Bex's Spanish log 2016/17

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Bex
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Re: Bex's Spanish log 2016

Postby Bex » Fri Nov 25, 2016 7:56 am

This weeks progress...

Assimil lessons: 90 - 96 completed (passive wave) and up to lesson 9 completed (active wave 2)
Glossika GMS: Level 1 completed
Glossika GSR: 74 - 75
Language Transfer: nada!
Watching Spanish TV: At least 4 evenings of 45 mins.

Not much to report still going through the last few lessons of Assimil. Lesson 36 of the Active wave was way too hard for me to produce, mostly conjugation issues. So I am taking another run up....I am going back to the beginning and repeating the active wave from there. I keep note (on a spreadsheet) of my error rate and only repeat any lessons in the active wave that I need to. This is helping immensely in spotting exactly where my weaknesses are. I will keep repeating this process until hopefully I can produce without too many mistakes lesson 36 and then I will continue with the active wave from there.

I got a little distracted this week, looking at the wonderful resources suggested to me and Glossika suffered a little.....oops.

TV is getting better in terms of listening comprehension, I am zoning out less and can definitely follow more of whats going on. I still hear lots of words and not many sentences but I figure it will come with time, as long as I continue to do some intensive listening each day.
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Kwiziq
A0: 100 / 100
A1: 100 / 100
A2: 100 / 100
B1: 91 / 100
B2: 53 / 100

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Bex
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Re: Bex's Spanish log 2016

Postby Bex » Fri Dec 02, 2016 9:12 am

Weekly progress....

Assimil lessons: 97 - 109 completed (passive wave) and 9 - 14 completed (active wave 2)
Glossika GMS: Level 1 completed
Glossika GSR: 76 - 82
Language Transfer: nada!
Watching Spanish TV: At least 4 evenings of 30 mins.

Assimil is done, I have finally completed it :D :D :D
I shall continue going through the passive wave.

Glossika is helping a lot, my conjugations are coming much faster when I speak and it is definitely improving my ability to speak automatically and without such huge pauses. Current target is to finish level 1 GSR before the end of the year.

Now that I have more time I can finish listening to Language Transfer.

From now until mid January is a really busy time for me both with family and with work and so I would like to complete all of my current progress bars before the end of this year and then take it from there.

Can't believe I actually finished Assimil - feels a bit strange :lol:
3 x
Kwiziq
A0: 100 / 100
A1: 100 / 100
A2: 100 / 100
B1: 91 / 100
B2: 53 / 100

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Hundetier
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Re: Bex's Spanish log 2016

Postby Hundetier » Fri Dec 02, 2016 3:58 pm

Congratulations on finishing Assimil passive wave despite having problems with it from time to time ;)

The last weeks I followed your log because your learning strategy is interesting and encouraging for me. Except moving to Spain I have a similar approach. I just started with Glossika (also because I could read here that it helps a lot with understanding and reproduction), and plan to do Assimil as complemention afterwards (or in the middle, if Glossika gets boring).

Do you know how you'll go on? With the second book or do you have other plans?
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Re: Bex's Spanish log 2016

Postby PunkJesus » Fri Dec 02, 2016 11:52 pm

Bex wrote:
Assimil is done, I have finally completed it :D :D :D
I shall continue going through the passive wave.

Can't believe I actually finished Assimil - feels a bit strange :lol:


Congrats! How do you feel about your Spanish after completing Assimil?
1 x
: 17 / 76 Nicos Weg B1
: 96 / 301 Glossika German Fluency
: 2 / 100 Assimil German (1989)
: 2 / 25 PMP Complete German Grammar

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PeterMollenburg
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Re: Bex's Spanish log 2016

Postby PeterMollenburg » Sat Dec 03, 2016 4:18 am

Yes indeed- congratulations on completing the first wave. But it's not over yet! Keep going as the active phase definitely helps reinforce the material.

On another note, I'm not sure how you manage to make such fast progress through Assimil. I do think it's quite normal though, and i'm in the minority in that it takes me about as long as it does for you to get through 7 lessons as it does for me to get through one! Still, we are both progressing, and that's what matters, keep up the solid progress!
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Bex
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Re: Bex's Spanish log 2016

Postby Bex » Sat Dec 03, 2016 9:05 am

Sorry long post.

PeterMollenburg wrote:On another note, I'm not sure how you manage to make such fast progress through Assimil

It has taken me over 2 years to finish Assimil. I started in February 2015, so I am not sure I would call my progress fast :)

I have always kept a log since I started learning Spanish (it's just a diary app on my mobile). It may be of some help to someone so here is my Assimil journey…..

Started February 2015. Lessons 1 - 18, I did these multiple times by the looks of it, repeating, shadowing, relistening until I understood them really well. It seems I really struggled as a beginner and I was also really keen to make sure I understood every word before I moved on.

Lessons 19 - 30, I did these twice through and found them very, very difficult.

31 onwards I started reviewing 2 lessons back, so on lesson day 31, I would review 31, 30 & 29. Looks like I was translating the Spanish into English at this point and writing the whole lesson out and then just reading the previous lessons.

At around lesson 45 things started getting difficult for me (again). When I got to lesson 50 I went back and repeated 45 to 50.

Seems I had another major wobble when I got to lesson 50 and went back to lesson 33. I redid 33-50 with the following system. Read, listen, over & over until I understand the audio using spanish only.

Got to lesson 37 and gave up. Seems I stopped on May 25 2015.

This note is from my log in June 2015, “I have stopped completely - finding it very boring! Need to think HOW I can continue - as the Assimil is working!”

I didn't go back to Assimil for over a year!

So I started my log on here and told myself I would do 1 lesson a day (5 days a week) starting at lesson 50 until I finished it.

Lessons were really hard for me to do 1 a day, by lesson 60 (ish) I had managed to come up with a method that suited me and allowed me to progress through the lessons at the pace I wanted.

I basically had 2 things I achieved before I could call the lesson done: 1) I had read through the lesson and looked up every word/idiom/grammar point I didn't understand or found interesting and I wrote notes for everything. 2) I listened to the audio until I could follow the gist, not word for word but the gist of it.

63-77 very, very difficult for me. After nearly stopping again and much encouragement on here I continued.

Lessons 77 onwards were easier (at least for me) They took less time around 1 hour and so because I had been used to spending 2 or 3 hours with Assimil I just started to do more than 1 lesson a day.

The last few lessons are just going through irregular verb patterns (and poetry) and so my notes were simple and short at this point. The earlier harder lessons were taking 2+ hours and 2 full pages of A4 notes but the last few lessons were less than half a page of A4 in notes.

The active wave is hard and I managed to get to lesson 30 something before I couldn't continue (too difficult) and so I'm taking another run at it with an active wave 2 and I will continue with 1 active lesson a day as it's good writing practice, and I know I should do a more writing.

I still feel that some of the lessons in Assimil are really hard and in no way have I “mastered” any of the lessons but I set a goal of 1 lesson a day and I found a way to do it. If it hadn't been for certain people (you know who you are) giving me a good kick up the backside I would have stopped.

PeterMollenburg wrote:...we are both progressing, and that's what matters, keep up the solid progress!


Absolutely that is the key, keep going, do not stop…..I wonder who taught me that?


PunkJesus wrote:Congrats! How do you feel about your Spanish after completing Assimil?

Relieved.

And a little apprehensive...
4 x
Kwiziq
A0: 100 / 100
A1: 100 / 100
A2: 100 / 100
B1: 91 / 100
B2: 53 / 100

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Bex
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Re: Bex's Spanish log 2016

Postby Bex » Thu Dec 15, 2016 7:46 am

Quick update.........

Assimil lessons: 97 - 109 completed (passive wave) and 9 - 14 completed (active wave 2)
Glossika GMS: Level 1 completed
Glossika GSR: 83 - 92
Language Transfer: nada again!
Watching Spanish TV: At least 6 evenings of 30 mins.

Looks like I may achieve my goal of finishing level 1 Glossika GSR before the end of the year, not so sure about Language Transfer.

I have decided to take a break over Christmas and start a proper "routine" again after the New Year as I am just too busy at the moment and I haven't really looked at Assimil since I finished the passive wave.

I have 12 people to cater for over the Christmas period with 6 guests actually staying with us for a week. Glossika fits in well with this Christmas mayhem and I have been listening to at least 2 hours everyday, I tend to go back a few each day and re-listen because I am not always actively listening (difficult to hear over the washing machine at times :lol: ), anyway I should be finished with level 1 soon. Glossika is helping with my listening comprehension whilst watching TV a lot, I am starting to make out the odd whole sentence and I'm starting to recognise the past tenses, which is very exciting.

Once we hit January and all my guests have gone (and the kids are back at school and I've caught up with work) I shall start on my new routine and get back to Assimil active wave. So New Year = new targets/routine/whatever.

I'm still mulling over (a lot) exactly how I will tackle "life after Assimil" and I was talking to my family about it over breakfast this morning. My son (who is 10) said "it's easy, all you need to do is know all the words and put them together in the right order" :lol: :lol: :lol:

So that's my language learning sorted then ;)
3 x
Kwiziq
A0: 100 / 100
A1: 100 / 100
A2: 100 / 100
B1: 91 / 100
B2: 53 / 100

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Bex
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Re: Bex's Spanish log 2016-17

Postby Bex » Mon Jan 09, 2017 3:17 pm

2016 Goals:
Finish Assimil lessons (passive wave) - done.
Finish duolingo - done.
Glossika GMS: Level 1 - completed
Glossika GSR: Level 1 - completed
Finish Language Transfer: fail
Watching Spanish TV most evenings - yep done.

I would have been very happy at completing anything before I started this log and so completing most of the above makes a happy me.

2016 lessons learnt:
I can "eat frogs" and actually stop myself from jumping from one resource to another.
I can finish things and reach my goals.
I like note taking and structured studying.
I like goals and progress bars
I don't like Anki or SRS so I need to stop trying to incorporate them into my schedules.
I like lists :lol:

2017 Goals (for progress bars):
77 - All of the level 1 http://www.podcastsinspanish.org/
104 - Glossika GSR level 2
100 - Assimil active wave lessons
Finish listening to Language Transfer.
Finish both of my Practise Makes Perfect Spanish books.

My general plan is....
To go through all the 3 levels of podcasts and then move onto veintemundos once I have finished.
Finish level 2 of Glossika and then decide if I want to do level 3.
Finish the Active wave of Assimil and then move onto Lang-8 for writing practice.
Keep watching TV in the evenings as much as possible.
Finish some of the hundreds of grammer/study books I have bought or been given. I am starting with the Practice Makes Perfect books only because I have already started those and I am now on a mission to finish anything I have already started!

I may dabble with...
Listening to Glossika C files (Spanish only) for a while as revision for level 1 - see if I find it useful.
Glossika GMS level 2 so I can keep slightly ahead of the GSR and review any tricky grammar that may be coming up on the GSR.
Possibly try the Goldlist method (instead of Anki), I can use sentences/vocab from Glossika, Assimil, PMPerfect books and podcasts - it would be a nice way to actually see my vocab building from my resources and I do like lists!

So there it is... I shall gather all my s@£% together this week and then off I go..busy month January for me so hopefully I can get started on it at least a little bit this month and I do at least now have a plan.....until I change it :lol: :lol: :lol:
1 x
Kwiziq
A0: 100 / 100
A1: 100 / 100
A2: 100 / 100
B1: 91 / 100
B2: 53 / 100

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Bex
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Re: Bex's Spanish log 2016

Postby Bex » Fri Jan 13, 2017 10:34 am

Friday update....

Not my best week, struggling a bit to get into a routine after the holidays :roll:

This week:
Podcastsinspanish level 1: listened and made notes 4 days out of 5 this week. 2 podcasts.
Assimil Active Wave: 4 lessons of my Active wave 2 - now on lesson 19.
Glossika GSR 2: Nothing, haven't touched it
Language Transfer: Nothing
PMP Basic Spanish: Nothing
PMP Spanish Verb Tenses: Nothing
TV: at least 30 mins every evening.

Podcasts, Assimil and Glossika are my "must do's" and so I have failed totally with Glossika this week. The rest I will do as and when (if at all).

I have noticed I find it much easier to spend hours on one thing rather than switching from one thing to another, this is probably why I managed to finish Assimil because I was just focused on that 1 target each day, anything else I did was just a bonus. Assimil was taking two hours or more each day at one point and I found that once I got engrossed in the lesson I spent a lot of time on it. In contrast now when I have two or 3 things I'm working on at once, I tend to get distracted and then waste 30 mins between each activity. So my 2-3 hours study time each day ends up more like 1!

I would like to do for example:
Monday: 2-3 hours of podcasts, intensive listening, reading and notes.
Tuesday: 2-3 hours of Active wave Assimil writing.
Wednesday: 2-3 hours of Glossika.
Repeat.......

However I am worried that I should be doing a little of each everyday? Everything I've ever read about language learning says not to do 1 massive study period once a week but to do several small sessions over the week, although this is not quite the same thing :?
1 x
Kwiziq
A0: 100 / 100
A1: 100 / 100
A2: 100 / 100
B1: 91 / 100
B2: 53 / 100

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Bex
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Re: Bex's Spanish log 2016

Postby Bex » Tue Jan 17, 2017 4:23 pm

Yay plan not going well already and I haven't even done two weeks yet, general thoughts from me today....

I've been considering my bulk study preference and I have been trying to implement it this week. It's not really going well as I'm not used to studying 3 to 5 different things each day and I keep getting distracted. I liked my heads down, get done 1 Assimil lesson each day and then Glossika GSR but I am trying to do to many things each day now, if not more and it's not working.

Things I want to do each day and why...
I have decided I definitely want to do some writing everyday and my Assimil active wave 2 covers that. Been brilliant at showing all my weaknesses, I studied direct and indirect objects again this week because I was so bad in my active wave. It's hard but I find the writing kinda rewarding when I get it right, which is not often!

The podcasts I have been through are good but not overly interesting to listen to because I am still at a fairly low level (same problem I had with Assimil :D ) but they are conversational and exactly what I need at the moment. I am working with them very intensely, studying all unknown vocab, idioms and grammar. Really good for my listening and reading, learning a lot from this each day.

I still haven't even started on my Glossika level 2, I have written out around 100 sentences but that is all, pathetic. I have thought that I might use the level 1 sentences that I've already studied as extensive listening until I have the urge to start level 2. But I really want to do Glossika as well as it has been really good for my pronunciation and automaticity (is that a word?).

So those are the 3 things that I would like to do each day but it seems I can't manage more than 2??? Don't know why, doesn't seem to be a time issue because I can work with Assimil and the podcasts for hours (Glossika not so much).

I think I'll just aim to do the Practice makes perfect books and finish listening to Language transfer something I may do if I feel like it, as I'm not sure they add much.

This week I have tried doing just one main activity each day and switching if I get bored but it just means that I do Assimil or study with Podcasts and ignore the rest :oops:

Maybe I should try a one hour rota, drop Glossika for now, just stick to 2 activities as before, study the podcasts less intensively or something else? It's really frustrating trying to implement a whole new study routine since finishing Assimil, as I had it working so well and my new routine is just not flowing like the old one did. Life after Assimil is hard..... :roll:

On the plus side my TV watching every evening is starting to really pay off, I must've watched nearly 2 hours last night and it is really interesting how much more I am understanding and hearing now. Maybe I should just watch TV all day, does that count as studying?

:lol: :lol: :lol:
1 x
Kwiziq
A0: 100 / 100
A1: 100 / 100
A2: 100 / 100
B1: 91 / 100
B2: 53 / 100


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