they mean (before everything kind of ran together).
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| K.C. Groupie United States ksclay.net Joined 6995 days ago 42 posts - 46 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 2 of 11 31 March 2008 at 2:13pm | IP Logged |
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I think I'm on the right track. Here's what I'm doing:
Oxford Take Off in Latin American Spanish: I like this program. It's mostly centered around dialogues, which I like. Even when I'm not actively completing a lesson I put on the dialogues and listen to them over and over. I edited out the English using Audacity (I didn't know about this until I started reading the entries on this forum, so thanks guys!) The dialogues at the end of each unit (there are 14) string together to make a story so I put these ones, even the ones for the units I haven't gotten to yet, into a playlist. It helps keep up my interest level to follow an actual story. FSI Programmatic Spanish: I'm not crazy about this one, but I like the focus on pronunciation so I'm sticking with it for now. I follow the lessons basically the way they're listed in the manual, except I don't fill out the charts for the identification tests, and I don't really care about memorizing the dialogues as long as I know what's being said. I mainly focus on pronunciation and learning to listen for word stress, etc. So far I'm on unit 6 of the Oxford and unit 5 of FSI. When I watch Spanish language television I actually recognize quite a bit although I can't really follow the meaning in real time yet (by the time I register that I recognized something and remember what it means, they've moved on.) I'm sure that will change with practice and exposure. I'm excited about learning another language since I've always liked languages. I'm a writer. I think it comes with the territory. Anyway, that's my update for now. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| K.C. Groupie United States ksclay.net Joined 6995 days ago 42 posts - 46 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 3 of 11 03 April 2008 at 2:01pm | IP Logged |
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I've been reading so much about shadowing on this forum that I decided to try it today. It was hard! On the other hand, I can definitely see already the advantages of it. By actually trying to shadow the speaker instead of repeating after them, I think it will improve my speaking pace and intonation. I did play around with the technique a little, though. I turned it into a game so that instead of trying to shadow the entire dialogue at once I would shadow person number one and pause for person number two's responses. Then I switched around and played the part of person number two. It gave me the feeling of being involved in a real dialogue and it was fun. It was kind of like being back in drama class in school.
The funny thing is that FSI has a section to do this (to pretend to be a player in a dialogue) but I always feel awkward with that and today trying to shadow speakers in my Oxford dialogues I didn't. Maybe it's because FSI uses English in their prompts ("begin by saying. . .") I have found that the use of English can throw me. That's why I edited the English out of the Oxford dialogues and only listen to the versions with English when I'm actually doing the lessons in the book (after I've already listened to the dialogues in pure Spanish many times). Since I enjoyed this shadowing exercise (albeit doing it my own way so I might call it dialoging) I think I'm going to start doing this regularly, maybe in lieu of the FSI lessons. I also found that if I study before I go to sleep I remember things better in the morning. I did this last night with some of the sections of an Oxford lesson that were bothering me and this morning it was all crystal clear in my mind. So I think I'm going to do more studying before bed instead of in the afternoon. I'm currently on Oxford Unit 7 (of 14). 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| K.C. Groupie United States ksclay.net Joined 6995 days ago 42 posts - 46 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 4 of 11 07 April 2008 at 12:10pm | IP Logged |
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I didn't get as much studying in as I should have the last couple of days. When I first decided to go back to studying Spanish, I was in kind of a lull in the rest of my life. I was ahead in my schoolwork and thus had room for a couple of light weeks. The novel I'm working on was stalled (I don't want to say I had writer's block but I had kind of an emotional issue that made it difficult to work on this story.) Writing is my hobby, I guess you could say, although I hesitate to call something a hobby that I want to do professionally. Photography, that's one of my actual hobbies. Anwyay, back to Spanish. I did make time to review the lessons I've already gone over, and I did do some shadowing, so I guess it wasn't too bad. I'm just used to going at things full force and now I have to step back and find a way to balance everything. On the upside, there are two things I'm doing that I think will help my progress:
1) I got a DVR installed so I can now record a few episodes of telenovelas to watch them over and over again. I think this will help because I already recognize a lot of what is said in telenovelas. I just can't follow it well enough in real time. 2) I'm also trying to track down an audiobook of a Spanish language novel to read (I'd like to try some listening-reading). The hard part about this is that I'm picky. I want a book originally written in Spanish, preferably by a Latin American author, with a story I would probably also read in English. I'm currently trying to contact a seller on Amazon to find out whether or not their used audio cassette version of Como Agua Para Chocolate is abridged or unabridged. (I'm interested in authors and books known for "magical realism"). By the way, I'm starting to think that languages might be addictive. It's great to see progress in learning another language and know that I can do it. It's wonderful to think that I'll be able to read books and watch films and speak to people that I never could before all because I'm learning their language. I also think that it's giving me different views about language itself and the way words are used and about differences and similarities between cultures. It makes me want to learn other languages, as well. Edited by K.C. on 07 April 2008 at 12:22pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| K.C. Groupie United States ksclay.net Joined 6995 days ago 42 posts - 46 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 6 of 11 09 April 2008 at 2:33pm | IP Logged |
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I searched for audio books for both of these books. Unfortunately I wasn't able to find the audio versions of either. I found a few other Spanish language novels available in abridged format, but I think that would defeat the purpose of being able to follow along with the books. The only unabridged ones I found were childrens/young adult books or books that had been translated from English. I really want to avoid translated works if I can and I'm not that interested in the children's stories. So, for now, I guess I'll have to forget about audiobooks. I still might pick up the regular books and practice my reading separate from my listening. Edited by K.C. on 09 April 2008 at 2:34pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| el_mando Diglot Newbie United States Joined 6130 days ago 13 posts - 13 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish | Message 7 of 11 09 April 2008 at 11:48pm | IP Logged |
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Coitoergosum, where is Cien anos de Soledad recording available?
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| K.C. Groupie United States ksclay.net Joined 6995 days ago 42 posts - 46 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 8 of 11 10 April 2008 at 11:04pm | IP Logged |
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I'm not too bummed about the audiobooks. I've found that watching Spanish language television seems to be very good practice for me in terms of listening comprehension. I chose a telenovela to follow and am recording it every day. Watching the episodes is actually kind of fun (why do the Spanish language telenovelas seem so much more interesting than American soap operas in English?) I watch each episode at least twice and I'm amazed at the things I'm picking up! I didn't think that I would learn a whole lot because I feel like I'm still at a beginner level. What I mean is that I knew watching the telenovela would help to reinforce what I was already learning from my Oxford course because I'd be able to hear the same words and structures used in the show. What I didn't expect was that after only a month of studying I'd be picking so much new stuff.
I'm learning to understand it when the vocabulary I've been learning is used in a new context, and I'm actually learning new vocabulary (even if it's only passive right now). I can follow the conversations pretty well as long as they're not screaming or whispering, although I still think I'm only understanding half of what's actually said (mostly because of screaming or whispering). To me, though, this seems like a pretty good start. It helps having all of the episodes be from the same telenovela because it gives things context to be able to remember the last episode and already know the general situation that the characters are in. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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