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8 weeks to build Spanish Vocabulary | ||
Tags: Vocabulary learning | Spanish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7203 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 1 of 15 11 September 2006 at 8:16pm | IP Logged |
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The diversion continues...
This is my plan for building vocabulary over the next 8 weeks or so. I like the 8 week plan, because it isn't so long that it's difficult to carry on, but is sufficient time to hopefully make some measureable process. I'm still plodding through FSI Basic Spanish, but it's been tougher getting through unit 47 than just about any other unit I remember. The sentences are long, the pauses are short (since I edited the audio). I'm looking for another diversion in the vain hope that this will get easier when I come back to it. Perhaps it will still be tough, but expanding my vocabulary in the meantime seems worthwhile. My previous 7 week study program (Diversion into Programmatic Spanish) was a hope that FSI Basic would be easier when I got back to it, and also a desire to break up what at times seems like a grueling course. This time, rather than the vague goals of "it will be easier after a review", and "I need a break", I'm making this diversion a vocabulary enrichment break. Although I'm not going to have a specific metric, I'll use my comprehension of new material as my measuring stick to see if the following program was effective. I'm making up the program on the spot, although I've been thinking about the possiblilities for some time. Part 1 is to continue with FSI Basic Spanish. My goal is to get the dialogs and the illustrative sentences down for units 47-55. I may consider 47 down well enough, but that depends on if I get any study of 48 done tonight after this creative composition. If I did 1 unit a week, this will take about 8 weeks. That still leaves some time at the end of the year to come back through the drills. Since I want this 8 week program to be fun, I'm going to leave out the FSI readings for the time being. If I can repeat the dialogs and illustrations with ease and understanding two months from now, I'll consider this component a success. Part 2 is a reading in a "daily meditations" book. These are short, only a couple of paragraphs and sometimes have a bit of new vocab and it's relevant in my life. If I can read new meditations from this book aloud with ease and understanding the first time through, this will indicate great success. Part 3 is news program of about 10 minutes Monday - Friday. There are a couple of these on the net. My goal here is to be able to understand news broadcasts without much effort. The frequently repeated words and themes in the news should make this doable. I can understand the news okay already if I pay attention. I'm hoping to reduce the effort required and increase my comprehension by the end of this experiment. If I can listen to a 30 minute news program like http://voanews.com buenos.mp3 with ease, this 8 week goal will be achieved. Part 4 is vocabulearn. I'm going to use this on my commute home and make up sentences on the fly. I wrote a word usage approach for vocabulearn that I'm going to try. I don't plan on completing all 12 CDs in this run. My goal is to get more comfortable extemporaneously using the words from 1-16 in the URL plan above. If I can go through the eight CDs with relative ease and have fun making up crazy sentences for the majority of the prompts, this part will be a tremendous success. Part 5 is audiobooks. I have "La Casa en Mango Street", "Angeles y Demonios", and "El Código Da Vinci", as well as "Don Quixote" and "Santa Biblia". For this 8 weeks, I'll start with La Casa, which I understand pretty well, and have only pages 96-112 to study carefully. I've started both of the Dan Brown books before, but haven't finished them. Since they'll be part of my study program, rather than a guilty pleasure, perhaps I can find my way through them. My goal here is that if I were to re-listen to these audiobooks later, my comprehension would be very high. Here I'm not studying the books, just trying to get a high passive understanding. Santa Biblia and Don Quixote are for some other 8 week program. There's about time for two 8 week programs before the end of the year. If I were to criticize the program above, I'd say I'm missing some concentration on grammar. Perhaps the final 8 weeks of the year will see a new program with a grammar component. Edited by luke on 11 September 2006 at 8:24pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7203 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 2 of 15 17 September 2006 at 5:02pm | IP Logged |
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Week 1. Significant revision of plans.
I stumbled through FSI Basic unit 47. I still don't have it down. I did supplement a bit with Practice Makes Perfect Spanish Verb Tenses and Madrigal's Magic Key discussion of the imperfect subjunctive. One obstacle is although this unit is important, it's bugging the hell out of me. I started unit 48 on Saturday, it's it's much more accessible. I actually started working with the dialog earlier in the week. The drills in 48 don't seem to bad at the moment, though I haven't been all the way through yet. Part 2 - daily meditations - I've done this. It should be easy to keep going on. Part 3 - radio program. I listened to several 10 minute programs this week. Didn't study them in depth though. Part 4 - vocabulearn. I tried this on Monday morning, and it just wasn't fun. Haven't been back. Part 5 - La Casa is on my mp3 player, so I have heard it a bit. More significant was my listening to another audiobook I had been reading/shadowing. Since I listen to the tape in my car, I was mainly trying to repeat the audio, which is good as far as knowing that I understand what is being said. This felt good. I did think I should study with the book, but this made a nice diversion from unit 47, which I was avoiding. I picked up Practical Spanish Grammar this weekend and started going through it. I believe it has 15 lessons. I did lesson 1 and have started on 2. It should be pretty easy and a reasonable review. I did note in my trailing comment last week that I needed a grammar component. Well, here it is. I think I'll continue logging to this thread for the next 8 weeks or so. One other thing I slipped in was Streetwise Spanish. There will be a conference in town in about 10 weeks that I believe will have a lot of Spanish speakers. The street study could be very helpful for interacting with the natives. I've replaced Assimil Using Spanish (from the previous diversion thread) with Streetwise. This is the morning CD I listen to while shaving, etc. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7203 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 3 of 15 24 September 2006 at 8:14pm | IP Logged |
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Week 2.
Wandered through FSI unit 48. Started unit 49 on Saturday night. Not expecting to have the unit mastered, but rather just trying to make progress. Did parts 2 and 3 of the program. Haven't studied the radio programs, but haven't felt guilty about listening to them. I started passive listening to Read and Think in Spanish. It's on my mp3 player with lots of other things. I've also been listening to the same audiobook on tape in the car when I don't feel like FSI drilling. This is the book I've listened to several times and I understand almost everything I hear. I echo the tape at times. In Practical Spanish grammar, I finished lesson 2 and 3. In Streetwise Spanish, I've listened to most of the dialogs. Haven't studied them per se, but understand the slang in almost all of them. This has been more fun than Assimil Using Spanish in the same time slot. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7203 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 4 of 15 01 October 2006 at 6:44pm | IP Logged |
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Week 3.
Did a first pass though unit 49 in FSI Basic Spanish. Also did parts 2 and 3 of the 8 week program. On the passive listening, or listening while doing other things front, I found some interesting podcasts and cultural mp3s from the U of Toronto. I feel better about my listening skills this week. I also listened to tapes 5 and 6 in my car of the audiobook I've been studying. That book seems to be coming together nicely as far as the audio is concerned. I am thinking I'll go through it some more with the book to catch any words that are floating by. In Practical Spanish I did lesson 4. In the shaving time slot, I've wandered into books 1 and 2 from Street Spanish. This again is primarily listening, and not studying the material per se. Although not directly related to studying, I've got the audio edited up through unit 53 and most of 54. It will be good to have all of that out of the way. I'm still planning to walk through to unit 55 one unit a week, even if I haven't got the drills down nor have done the readings. Edited by luke on 01 October 2006 at 6:45pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7203 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 5 of 15 08 October 2006 at 12:07pm | IP Logged |
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Week 4.
Went though unit 50 in FSI Basic Spanish. Most of that takes place during telecommutes, but I frequently switch to an audiobook on tape, or the radio. I'm not beating my head against FSI at the moment. Several days during the week I will read/listen/speak/shadow the dialog and illustrative sentences for the week. With the audio edits I did to them, these quick reviews can take as little as five minutes for the lessons that have shorter dialogs. The long dialog lessons may take 15 minutes to read/speak/shadow. Did parts 2 and 3 of the 8 week program. Haven't studied the news broadcasts per se, but doing this 5 days a week for about 10 minutes per day is all part of the discipline. I think the news component is something I can keep long term as a way to use the language. In Practical Spanish Grammar I did lesson 5 and the exam for lessons 1-5. I scored myself 94%. For the morning listening routine and the bathtub, I listened to Street Spanish 3. Not studying per se, but trying to get a good handle on the dialogs that comprise the 3 Street Spanish books as well as Streetwise Spanish, and three bonuses from learningSpanishlikecrazy, the dichos (sayings) and non-vulgar and vulgar insults. The vulgar insults mp3 is setup so it could be a translation drill. If I recall correctly, the other two mp3s would need to be edited if I wanted them to be English then Spanish for a translation exercise. Haven't done that yet. I did finish the audio edits of unit 55 of FSI, so I've been editing other audio for lessons. The two I've worked on this week is the UofT cultural mp3s in my previous post. They don't need much editing, but occasionally the reader will repeat a sentence or a phrase because he didn't like how he did it the first time. The other new audio in the podcast world is Spanish Segunda Lengua. SSL doesn't need much editing either, but since it was originally delivered a couple times a month, rather than as something to listen to episode after episode, I cut off the opening and closing music and repeated farewell messages. Also, each podcast has a dialog that is delivered at first slowly, then it is discussed in Spanish, then it is repeated again at a normal pace. I copy the normal paced audio from the end of the lesson to the beginning. Other podcasts have been showing up on my mp3player more regularly of late, as opposed to slogging through fsi dialogs, conversation stimulus, assimil lessons, ultimate Spanish dialogs, etc. I don't know if it's coincidence or not, but switching to real live sources like podcasts seems to have helped my listening comprehension a lot lately. Or perhaps, this 8 week program is doing it's own magic. Edited by luke on 08 October 2006 at 12:10pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7203 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 6 of 15 15 October 2006 at 4:53pm | IP Logged |
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Week 5.
Went through FSI Basic Spanish unit 51, at least according to the plan. That is, I got a good handle on the dialogue and illustrations. Some of the drills were relatively easy, so I did them. Moving on to unit 52. Did the daily readings and some newscast listening. Not taking these tasks too seriously, but generally have listened to a newscast each day. I noticed I was behind two days in daily readings, so I just did them. What a wonderful thing this log is for making me do some things I otherwise might not. I did lesson 6 in Practical Spanish Grammar, most of it today for the same reason mentioned above. I also have his "Advanced Spanish Grammar" book, which is very similar, but all in Spanish. I've been tempted to jump into that and abort the current book, but have resisted. I saw a fantatic thread that made me think just reading through the advanced book and skipping all the exercises would be a good thing to do in the bathtub some weekend. Street Spanish has been in the shaving slot the past week. Something magnificent happened this weekend. I started listening to and reading along to Angeles y Demonios during a comfortable bath and I got so interested in the story I've read way way way ahead, in English. For me the revelation is that I can read a novel and not get preoccupied before the story takes off. So the current plan on this front is to finish the book in English because it's fun. When I sit down at the computer, like right now, I start listening ahead in Spanish. Reading the thing ahead in English seems like a good way to get the audiobook into my Spanish study rotation. I've noticed during the later CDs (I'm listening to CD 9 of 18 at the moment) seem to have lopped out some of the reader's dramatic pauses. Perhaps that's why I gave up on the book half way through when I was doing it during a massive road trip a couple months ago. Oddly, the very last CD has less than 15 minutes of audio. Makes me think the publisher computer edited the audio to save CD count. I suspect a similar but more pronounced buthering technique in Zondervan's NVI Santa Biblia audiobook. If one is interested in that work, I'd recommend searching the fine web, as there's better audio in Spanish mp3's out there for a Reina Valera 2000 version for free. My mp3 player continues to be refreshed with podcasts and newscasts, rather than audio from Spanish courses. Sometimes I feel like I'm being lazy, other times I think I'm being more productive. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7203 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 7 of 15 22 October 2006 at 4:20pm | IP Logged |
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Week 6.
I finished Angels and Demons in English. 710 pages in the copy I have, but other releases are formatted differently and have less pages. That's quite an accomplishment for me, and some tribute to the story, which is pretty good. Now I've started going through the audiobook and book in Spanish. I've shadowed the first CD over the last 2 days. This works well in the bathtub. The speaker has a very rich voice, and having my chest underwater helps me to use the same vocal range as he does. He has a slow, deliberate pace, which makes the shadowing very doable. Shadowing also helps me focus my attention on the story. I realize now that when I used the same audiobook on my road trip a couple months ago, it was somewhat over my head, as there are a fair number of words I hadn't seen or heard before. Now that I've read through it in English, it's much more comprehensible. I also pick up some vocabulary along the way. Words like "echo" and "wheelchair". Other phrases like "He furrowed is brow" are comprehesible, but not quite so obvious. Overall, a very good experiment. I've started FSI unit 53 and continue to focus primarily on the dialogue and illustrative sentences. I'm looking forward to making it through the material for the first time. The last two units (54 and 55) are shorter. 55 has some drills I think I may be able to handle pretty well this first time though. I actually started 53 on Thursday, rather than Friday just because I felt like moving on. I read my morning meditation book and passively listened to the news. Why do I focus more on things I'm not supposed to be focusing on? (E.G. why did I spend more time with the news programs when it wasn't part of my 8 week program?) The news is becoming easier to understand, but I think I'd bring that skill up faster if I really focused on it. I did lesson 7 in Prados Spanish Grammar. That's a good discipline for me. I'm thinking of following this book up with his advanced book when the time comes. I actually think Prado's Grammar book would have been even better if I had been doing it slowly, gradually along with the FSI course. That would have been very doable, as it's taken me it seems like 2 years to go through the FSI course. I think the book work would have made things easier. Live and learn. Anyway, that's why I'm thinking the followup with the advanced book will be good for when I'm reviewing the FSI course. I belive both books are meant for something like the duration of a semester at the university. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7203 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 8 of 15 29 October 2006 at 8:35pm | IP Logged |
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Week 7.
I've listened to and read along through page 163 of 606 in Ángeles y Demonios. It's a little slower going than reading it in English, but still pleasant. I've got the "furrowed his/her brow" line down pretty well. (That's a joke). I raced through units 53 and 54 in FSI Basic. I've been doing unit 55 for a few days. I'm already planning for the big review. I've actually started the first couple units of review, but will officially kick that off in a few days. The morning meditation and news have gone fine. I do think my comprehension is up in both areas. The Voice of America News looks like it will worm it's way into my day. I brought my healthrider upstairs where my computer is so I can watch the 10 minute daily news show and get some exercise. I haven't finished lesson 8 in Prado's grammar yet, not because it's hard, but rather because I've been doing it while watching TV, and the comprehension drill that goes along with the dialogue needs more attention than I've given it to this point. Edited by luke on 29 October 2006 at 8:43pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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