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Stelle Speaks Spanish and Tagalog | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 3944 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes  Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 81 of 384 12 September 2013 at 12:27am | IP Logged | ||
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Today is officially the last day of the six-week challenge. Total for the challenge: 107.97 hours!
183 minutes talk to someone: 90 minutes - Skype exchange - Skype tutoring session listen to something: 20 minutes - Destinos episode 42 read something: 20 minutes - Charlie y el ascensor de cristal write something: 31 minutes - future tense practice vocabulary: 22 minutes - anki 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 3944 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 82 of 384 12 September 2013 at 1:23am | IP Logged | ||
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My latest blog post:
What I learned from the six- week challenge 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 3944 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 83 of 384 22 September 2013 at 1:47pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hola!
Since the end of the six-week challenge, I've had to shorten the amount of time every day that I spend on Spanish. I'm still studying, practicing, learning, reading, listening - but I can't do it for 3 hours every day anymore! I've started back at my full-time job (intensive French class for adults - seven hours per day for 10 months), and I also have five private students spread throughout the week, and a few writing contracts to keep up with. So my time is definitely more limited than it was over the summer, when I was only working part-time! I don't know how often I'll be updating my blog, either. I'm trying to build a schedule that works for me. Anki in the morning, grammar books at some point in the day, reading before bed - these are all no-brainers by now. They're well-established routines. Whereas I used to be able to talk to someone on Skype nearly every day, I've had to cut that down. So now I do a language exchange (30 mins Spanish, 30 mins French or English) 3 times a week, and an hour-long tutoring session twice a week. I'm still speaking Spanish 5 times a week, but it's really not the same as talking every single day for 60-90 minutes. I know that i need to keep focusing on listening. I'm still watching Missing (love that show!), but at the rate of about an episode a week. It takes me 30 minutes to get through 15 minutes of the episode (I watch each scene twice, once with subtitles and once without). I've burned a bunch of Notes in Spanish advanced podcasts to CD so that I can listen to them in the car on the way in and out of work. I figure that I've got about a month's worth of podcasts before I'm finished with all of them. At that point, I'd like to find some good shows on Spanish national radio and burn them to CD for the commute. Yesterday, I started experimenting with FSI. I don't know if this is a step backwards. I'd planned on switching to all-native materials soon. But I go on very long walks every day, and I'm curious to see if the FSI audio will help improve my grammar and automaticity. Because I already know a good amount of Spanish, I don't find that I need the book - well, with the exception of a few words that I've never learned (ashtray, for instance). It took me 45 minutes to get through unit 3, just listening, repeating and responding. I think I'll keep doing it for now, since I like how quickly my walks go when I'm focusing on pattern drills. Podcasts and audiobooks tend to make me walk more slowly rather than more quickly. But if/when FSI starts feeling tedious, I'll reevaluate whether or not I want to continue. I've been tossing around the idea of picking up a fourth language. While I want to keep focusing on Spanish, I really want to start learning Tagalog too. Right now, the timing's not great, but since my husband is filipino, I'd have a built-in practice partner. So I wouldn't need to find time for Skype language exchanges. I also wouldn't have the timeline that I have in Spanish. My goal with Tagalog is conversational fluency, but it's ok if it takes me a reeeeeaaaally long time to get there. Even a five-minute conversation would impress my inlaws. Haha! So I'm thinking that I might start a half-hour of Tagalog every day at the beginning of November, which will be about the six-month point of learning Spanish. I enjoy my job. I'm one of those fortunate few who actually like what they're doing. But I really wish I had more time to work on languages! Edited by Stelle on 22 September 2013 at 1:51pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 3944 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 84 of 384 23 September 2013 at 11:03pm | IP Logged | ||
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Day three of FSI. So far, the drills are really easy. I'd be surprised if they weren't, seeing as how I've been pretty
immersed in Spanish for the past several months (well, as immersed as one can be part-time from home, anyway). It actually fits in nicely with my current schedule, since I'm not replacing anything with FSI - I'm just adding FSI to my daily walk. I walk around the park talking out loud to myself. I'm going to become a neighbourhood "character" if I'm not careful. Ha! I don't think that I would replace authentic native materials with FSI, but it's nice to be able use it during otherwise "dead" time. Now that I'm working full-time, I'm aiming for 2 hours of Spanish every day. I'm finding it surprisingly easy so far to surpass that: - 45 minutes FSI while walking after work - 30 minutes podcasts while in the car (15 minutes each way) - 30-60 minutes language exchange/tutoring OR part of an episode of Missing after supper - 15-20 minutes anki in the morning while drinking my coffee - 15-20 minutes reading before bed ...ends up being 135-175 minutes every day. The only thing that I'm having a hard time fitting in is working through my grammar study guides. I know that they're important. I wish that I had a bit of downtime during the workday where I could fit in 20 minutes or so, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen. I'll have to figure out when to fit in this more serious "study time". Edited by Stelle on 23 September 2013 at 11:07pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| BonneVivante Pro Member Canada Joined 4658 days ago 33 posts - 59 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map | Message 85 of 384 24 September 2013 at 12:28am | IP Logged | ||
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This is my first time checking your log and I just wanted to say that I've learned a lot from reading about your approach. I especially like the idea of a Skype language exchange; once I'm ready I'll definitely incorporate that into my learning.
Good luck with your continued progress in Spanish! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 3944 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 86 of 384 25 September 2013 at 1:12am | IP Logged | ||
Thanks for the kind words! Good luck to you in French! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 3944 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 87 of 384 27 September 2013 at 12:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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about books
I finished Charlie y el gran ascensor de cristal. While I enjoyed reading it because I enjoyed the fact that I understood it, I didn't love the story. It was rambling and unfocused. I started a new book: Las Brujas by Roald Dahl. It's such a great story! While reading in Spanish used to be a fun challenge, now it's just fun. I'm really happy about this - reading has always been a pleasure for me, and while I love being challenged, I also enjoy just relaxing with a good book before bed. I take joy in the fact that I can "relax" with a book written in Spanish. After Las Brujas, I'm going back to Harry Potter. It's quite a bit more difficult that the Dahl books, so I was reading it in tandem with an English copy. While I enjoy tandem reading, my schedule has gotten quite a bit tighter in the last week, so instead of multiple reading sessions every day, i find myself with only one. And I'd really rather read extensively instead of intensively. I decided to put down Harry Potter for now and wait until my skills are developed enough to read it on its own. about drills I finished unit 8 of FSI Spanish yesterday. I've fallen into a routine that works well for me: go for a 45 minute walk after work, while listening and responding to a unit of FSI. So far I haven't had to repeat any units, since there isn't much new information yet. At first I was worried that starting FSI would be a step backwards in my learning, but I'm absolutely loving it. I find it almost meditative to do the drills while walking. I know that eventually I'll hit a wall in FSI, where I'll have to start referring back to the text and repeating units, but for now I'll just keep doing what I'm doing. As weird as it sounds, I LOVE substitution drills. about listening comprehension I've been listening to an advanced podcast from Notes in Spanish every day during the drive to and from work. My commute is only about 15 minutes one way, so I have time to listen to it once on the way in and again on the way back. I understand very well the first time - but it's amazing how much more I get from the second listen! Between FSI and podcasts, I get more than an hour of Spanish every day - even if life gets in the way and I do nothing else in the evening. I'm at episode 6 of Desaparecida. I still love the show, although I have yet to move away completely from using the English subtitles. I can understand every word from some of the characters, but others speak too quickly or drop consonants at the end of their words - they give me a hard time. I'm now watching a scene first without subtitles, and only repeating it with subtitles if I think I might have missed something important. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 3944 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 88 of 384 28 September 2013 at 4:11pm | IP Logged | ||
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I think I jinxed myself with my last post here, since I had to repeat a unit of FSI. I'm not 100% comfortable with
the present perfect, so unit 9 was tough for me. I ran through the whole thing yesterday with difficulty, read over the text this morning, and then repeated the unit. It was much, much better the second time. I do find that I struggle sometimes with the sound quality of the first dialogue. It's hard to repeat when I can't quite make out what they're saying. The drills are ok, since they build on each other, but I'm sometimes a bit frustrated with the dialogue. From now on, I think I'm going to use a different approach with FSI: 1. At home, listen to the first dialogue once, and then listen to it again while reading the text. This won't take more than a few minutes, since I'm not going to do any repetitions at home - just listen to the original dialogue. (2 minutes) 2. Walk while doing the whole unit - listening, repeating, responding to drills. (45ish minutes, depending on the unit) 3. Take a glance at the text, read the grammar explanations, make sure that I've understood everything. Listen to the last three or four dialogues again, this time reading along with the text. (15-20 minutes) 4. IF NECESSARY: repeat the unit the next day. If I didn't struggle with it the first time, I won't bother with this step. Edited by Stelle on 28 September 2013 at 4:12pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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