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NO PROGRESS IN Spanish!! | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| bawflag Triglot Newbie United States Joined 5572 days ago 5 posts - 5 votes Speaks: Russian, Modern Hebrew*, English Studies: French | Message 25 of 27 22 August 2009 at 1:56am | IP Logged |
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I think almost all possible techniques have been said here, however considering we are in the same grade (you just started 11th grade, correct?) and live in the same country, maybe I can give you some peer advice...
I have been studying Spanish for two years now, and I going to continue my study of the language for the next two years. I had a great teacher, and I would say a great program. Despite the number of vocabulary words I gained, grammar rules I learned, hours of practice I had, et cetera, I can't say for sure I have reached some level of fluency. I turned the Mexican TV a while ago, and I couldn't understand anything except a few words here in there. Don't expect yourself to understand the language after 3 month. It's really awesome that you put so much effort and dedication into learning the language, keep it up! Remember, it takes years to reach fluency in a language. It took me 4 years to reach basic fluency in English, but I became a native-like speaker only after 3-4 years of living in the US. Quite a few people said that you should get podcasts with "slow news" and that sort. May I suggest that you try to look for children cartoons in Spanish? It may sound silly, but I think it will help you a lot to listen to a show where the people speak slower on simpler topics. That way, you will slowly gain your confidence and train your ears to listen to natives and eventually you will be more capable of listening to actual speech on serious topics. Also, may I ask why you don't take Spanish in school? I'm not trying to criticize, just wondering. Spanish is the most popular foreign language taken in the US, and let's not forget that many colleges and universities want to see at least 2 years of foreign language study at school (but let's not go off topic on this). Hope you will see progress soon in your learning! ¡buenas suertes! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| whoa182 Newbie United Kingdom matts-cr.blogspot.co Joined 5576 days ago 6 posts - 6 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 26 of 27 22 August 2009 at 8:52pm | IP Logged |
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I've only been studying Spanish for just over 1 month now and I have found that I feel like i'm learning much faster than I believed was possible. Something I should mention here is that a few years back I noticed how much diet has a huge effect on my own learning ability. One thing that helped was fish oil. I know it sounds just too simple... but Omega 3 helps you learn and concentrate thus helping you learn faster. For me it really did work, I went from getting D's E's and F's in high school to getting all A's at college, and reading hundreds of books since. After 3 months of taking Cod Liver Oil I went from reading zero books to reading around 50 books in one summer. So if you want to make your ability to learn optimal try to eat a good diet. vegetables, fruits, nuts, fish (or take an omega 3 supplement).
I find that watching disney cartoons to be very good. The vacab isn't too wide and I understood more than I thought I would by now. Yes it requires some mental translation some of the time but I can do this rapidly enough to undertand, and a lot of the time I get the general context of what they're saying even if I don't understand 'everything'. So if you don't understand the whole ting, just having some idea of what they're saying is key to learning I would imagine. I just watched Mulan in Spanish and it was great! I found there are many people on the internet that say you can't learn from watching cartoons, I think this is rubbish. In combination with using proper studying methods, an hour a day of watching something in Spanish can't hurt, but only help your progress. I also like listening to many hours of pod casts and Spanish radio. Here are a couple links you can check out. I'm not saying omega 3 is a miracle, just that it helps give a bit of a boost to learning from my own experience. I've also heard anecdotally from friends that it helped improve their studying. Supplement 'boosts' brain power http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6440979.stm The Omega wave http://tinyurl.com/yq74u Edited by whoa182 on 22 August 2009 at 9:25pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| vb Octoglot Senior Member Afghanistan Joined 6420 days ago 112 posts - 135 votes  Speaks: English, Romanian, French, Polish, Dutch, German, Italian, Spanish Studies: Russian, Swedish | Message 27 of 27 22 August 2009 at 10:19pm | IP Logged |
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One way in might be to focus on grammar for a while. I'm finding that learning how the language tends to pattern itself is helping my comprehension far more than cramming vocabulary has done. Grammatical work may reveal that a fair proportion of hitherto unidentifiable words are simply verb conjugations/noun declensions of which you hadn't been made aware. Subsequent comprehension work also serves to consolidate your understanding of the grammatical rules; there is some 'fun' to be had in 'rule spotting' - seeing how many grammatical points can be illustrated with each sentence you read or hear.
Also, use LoMásTV - Spanish language videos graded by difficulty with subtitles and games for reinforcement. The site even allows you to slow the videos down to aid comprehension. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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