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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| matumic Groupie United States Joined 6044 days ago 60 posts - 60 votes  Studies: Spanish | Message 1 of 11 21 May 2013 at 1:53am | IP Logged | ||
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I feel I have a very strong level in Spanish and can listen, speak, read, and write it without much of a problem. I've
been studying it since August of 2007. Each day I usually will do something in that language, it might be talking to a native speaker on skype (or chatting), reading a book, watching a movie or the news in Spanish. I will also read articles on yahoo and can really understand just about all of it, just once in a while will I have to look up a word or two in the dictionary. The kind of books I read are the twilight series, autobiographies, Harry Potter, etc. which don't really give me much of a problem (yes I know, they're not all that advanced books) and can also converse freely in many topics with very little pauses or hesitations. When watching a soap opera, I can understand just about everything, just with some of the movies give me a hard time. I'd say i have about a high intermediate/low advanced level in the language and was just wondering what it takes and what I could do in order to obtain a level of advanced fluency in Spanish. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5073 days ago 2237 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 2 of 11 21 May 2013 at 2:49am | IP Logged | ||
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Move on to native books and away from books in translation. No matter how good the translation, it's still based on English constructions and rhythms. There's a wealth of great literature available natively in Spanish. See my list here. and America Reads Spanish for further inspiration. Read often and read widely.
Look into taking an OCW course taught in Spanish for free online. For example La Universidad Carlos III de Madrid- Lengua Española which is intended for native speakers. They have a variety of courses on many subjects available here. The Open Course-Ware Consortium en Español has many courses available.. N.B.: these courses may not be "out of the box- ready". You may have to put some of the parts together yourself. Hey, free has its cost. Check out the films of Almodóvar. Follow a blog on the El País Blogs website. Try to listen to some of the episodes of the old radio show, La Tremenda Corte from Cuba, and see if you can appreciate why it is still on the air today and its humor still relevant. Find a good Spanish-language forum on politics, literature or film and participate. Sign up for twitter and follow the accounts of Spanish-speaking authors, journalists and comedians or whoever interests you, as long as they're native-speakers. Basically, don't be afraid to branch out beyond your comfort zone. When you start to feel slightly uncomfortable and a little unsure if you know everything, that's when you start to advance. A university course, a challenging cinematic film, fine literature and poetry will stretch you. Diversify. Finally, have a look at member emk's log "French: Wandering to C1". Emk has written the best guide on this forum to taking your language to the next level and his methods can be adapted to almost any western language. ¡Buena suerte! Edited by iguanamon on 21 May 2013 at 12:06pm 8 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| matumic Groupie United States Joined 6044 days ago 60 posts - 60 votes Studies: Spanish | Message 3 of 11 21 May 2013 at 4:45am | IP Logged | ||
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Awesome. I will definitely take a look at those links tomorrow. And do you think I'd benefit much if I got my hands
on a copy of "Assimil:Using Spanish"? And could you recommend any advanced podcasts in Spanish that I could listen to? I've also heard that reading aloud could really help with pronunciation (in which I do have troubles here and there with some words). Very much appreciate your guys's help and anything else you guys could recommend to get to this desired level. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5343 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 4 of 11 21 May 2013 at 5:17am | IP Logged | ||
While I appreciate the kind words about my log, I doubt my level is any higher than matumic's. :-) My current strategy for reaching C1 is to continue to enjoy lots of native media, and to put myself in situations that ask more of my output skills. I do a bit of Anki and some half-hearted studying (if I had more time, I'd do more). In particular, the Super Challenge has been enormously useful, and I've noticed that lately, it's become a lot less "Super" in terms of difficulty—if I have enough good books around the house, and a bit of free time, 500 pages/month is almost automatic. (I'm up to about 850 so far this month.) Later this year, if I can find some time, I may do some more focused and intensive studying to pull various pieces together and build on this foundation. But overall, I've stopped worrying too much about my progress. Sure, there's a lot left to do, and progress can be hard to perceive with roughly 1 hour/day after B2. But over a longer time period, the progress is still perceptible. And the process is a ton of fun, especially now that I'm starting to discover French media that I really love. (Finding some interesting French books was good. But adding the first French author to my "buy on sight" list feels amazing.) matumic, I have no real advice for you, other than to continue seek out interesting challenges and to find media that's so good you can't put it down. At least for me, that seems lay an excellent base for more explicit study when I bother to get around to it. :-) And while we're at it, I'd also love to hear about what's been working especially well for you. Edited by emk on 21 May 2013 at 5:54am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5073 days ago 2237 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 5 of 11 21 May 2013 at 1:07pm | IP Logged | ||
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Matumic, you're welcome. Many people have benefited from Assimil "Using Spanish". Why I hesitate to recommend it is for two reasons. 1) I didn't use it and all I know about the course is gleaned from reading what others have said about it. 2) relying on a course too much to advance is not the solution, in my opinion. I've seen too many people here on this forum fall into the trap of continuous formal study and still wonder why they're not advancing. A course can become a crutch, a "fool's gold" that leads you to believe that it's all you need. The danger in relying on a course too much is that it can lead you to look at the language as a thing to be studied rather than a means of communication with people. A course will never say anything you don't want to hear. It won't tell you that your pronunciation is off or your phrasing is not quite right. The Assimil course may be good as a supplement but try to make your main course the real Spanish-speaking world, where Spanish lives, breathes and talks.
You've reached the stage where you've built a good foundation for furthering your learning. That's where it can get a little scary for folks because you no longer have someone or something to guide you, to hold your hand and show you the way. You must find your own way. Improvement is much slower at this stage of the curve but it does happen. My advice, You're on the right track by doing something in Spanish every day. Keep that up and start ratcheting it up a notch. Make Spanish a part of your life. Try very hard to speak Spanish every day or, at least the majority of days in a week. If you can afford it, a private online tutor can be found for as little as $5-$10 US an hour. The sessions should be primarily used to iron out your problems in communication. One or two sessions a week or, even one session every two weeks, will do wonders for your Spanish. The more you speak, the better speaker you will become. If you don't want to go that route, then try to make friends with native Spanish-speakers. Volunteer within the Spanish-speaking community if your city or town has one. There is no better resource available than native-speakers. As far as podcasts go, I like traveling, so one of my favorite regular podcasts is Nómadas from Radio Nacional de España. Find whatever topic interests you. You can bet there'll be a podcast for it. For learning, I would recommend Veinte Mundos. The site is free. You can download the audio and print the transcript. New vocabulary and expressions are explained when mousing over. The podcasts are about 10 minutes long and come in both intermediate and advanced levels. The free, multimedia exercises from the Aveteca- Centro Virtual Cervantes can be quite helpful. The site has many exercises that range from A1 to C1. You cement your study by using what you've learned in the real world. When you see a phrase one place, you read it in a book, then hear it in a podcast or film, then hear it in conversation- that's when the magic starts to happen. One last piece of advice, there are learners here on the forum who are at your stage. Explore their logs. What's good about the logs is that you can find what seems to work and also, what doesn't seem to work. Whether you follow my advice or not, I wish you best of luck. Let us know how you get on. Edited by iguanamon on 21 May 2013 at 1:56pm 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6408 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 6 of 11 21 May 2013 at 7:14pm | IP Logged | ||
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You can read Don Quixote in small chunks using dailylit :)
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| matumic Groupie United States Joined 6044 days ago 60 posts - 60 votes Studies: Spanish | Message 7 of 11 22 May 2013 at 2:39am | IP Logged | ||
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Wow, just wanted to let you guys know I really do appreciate your help and this site has been like a godsend to me.
Yeah that's basically what I've been doing ever since I started learning Spanish, just trying to bombarde myself in the language; whether it be listening to podcasts, watching tv, reading books, chatting with native speakers. Everytime I go to the gym, I always take my ipod with me and listen to nothing but podcasts and music in Spanish. I try and keep a diary and write whatever I feel like that day in the language and I also keep a small notepad with me in my pocket just in case I come across a word that I've never heard before or have heard and look it up to be able to not only increase my vocabulary but to also use it in future conversations with native speakers. Yeah that's a good idea to REALLY start making it a part of my daily life and getting out of my "comfort zone". I could change the settings on my computer to Spanish and set the homepage to "yahoo méxico", which would force me to read more articles in Spanish. I could even take fanatic's idea in where I'd be immersing myself in the language half the day, maybe even the whole day doing absolutely everything in Spanish (podcasts, movies, soap operas, speaking with only people who's native language is Spanish, books, articles, etc.). I really would like to get a bachelor's degree in Spanish, which is why I will most likely being going back to school in the fall (as long as I have enough saved up by that time) and will make a ton of new friends in which I can speak Spanish with. Well I'm tired of writing, thanks a bunch for your guys's recommendations and nice comments. If you guys think of anything else, please let me know. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| matumic Groupie United States Joined 6044 days ago 60 posts - 60 votes Studies: Spanish | Message 8 of 11 22 May 2013 at 12:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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And just out of curiosity, how many pages/minutes/hours would you recommend that I read daily on average?
1 person has voted this message useful |
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