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Trip to Guatemala-Course Suggestions | ||
Tags: Latin America | Immersion | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| ShawnP Newbie United States Joined 3356 days ago 4 posts - 4 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 1 of 6 28 June 2015 at 5:49pm | IP Logged |
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Hello all. Yesterday, I booked a 1-way ticket to Guatemala for Jan 2016. Consider myself a A2-low B1 level. I plan to stay in Guatemala a minimum of 3-4 weeks at different immersion schools then travel up through Belize and to a friends house in Cozumel. Other than listening to a LOT of audio, please recommend your suggested order of study over my next 6 months. I hope to spend most of my time in Guatemala working on my conversational skills and not learning from a textbook. I ask because most of you have been at it much longer than I. I'm also a fulltime Masters degree student so I plan to study Spanish no more than 2 hours a day.
I have PIMSLEUR 1-4, FLUENZ Spanish 1-5, ASSIMIL (WITH EASE), and FSI Spanish (downloaded w/books). I don't feel I could make it through all these and retain most of it. If you were planning a trip as I am, what would do? Many thanks for suggestions. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5049 days ago 2237 posts - 6731 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 2 of 6 28 June 2015 at 7:00pm | IP Logged |
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First, welcome to the forum! As a master's degree student, I don't see how you even have two hours a day to study Spanish, but I'll accept that. You have six full months to learn. Don't let yourself be limited by the material you have. If you are indeed A2/B1 level, then you have already learned everything Assimil and Pimsleur 1,2,3 have to teach you. If you have the FSI Basic Course, I would do that for an hour a day and work my way through the intermediate texts with some audio on the Centro Virtual Cervantes Aveteca- scroll down to the appropriate level. You could, as an alternative, work your way through the intermediate articles on Veinte Mundos. Each one has about 10 minutes of audio, downloadable in mp3 and pdf- all free and they will help you consolidate your Spanish.
Why wait until you get to Guatemala? For $10 US/hour you can get a one on one tutor from Guatemala via skype with plqe.org or nulengua.com. Edited by iguanamon on 28 June 2015 at 7:02pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| ShawnP Newbie United States Joined 3356 days ago 4 posts - 4 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 3 of 6 28 June 2015 at 8:13pm | IP Logged |
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Iguanamon, thanks for your input. I've been a troll here for a while but never had a reason to speak up. I've been at Spanish for a bit, however, my comprehension far exceeds my speaking or writing. Just retired from the military so just schooling, no working. That's how I can swing it.
I did survive a 30 minute conversation on TalkAbroad with a Colombian woman last week. It wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. I also took 2 Spanish classes this semester at the local university. By self study alone from Lingq, Destinos, and Assimil, mostly Lingq, I tested out on the placement test as a junior. All listening and reading. My last Spanish class ends this coming Thursday so I'll be able to devote a lot of time to self study once again in preparation for my trip. I've been wanting to have a go at FSI anyway, so with your suggestion I think I'll do just that with a little reading as you suggested. Guess I'll just have to get to talking. Many thanks. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5162 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 4 of 6 28 June 2015 at 10:12pm | IP Logged |
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Spend an hour a day on FSI.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 4796 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 5 of 6 28 June 2015 at 10:35pm | IP Logged |
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-despite you not wanting this piece of advice: :-D get the listening skills really high (sorry, I don't know what level "junior" is, so you might already be comfortable with listening to normal speech). That is one of the best things you can do before going to the country, from my experience. For example, rtve.es is awesome, there are many tv series and radio etc. but it is all european Spanish.
-get the grammar down. People sometimes struggle to believe it but a large part of lack of fluency and easiness of speaking is actually a symptome of not having learnt the grammar well enough. I can recommend Gramatica de uso del espanol, it is totally awesome, but there are others as well. FSI should work great too, there is quite a lot of Spanish FSI learners among htlalers and they appear very content with the results. The time you spend on grammar now will pay off in the country, especially as you don't want to burden yourself with studying once you get there. -Pimsleur is far bellow your level, I suppose. Assimil isn't in general bad at all but I think the Spanish one, from what I've tried, is not as awesome as some others. But it could still be of some value. Fluenz, from the demo and website and everything, is probably a very good (despite the price) beginner resource. So, again bellow what you need. Iguanamnon's advice is sound as always. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| ShawnP Newbie United States Joined 3356 days ago 4 posts - 4 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 6 of 6 01 July 2015 at 1:05am | IP Logged |
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James29/Cavesa,
I appreciate your input. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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