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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| nancydowns Senior Member United States Joined 3727 days ago 184 posts - 288 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written) | Message 25 of 196 18 March 2014 at 4:06am | IP Logged |
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So this is Monday, and I am going to try to make a post every Monday to make an honest assessment of where I am. I started this log to try to keep myself on
track, and I have been amazed that other people have read it and commented! So to anyone reading, thank you! And please comment and let me know you were here and please give me suggestions! I am new to language learning, so I am very, very glad for any help! Because of suggestions, I have decided to add a wave to my Assimil, doing scriptorium. I guess it is wave 1B. If I ever could catch up to my first wave, I would do it all at once. :-) But a second time through several days later is working pretty well! I also decided to start listening to Notes in Spanish because of a suggestion here on my log! SPANISH Total Hours: 21 (last week 6) Assimil: First Wave Lesson 25 - scriptorium Lesson 10 FSI: Unit 6 Pimsleur III: Unit 7 Coffee Break Spanish: Lesson 35 Notes in Spanish: Lesson 5 Destinos: episode 5 ARABIC Total Hours: 8 (last week 5) Mastering Arabic: Chapter 5 FSI MWA: Lesson 9 Weekly assessment: I have really enjoyed adding the scriptorium to my Spanish work, and I want to do the same for Arabic. I would like to find a legible Arabic text with vowels to use. I think I'll search around on the internet to see what I can find, unless someone has suggestions? I have too much just audio only stuff for Spanish, but I don't feel the need to advance in those things so much, so I am just listening to them when I am walking or something where I can't be at the computer. I added a number up by the Spanish and Arabic sections to represent my total number of hours on that language. I am way underestimating the number previous to this past week, but that is because I don't think until I came on this forum and felt such a drive because of the community here that I ever gave really good attention to my study before, So the number there this week represents previous + this past week's work. I am staying away from the main forum and all of the sub boards except this one. I can spend too much time reading things about language learning, which I do enjoy and have found useful, but I want to really give myself now to learning these languages in my limited hours per day. I have enjoyed reading some of the logs, though, to see the study methods different ones have. Very inspiring! Everyone keep up the good work! :-) Edited by nancydowns on 18 March 2014 at 4:25pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| napoleon Tetraglot Senior Member India Joined 4821 days ago 543 posts - 874 votes Speaks: Bengali*, English, Hindi, Urdu Studies: French, Arabic (Written) | Message 26 of 196 18 March 2014 at 5:12am | IP Logged |
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Congratulations! You've done so much work. :)
It's great that you've reached unit 6 of FSI Spanish. :) Might I ask how you do FSI? Do you do all the drills from the tapes? Your progress on the MWA front is also impressive. :) BTW, are you doing the drills (tamareenu) from FSI MWA? 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Crush Tetraglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5670 days ago 1622 posts - 2299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto Studies: Basque | Message 27 of 196 18 March 2014 at 4:01pm | IP Logged |
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Wow it does look like you're making lots of progress!
¿Quieres que te escribamos en castellano? O ¿prefieres que te hablen en inglés todavía? Let us know if you'd rather people write you in Spanish ;) And i agree, you have to be careful about exploring all sections of the site, it can be a real time consumer! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| nancydowns Senior Member United States Joined 3727 days ago 184 posts - 288 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written) | Message 28 of 196 18 March 2014 at 5:27pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks Napoleon! Yes, I do all of the FSI Spanish drills. I will probably have to slow down in a few lessons, but so far, everything has been kind of
review because I am on Pimsleur III, and I have done 34 lessons of Coffee Break Spanish, so it is not new info. I am wondering if I should add a second wave to FSI also to do the scriptorium. I really enjoy doing that with the Assimil. I just don't want to add too much to do because my time each day is so limited! I may try doing it for a few lessons and see if it is something I want to continue. I am not sure that I can claim that my progress on MWA is very impressive because, so far, I don't spend much focused time on it. I use MWA as a listening tool to make sure I am hearing all of the letters correctly, and to work on my own pronunciation. I do read through the drills on my own, pronouncing each word. I count the drill part and reading the grammatical notes as focused work, but not the listening portion. I am finding the content quite boring! But I am going to try to stick with it and get through the first volume as quickly as possible. But I know that I am going to have to slow down because I looked ahead to later lessons, and there's a lot of reading! I think I am going to just make a key of vocab that I don't think is essential for me but is essential for reading the text in this program and keep it beside me as I read. I am sure I will start to absorb some of the vocab that way, anyway, even if I don't purposefully try to memorize it. I don't keep track of purely listening time, only focused study time. I updated my post above to add how many hours were specifically for last week. I wonder if people thought the total hours was referring to how many were just for last week? That total hours is how many hours I estimate I have spent of focused study per language since I first started studying. I think that will become more obvious once my numbers are higher. I just estimated for the time previous to last week and made it fairly low. I want to keep track from now on about how long I spend in focused study for my own curiosity and in case someone else is curious. The lessons listed above are the ones I am UP TO. Those will be the lessons I will start with next time I study... Have a great day! :-) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| nancydowns Senior Member United States Joined 3727 days ago 184 posts - 288 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written) | Message 29 of 196 18 March 2014 at 5:52pm | IP Logged |
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Thanks, Crush! Sí, por favor escribas en español si te gustaría! (as an aside, is gustar the correct verb to use in that sentence or should it be
desear?) I am still not so good with creating my own sentences. I can read and understand (if it is spoken slowly and of course with a limited vocabulary), but I am still so confused about where to put words in the sentence. But I am trying to stick with my programs. Before last week, I was so unfocused! I jumped around to different books and websites and never progressed in any of it. So I am just going to stick to Assimil and FSI in the order they present the material. Hopefully soon, I will be able to construct my own sentences, and I will start writing in Spanish, too! But in the meantime, I'd be glad if you feel up to writing in Spanish here! :-) I am so good at wasting time, so I just have to cut certain things out cold turkey if I am going to get anywhere! But I do find this log and the Arabic study group and the consistency log helpful. Also, I do sometimes look at others logs and see what methods they are using to see if I can find suggestions to enhance my own study time. Have a great day! :-) Edited to add: Please feel free to correct any Spanish I do write. I am very happy for corrections! :-) Edited by nancydowns on 18 March 2014 at 5:55pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| nancydowns Senior Member United States Joined 3727 days ago 184 posts - 288 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written) | Message 30 of 196 22 March 2014 at 4:38pm | IP Logged |
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I was working on my Spanish this morning, and I realized that I was dreading doing the FSI because I am so much ahead in Assimil. I know I will never get the
two to correspond, really, but working on the different tenses in Assimil and then going to the present tense only in FSI made the drills seem endless and boring and useless! So I have decided to hold off a little on my Assimil (although I will still do the scriptorium) and try to work really hard on FSI and "catch up" to Assimil. That way, there will be a reinforcement that happens between the two, and I will feel more motivated with the FSI. I do feel like I could use some more drills when I am done with an Assimil lesson, so using the FSI to reinforce Assimil will be nice. I think I will have to get all the way through volume 1, though, so I am going to have to do double time on it! Does anyone have any suggestions? :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Crush Tetraglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5670 days ago 1622 posts - 2299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto Studies: Basque | Message 31 of 196 22 March 2014 at 5:45pm | IP Logged |
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En esa frase creo que suena mejor utilizar o "desear" o "querer", es decir: "Por favor, escribe en español si quieres/deseas." También se puede decir "hazlo si te apetece". ¡Tienes un montón de opciones! :)
"Escribas" es la forma negativa del imperativo (también el subjuntivo). Un ejemplo: para dar una orden en positivo, dirías "¡escribe!", en negativo sería "¡no escribas!" Esta es la única forma que cambia, las demás serán siempre iguales (la forma de usted: "¡escriba! ¡no escriba!", de ustedes: "¡escriban! ¡no escriban!" de nosotros/nosotras: "¡escribamos! ¡no escribamos!"). A propósito de tu último post, yo creo que está bien. La verdad es que creo que los ejercicios de FSI son muy buenos para automatizar tu hablar, y creo que aunque sientas que ya dominas esas cosas (en este caso, el presente de indicativo), a lo mejor cuando quieres decir algo te cuesta, o tal vez te haga falta pensar un rato antes de hablar o no sepas con certeza si lo que has dicho está bien o no. En eso te ayudará un montón los ejercicios de FSI, pero si te desanima que parezca que el FSI avanza más lentamente que el curso de Assimil, no pasa nada si vas un poco más despacio con el Assimil. Pero creo que es importante saber que FSI está diseñado para tomar mucho más tiempo que el curso de Assimil, y además se supone que la gente va a pasar varias horas al día estudiándolo, mientras que el curso de Assimil sólo te pide media hora al día, así que es natural que avances más deprisa con Assimil que con FSI. Pero si te molesta eso, pues, no hay más que decir que "¡que lo hagas a tu manera!" 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| nancydowns Senior Member United States Joined 3727 days ago 184 posts - 288 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written) | Message 32 of 196 23 March 2014 at 1:41am | IP Logged |
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Wow, Crush! Thank you so much! I appreciate you writing in Spanish, and I definitely appreciate you explaining to me about the change in the negative
command for the tu form! I have so much to learn with verbs!!! And I definitely agree that Assimil is designed to move faster than FSI. My main problem is that I started Assimil quite a bit before I started FSI, like I was on lesson 20 before I started FSI... so that means I am WAAAAY behind! I am just going to take a few days this week to just review a little in Assimil and cram in as much as I can stand with the FSI and see how far I can get. But of course, I don't want to overload myself that I don't retain anything. I do all of the FSI drills. I think they are excellent, like you said to automate your speech. I have also added a second wave of scriptorium, to make sure I am retaining everything I learned. I will be quite a bit behind in that, but that's okay, it's how Assimil's second wave is designed. So yes, I guess I am doing it in my manner! :-) Ha ha! Besides verbs... my biggest struggle right now is with pronouns!!! I never can figure out all of these pronouns that come before the verbs. Sometimes it seems like half the sentence is pronouns! :-) But I am just kind of getting into that with Assimil, so hopefully it will soon get drilled into me! Thanks again for your very helpful post! If I could vote for it twice, I definitely would! :-) 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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