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TAC 2010, Team K, Teango - GE SP SW RU | ||
Tags: Kanji | Turkish | Listening-Reading (L-R) | Swedish | Total Annihilation Challenge (TAC) | Russian | German | French | Spanish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5367 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes  Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona | Message 121 of 185 15 June 2010 at 8:33pm | IP Logged |
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@darkwhispersdal and Adrean
Thanks for all your encouraging comments. I'm always happy to hear if my posts are helpful or have a positive impact. And I hope you don't mind me posting another update here so soon, but I'm just so excited after each session with my tutor recently, and with the progress I'm currently making in Spanish, that I can't help but jump straight on to the forum to share my experiences and joy and capture the moment. My session today was really quite intense. Yesterday we discussed topics as diverse as as the Norman invasion and the Aztec legend of Quetzalcoatl, but a lot of the time was also spent getting to know each other. Today the gloves came off, and I was immediately thrown into the deep end acting out role-plays as an orphan child living on the streets of Mexico and a whole variety of other in-depth scenarios and conversations. Overall, my listening ability is streets ahead of my speaking skills, which is to be expected as I only started talking yesterday and spent the last month just focusing on listening and reading. It's like I have most of the jigsaw pieces on the tip of my tongue, all passively acquired from listening and reading or studying videos, but every so often I'll find that there's a piece missing from the set and I just try to find another way to say it. Saying that, I'm already taking big strides forward and am able to express myself in a variety of complicated tenses and moods I never thought I'd be able to do, without even having ever formally learned a single Spanish verb conjugation. I prefer to pick up grammar naturally via lots and lots of exposure, and practice the most useful phrases as set building blocks in my conversations. I imagine I'll soon have to look up a table or two to check I'm doing it right, but in the meantime it's refreshing not to have to wade through a grammar book or worry about memorising endings. I make loads and loads of grammatical mistakes of course, but my tutor is very very patient, and always ends up guiding me in the right direction. I'm already learning so much this way. I don't have a session with my tutor tomorrow, which turns out to be a blessing in disguise, as it'll give me more time to finish up reading and translating this short book, as well as complete a whole folder full of written assignments and prepare to discuss it all on Thursday. So back to work for me, and as the Calamity Jane song goes, "Whip crack-away, whip crack-away, whip crack-away!". :) Edited by Teango on 15 June 2010 at 8:42pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5367 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona | Message 123 of 185 20 June 2010 at 1:38pm | IP Logged |
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PROGRESS IN Spanish, WEEK 24/52 OF THE 2010 TAC CHALLENGE
SUMMARY Active study for this week: 30 hours (film analysis, reading books and articles, exercises, one-to-one tuition) Additional immersion for this week: 3.5 hours (music and TV) ———————————————————— Total time actively studying Spanish so far: 180 hours Additional light immersion with music and TV: 44.5 hours Grand total of Spanish study and immersion: 224.5 hours [35 days] WANDERLUST CONFESSION BOX I've reviewed my kanji for the week and added a few more for good measure. I've also ordered Assimil's "L'Égyptien hiéroglyphique" for a little wanderlust experiment I have in mind for later... ;) TEANGO’S WORD/PHRASE OF THE WEEK "de uvas a peras" (once in a blue moon; lit. from grapes to pears) - a cool little phrase that came up whilst eating grapes yesterday, and as an additional tidbit, my Spanish tutor found it quite funny that "uvas" also sounds like UVAs (i.e. those little ultraviolet rays from the sun that can give us wrinkles after too much exposure). NOTES Despite my computer being down for a day and requiring a complete reinstall, extra contract work, and a bad neck injury early on in the week, I've still managed to haul in 30 hours of Spanish this week. This included 6.5 hours of fast-paced discussion in Spanish with my tutor, alongside analysing a short Oscar-winning film and reading the accompanying book ("Quiero ser") in preparation for discussions, as well as completing a couple of dozen written assignments and articles for extra homework. On the recommendation of my tutor, I've started reading the Spanish newspaper "El País", and found some excellent Spanish magazines in the local library called "ECOS", which indicate the reading level required for each section as well as offering some very interesting articles about Spanish-speaking culture and life. As regards working with a tutor, I've made veritable quantum leaps across the board, especially in speaking. When I started on Monday, the words came out very haphazardly and my grammar was all over the place; now I'm far more fluent and have a much better handle on grammar. I've been paying particular attention to using the correct past tenses (e.g. imperfecto vs indefinido) and been careful over the differences between "ser" and "estar" in my written work. I also managed to fit in snippets of conditional and subjunctive usage from time to time, as well as a few idiomatic phrases in my more confident moments. Next week I have a lot of work on my plate, so I'll only be able to put in some short review sessions of Spanish in the evenings (perhaps just some L&R in Spanish). My tutor will also unfortunately be away for a couple of months from next week onwards, but I've still managed to squeeze in two further sessions on Monday and Tuesday before he leaves. This means I've spent this weekend on contract work instead of chilling out or studying so that I'll be able to fit in these extra tutorials, but I think it'll be worth it. Having to take several days off where I couldn't do any study, I'd say I've been studying for around a month now. Despite not putting in the more intensive hours I had hoped for, I've still been able to progress swiftly on from knowing little or nothing of Spanish at all originally. After consulting with my tutor and trying out some DELE past papers, I'd say my strongest skills are in listening and reading, which are most likely now a high B2 (which is a fantastic feeling!), whereas my speaking and writing probably still fall somewhere in the B1 - low B2 range (mainly because of grammar and having only practised for a week so far). Although this update marks the end of my "1 month of Spanish" project, I still intend to continue learning Spanish amongst my lighter ongoing activities in the evenings. Spanish is a warm and friendly language, full of beauty and excitement, and I've thoroughly enjoyed the journey together so far. I hope that over the coming months I can read plenty more books, alongside watching telenovelas, perhaps start a Spanish log, and take my tutor up on that idea of a language exchange when he returns. It would be great to continue progressing and get everything up to C1 level eventually. And best of all, I'm heading off to Barcelona next month and look forward to putting all this into real practice! :D Edited by Teango on 27 June 2010 at 4:06pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| M. Medialis Diglot TAC 2010 Winner Senior Member Sweden Joined 6168 days ago 397 posts - 508 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: Russian, Japanese, French | Message 124 of 185 20 June 2010 at 11:01pm | IP Logged |
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180 active hours....that's stunning. !! !
It must be so much fun to speak with a tutor. Too bad I couldn't find any professional private Japanese tutors in Stockholm.. ;) Have you ever been working with a tutor before? Can't believe you're into fast-paced discussions after only a month. Or actually I can - the LR method is so unbelievably powerful that anything is possible. Keep up the great work! 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5367 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona | Message 125 of 185 21 June 2010 at 2:46pm | IP Logged |
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Gracias Medialis! I worked a little with Berlitz tutors when I first arrived here in Germany, but that was an unmitigated disaster, and more down to poor local management and low morale amongst the underpaid bullied staff than anything else.
I'm very pleased to say that my private Spanish tutor, who was recommended to me by a friend here, is on another planet in comparison, and has given me insight into what really good teaching is like. He's very patient and friendly, and focuses on exactly what I need to improve intuitively. He's never overcritical or discouraging, and somehow at the same time, he helps me correct those often repeated niggling grammatical errors in conversation as I go along. As I said before, I think I just struck it lucky this time round. :) Maybe you could ask around for Japanese tutors in Stockholm too, or check out the classifieds in local papers or the Swedish version of the "Yellow Pages"...I'm sure there must be some good affordable tutors or people interested in language exchange in the city if you look high and low enough. Good luck! Edited by Teango on 21 June 2010 at 2:50pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5367 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona | Message 127 of 185 22 June 2010 at 3:47pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks, Buttons...I was never a great fan of exams in school or uni really, but it would indeed be cool to have a bit of paper saying I reached a certain level.
I don't suppose you know of anything similar to IELTS or TestDaF in Spanish, where you can sit a bunch of exams and end up graded by level (e.g. B2.1 - C1.2), rather than a simple pass or fail with percentage as is usually the case? I'd definitely be interested in doing something more like IELTS in Spanish later on. ;) Edited by Teango on 22 June 2010 at 3:49pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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