Emerald Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom languagedabbler.blog Joined 6236 days ago 316 posts - 340 votes Speaks: Hindi, Gujarati*, English Studies: Spanish
| Message 57 of 62 04 June 2010 at 9:21am | IP Logged |
I have found a language exchange partner now, so today I will be attempting my very first proper email in Spanish. Based on the suggestion from someone here in a different thread, we have decided to do one set of emails in English, and then one set in Spanish to help us both equally.
It is interesting because I will be focusing on "real-world" conversation, as I would with any of my other friend whom I email, and of course responding to another person's email would involve thinking about those improptu topics.
Hopefully, this will be a productive thing.
The only thing I am worried about it how to go about making sure I am learning properly. That would involve paying close attention to my partner's emails over time to see patterns; for my own, I use dictionary, but then I check in google translation to see if sort of says what I wanted it to say. It's not the most reliable method, but I don't know any better way yet.
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Teango Triglot Winner TAC 2010 & 2012 Senior Member United States teango.wordpress.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5547 days ago 2210 posts - 3734 votes Speaks: English*, German, Russian Studies: Hawaiian, French, Toki Pona
| Message 58 of 62 15 June 2010 at 11:17pm | IP Logged |
That's excellent that you've found a language exchange partner already, and I hope it works out really well. I guess the best thing is to try and mimic some of your partner's phrases and expressions, rather than worry about how much you're learning each week. You'll be surprised at how much you can learn unconsciously. For example, I even noticed today in conversation that I was using a few phrases that I picked up simply by accident from some of the comments people left in Spanish on one of my logs recently. So be assured and don't worry that you will learn a lot and advance swiftly forwards if you put in those hours. :)
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Emerald Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom languagedabbler.blog Joined 6236 days ago 316 posts - 340 votes Speaks: Hindi, Gujarati*, English Studies: Spanish
| Message 59 of 62 20 August 2011 at 2:34pm | IP Logged |
I'm going to start using this log again. Disgraceful to say that after the Spanish
experiment which was going well, I haven't done anything with languages in about 6
months. I had to prioritise, and working on my book was more important, which I am happy
with.
So for now, I won't be doing obsessive language studies, however I did miss it. So I have
decided to continue at a slow and steady pace, make sure I keep my toes dipped in, and
instead of obsessing over multiple languages, I'm going to focus only on Spanish for now.
Starting with Michel Thomas Refresher.
Edited by Emerald on 29 August 2011 at 1:28am
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amethyst32 Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5640 days ago 118 posts - 198 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, French
| Message 60 of 62 20 August 2011 at 5:00pm | IP Logged |
Emerald wrote:
I'm going to start using this log again. Disgraceful to say that after the Spanish
experiment which was going well, I haven't done anything with languages in about 6
months. I had to prioritise, and working on my book was more important, which I am happy
with.
So for now, I won't be doing obsessive language studies, however I did miss it. So I have
decided to continue at a slow and steady pace, make sure I keep my toes dipped in, and
instead of obsessing over multiple languages, I'm going to focus only on Spanish for now.
Starting with Michelle Thomas Refresher. |
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You've made a good call in deciding to focus only on Spanish and I think it will pay off well for you. Good luck and welcome back.
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Emerald Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom languagedabbler.blog Joined 6236 days ago 316 posts - 340 votes Speaks: Hindi, Gujarati*, English Studies: Spanish
| Message 61 of 62 27 August 2011 at 6:55pm | IP Logged |
So far, the new beginning with Spanish is going well. Most importantly, I am really
enjoying getting back into language learning. I have missed it.
Progress so far -
Michel Thomas Foundation - First 2 discs complete.
Along with MT, I'm thinking about reading a book. Trying to decide whether to attempt
Harry Potter again, or use bilingual text of Don Quixote.
Edited by Emerald on 29 August 2011 at 1:28am
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Emerald Triglot Senior Member United Kingdom languagedabbler.blog Joined 6236 days ago 316 posts - 340 votes Speaks: Hindi, Gujarati*, English Studies: Spanish
| Message 62 of 62 29 August 2011 at 1:28am | IP Logged |
Michel Thomas Disc 3 finished today.
I also started with Stage 2 of L&R method, which is listen to Audio and read the Text in
the target language. So far completed first 11 tracks of Harry Potter Book 1. I realise
that actual L&R method is supposed to about intensive exposure, however, I'm going to do
it with as much time as I can manage. It still works for me, so I'm happy with it.
Also really enjoying keeping my language blog. It's giving me a place to talk about
everything language related. It's still new, so a lot more to come.
my language blog
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