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Platiquemos,Assimil, News in Slow Spanish

 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes Post Reply
10 messages over 2 pages: 1 2  Next >>
srh9592
Newbie
United States
Joined 5716 days ago

14 posts - 15 votes
Studies: French, Spanish

 
 Message 1 of 10
23 January 2014 at 9:38pm | IP Logged 
After years away, I'm returning to studying (European) Spanish and would love feedback on my strategy. I'm
focusing on input, variety, and taking it slow and steady.
1. Reading text along with the audio of one episode of News in Slow Spanish each day (about 30 minutes). I'm
doing the news stories only; skipping grammar lesson and phrase lesson.
2. A couple lessons from Assimil Spanish with Ease each day (about 15 minutes). When I get to the end, I'll start
over.
3. Reading along with one lesson of Platiquemos audio each day (about one hour). I do the same lesson each day
for a few days until I feel "comfortable" with the lesson and "ready" to move on to the next lesson. I'm not trying to
master responses to the audio drills... just trying to understand the lessons and absorb vocabulary, phrases, and
patterns. I know Platiquemos isn't European Spanish, but I already own it, and it's great for showing me patterns.

I can't imagine trying to do four hours of Platiquemos each day; I'm hoping variety of programs will allow me to
keep going without "burning out." When I'm done with Platiquemos (in about 6 months), I plan to start practicing
output (speaking); maybe going going through Platiquemos again at a faster rate (one lesson per day).

I've been doing this program for about a month, and I like it so far. I'm on lesson 12 of Platiquemos; I feel like I'm
"absorbing" the language instead of "memorizing" it. I'd love comments from anyone who has tried a similar study
approach.
1 person has voted this message useful



James29
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5387 days ago

1265 posts - 2113 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: French

 
 Message 2 of 10
23 January 2014 at 10:16pm | IP Logged 
Depending on your level, you may want to start by whizzing through Michel Thomas's "Advanced" course. It is only about 5 hours and covers all the grammar. It is a super review.
1 person has voted this message useful



iguanamon
Pentaglot
Senior Member
Virgin Islands
Speaks: Ladino
Joined 5274 days ago

2241 posts - 6731 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French)

 
 Message 3 of 10
23 January 2014 at 10:28pm | IP Logged 
I'd dump the News in Slow Spanish and switch to something at native-speed like Práctica Español (España) (with exercises) or a newscast with a transcript like this weekly podcast from Ammistía Internacional (España). There's no grammar lesson available for this one.

Listening from the beginning is very important. I don't think you are doing yourself any favors by getting accustomed to unnaturally slow audio. I know it's easier to understand because it's clear and slow, but in the long run I think it will do more harm than good, especially because you need to train listening. There are other newscasts with English versions available but they're from the Americas, which doesn't seem to interest you.

If you are interested: NHK World Spanish News has a daily 10-15 minute news podcast in Spanish with native-speakers- one is from Spain, and a transcript. You can also visit their English site for pretty much most of the same stories, so you'll know what's going on before you listen to the Spanish. I did this daily for Portuguese with NHK and it was very useful. There's also Democracy Now en español with a transcript as well. Same goes for DN. Their English site has the same stories. The audio is very fast. Then again, so are native speakers. I'd pick one of these for daily listening. The transcript is available. The English is available, The Iberian accent isn't.

The rest of your program looks good to me- good, thorough courses and you are adding in something from outside- very important.

Edit: You'll need to open audio player in new tab to listen and read with the transcript.

Edited by iguanamon on 25 January 2014 at 2:00am

3 persons have voted this message useful



1e4e6
Octoglot
Senior Member
United Kingdom
Joined 4302 days ago

1013 posts - 1588 votes 
Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Dutch, Swedish, Italian
Studies: German, Danish, Russian, Catalan

 
 Message 4 of 10
23 January 2014 at 11:57pm | IP Logged 
Native news:

Informativo de
Madrid


Full daily news at native speed without reservation in Peninsular Spanish. It served me
for at least five years.

Edited by 1e4e6 on 23 January 2014 at 11:58pm

4 persons have voted this message useful



srh9592
Newbie
United States
Joined 5716 days ago

14 posts - 15 votes
Studies: French, Spanish

 
 Message 5 of 10
24 January 2014 at 7:46am | IP Logged 
Thanks for the feedback and info on other content sites... I'll take a look at them.

Just so you know, News in Slow Spanish lets you listen at slow speed and at regular speed. In addition to reading
along with slow speed audio everyday, I've been listening to regular speed audio in the car, and sometimes reading
with no audio.

I'm still hope for some feedback on how I'm using Platiquemos, since I'm not trying to master the drills. Has
anybody used FSI or Platiquemos in this manner?
1 person has voted this message useful



luke
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 7217 days ago

3133 posts - 4351 votes 
Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: Esperanto, French

 
 Message 6 of 10
24 January 2014 at 6:16pm | IP Logged 
srh9592 wrote:
3. Reading along with one lesson of Platiquemos audio each day (about one hour). I do the same lesson each day for a few days until I feel "comfortable" with the lesson and "ready" to move on to the next lesson. I'm not trying to
master responses to the audio drills... just trying to understand the lessons and absorb vocabulary, phrases, and patterns.

When I'm done with Platiquemos (in about 6 months), I plan to start practicing
output (speaking); maybe going going through Platiquemos again at a faster rate (one lesson per day).

I've been doing this program for about a month, and I like it so far. I'm on lesson 12 of Platiquemos; I feel like I'm "absorbing" the language instead of "memorizing" it. I'd love comments from anyone who has tried a similar study approach.


You feel like you're "absorbing" the language, and that's the most important thing.

My own experience was I focused a lot on Platiquemos/FSI Basic Spanish early on in my study of Spanish. Although it's an effective program, I think multiple tracks like you are doing is the best approach.

Professor Arguelles talks about "learning styles". The important thing is to find a program that is suited to your learning style to get you started. What he suggests for later on, is the "other" styles to help learn the language with complementary methods and that helps different facets of the language.

Platiquemos is good for the "learn by doing" student.
Assimil and News in Slow Spanish are good for the student who learns "intuitively".
The other category is the student who learns best through focus on grammar.

Edited by luke on 24 January 2014 at 6:17pm

1 person has voted this message useful



srh9592
Newbie
United States
Joined 5716 days ago

14 posts - 15 votes
Studies: French, Spanish

 
 Message 7 of 10
24 January 2014 at 7:36pm | IP Logged 
All, Thanks for the great advice and sources of Spanish content. Very helpful.
1 person has voted this message useful



Serpent
Octoglot
Senior Member
Russian Federation
serpent-849.livejour
Joined 6609 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 8 of 10
25 January 2014 at 7:13am | IP Logged 
Sounds too slow overall. (and boring apart from Assimil, but YMMV)

These are my favourite Spanish resources:

http://lyricstraining.com/ (read about this site here)
http://gloss.dliflc.edu/Default.aspx - free lessons with interesting content
http://www.uiowa.edu/~acadtech/phonetics/#
http://www.learner.org/resources/series75.html - Destinos, a telenovela for learners
http://albalearning.com/



2 persons have voted this message useful



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