My journey to Spanish fluency

[westminstress]

It's been a while since I posted. I had a vacation and a couple of really crazy work weeks. Nothing much to report. I've continued my listening practice and have continued to read Hija de la Fortuna. I haven't been able to bring myself to do any grammar or word study. Even when I read, I don't look up unknown words. I just don't feel like it. I know I would learn faster if I made efforts to remember the unknown words I encounter. But I am just not in the mood to do that right now. I figure it is better at least to keep getting regular input.

I've also had a few Spanish Skype lessons with a teacher from Guatemala. I'm not sure yet how helpful they are. The teacher tends to focus a lot on grammar points. But my spoken Spanish is horrible so it is definitely good to practice speaking. I am constantly running into situations where I don't know a word I want to use and have to talk around the word. This despite the fact that I can read almost anything in Spanish. I am going to keep the classes up for now, and I think some more informal language exchanges would also be helpful.

One thing that really became clear during my conversations is that I really need to work on my verb conjugations. I was doing this for a while on Memrise and it was so painful and seemed to go so slowly that I gave up. But I think I need to pick it up again because I do really need the practice.

[Lauralala]

I recommend you taking a course online at www.lingua-online.com. It costs 12 dollars and the teachers are Spanish, so you will learn the original Spanish, and they offer personalised courses

[westminstress]

I was just about to post, and then I read my last post and realized I could have written the same thing again! I'm still listening and watching and reading Hija de la fortuna, though I only have about 20 pages to go. I've had, I think, three Spanish lessons now? They are going OK. I definitely need the practice. One thing I noticed immediately is that I really need to continue drilling my verb conjugations until they are automatic and I don't have to think about them. Thinking about verb conjugations really affects the fluidity of my speech. So I am slowly getting back into Memrise practice, which is primarily verb drills. I am almost done clearing my backlog of about 700 words to review and am getting ready to start learning some new ones.

I have noticed lately that my listening skills have improved again. I seem to understand most things I hear. For example, I have noticed that the reports from Latin America that are part of the VOA newscast have become noticeably easier to understand.

Speaking is another matter. My output significantly lags behind input. I forget words, my pronunciation is horrible, grammar is bad, etc. I have read some posts lately suggesting that if you just keep going with the input, output will eventually follow. I think I would actually benefit from more output practice (for example, I think writing exercises could be helpful), but I'm not sure I have time right now to add more Spanish activities to my plate.

I also think I might benefit from more careful recording of my activities so I am going to try to keep better track of what I am doing and report every week.

[iguanamon]

Hija de la fortuna and the follow-up novel Retrato en sepia, are my favorite Isabel Allende books.

Verb conjugations are indeed very important and do need to become automatic. For me, I find drills do that job nicely. The FSI basic course uses many drills and this provides the value of using the course. You can also search for Spanish verb conjugation drills and try some as an alternative.

The "journey" is long and we all get impatient with its progress at times. It takes the time it takes, and it often takes more time than we may think or want. At the intermediate level, progress can't be seen as clearly and quickly as it can be in the beginner levels. The progress is slower but deeper. You appear to be doing what it takes to get there. Just keep up the good work and keep the faith.

[westminstress]

Thank you so much! I really appreciate the support. I actually did complete an FSI course the last time I tried to teach myself Spanish (7-8 years ago). I did find that the verbal aspect of the course and all the drills really helped with speaking. I've actually been idly thinking about going back to FSI for this reason. But when I did it before, I had no kids and could walk to work, so it was a lot easier to incorporate the spoken drills into my commuting time. And also, FSI is so boring! Really painful. I don't know if I can handle the drudgery again.

I'm almost done with Hija de la fortuna! Next up is La casa de los espíritus but after that I will read Retrato en sepia for sure!

[MmeFleiss]

Thank you so much! I really appreciate the support. I actually did complete an FSI course the last time I tried to teach myself Spanish (7-8 years ago). I did find that the verbal aspect of the course and all the drills really helped with speaking. I've actually been idly thinking about going back to FSI for this reason. But when I did it before, I had no kids and could walk to work, so it was a lot easier to incorporate the spoken drills into my commuting time. And also, FSI is so boring! Really painful. I don't know if I can handle the drudgery again.

I'm almost done with Hija de la fortuna! Next up is La casa de los espíritus but after that I will read Retrato en sepia for sure!

I'm having the same issue although I'm not as far along in Spanish as you are. I'm able to read and listen quite well (at least up to intermediate-level stuff), but I definitely struggle with the verb conjugation questions when I read the follow-up questions in some graded readers. I'm thinking of adding in the verb conjugation book from the Practice Makes Perfect Series. The only reason I've been putting it off is my copy is currently in storage.

[Cavesa]

Hi, I really like your log, thanks for writing it!

I'd like to put in a good word about the conjugation drilling. I know people dislike it and often call verb drilling useless and one of the reasons for which they hated learning languages at school. However, there is always a clear difference between larners who have learnt their conjugations well and those that haven't. And you cannot move over certain level without it. Sure, it can be done without SRS or drilling in general, but I dare say most people need the drill, at least for some verbs. Sure, tons of input help. Speaking helps (or you can fossilize mistakes, true). But simply drilling the verbs can save you lots of trouble in the long run. Which Memrise verb course have you been using? I really like those by edthird, as there is no translation included to complicate the drilling.

[garyb]

I agree about the verb conjugation drilling. Spanish verbs are pretty complicated and producing them is a lot trickier than recognising them. A little specific practice helps a lot alongside the usual input and conversation. I like to do some Conjuguemos exercises if I have a spare few minutes; there might be better resources out there, but that's one of the first ones I found and it does the job.

[westminstress]

Hi everyone, I hope all is going well for you in the world of language learning (and otherwise)! I am plugging away. In the last couple of weeks I have:

Reading: Finished Hija de la fortuna (loved!) and started La casa de los espíritus (love!). I'm on page 43. I'm having to take a short break though because I really need to read some work-related English language books that I have been putting off for a while. I really wish these books were translated into Spanish because then I could kill two birds with one stone!

Listening: I continue to listen to the VOA news nearly every day, and I'm also making some headway on Muñeca Brava - I watched episode 8 and half of 9. I really enjoy this show and wish they had all the episodes on Yabla instead of just selected episodes. I don't know if listening comprehension is getting better generally or I am finally getting used to the Argentinean accent, but I can now understand the show most of the time without subtitles. I still need the subtitles sometimes because there is a fair amount of slang, but other than slang words I am doing pretty well. (And also I am learning some slang as some of these words are repeated pretty often!) I also listened to a couple of episodes of Radio Ambulente - La familia del mileno and El hospital. La familia del mileno was pretty easy for me to follow - probably because it was a legal/civil rights topic (I am a civil rights lawyer) and because the Puerto Rican accent is common in New York. The second episode, El hospital, takes place in Columbia. I have listened to it twice so far and understand the general gist of the program but the Columbian spanish is noticeably more tricky for my ear. As for Reina del Sur, I finished episode 31 and started 32, but I haven't had time to watch it lately - I really wish these episodes were available for download to my phone. Listening is all the time getting better and easier and I think my decision to focus my energy on lots of input was the right one.

Grammar/word study: I cleared my Memrise backlog and am back on track. I'm mostly using it for verb drills (the edthird courses - which I have modified to remove the "vosotros" form and am doing out of order to focus on the most common irregular verbs, which are the ones that most frequently give me difficulty). I'm using it for vocabulary as well, though I find that "knowing" a word in Memrise and knowing it when used in conversation are two different things. I try to spend just 15-20 minutes a day on this. It's an interesting conversation we've had on verb drills and I agree with your comments that they are important. Verbs come up at least once and usually more in every single sentence. If you can't conjugate them properly and automatically it's a real liability, especially in speech. My eye and ear easily sort out the different forms when I am reading/listening. And when writing I can always look it up. But you can't stop to look up every conjugation in the middle of a conversation. I am going to keep going on this for now. I have decided to put the grammar book on the back burner though because I just don't have time for it in addition to all the other Spanish activities I'm doing. Thanks though for the recommendation of conjuguemos. I may try some of that too just for "fun."

Spanish class: I am doing online classes through this language school in Guatemala. http://plqe.org/ Someone on this forum recommended this school along with some others and I picked this one because of the social justice focus of the program. I've had four lessons so far. In the lessons we have a little bit of conversation (around 15 minutes) and about 45 minutes of grammar discussion and practice. For example, for the last few sessions we've been discussing the past tense and the difference between imperfect and preterite. Although I initially wanted more conversation focus, I don't think I am ready to sustain a conversation for an hour. And I am finding the grammatical review to be helpful. After four lessons it is getting a little easier to speak, and I can tell that I am improving. Some of the points we have been discussing are more subtle than what you learn from a course - for example we have been discussing the ways that various verbs change their meaning when used in the imperfect vs. preterite. We are now moving on to pronouns, which is another area that constantly trips me up and I need to practice.

Writing: I wrote a short little one paragraph review of Hija de la fortuna and posted it to Lang-8. I was going to post it to the Spanish forum here, but then I decided I wanted to get some corrections on it first, and then I received several different conflicting corrections and haven't had time to sort through them! But it was a good exercise and one I will repeat, time permitting.

[westminstress]

Hi everyone. I'm still plugging away. I really want to thank everyone on this forum. I get so many great ideas every time I check in here. Here's what I've been up to lately.

Reading: I had to take a week off of Spanish reading to read a book in English. But am now up to page 136 in La casa de los espíritus. Most of this I got in during a long beach weekend. Otherwise I haven't had a huge amount of time for reading, unfortunately. Still, I am really enjoying this book and reading it is pretty easy for me.

Listening: I am continuing with my usual cocktail of VOA news and Radio Ambulente. I haven't been watching many of my novelas recently. I listened to part of a Nómades episiode as well. Listening is generally going well.

Grammar: I'm continuing to focus on verb conjugation drills via Memrise. The conjugations are getting more automatic. I'm going to keep going with this. It is painful but when I really have the conjugations down, that is one major thing I won't have to *think* about and I will be able to move on to some other tedious but important project.

Skype lessons: continuing (nothing much to report).

And now here is where I would like to solicit the opinion of the group. I would like to try to jump start my speaking ability. I think I am finally at the point where my listening comprehension is pretty good. I can't say that I understand everything I hear, but I do understand most of it. At this point I think my comprehension, while not perfect, is good enough to use professionally, at least for simple matters. But my speaking ability is not at that level. I know that some of the things I'm doing, like weekly(ish) Skype lessons and verb drills and generally getting lots of input, will eventually feed into better speaking. But I am wondering whether there is something I can do -- perhaps something I can do a little bit every day -- that will help activate my speech faster. My next legal clinic date is August 5, they always need more Spanish speakers, and I'd love to be able to help if I can. So what should I do for the next 4 weeks to get ready? Concerted shadowing (what would I shadow)? Daily language exchange (what site/app is best)? Something else?