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Platiquemos Log | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| bakerww Pro Member United States Joined 4997 days ago 8 posts - 10 votes Studies: English* Personal Language Map | Message 9 of 16 15 June 2012 at 11:59pm | IP Logged |
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LtM- thanks for the info. I searched what you Technical Forum like you said and found where others were having
similar issues. It just so happened that my pro account was auto renewed yesterday, so I replied to the confirmation email and they fixed it. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| bakerww Pro Member United States Joined 4997 days ago 8 posts - 10 votes Studies: English* Personal Language Map | Message 10 of 16 01 July 2012 at 4:38pm | IP Logged |
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In the last two weeks I finished unit 38 and 39 and started on unit 40. The present subjunctive presented so far
seems easy in the drills. But when I go and try to use it during normal conversation based on the rules explained in the lessons, I usually get it wrong. I can tell this is going to be extremely hard to master in practice. Also this last week I hired a tutor to fill in some of the grammar that I am missing. She is a professor at a local university and is kind of branching out on her own doing local tutoring and skype lessons. Its just an hour a week, so we will see how it goes. It has been 12 years since I had somewhat formal Spanish classroom type lessons. One thing I like about her is that she is not a native Spanish speaker. She learned Spanish over 10+ years and can explain stuff that she remembered was hard/tricky for her, etc. She suggested that one of the most important things is to have the conjugations come automatically. What she said works for some people is just to write them out over and over again (seems like the FSI mentality). I will definitely give it a try. I am going to start with present tense irregular verbs in the PMP verb tense book and work through the end. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| dbag Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4833 days ago 605 posts - 1046 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 11 of 16 06 July 2012 at 1:09am | IP Logged |
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I've been meaning to check back in here for a while, but haven't quite got round to it,
apologies. An interesting observation : I note that you place a lot of emphasis on the basic sentences and dialogs for fluency, but not much on the drills. I actually do things in complete reverse, in fact I have often skipped the basic sentences entirely. To me, the drills are the thing that is going to help you internalize the structure of the grammar. I find the most useful to be the variation, and (especially)replacement drills. All, or nearly all of the information in the basic sentences can be found here, but it will be thrown at you hard and fast, which will help you manipulate the structures you have learnt. If you are having troubles with conjugation, spend some time with the substitution drills. I can honestly say that the right verb endings pop into my head immediately 99.99% of the time.(Knowing when to use each tense can be a different matter though). I would qualify what I said about the basic sentences by saying that I was well into Assimil when I started with Platiquemos though. Incidentally, I think it would still be well worth picking up a copy, it's full of really important stuff that other courses don't seem to teach, or if they do, like fsi, they take a long time to get around to it. Conversation stimulus's I struggle with. The hardest part of the course by far, I think. I'm fully intending to go back and do these properly at some stage. Do you ever revise units? I've found I literally have to, if not, the contents just seems to be in my short term memory. Your actually not to far behind me. I'm on unit 49, and just trying to build the will to push through to the end. Things start to get a lot more difficult when you hit unit 47. Two podcasts I really like: Espanolpodcast.Org is lovely. Not quite native speed, but some of the episodes are around 45 minutes long. It's really nice to be immersed for a while in Real Spanish, maybe not understanding everything, but following the story and picking up unknown words through context. Spanishpod.com is good as well. You can sign up for a weeks free trial and literally download everything on there. Several different levels to choose from, and a ton of content. There is a dialog, which is say, 2 minutes long, then a 10 minute discussion of the dialog in Spanish. I find them both amazingly helpful, not just for listening comprehension, but also because it helps you apply the structures you have learnt in Platiquemos, in new and creative ways. Also, there is a thread by leosmith I recommend called, I think, "listening from the begining" in which he advocates focused listening of 10 minutes of native content a day, whether or not you understand it. I can testify to its effectiveness. After a while, things begin to slow down. I hope that helps. Good luck! I'll be following along. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| bakerww Pro Member United States Joined 4997 days ago 8 posts - 10 votes Studies: English* Personal Language Map | Message 12 of 16 06 July 2012 at 4:31am | IP Logged |
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Dbag- You are right. I spend a lot of time on the basic sentences. I have often wondered if I spend too much
time. I think I started doing this after reading somewhere in the instructions that accompany the text that it is recommended to spend a lot of time on the dialogues. Maybe it is time for a change. Out of curiosity, do you do each section within the unit over and over until you have it down, or do you work through entire unit each one section after another and then repeat? I usually do every section within the unit 7-10 times. By the last couple of time the replacement drills, substitution drills and variation drills are usually very easy. I'm hoping I have the material down by then but more realistically I might just have it memorized. When you say revise the unit, what exactly do you mean? THanks for the info on the podcast. I will be checking them out. What exact version of Assimil should I be looking for. I have been interested in maybe using this a little after Platiquemos, but every time I look at it on amazon.com I get confused at the different titles/versions. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5186 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 13 of 16 07 July 2012 at 12:28am | IP Logged |
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Search for the "Assimil Spanish with Ease day by day" and you should find the book with CD package for $32.97. That is the one you want. It is a great course.
http://www.amazon.com/Spanish-With-Ease-Language-Learning/dp /2700510704/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1341613419&sr=8-1&keyword s=assimil+spanish+with+ease+day+by+day I cannot imagine doing each FSI lesson 7-10 times... wow... that is great. I found that the drills made the basic sentences much easier. The response drills always gave me problems... right up until the end. If you are able to do each lesson 7-10 times I would suggest doing a lesson 4 or 5 times and then move on. Then go back and review sometime... I would think doing 4 or 5 lessons and then reviewing them two times each would be good. For example, do lessons 40-45 five times each then, when done with lesson 45, go back and do each of those lessons two more times. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| bakerww Pro Member United States Joined 4997 days ago 8 posts - 10 votes Studies: English* Personal Language Map | Message 14 of 16 07 July 2012 at 8:29pm | IP Logged |
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James - I am going to try this starting with this unit. I am starting unit 41 today. I did unit 40 10 times so this
will be a change. Hopefully this will help engrain the material into long term memory by spreading out the repetitions as you proposed. I am still wondering how I could work Assimil into my studies. Maybe after Platiquemos. I am a little concerned with spending more time with beginner programs, but maybe it will be worthwhile. Hopefully I will be able to work through it quickly as I am eager to start using more native materials, especially after Platiquemos. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| bakerww Pro Member United States Joined 4997 days ago 8 posts - 10 votes Studies: English* Personal Language Map | Message 15 of 16 27 July 2012 at 2:48am | IP Logged |
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So I took James' advise and started doing the units 5 times (instead of 7-10) over the course of a week since unit
41. I am starting unit 44 tomorrow. I really like this approach better, just to get fresh material quicker. Ten times through is really boring. Hopefully the review will really help the material sink into long term memory. However, the more I think about it, using it is the only way to get it into long term memory. I have still been watching about 5 hours of a novela every week as well as one hour tutoring session on Fridays which is mostly covering grammar. From the tutoring sessions I am using worksheets (kind of like homework) throughout the the week to drive home the points. On the uplifting side, we are remodeling our bathroom and one of the contractors that came to give a quote spoke no English. My wife (native Spanish speaker) was at school so I was on my own. I was able to understand everything and tell him everything we wanted. My wife called him later that night to check and make sure I told him everything we wanted correctly and he said he understood everything and complemented my Spanish to her. I guess at the level I am at the goal is to be able to communicate, even if everything is not perfect, and I was able to do it. It helped a lot that his Spanish was the clearest spoken Spanish I have heard. Well... on to unit 44. I am ready to be done with Platiquemos and move on to more native material. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| bakerww Pro Member United States Joined 4997 days ago 8 posts - 10 votes Studies: English* Personal Language Map | Message 16 of 16 04 November 2012 at 6:37pm | IP Logged |
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So, I have not posted in a while, but have kept on grinding through the Platiquemos Units. Today, I finished my
5th review of Unit 55 and am now done with Platiquemos! In all, it took over 18 months with at least 1 hour a day. I rarely missed a day. I kept a pretty good record of how much I studied Platiquemos each day. I have not tallied it all up yet, but I think I have somewhere between 600 and 700 hours in the program not counting short reviews in the car. At unit 41, I stopped doing the each unit 10 times and only did them 5 times. I went back and reviewed some of these units, but for the most part I was really trying to push through and finish. So, with that said, I am sure a review of the last 10-15 units is in order at some point. What to do next... I have read differing advise on what to do next. I really would like to spend allot more time with native materials. Having said that, I think I might go through Assimil as was recommended to me on this log. The instructions for use are pretty vague and it seems like there are differing opinions on the best way to use it. I already bought a copy and flipping through it, looks like allot of good stuff. It does not look like it is as much as a time commitment as FSI (30 minutes a day). This would leave me plenty of time to start looking at native material. At some point I am going to have to distance myself from language learning programs and really "dive in" to native materials. I really need to find a better way to be more productive during my commute time. I would like to use this time to review the last 10 units of Platiquemos, but the audio quality of these units leaves me frustrated when trying to review in the car. I am thinking satellite radio to listen to CNN espanol could be useful. Thanks to everyone for advise and words of encouragement along the way. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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