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19 messages over 3 pages: 1 2 3 Next >>

joshka
Newbie
United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 3349 days ago
14 posts - 14 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish, German

Message 1 of 19

12 March 2015 at 2:19am | IP Logged

Hi everyone,

I've been learning Spanish for about 2-3 years off and on, but with no real consistency. I know I
need to be studying every single day, but it just hasn't happened for me and sometimes I have
even gone a couple months without picking up a Spanish book. I want to try to remedy my
inconsistency, though, so I will be committing to put in 30 minutes per day at a minimum from now
until the end of July. Since I currently consider myself somewhere at the upper end A2, I'm hoping
to advance to a high B1 or even B2.

I have two reasons for picking the end of July as my deadline. First, that is when I am planning on
starting a new language (either German or Russian), so I want to be as comfortable as possible
with Spanish by that point, and 2) I am currently on unit 29 of Platiquemos and if it takes me
somewhere around 3 days per unit, I think I should just about finish it sometime in mid July.

That being said, the 'tools' I plan to use are:
1) Platiquemos
2) Assimil (just the notes) and Michel Thomas to fill in any grammatical gaps.
3) Skype conversations, aiming for at least 2 per week (if any of you Spanish speakers/learners
feel like adding me, I'd be thrilled :) )
4) Lastly, I'm currently somewhere in the middle of Notes in Spanish intermediate, so I'll continue
listening to that when I can and follow up with NiS advanced.
1 person has voted this message useful

joshka
Newbie
United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 3349 days ago
14 posts - 14 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish, German

Message 2 of 19

12 March 2015 at 2:47am | IP Logged

On a related note, if any of you have done Platiquemos before, is there a particular method you
used? Or did you just read through it and make sure you understood/remembered everything before
moving on... ?
1 person has voted this message useful

joshka
Newbie
United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 3349 days ago
14 posts - 14 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish, German

Message 3 of 19

13 March 2015 at 2:52am | IP Logged

Finished Platiquemos unit 29 today. It was pretty short so it only took a couple hours total. It's quite
a bit easier than previous units, in my opinion. Clitics still take a little while to do on the fly, but I think
I'm generally starting to get it.

I also went through my anki deck for my Platiquemos units up to this point. So far so good.

(Also, I just found the Big Bang Theory online in Spanish. Amazing. I just wish they also had the
subtitles available.)

Edited by joshka on 13 March 2015 at 4:36am
1 person has voted this message useful

joshka
Newbie
United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 3349 days ago
14 posts - 14 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish, German

Message 4 of 19

13 March 2015 at 11:55pm | IP Logged

A question for all you Anki users: When you create cards in Anki, do you typically put individual
words/vocabulary or do you tend to insert entire sentences?
1 person has voted this message useful

James29
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5177 days ago
1265 posts - 2113 votes

Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: French

Message 5 of 19

14 March 2015 at 2:01am | IP Logged

Your post sounds a lot like mine did when I started Spanish... trying to get in 30 minutes a day consistently. Find something you like and then just stick with it. Once it becomes a habit it will be easy.

In terms of Platiquemos/FSI think doing the lesson at 90+% would be a good idea before moving on.
1 person has voted this message useful

joshka
Newbie
United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 3349 days ago
14 posts - 14 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish, German

Message 6 of 19

14 March 2015 at 2:46am | IP Logged

James29 wrote:

Your post sounds a lot like mine did when I started Spanish... trying to get in 30
minutes a day consistently. Find something you like and then just stick with it. Once it becomes a
habit it will be easy.

In terms of Platiquemos/FSI think doing the lesson at 90+% would be a good idea before moving on.

Thanks!
If you don't mind me asking, what do you mean by doing it at 90+% ?? Do you mean understanding
that much of it (basically, being able to give the right response 90% of the time or do you mean
specifically being able to respond correctly within the short amount of time on the audio clips?
1 person has voted this message useful

James29
Diglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5177 days ago
1265 posts - 2113 votes

Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: French

Message 7 of 19

14 March 2015 at 11:09am | IP Logged

I mean doing the lesson to the point where you are giving correct answers in the short amount of time at least 90% of the time. In actuality, I did it a bit different. I just did each lesson three times and by the third time I was usually able to give nearly all of the answers in the space given. I found that the last 10 lessons were a bit too hard and so I just did the best I could with them.

FSI can be overwhelming so just do what you can and try to move through it at a good pace that is right for you.
1 person has voted this message useful

joshka
Newbie
United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 3349 days ago
14 posts - 14 votes
Speaks: English*
Studies: Spanish, German

Message 8 of 19

14 March 2015 at 1:26pm | IP Logged

James29 wrote:

I mean doing the lesson to the point where you are giving correct answers in the
short amount of time at least 90% of the time. In actuality, I did it a bit different. I just did each
lesson three times and by the third time I was usually able to give nearly all of the answers in the
space given. I found that the last 10 lessons were a bit too hard and so I just did the best I could with
them.

FSI can be overwhelming so just do what you can and try to move through it at a good pace that is
right for you.

Thanks for the feedback. I'm really enjoying FSI so far except for the fact that a good portion of the
Spanish audio is by an American. It would be much better for accent if it was all native. I'm still a bit
torn between Latin American and European Spanish, but since Platiquemos seems to be the best
program I've found, I'm going with that.

1 person has voted this message useful

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