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One week challenge - Spanish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| unzum Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom soyouwanttolearnalan Joined 6857 days ago 371 posts - 478 votes  Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Mandarin | Message 1 of 5 24 January 2008 at 6:27pm | IP Logged |
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Tommorrow is the day I'll be starting my one week intensive Spanish learning. I'm putting my Japanese & Cantonese on the hold for this time, although I may still continue to review old vocab I still have.
I'll be using Michel Thomas' Spanish (the one with 6 CDs) which is 8 hours long. I intend to finish this within two days, 4 hours each day. I'm going to put some Spanish podcasts (Notes in Spanish beginners, Coffee Break Spanish, Survival phrases Spanish) on my ipod & try & go through a lot of these when I'm working (washing up, cutting up veggies etc) and walking around town. I'm going to use LingQ to get myself used to spoken & written Spanish, hopefully this'll be the thing that pushes me over from 'being able to say a few phrases' to 'being able to understand basic stuff Spanish people say'. As for another course after Michel Thomas, I'm a bit at a loss here. Pimsleur will probably go too slow and I can't decide which would be better between Mango Spanish or FSI Spanish. Destinos is also another option. Anyway, here's a little preview on my Spanish abilities right now. Hola! Me llamo unzum, soy de er... the U.K. Yeah that's as much as I've got. I'll post up what I can say at the end of the week. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Tatoeba Groupie United States Joined 6092 days ago 69 posts - 70 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Danish, French | Message 2 of 5 24 January 2008 at 6:54pm | IP Logged |
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Good Luck! were both doing the one week challenge with the same language! so maybe we can have some conversations or something, see how we're doing.
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| unzum Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom soyouwanttolearnalan Joined 6857 days ago 371 posts - 478 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Mandarin | Message 3 of 5 25 January 2008 at 6:08pm | IP Logged |
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First day of studying over & unfortunately I didn't get as much done as I'd planned. Today was a hugely busy day at work & I spent most of the time at the till so I couldn't listen to any podcasts.
However, I did manage to get 4 hours and 12 minutes of study done (with my calculator handy!). I'll break it down quickly: - 2 hours lesson with my Spanish teacher, which was reviewing the bit of Spanish I knew & learning direction words. - 1 hour 24 mins listening to Coffee Break Spanish during the few times I wasn't at the till. I actually really enjoyed this podcast, it's like having your own teacher there with you, rather similar to Michel Thomas. Anyway, it helped reinforce the Spanish I already knew & easily taught me some new phrases, which I'm sure I'll remember. - 48 mins listening to Michel Thomas, almost finished the first CD. However, this was after work, I was shattered & so put on the CD, lay down on the floor next to my computer & fell asleep somewhere in track 9. Oh dear. :D Not much else to say except I feel a bit more confident in Spanish. Before today I did know a bit but wasn't confident at all with saying anything. This seems to have helped loosen my tongue & get me more familiar with the language. I told my Spanish teacher about the challenge & he seemed amused by it but also thought it was a really good idea. I'm seeing him again next Friday & I'm excited to see how much he thinks my Spanish has improved. Tommorow is another busy day but I'm going to try to spend more time away from the till so I have time to listen to podcasts. My Spanish teacher pointed out the BBC website to me, which looks useful for getting all the basics so I'm going to incorporate this into my routine. Tommorrow, I'm going to do more of Michel Thomas, listen to Coffee Break Spanish & Spanish Notes for Beginners, do the Spanish Steps on the bbc website & maybe go over 1 Spanish article in Lingq. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| raufoss50 Newbie United States Joined 6135 days ago 10 posts - 10 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 4 of 5 26 January 2008 at 5:00pm | IP Logged |
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Good luck with your efforts. Don't get discouraged if you can't get everything you planned done. I'm working my way through Platiquemos and working full-time makes study time hard to fit in, especially since it requires a modicum of mental alertness.
I like to include a little bit of review in my studies as it helps solidify the concepts and build my confidence. Just a tip. Have fun! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| unzum Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom soyouwanttolearnalan Joined 6857 days ago 371 posts - 478 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: Mandarin | Message 5 of 5 26 January 2008 at 8:09pm | IP Logged |
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Just a quick entry before I go to bed.
I spent 4 hours and 53 minutes of study today, which I'm pretty happy about. - 2 hours and 22 minutes on Michel Thomas. I discovered again today why I love Michel Thomas' courses. I had been feeling a bit bored on the 2nd CD so I skipped ahead to the 3rd one, as I'd done it before ages ago and the pace was much better for me. I ended up finishing the 4th CD and I feel I've learnt a lot of useful verbs & conjugations. - 1 hour 58 minutes on Coffee Break Spanish. I'm enjoying these podcasts so much. What makes them stand out is the fact that the presenter is a Spanish teacher and he knows how to explain stuff and help you remember things. It's like having my own personal teacher on my ipod and much better than the typical dialogue based podcasts, which make hardly any attempts to teach you the language except giving you more vocabulary items. I'm up to podcast no.14. I'm really seriously thinking about continuing listening to Coffee Break Spanish once this week is over, it's that good. - 33 minutes on Notes in Spanish Inspired Beginners. This is another good podcast. It's not for absolute newbies so as a result I'm learning more advanced stuff here than I am elsewhere. They also teach some informal phrases, which is great, 'cos I love slang in foreign languages. - I also spent some time on Lingq, making flashcards from an article while listening to either Michel Thomas or a podcast. I had to keep looking up tenses and other things in the IE languages' grammar tutorial, so I think this helped me get an idea of Spanish grammar. I didn't end up going on Spanish Steps on the BBC website as I'd planned but after having poked around a bit I think it might be too basic/slow-paced for me right now. I was also considering Destinos as well but I think I'm doing okay with the materials I have now. I had a try at saying some sentences in Spanish to my family and I surprised myself at how easily the words seemed to come out. I've written a bit of Spanish here so I can see how I've progressed. Feel free to correct any mistakes and sorry about the lack of accents. Hola! Me llamo unzum y tengo viente anos. Vivo en Ingleterra y trabajo en una tienda. Estoy estudiante de espanol, frances, japones y cantones. Me gusta salir con mi amigos y aprendir los idiomas. Thank you for your comment raufoss50! Reviewing is a good idea, I think I'll start writing up notes on everything I learn. Thanks! Edited by unzum on 26 January 2008 at 8:10pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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