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FSI/Platiquemos Progress at various stage | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7203 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 9 of 10 14 December 2006 at 5:13pm | IP Logged | ||
I'm with you there. I'm hoping I'll feel comfortable calling myself "basically fluent" by the time I finish using FSI Basic/Platiquemos to learn Spanish. Six months after the previous post, I've just finished up a comprehensive review of units 1-45 so I'll give another status report. That's the end of level 3 in the original 4 level course. I've wandered through to the end of the course, but haven't mastered units 47-55 by a long shot. I've slighted the FSI readings and haven't spent much time just "thinking in the language to myself". I've done some outside studying, such as shadowing audiobooks, dabbled in, but not finished some grammar books, and spent some time on other courses, although not really finishing many of them. I was pretty thorough with Michel Thomas' first 8 CD course. I'm definitely still in the active studying phase and expect to be active studying for 12-24 more months. Hopefully by that time reading native works will be easy and enjoyable, I'll understand almost everything on TV very well with little effort, and I'll be able to speak my mind clearly, accurately and without hesitation. At that point, I'll consider myself to have attained "advanced fluency" and I think active study may no longer be necessary. With all of that out of the way, where am I after having largely completed units 1-45 (of 55 total) in the FSI Basic Spanish Course? I can speak pretty quickly and reasonably accurately on things I've studied a lot, such as those things covered in units 1-30 in the course. These include the present and past indicative tenses, clitics, and a core vocabulary of popular words and verbs. I can handle the irregular the verbs I know pretty well. The subjunctive is still mysterious to me, and there are several tenses taught in the final 1/4 of the course that I don't know well. Over the last several months I've had limited opportunities to speak, although I've had some good experiences with native speakers and my ability doesn't restrict me to solely to those worthy of sainthood. Even lesser saints will occasionally humor me with their attention and compliments. However, when I overhear natives talking to each other fast and with vocal reductions, I still come up short. In reading, a lot depends on the material. I've been reading a common sense guidance book for teenagers with high comprehension and little effort. This book is a translation from English, so I think the phrasing isn't what a Spanish novelist would use. I'm happy I can read this book with little pain. There are some words I don't understand and cannot do more than guess on their meaning from the context, but that isn't hampering my ability to enjoy the book too much. I've been spending some time with some Dan Brown novels. These I treat more as learning materials in my approach, but thank goodness they are interesting enough to make me want to spend a few hours a week going through them. Don Quijote is still too difficult to comprehend in any language other than English. As far as listening comprehension, I haven't spent too much time just listening to the radio, but I can generally get the gist of whatever they are talking about, and sometimes I understand almost everything. Other times, the radio is difficult to "tune into". I have a similar experience with TV. I'm sure if I sat down and invested 6 months watching a telenovela I'd follow the story quite well, particularly if I used subtitles and had a dictionary handy for common words that I haven't learned yet. I haven't invested 6 months in a telenovela though. I did just order Dish Latino, and I'm hoping to find more interesting things to watch. I can understand news programs on TV and radio pretty well, particularly if there's a transcript. TV comprehension is still a long way from where I want it to be. It seems like I'm at the cusp of a breakthrough in Spanish. I've felt that several times before, and it generally just means I'm making progress. I've not had all the lights in the room come on yet. What I can say is that using the FSI course has allowed me to continue to advance and not get stuck on a plateau. This in itself is encouraging because the course still has a lot to teach me. I'm not saying I've never gotten stuck, only that I've been able to work around difficulties and still maintain hope that one day I'll be able to speak Spanish very well. A Columbian was very kind to me last week during a 60 minute language exchange. He said, "Some people say they can speak Spanish but they sound like a two year old. You sound like ...", and then he softened the truth and continued, "a teenager". Edited by luke on 30 December 2006 at 5:07pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| maddas Newbie United States Joined 5759 days ago 34 posts - 37 votes Studies: English | Message 10 of 10 15 February 2009 at 8:10pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hi Luke,
How have things progressed? 1 person has voted this message useful |
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