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Stelle Speaks Spanish and Tagalog | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| sctroyenne Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5178 days ago 739 posts - 1312 votes  Speaks: English*, French Studies: Spanish, Irish | Message 97 of 384 13 October 2013 at 3:19am | IP Logged | |||||
This is what can make paying for a tutor worth it as a decent one will have some lesson plans or activities to spur conversation about a diversity of subjects. It can be good to find some pictures, an article, a book, a movie, etc ahead of time to keep it flowing. As for reading, it can help if you can kill two birds with one stone by finding stuff you want to read in English/French translated into Spanish. You can read them bilingual reader style in order to be able to enjoy it in its native language and as a crutch for lack of vocabulary/grammar knowledge in Spanish. That's how I read through Harry Potter at the beginning of my studies. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5162 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 98 of 384 13 October 2013 at 11:37am | IP Logged | |||||
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Nice log. It is nice to see so much progress... you really are cheap just like me :)
Regarding FSI, I really think it is well worth it. It can be boring or tedious, but it really does work. I agree it is a bit sexist at times (like taking it for granted that people need to find a woman to clean the apartment and take out the laundry). 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 3931 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 99 of 384 13 October 2013 at 11:52pm | IP Logged | |||||
Yep! I love my tutors! To be honest - if I were starting over, I'd probably stick with just tutors. I love my language exchange partners, but everything's more complicated. I've read English/Spanish novels and French/Spanish novels, and I really enjoyed the experience. The problem is that I'm currently at a child/young adult reading level in Spanish. I feel like I'm neglecting "grown-up" books in my own languages. So it goes! TIme is always limited! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 3931 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 100 of 384 13 October 2013 at 11:53pm | IP Logged | |||||
You definitely aren't the only cheapskate around these parts! ;) I actually don't find FSI boring or tedious - I enjoy it for the most part. I think that as the units get more difficult, I'll get more out of them. I do think that it's good practice for drilling verbs, which it's hard to get elsewhere. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 3931 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 101 of 384 14 October 2013 at 12:50am | IP Logged | |||||
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I finished Las Brujas by Roald Dahl. The BFG should arrive on Tuesday of next week, so I'll read articles instead
over the next few days. I do feel that I progress more rapidly if I read at least a little bit every day. This seems like a really interesting site for reading online content: lingro I haven't had much time to explore it yet, but it takes any online content and makes it "clickable", so that you can translate new words as you go. Even cooler - it tracks all of the words that you check, and lets you create wordlists to review and practice. It looks very promising as a tool! I've also started a new TV show: La Fuga. I started it expecting a Prison Break rip-off (which isn't necessarily a bad thing - I loved season one of Prison Break), but it turns out that it's a dystopian police-state prison break story. Right up my alley! If you're in North America, you can watch it for free on DramaFever: Fuga 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 3931 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 102 of 384 23 October 2013 at 12:25pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm tired. Work's been crazy (both the 9-5 and the side-jobs), my husband's away for 2 weeks, and my dog was
sick. Really sick. :( Poor boy has kidney problems, his appetite is down, and then out of nowhere he had a major allergic reaction on Monday to who-knows-what. His usually floppy ears were swollen so thick that they stuck out on either side of his head. So I've spent a lot more time driving back and forth from the vet and researching treatment options than studying Spanish lately. But all the driving means that I've been listening to 60+ minutes of Notes in Spanish every day. I finished all of the podcasts that I'd burned on CD, and I haven't had any time to burn new ones, so I started again at the beginning, listening to each podcast once. It's amazing how easy they are to understand! Granted, I've listened to each one 3 or 4 times - but to listen to them again, a month later, is a really rewarding experience. I have 20ish new podcasts to burn and listen to, and then I'll be finished with NiS. They should last me about a month, at one a day (driving to and from work), and then I think I'll listen to the whole series one last time. By December, I should be ready to move on to a Spanish podcast for native speakers. Now I just have to find one that interests me. Aside from NiS and a 20-minute run-through of my Anki decks, I haven't done much else - very little FSI, no TV watching, almost no reading. I've been focusing my reading time on Margaret Atwood's newest novel, MaddAddam. I have to finish it before Friday so that I can return it to the library. My dog's starting to feel better, so I hope that we'll get his symptoms completely under control by Friday. Then I can get back on track with language learning. Which makes me think - I should look for a dog-related forum in Spanish. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| montmorency Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4615 days ago 2371 posts - 3676 votes Speaks: English*, German Studies: Danish, Welsh | Message 103 of 384 23 October 2013 at 12:57pm | IP Logged | |||||
Young adult books can be fun, but I know what you mean. These days, I go for translations, or parallel text versions if they are available (and I'm also looking at making my own PTs via Aglona Reader ... I think the exercise of making it would in itself be instructive). I eventually decided that life was to short to take a year (or whatever) to read a book, dictionary in hand, and that I should accept that I need help. Pop-up dictionaries are of course another approach, but at the moment anyway, I'm favouring the translation/parallel text approach. Another advantage, especially if one is studying or working with more than one language, is that one can read the same book in several languages (and I don't just mean Harry Potter :-) ). So if it's a worthwhile "grown up" book, one really gets to know it. Admittedly, I do tend to reed a lot of "Krimis" in that mode (because they are widely available), and it might be good to read more demanding or elevated books but still... 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 3931 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 104 of 384 26 October 2013 at 4:00pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I finished watching La Fuga last night. My plan was to watch the entire show again - the story was engaging, I liked
the characters (and loved to hate the bad guys), and I understood most of what they were saying. I figured I'd binge-watch the last four episodes and then start over again without subtitles, just watching 30 minutes at a time. And then I watched the last two episodes. What an unfulfilling, underwhelming, ridiculous end to a great story! Bah. Even though I loved the first 9 or 10 episodes, there's no way that I can watch the whole series again, now that I know what to expect at the end. What a disappointment. Not to mention that I've neglected Anki for the past 2 days since I spent most of my evenings watching TV, and now I have 200 cards to review in one deck, and 140 in a second. Well...I guess I know what I'm doing today! Ha! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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