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James29’s Spanish Log | ||
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| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5184 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 121 of 668 20 May 2012 at 11:59pm | IP Logged | ||
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I finished FSI lesson 52 this past week. I spent six days on it. It was not too difficult, but it was very long. The dialogue build up was almost 40 minutes. I am not doing unit 4 lessons to the same level of perfection as I did the previous three units. I am using the book a lot even on the second day with the material. I am basically just doing it and understanding it and if I am doing well I will do the easier drills without the text.
This unit made me wonder why in the heck they did not just do 15 lessons in unit 4. I think it would have been much better that way. All they would have needed to do is split things up and fiddle around with the dialogues. FSI has done wonders for me. I am so glad I am doing it. I went to a different meetup this week and I was speaking/understanding quite well with native speakers. Afterwards I really felt like it was FSI that was tying it all together. It really made me want to finish FSI and then start it again. At the same time, however, I am still at a B-1 level. I am probably pretty close to B-2, but I don't honestly think I am there yet. When I started FSI I was probably just barely at B-1. This "intermediate plateau" is somewhat frustrating. The length/distance between levels is quite a bit. I also listened/read both Corinthians and Galations. The audio is growing on me. It is fast and I am feeling like it will be good "forever." I would like to get through the entire Bible before the end of the year, but I don't think I will be able to do it. I am about half way through the NT and only on Exodus in the OT. I watched a couple episodes of The Practice. It is much harder to follow than CSI. I had to play a few key scenes in English in order to understand some key parts of the plot. I took Breaking out of Beginner's Spanish out on my boat and read about a chapter and a half. It is a perfect boat book. It is not at all like studying because most of it is in English. It is a cool book. I'd like to think I will read it every summer for a few years. I had a nice skype talk with a new skype partner. I have not spoken with someone new for a long time. This was quite encouraging. I spoke Spanish on the phone for work a couple times (very short conversations). I did not have any problems at all. I am doing a bit of anki still. I only do it for about 10 minutes a day and only on weekdays. I will keep doing it, but if I want to quit I won't mind. I am not really a flash card type guy. I occasionally listen to Spanish radio at work. I am starting to understand it much better... particularly the commercials. I went crazy buying new material this week. I bought a ton of stuff. I bought three more TV series DVDs, Harry Potter y La Piedra Filosofal (I only had the audio and the English translation so I needed the Spanish text), Piense y Hagase Rico audio libro (I had both books already), La Rebelion de Atlas audio libro and Spanish text, and the Rich Dad book in Spanish (I have the audio so I want the text). I am proud to say that I considered buying Assimil's French course, but I decided against it. I really need to focus on Spanish only. The better I am getting with my Spanish the more things I want to do with it. It is kind of cool. Now I can read real books like the Bible and Atlas Shrugged and actually enjoy them. Actually, I tried listening to the Atlas audio while following along with the English text and it was pretty hard because the English must be fairly tough to translate. It seemed to jump all over the place. I wrote out a list of all the things I want to do in Spanish and I already have enough stuff for more than three more years. That includes re-doing things like FSI and shadowing the children's books I have already read. I must say that I am finding this Spanish journey fascinating and quite enjoyable. I often think about the fact that I would NEVER have started if I knew how long it would take. Now I feel like I will NEVER ever quit. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5592 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German | Message 122 of 668 22 May 2012 at 1:02am | IP Logged | ||
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I would say that Using Spanish is harder to use, because of the famously bad
translations, the Living Language book is put together much more professionally. I really like them both. They are both very useful and quite challenging to me at my level, so it's hard to be sure, if I had to guess I'd say Using Spanish has somewhat more complex language- but that's just my impression. I really like the way you ended your last post, I feel much the same. We people in Anglophone countries SERIOUSLY underestimate how hard it is to learn a language IMO, I'd never have started either had I known. Like you I feel stuck at this B1 to B2 transition at least for speaking (though I think my reading passed this point quite a while back). I've been stuck here for well over a year- the crazy thing is I can feel how much my Spanish has improved in that time (lots!), but it's just not enough to tip me over. The B1 to B2 transition is waaaaay harder than the A2 to B1! In my experience if you tell people how many hours you've put in and they think you ought to be C2, they seem disappointed that you aren't. I think the B2 level should be given a lot more respect. Nevertheless, somehow you've managed to put quite a positive spin on the whole thing :-)
Edited by Random review on 22 May 2012 at 1:17am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5184 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 123 of 668 22 May 2012 at 2:52am | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks again, Randomreview, for your comments. I chuckle when I think back to some of my initial inspiration... it was October and I wanted to take a trip a few months later in February or March and I wanted to be fluent when I travelled... I really thought I could get perfectly fluent in 3-4 months! For some crazy reason I thought doing all 90 Pimsleur lessons would be plenty... then I found this website for googling the phrase "after pimsleur".
I feel the same way as you in terms of seeing my progress, but still feeling like I am still an intermediate/B-1 type. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5184 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 124 of 668 28 May 2012 at 2:32am | IP Logged | ||
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I finished FSI lesson 53 this week. I am finally starting to get in the groove with Unit 4... almost too late... only two more lessons. I am so so happy that I decided to do FSI/Platiquemos. I think eventually it would be a good idea to do it again... after a long break... but I want to do everything again... so we will see.
The other big thing I did this week was read/listen to Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich. Mr. Hill was commissioned by Andrew Carnegie to study (for 25 years) what makes people successful. This book is his basic thesis on the results of his study. It is commonly thought of as the first "self help" book. It is great. Anyway, I have gotten about 2/3 of the way through listening to Spanish and reading English. The vocabulary and grammar is fairly easy and there seem to rarely be words I don't understand. I got the audio from Audible and it is not crystal clear. This is my first Audible audio book so I am not sure if it is the recording or Audible... my hunch is that it is with Audible. The audio is at a good pace and is steady so it could eventually be good for shadowing. If anyone is looking for a non-fiction or self help book for LR, this is a good (and very cheap) option. The book is so old that it is incredibly cheap. In fact, I have found both English and Spanish text and audio online for free (perhaps it is not copyrighted anymore?). The free Spanish audio I found had a lot of noise/static and I did not want to listen to it. I have been talking with a new skype partner lately. We talked quite a bit this week. Most of the conversations were in Spanish because we communicate much much better in Spanish. I have noticed that I am working the subjunctive into my regular every day talking. It feels normal and almost "easy" when I use espero que, deseo que, cuando and some of the other "easy" subjunctive situations. Finding a good skype partner really makes a big difference. I have a few very good ones, but lately schedules and personal committments have been making it difficult for us to talk. My schedule makes it hard. Now I have one more good partner so I am quite pleased. I went to a meetup. It was a flop. We ended up speaking in English most of the time. I read a bit from Breaking out of Beginner's Spanish while on the beach. This is a cool book and is quite relaxing to read. I think I am about the right level for it. It has a bunch of things in it where you say to yourself "oh, that is kind of cool" or "why didn't FSI or Assimil explain it like that?" or "I could see how that would be really useful to know." The book is almost entirely in English and reads more like a book than a Spanish book. In a way it feels like a book on idioms or slang. It is about functioning well in the "real" Spanish world. It is cheap and well worth the read for any intermediate. I think I watched 1 or 2 episodes of the Practice. Watching TV episodes has helped my listening quite a bit. The combination of TV and doing more and more LR has really skyrocketed my comprehension of spoken Spanish (I wish I knew which one was helping so much). This is why I am doing it so I am happy. I reviewed a bit of all three Assimil's I have (w/Ease, w/out Toil and Using). I just wanted to check my progress and I am thinking about what programs to do when I am done with FSI. I have, in fact, been progressing quite a bit. The lessons in w/Ease and w/out Toil seemed quite easy. I could understand some of the Using lessons, but others were quite difficult. Perhaps I will do a quick active wave through Ease and/or Toil. I think I am going to wait for a while before doing Using Spanish. This week I also briefly watched a video of an American economics professor teaching in Spanish. Spanish is his second language. I watched the lecture a long long time ago and recall not being able to understand too much of it. In fact, I recall not even being able to tell if he was native or not. This time, however, I almost felt bad for the guy because his accent was so bad. He was basically fluent, but he had a limited vocabulary and spoke in simple sentences. I dare say his Spanish was not too much better than mine. This made me feel pretty good. This week I have been thinking a lot about what randomreview and I were writing about... how we make a lot of progress, but don't seem to get past "intermediate". I came to the conclusion that I was simply wrong when I thought I hit the B-1 level. The more I learn the more I realize how much I did not know before... and how much there really is to learn. Next week I am not going to use FSI. Tomorrow is Memorial Day and then I have a two day trip for work so FSI is not going to work too well. I think I will try to finish Think and Grow Rich (both w/ English text and Spanish text). Edited by James29 on 28 May 2012 at 2:39am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| sfuqua Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 4574 days ago 581 posts - 977 votes Speaks: English*, Hawaiian, Tagalog Studies: Spanish | Message 125 of 668 29 May 2012 at 4:53am | IP Logged | ||
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What a great log. You're way ahead of me, but I can see some clear answers to where I should go next with my Spanish.
I'm about a month away from my second trip through Spanish with ease. I feel that my passive skills have improved way more than my active skills. I'm a spoken A2 on a good day. I was considering whether I should just start LR my way through some novels and hope that my speech will eventually develop, or whether FSI/Platiquemos would be a good next step. It sounds like I will do both FSI/Platiquemos and LR. I didn't really enjoy Da Vinci code that much when I read them in English; I was a little reluctant to start them in Spanish. Your comments about the narrator really make sense. I checked it on my audible account, and the narrator sounds *great*. I have some extra credits, so I think I'll pull the trigger to get this into my library. Anyway with after "finishing" Spanish with Ease followed FSI and then by Using Spanish, maybe there is hope for my spoken Spanish... Thanks for the informative, inspiring log :) steve Edited by sfuqua on 29 May 2012 at 2:53pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Delga Bilingual Diglot Newbie Spain delgaele.wordpress.cRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4413 days ago 34 posts - 38 votes Speaks: Spanish*, CatalanC1* Studies: EnglishB2, Swedish | Message 126 of 668 29 May 2012 at 10:58pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hello James, sorry for not writing earlier but I didn't know you have a log.
Leeré tu log poco a poco, porque has escrito bastante y todo parece realmente interesante. Si necesitas ayuda con el español, no dudes en preguntarme. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5184 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 127 of 668 31 May 2012 at 3:44am | IP Logged | ||
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sfuqua... thanks for the comments. I did not find my active skills really progressing until I did my second active wave through Assimil... that is when I really felt like I could talk with some degree of fluidity.
I highly recommend FSI/Plati for developing active skills... it is amazing. Doing both FSI and LR is a great idea. My listening/understanding really lagged behind and I wish I would have developed it more earlier... Like you, I did not really like the da Vinci Code when I read it in English several years ago (and, in fact, I think I did not even finish it). The narrator definitely makes a big difference. Compared to all the other books I have LRed it was, by far, the most enjoyable... It is, however, much more difficult than books for kids and teenagers. It is so common that you can easily get it through your library through inter library exchange... that is what I did. Many people say that Angels and Demons is a much better book... that is widely available too and the audio has the same narrator. Enjoy and good luck. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5184 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 128 of 668 31 May 2012 at 3:47am | IP Logged | ||
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Delga... thank you for dropping by. I can certainly help with your English too. I would be interested to know which resources you have found the most helpful for English.
1 person has voted this message useful |
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