Bex's Spanish log 2016/17

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Bex
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Bex's Spanish log 2016/17

Postby Bex » Thu Sep 15, 2016 7:34 am

Newbie here!

Been reading posts on here for a while and over on the old forum and its all so helpful and inspiring, so I thought I'd finally throw myself out there and join y'all.

A bit about me, I have been learning Spanish badly and very irratically over the past 2 years.....got up to lesson 50 Assimil, 500 Glossika 1, Language transfer 42, started text books, read a few chapters of novels but never finished them, in fact I've started lots of things but never really finished any of them. I did do the "say something in spanish" course and really enjoyed that - its the only thing I've actually done to completion!!

I do watch Spanish TV most days and I do understand a lot of what I watch these days but my output is terrible :oops: !

I have decided to complete my assimil course, language transfer and my Glossika course as my real focus is Speaking, my listening skills seem to be OK from watching so much TV. And it would be great for me to actually finish something :lol:

I am very (very)introverted and I struggle to speak with people in my native language, let alone Spanish.

So my plan is:
Finish Assimil (min 5 lessons a week) starting at lesson 50 where I gave up!
Do 1 Glossika lesson GSR a day (min 5 days a week) - although if i do GSR and not GMS, this its gonna take ages?
Finish listening to Language transfer from lesson 40.

I am hoping I can actually finish these things (at last) and then move on to actually speaking (if I ever pluck up the courage) or at least more interesting things and I'd like to keep a log in the vain hope the accountability might keep me on track this time !!

Wish me luck..

------------------------------------------------------
(edited to keep note of resources/goals completed)

2016 achievements
Assimil with Ease (passive wave).
Duolingo Spanish.
Glossika GMS: Level 1
Glossika GSR: Level 1

2017 achievements
Harry Potter 1 audiobook
Harry Potter 2 audiobook
LWT 1000 known words (April 2017)
Michel Thomas 8 CD's (June 2017)
Duolingo reverse Spanish (Aug 2017)
LWT 1705 words known (Sept 2017)
7 hours iTalki lessons (Oct/Nov 2017)
8000 words written (Nov/Dec 2017)
Last edited by Bex on Mon Jan 08, 2018 2:21 pm, edited 9 times in total.
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Re: Bex's Spanish log 2016

Postby tomgosse » Thu Sep 15, 2016 12:02 pm

Bex wrote:Newbie here!

Been reading posts on here for a while and over on the old forum and its all so helpful and inspiring, so I thought I'd finally throw myself out there and join y'all.

A bit about me, I have been learning Spanish badly and very irratically over the past 2 years.....got up to lesson 50 Assimil, 500 Glossika 1, Language transfer 42, started text books, read a few chapters of novels but never finished them, in fact I've started lots of things but never really finished any of them. I did do the "say something in spanish" course and really enjoyed that - its the only thing I've actually done to completion!!

I do watch Spanish TV most days and I do understand a lot of what I watch these days but my output is terrible :oops: !

I have decided to complete my assimil course, language transfer and my Glossika course as my real focus is Speaking, my listening skills seem to be OK from watching so much TV. And it would be great for me to actually finish something :lol:

I am very (very)introverted and I struggle to speak with people in my native language, let alone Spanish.

So my plan is:
Finish Assimil (min 5 lessons a week) starting at lesson 50 where I gave up!
Do 1 Glossika lesson GSR a day (min 5 days a week) - although if i do GSR and not GMS, this its gonna take ages?
Finish listening to Language transfer from lesson 40.

I am hoping I can actually finish these things (at last) and then move on to actually speaking (if I ever pluck up the courage) or at least more interesting things and I'd like to keep a log in the vain hope the accountability might keep me on track this time !!

Wish me luck..


¡Buena suerte!
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Re: Bex's Spanish log 2016

Postby Hank » Thu Sep 15, 2016 2:01 pm

¡Bienvenido!
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Bex
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Re: Bex's Spanish log 2016

Postby Bex » Fri Sep 16, 2016 8:13 am

Going back to studying after a 3 month break to finish what I'd started is sooo boring :(

I have decided to speed up the Glossika and have moved from the GSR to the GMS files so I'm now doing 50 new sentences a day and not 10! I have worked out that I should be finished by 1 December if I don't miss a single day (5 day week and starting at 401) and so I have set a target of finishing before xmas to allow for brain melt days!

Managed to do my 50 sentences yesterday and this morning.

My system is day 1:
401-450 sentences - listen (english then spanish) and repeat (learn)
351- 400 sentences - transcribe from audio (spanish only) and then check
301- 350 sentences - shadow (spanish only)
251- 300 sentences - listen and produce (english, gap for me to speak and then spanish to confirm)

At the moment this is taking about an hour, I realise I'm not recording myself like I'm supposed to but it adds so much time to record/listen/check so I just shadow instead - at least thats my excuse anyway :D

Any comments on my method greatly welcomed - I seem to enjoy it this way and I'm hoping that if I enjoy it I might actually finish it!

Language transfer I managed to listen up to lesson 62 yesterday and so I'm definitely on track to finish that :D

Assimil is however just boring me to tears, its annoying because I feel I learn the most from it out of the 3. I am at about lesson 52.

The active wave is so dull, going back over the original lessons (1 & 2) was easy apart from the odd bit of vocab I'd forgotten - it seems the grammer is sticking and not the vocab as I go through the lessons.

It's very frustrating to be able to correctly write a sentence grammatically but not know the vocab! And I find the new lessons really dull - I fear my not finishing habit is kicking in already (not bad after only 1 lesson)!

Not sure I can force myself to trudge through the rest of Assimil - the thought of 3 more months :shock: ...I'd really like to finish it though :(
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Re: Bex's Spanish log 2016

Postby Bex » Sat Sep 17, 2016 8:47 am

Right I have been mulling this over since yesterday and trying to work out exactly what it is that makes me avoid Assimil when I feel it is the most useful resource I've got.......it is either:
A) Not as useful as I think and subconsciously I realise this and so avoid it.
B) Hard work but useful and so I avoid it because I'm lazy.
C) Too boring and I avoid it because I have more fun things to do!

If it is A I should look for something else.
If it is B I should do it and stop procrastinating.
If it is C then I have to see if I can make it more enjoyable or choose to stop.

I have read in this forum many differing opinions on using fun materials and slogging through courses. My head tells me I should plough on and finish the Assimil course but my heart is not in it.

Feels like being at school again....I was never very good at doing my homework :)

I am so jealous of all the multiple language learners on this forum who know the right method (for them) and can just get on with it....me, I just feel confused and after two years of struggling with Spanish and bouncing from 1 resource to another; I am feeling very lost right now....
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Re: Bex's Spanish log 2016

Postby rdearman » Sat Sep 17, 2016 9:44 am

I am without doubt one of the laziest people you'll ever meet, and I loath course work with a passion. So I feel your pain. However, I've come to realise the people who really progress with this language learning stuff are the ones who put the time and effort in. So my advice to you is "eat the frog" which is basically a time management technique which says do the thing you dread doing first, and the rest of the stuff will get easier.

Given what you've said, I think you should do this. View the Assimil lesson as the frog you have to eat. You decide how many frogs a week you have to eat, 1, 3, 5, 7 and then you just sit down and do one and only one lesson. Then you've eaten the frog and you get up and you do something interesting to you. For me this would be watching a film or better yet a TV series in the target language. Or I'd get two books in the TL and I would do intensive reading of one and extensive reading of the other. (The difference is basically you look up every word in the intensive book, and you just try to read and only lookup words when you have in order to understand in the extensive reading)

I hate vocabulary drills, but I can deal with flashcards like anki cards or subs2srs or best of all reading. If you want to learn vocabulary then reading is the single most important thing you can do (IMHO) and it will teach you grammar as well, since you're always reading grammatically correct sentences.

Look forward to reading your log. Good Luck!
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Re: Bex's Spanish log 2016

Postby Bex » Mon Sep 19, 2016 2:01 pm

OK so frog was tackled first thing this morning...
Assimil lesson 50 (Passive) and lesson 1 (active) = done.

I have taken a look at my method for Assimil and tweaked it a bit because I want to concentrate on listening and speaking and it was not quite balanced how I wanted it.

My reading is a lot better than my other skills and I think the way I use Assimil has a lot to do with it because basically I was just reading Assimil until I understood it and rarely listening to the audio, I also write out the lessons a lot as review. I feel the way I have gone through the passive wave has been great for my reading/writing but not my listening/speaking skills and so I'm tweaking it thus;

Day 1.
Lesson 50: Read english and Spanish mulitple times whilst listening to the audio, until I understand the audio.
Lesson 49: Transcribe from the Spanish audio.
Lesson 48 & 47: Shadow until I can follow the audio well, normally takes about 5 repeats.
Lesson 1: Listen to audio, read the Spanish, look at English if still comprehension issues and then attempt to speak Spanish sentences translating from the English.

Today this took just over 1 hour.

I am hoping that with the emphasis moved towards the audio that my listening and speaking skills may improve.

I am also going to continue with the Glossika GSM 1 which also takes just over an hour a day. I have adapted my Assimil method to be more like my GSM method which I enjoy doing but we'll see if there's madness in my methods :)

Still watching Spanish TV and cartoons when I can and listening to Language Transfer but I'm going to challenge myself to finish Assimil & Glossika before the end of this year.

Oh and @rdearman Thankyou for your kind words, it was just the push I needed.
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Re: Bex's Spanish log 2016

Postby Bex » Fri Sep 23, 2016 10:42 am

5 frogs eaten this week - yay or eeew depending on how you look at it!

Assimil lessons: 50 - 54 completed (passive wave) and 1-5 completed (active wave).
Glossika GMS: Sentences 501 - 750 completed = 249 sentences
Glossika GSR: 42 - 47
Language Transfer: None, haven't had time
Watching Spanish TV: 3 evenings this week.

The Assimil & Glossika are taking up so much time every day - at least 3 or 4 hours each day and any spare time I have, I use for listening to the Glossika GSR as review for the GMS.

I have noticed that my listening comprehension is improving since I started transcribing from the audio for both Assimil and Glossika GMS every day, this is really noticeable when I am watching Spanish TV in the evenings. 2 weeks ago I would hear the odd word, but I was so slow at picking up the words that the programme/sentence/word had already moved on and so it was impossible for me to follow anything other than really basic stuff - I was getting quite good with short items such as adverts but actual conversations were way beyond me and I would switch off quite quickly!

However last night I was following whole sentences and I was able to follow whole chunks of conversations in some random TV programme I was watching - I suddenly realised after about 20 minutes that I had just understood about 90% of the programme (there was the odd bit of vocabulary I didn't know) and that I was happily watching and understanding Spanish TV - it's moments like that, that make all this hard work worth while :D :D :D !!!!
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Re: Bex's Spanish log 2016

Postby PeterMollenburg » Fri Sep 23, 2016 11:42 am

Well done on swallowing the frogs Bex! Nice advice rdearman ;) Bex, in terms of your longer-term goals, one thing i read somewhere I found motivating was along the lines of "start, and don't stop (ie quit/break/however u interpret it) until you reach your goal". The advice is basic, but extremely logical and efficient. If we did this with all goals in our lives, we'd get a lot more done, or have a lot more spare time for other things. Keep going!
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Re: Bex's Spanish log 2016

Postby Bex » Fri Sep 30, 2016 8:45 am

Friday update....

Assimil lessons: 55 - 59 completed (passive wave) and 6-10 completed (active wave).
Glossika GMS: Sentences 751 - 1000 completed = 249 sentences this week
Glossika GSR: 48 - 55
Language Transfer: None, again no time!
Watching Spanish TV: 4 evenings this week.

Assimil is still really boring. I am doing them everyday but not really enjoying it. I am wondering if I worked with podcasts in exactly the same way as I do with the Assimil material if it would hold my interest better? I find it very hard for the vocabulary to stick when I am not even vaguely interest in what they are saying, it's almost like my brain can't be bothered to notice!

On the other hand I really enjoy the Glossika and although it's boring, repetitive and very hard work, I feel that the sentences are useful and because of this I really concentrate on all the little details so that I can get it just right when I can (eventually) produce it myself.

Working on the GMS learning 50 sentences a day with the GSR lagging behind has been really good because if any confusion, odd constructions or unknown vocabulary comes up then I have time to investigate (google) and understand before it comes up on the GSR.

The various past tenses are very hard to repeat at high speed on the GSR and some are very long sentences with mixed tenses, and I am having a lot of trouble with them (I am having to repeat some of the GSR lessons). I am starting (slowly) to recognise which past tense to use but I can't activate it anywhere near fast enough to keep up with the audio but I know that if I just keep trying I will get there eventually (I hope) :D

I have been through and listened to every sentence in Glossika Castilian level 1 now and just need to transcribe and finish my review days for the GMS sentences next week - so that is level 1 GMS done (almost)! - just the GSR to go through now and that's level 1 complete.

Hopefully because I am only doing GSR next week and a bit of GMS review, I will have time to listen to some language transfer.

Don't think I can manage to continue at the 50 sentences a day pace for level 2, so I will mull over a new strategy for level 2 GMS whilst I finish off level 1 next week....
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