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Learning Spanish Fast! My journey | ||
Tags: Spanish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| olgahtml Triglot Newbie United States Joined 6309 days ago 28 posts - 28 votes Speaks: Russian*, Ukrainian, English Studies: Spanish | Message 17 of 19 18 November 2007 at 12:54pm | IP Logged |
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This week I had to take two days off. I felt I had a major overload and my brain kept telling me “does not compute” ... lol I guess too many pieces of the puzzle were floating around and stopped making sense. I decided to step back for a few days and let those pieces settle in my brain. It worked. I am back at full speed and everything makes sense again.
I am not going to bore everyone with my daily studying routine. It’s the same as I mentioned before but I spend much more time reading now. My listening comprehension improved greatly (though I still have a long way to go) and I can understand fiction or news articles with a concentrated effort without a dictionary. I am nowhere near 100% comprehension but I can understand the general context now. I was listening to Univision today and was surprised how much I understand now. To my surprise I can understand much better Latin American Spanish than European Spanish. I find this very weird as some people on this site mentioned that Spanish from Spain is easier to understand. Not in my case! I use Assimil and watch telenovela from Spain. Basically, my main study materials have European Spanish accent. However, I find LA Spanish much easier to comprehend. It seems they speak faster in Spain and use more expansive vocabulary. To summarize this week: - read about 10-20 pages of Harry Potter a day + audio shadowing -I am on lesson 15 Assimil -memorized 50 new verbs by practicing conjugations this week -watched 12 parts of “Yo soy Bea” telenovela (45 minutes each) Goal for the next week: -at least 50 more pages of Harry Potter -7-10 more lessons of Assimil -15-20 new parts of telenovela -practice direct/indirect pronouns. I am still struggling with their usage and they are the major source of confusion when I read. Here is another great Internet TV from Spain: http://www.terra.es/ It has news, music videos etc. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| olgahtml Triglot Newbie United States Joined 6309 days ago 28 posts - 28 votes Speaks: Russian*, Ukrainian, English Studies: Spanish | Message 18 of 19 03 December 2007 at 6:51pm | IP Logged |
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With crazy days at work it’s been two weeks since I posted anything here. In spite of critical shortage of time I tried to maintain at least 2 hours a day with my Spanish. I noticed a huge progress in my listening and reading comprehension.
I watch telenovela for 1-2 hours a day and have no idea what percentage of the vocabulary I understand now but I know I understand a lot.. With no effort I am able to keep my concentration up for more than 2 hours of viewing the program and understand almost everything what’s going on. I also noticed I am not trying subconsciously to translate dialogs from Spanish into English anymore. Aside from consistently watching telenovela I try to do at least 1 lesson of Assimil a day. I can see now why this course has so many fans on this forum. I love the simplicity and effectiveness of it. It takes about 40-50 minutes to finish one lesson including the review of the previous 3-4 lessons and I do passive and active wave at the same time. My most recent acquisition of new Spanish material is “The Ultimate Spanish Review and Practice.” I am still using Madrigal’s Magic Key to Spanish from time to time but Spanish Review has great exercises with keys for practice and more extensive vocabulary. I love Babylon tool for speed reading (more than half through Harry Potter book in 2 weeks). I can read newspapers, websites, and fiction without dictionary to understand the general meaning. Rosetta Stone - almost done with level 1. I don't do it consistently - only when I feel lazy and usually do 3-5 lessons in one go. I did notice I picked up quite a few words and phrases from it. So far I am very happy with my progress. It’s been only 5 weeks and Spanish doesn’t seem so foreign anymore:). The more I learn it the more I like and enjoy it. Another funny thing I noticed.. Before I didn’t care much for Spanish from Spain and wanted to concentrate on Latin American Spanish. After spending many hours of watching TV from Spain and working with Assimil it’s my favorite accent now. Lisping sounds is music to my ears.. hehe 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| BelgoHead Senior Member Belgium Joined 6295 days ago 120 posts - 119 votes  Studies: French, English* Studies: Esperanto | Message 19 of 19 11 December 2007 at 9:23pm | IP Logged |
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IM really impressed with your progress keep it going :)
I think i can learna few things from you lol 1 person has voted this message useful |
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