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Review: Gramática de uso del Español | ||
Tags: Language Program | Spanish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5020 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes  Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 9 of 24 25 May 2015 at 2:23pm | IP Logged | |||||
When I taught Spanish I always could fit the differences between the two main branches of Spanish (specific vocabulary is another matter) in a smallish sheet of paper. Resources for each variant should need only very minor adjustments to work perfectly for the other. What would you say needs more elaboration, space, etc.? On monolingual resources (other than this grammar), maybe it would be worth to start a new thread...
Although I'm definitely no newbie, and I'm sure I wasn't being addressed by these comments, I'd like to comment on that myself. The problems with most monolingual resources I've seen are very real, so I think being wary, rather than afraid, of them is not completely irrational... (: -Monolingual resources tend to be made by 'lazy natives', or not necessarily aimed at learners, resulting in a departure from that ideal you list that ends up in the feared over-challenging. The RAE dictionary provided my Russian friends with an egregious example of this.* -Learners who are in principle able to handle such resources speak already at least one native language. This could be used to explain rather than dumb down stuff to the point where it's comprehensible without using language. This is more prominent at the beginner levels. -Beginners may be hindered in their learning by their own native language. Monolingual resources, by definition, never address these special needs, i.e. differences between the target language and your native one that should be kept in mind at all times. Mind you, I'm not your monolingual English-speaking learner either, but I still prefer being given any necessary explanations in English, or, actually, in any language I understand better than the target, not necessarily my native one. So, monolingual resources? Definitely yes, but check beforehand to see if they're actually aimed at learners, and appropriately so (i.e. levels, etc.). As an experienced learner, I can overcome myself most shortcomings in learning materials, monolingual or not -- but that doesn't mean I enjoy having to do it. Maybe my time would be better spent on looking for better suited materials :) ---- *Two years ago, some Russian friends of mine thought that their immersion environment (all-Spanish outside their household) and the monolingual RAE dictionary would be all their 13yo child would need. While I was tutoring him, the child came to me and told me the dictionary was useless. A bit surprised, I checked myself, and I had to think hard of many definitions to understand them and/or see they were accurate! At 12-13, he 'suddenly' needed to expand his vocabulary way beyond than his siblings', and most of these 'easy' new words had definitions given in too technical / convoluted terms. If his Spanish peers had to relay on the DRAE alone just like him, I doubt they'd pick them at all. With my advice, their simple bilingual dictionary worked much better in their situation: when the child didn't know the Russian equivalent of a word either, at least his parents could explain what it meant, in terms he could understand. I'm sorry I didn't write down the specific words he came to me with -- you'd be amazed at how difficult some 'easy' words can be made by monolingual dictionaries. Anyway, I just thought of "gatear" (I'm guessing any native speaker will think of 'what babies who start to crawl on all fours do' -- I would. Well, check this out :) 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5056 days ago 2237 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 10 of 24 25 May 2015 at 2:56pm | IP Logged | |||||
Did you not see my caveat?
I was the one who recommended Gramática de uso del españolto James29. I thought it would help him because it is specifically designed for learners and designed well. To further clarify: I am not in favor of beginners using solely monolingual materials for learning. I'm just saying they shouldn't be ignored and could help as part of a complete language-learning program- i.e. a multi-track approach. Edited by iguanamon on 25 May 2015 at 2:57pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5020 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 11 of 24 25 May 2015 at 3:18pm | IP Logged | |||||
I did, and I didn't interpret you said to use monolingual resources only, so maybe I need to further clarify what I wanted to convey: No sample is representative of its class unless carefully chosen, and learners shouldn't rely on monolingual resources just because good ones exist, nor avoid them entirely just because there are bad ones. You recommended a good monolingual resource, and any others that share its positive traits should be equally recommendable. Cool. I tried to illustrate how and why some *other* resources I bumped into are not the best for learners, not to invalidate or somehow contradict your points, or recommendations, especially about that book in particular. What's wrong with my previous post? 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4803 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 12 of 24 25 May 2015 at 4:45pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Why would I like to see separate resources of some kinds, that is not something based on the amount of the differences. But rather on a kind of chaos and unnecessary worry many learners face when being shown two different sets of rules at once. By having them both in the exercises. And a self-studying learner could sometimes do with clearer frame of what the differences are. I've used quite a wide range of resources so far and I have yet to find something that would be clear. If you know such a resource, I'd be excited.
I think most of your bad experience with monolingual resources made by lazy natives has nothing to do with the resources being monolingual. Vast majority of courses, grammars, exercise books and so on is horrible. Of course the monolingual resources are unlikely to be an exception. You are right we might need a thread on monolingual resources and I'd be very grateful for your tips on what resources to avoid. Your argument with bilingual resources being necessarily better comes with with a few catches, in my opinion: -very often, the monolingual source is just of much better quality than the bilingual ones. I am usually for a combination of both. Lazy authors that don't understand the learner are on both sides of this barricade, you need to be careful all the time. -Sure, an English or French native can choose from a wide range but many others cannot. Very often, we are choosing between monolingual sources and bilingual with a different target language. Or a really crap bilingual in our native language. -I think you overestimate the special needs of various natives. By spoonfeeding people and using their native language too much, you might as well keep them thinking in their language and translating in their head forever or they might just develop the set of mistakes in the target language that is typical of their compatriots. Trully, bilingual doesn't always mean better suited. About the monolingual dictionary experience: I totally agree monolingual dictionaries are usually quite useless for beginners and most intermediates. They have their uses but worshiping them, like some of my former teachers did, that is purely wrong. But monolingual dictionaries are something totally different from resources like the grammar discussed in this thread. Monolingual dictionary is usually not aimed at learner (well, my English Macmillan is and the differences are very clear), while monolingual courses, grammarbooks with exercises, vocabulary builders etc. are. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5169 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 13 of 24 25 May 2015 at 6:40pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I only skimmed the last few posts. But, I'd like to add that I would not have ever sought out this resource (or found it) had it not been recommended by iguanamon or someone else. I would have been reluctant to do a mono-lingual program.
That being said, I must say that the fact that this book is mono-lingual is not at all even noticeable. It is so obvious what they are saying and they don't rely on Spanish hardly at all, but, rather, things like circles, arrows and X-ing out words. There might have been some things that could have been more easily explained simply by saying something like "this is done exactly the same as in English" or something like that, but other than that I found the fact that it was all in Spanish a complete non-issue. I did not really get into it in my review, but this is not at all a book for vocabulary. That's where English makes a big difference as it is much simpler to understand vocabulary with a translation than it is with a mono-lingual definition. I don't understand why these sorts of resources are not more popular with companies. It drastically reduces the amount of editions they need to make. This book can be used by 100% of learners regardless of base language. Think about how many resources companies like Assimil pump into changing the base language of their courses... or how many potential customers the English only base programs are losing. 6 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4803 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 14 of 24 25 May 2015 at 8:10pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I've used many monolingual resources. Classes use them around here, individual learners, class learners looking for further and better supplements to use on their own, quite everyone learning languages. There are high quality Czech-TL resources for several languages but still the monolingual ones beat them and offer much wider choice. Really, the dependence on bilingual editions and distrust towards monolingual sources is, in my opinion, just a matter of being used to such sources being always at hand.
These kinds of resources are extremely popular at least anywhere outside the countries where a huge language is spoken. Because while huge international publishing companies make normally separate editions for natives of English, French, German, Spanish... they certainly don't make them that often for natives of Czech, Polish, Swedish, Croatian and so on. I think monolingual vocabulary books need to be distinguished in two categories. 1.monolingual dictionaries. Yes, there are some awesome uses for those but I overall agree that it is much better to just find that "perro" means "dog" instead of going through a lengthy description 2.monolingual vocabulary builders Those are meant for learners, usually include a lot of pictures and examples, they count with the level the learner is approximately at. Yes, you need a dictionary at times but that doesn't mean the book is bad (complaining about needing a dictionary in the era of super fast and comfortable online dictionaries, that would be pure laziness in my opinion). It is just a much better option than a simple wordlist, in my opinion. Examples of Spanish vocabulary builders I've been using and found to be of good quality: Vocabulario published by Anaya, three volumes (A1-A2; B1;B2) Viva el Vocabulario published by En Clave ELE, two volumes (A1-B1; B1-B2) 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6391 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 15 of 24 26 May 2015 at 12:29am | IP Logged | |||||
Thanks for pointing this out! I found the book in Central Asia. Hmm, not impressed by the humour so far, but there are football mentions at least. And yeah, in Finland most textbooks are monolingual. A Finnish base is only the default choice for English, Swedish or Estonian (at least that was my impression). Russian, German, French seem borderline and the rest are mostly monolingual, even Spanish. There are obviously many English-based books as well. Edited by Serpent on 26 May 2015 at 12:34am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4803 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 16 of 24 26 May 2015 at 1:07am | IP Logged | |||||
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I think I should have writen the part "by far not as dry" in bold letters with capslock on. ;-)
But really, two example sentences made me laugh out loud already while I am still far from the end of the book, that's not a bad score. Ok, I just might have really bad sense of humour too, that's the other option. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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