Mission Spanish

Continue or start your personal language log here, including logs for challenge participants
aspiringpolyglot12
White Belt
Posts: 12
Joined: Mon May 15, 2017 6:00 pm
Languages: English and Hindi (bilingual), Spanish (beginner). Also wish to learn: French (A1-A2), Italian, and Latin.
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=5846
x 11

Mission Spanish

Postby aspiringpolyglot12 » Mon May 15, 2017 6:46 pm

Hi everyone! I've been lurking on the forum for a while now and decided to finally take the plunge and post my own log.

I've never really had much exposure to Spanish since I live in Canada, where most people choose to learn French, but after reading Gabriel Garcia Marquez and then a whole bunch of other Latin American authors one summer, I fell in love with the culture and the literary tradition of Latin America. I harbored an idle desire to learn Spanish to eventually be able to read Garcia Marquez, Borges, Neruda, and many other Latin American literary giants in their original language, but I had no idea how to go about doing so. University was about to begin, a thousand other distractions called out to me, and my desire to learn Spanish fell by the wayside. But Spanish found its way back into my life again, this time in the form of ridiculously good music (Calle 13, J Balvin, Xantos, El Guincho... I could go on and on). I've finally decided to learn Spanish this summer, over the course of the four months I have off from university.

What I've done so far

I did a little research and started with Duolingo and Memrise, thinking that the cute little websites would form the basis of my language learning. I did acquire some very basic vocabulary thanks to spaced repetition, but kept stumbling when it came to the grammar. It just didn't seem right to approach language learning in such an unstructured way. I decided to learn the grammar first, but it took a while to figure out how to go about doing that. I'm lucky enough to have had a truly excellent French teacher for three years of high school French, and I decided to dig up my old French notebooks to structure a grammar-centred Spanish course for myself based on her course outlines. I first learned the alphabet, then articles, then noun placement, and so on. I got all the way up to adverbs when I realized that the grammar book I was learning from was far too basic for my liking. For example, in the adverbs section, all the textbook mentioned was how to turn adjectives into adverbs by adding -mente, but it completely ignored all other types of adverbs. At that point I became overwhelmed by just how much grammar there was to learn. I needed a new game plan. So I started going on this forum, visiting language learning blogs, and trying to figure out how other learners acquired their grammar.

The game plan now

I aim to spend anywhere from 1 to 2 hours a day learning Spanish, which does get somewhat difficult due to my accelerated summer courses, but I do always try to get some Spanish into my day. Here are the resources I'm using:

The Routledge Spanish: An Essential Grammar. It is a lot wordier than my old grammar text, but also a lot more comprehensive. When I want a simplified but still comprehensive overview of a grammar point, I go to Spanish Dict, which is another great resource. I hope to have a solid grasp of the verb tenses and moods and other essential aspects of grammar by the end of this summer.

Language Transfer. I'm loving it so far, because it's so logical and well-structured.

The Spanish episodes of Extr@ (although after the first couple of episodes the language got way too complicated for me). It's a pretty cute series, and I plan to revisit it with a transcript once I have my verb tenses down. I tried one episode of Destinos and it seems really, really dry, but it may be worth it to get through the episodes nevertheless to acquire vocabulary and build listening comprehension, so I'll probably move on to this series once I finish Extr@.

Duolingo and Lingvist when I feel like it. I've realized that these types of apps aren't really going to help unless I'm using them as exercises to strengthen my grammar and vocabulary, but I do think they have a place in my language learning at this point.

One journal entry a day in Spanish. Right now I sound like a two-year old, but I hope that a few months from now I'll be able to look back on these initial entries and see how far I've come.

Once I finish my grammar textbook and Language Transfer, I plan to start FSI Spanish to automatize my grammar and acquire more vocabulary. I'll supplement this with simple books and fairytales in Spanish to improve reading comprehension. I might also add a podcast, although that might not be possible until after I finish FSI Spanish due to time constraints.

I realize that I don't really have a speaking component in my language learning at this point, which isn't ideal, but I do want to get to at least A2 in Spanish before I torture a native speaker with my conversations. I do have a friend who is also learning Spanish to have occasional conversations with, so I won't be entirely silent at this time. I don't know if this is a good idea but it feels like the most practical thing for me to do at this point.

It has been less than a month since I started this journey so my energy and motivation is sky high. Let's hope this log helps me maintain that interest until I become proficient enough in Spanish to read Garcia Marquez in his original language!
Last edited by aspiringpolyglot12 on Tue May 16, 2017 1:42 am, edited 1 time in total.
7 x

User avatar
Stelle
Blue Belt
Posts: 580
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 1:37 pm
Location: Canada
Languages: English (N1), French (N2), Spanish (advanced), Tagalog (basic), Russian (beginner)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=13312
x 1527
Contact:

Re: Mission Spanish

Postby Stelle » Mon May 15, 2017 9:02 pm

Welcome to the forum!
0 x

User avatar
outcast
Blue Belt
Posts: 585
Joined: Sat Dec 05, 2015 3:41 pm
Location: Florida, USA
Languages: ~
FLUENCY
Native: ENglish, ESpañol
Advanced: -
High Basic: DEutsch (rust), FRançais (rust), ZH中文
Basic: -
~
ACQUIRING
Formally: KO한국말, ITaliano, HI हिन्दी
Dabbling: HRvatski, GW粵語
Dormant: POrtuguês
~
Plan to learn: I BETTER NOT GO HERE FOR NOW
~
x 679

Re: Mission Spanish

Postby outcast » Mon May 15, 2017 9:41 pm

I hope you stick around. Right now I have my hands and (big) feet more than full with my C1 drive in three languages, plus my Korean side project. But I want to learn Hindi and have plans for next year both for the language and for a stay in India. When I really start with Hindi and you are still around (I plan to start late this year, or early next year), we could mutually tutor, since Hindi is native to you, and Spanish is to me. That way you do not need to be afraid of torturing me in Spanish, since I will return the favor in Hindi. Just keep it mind! Good luck.
0 x
"I can speak wonderfully and clearly in zero languages, and can also fluently embarrass myself in half a dozen others."

The End of Language learning: 10 / 10000

aspiringpolyglot12
White Belt
Posts: 12
Joined: Mon May 15, 2017 6:00 pm
Languages: English and Hindi (bilingual), Spanish (beginner). Also wish to learn: French (A1-A2), Italian, and Latin.
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=5846
x 11

Re: Mission Spanish

Postby aspiringpolyglot12 » Tue May 16, 2017 12:23 am

Thank you, Stelle and outcast!

outcast, I would be more than happy to help you with your Hindi! I would love to be a resource in your learning and to have help from you in Spanish in the near future. :)
0 x

User avatar
outcast
Blue Belt
Posts: 585
Joined: Sat Dec 05, 2015 3:41 pm
Location: Florida, USA
Languages: ~
FLUENCY
Native: ENglish, ESpañol
Advanced: -
High Basic: DEutsch (rust), FRançais (rust), ZH中文
Basic: -
~
ACQUIRING
Formally: KO한국말, ITaliano, HI हिन्दी
Dabbling: HRvatski, GW粵語
Dormant: POrtuguês
~
Plan to learn: I BETTER NOT GO HERE FOR NOW
~
x 679

Re: Mission Spanish

Postby outcast » Tue May 16, 2017 2:59 pm

Ok, nice. I need to start building my Hindi circle, you would be the first hahaha. If you start needing Spanish help before I start Hindi don't feel awkward to request my help, it does not have to be an even exchange, just as long as one has the other as a resource!
0 x
"I can speak wonderfully and clearly in zero languages, and can also fluently embarrass myself in half a dozen others."

The End of Language learning: 10 / 10000

aspiringpolyglot12
White Belt
Posts: 12
Joined: Mon May 15, 2017 6:00 pm
Languages: English and Hindi (bilingual), Spanish (beginner). Also wish to learn: French (A1-A2), Italian, and Latin.
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=5846
x 11

Re: Mission Spanish

Postby aspiringpolyglot12 » Wed May 17, 2017 2:43 am

Thanks for your helpfulness, and I will definitely contact you for help, as it would be awesome to get information and feedback from a native speaker who is already an experienced polyglot!
0 x

aspiringpolyglot12
White Belt
Posts: 12
Joined: Mon May 15, 2017 6:00 pm
Languages: English and Hindi (bilingual), Spanish (beginner). Also wish to learn: French (A1-A2), Italian, and Latin.
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=5846
x 11

Re: Mission Spanish

Postby aspiringpolyglot12 » Fri May 19, 2017 2:54 pm

This week was kind of slow because I have two essays due next week for my summer classes, but I did manage to learn demonstratives, possessives, and the present continuous/progressive verb tense. I've also started learning future tense conjugations, mostly as a way to put off learning the past tense conjugations for a while longer. I'll be learning the past tenses next week, though. It's scary, but also exciting. I didn't get through any Language Transfer or Extr@ episodes this week thanks to classwork, but hopefully next week will be a little less hectic
0 x

aspiringpolyglot12
White Belt
Posts: 12
Joined: Mon May 15, 2017 6:00 pm
Languages: English and Hindi (bilingual), Spanish (beginner). Also wish to learn: French (A1-A2), Italian, and Latin.
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=5846
x 11

Re: Mission Spanish

Postby aspiringpolyglot12 » Fri May 26, 2017 10:21 pm

This week I focused on el pasado, specifically the preterit and the imperfect. I'm trying to become fully familiar with each set of conjugations before learning new ones, so I'm okay with only learning one or two tenses each week. I also read/listened my first short story in Spanish, Los tres cerditos, on the Spanish Experiment. I love that website! There are only three fairytales on the website but it's still invaluable reading/listening practice. I'm really happy about being able to understand more than 90% of the (very simple) Spanish in Los tres cerditos. It feels so good to actually be able to read something in another language!

For extra practice with the verb tenses en el pasado, I printed out Los tres cerditos and am going through the entire thing word by word, highlighting each use of preterit and imperfect to try and understand where they are used. I think I get it? But I would probably be hard-pressed to quickly figure out where to use which tense in a conversation.

Speaking of conversations, I should probably start speaking in Spanish. I'm going to record myself speaking and reading out loud regularly now, both to chart my progress over time and to become more comfortable speaking in Spanish out loud. In my head my accent sounds impeccable but the few times I have spoken, I feel like I'm over-enunciating some words and completely messing up others.

Next week: more preterit and imperfect, plus the compound past tenses, plus some Language Transfer, short and simple articles, and so on. I'm also almost done with Extr@ so I'll probably start Destinos next week. It's weird but I've gotten really attached to Extr@. Maybe I'll go through it again sometime in the near future, this time with transcript in hand, because it was so much fun to watch.

I'm also trying to figure out whether it would be a good or bad thing to do literal word-by-word translations of short stories and articles to figure out Spanish syntax. I'm going to try it this coming week and see if it's helping, but I will most likely stop doing it once I get familiar with Spanish sentence constructions. I really want to start just thinking in Spanish without translating to English, but I suspect that will take some time.
1 x

aspiringpolyglot12
White Belt
Posts: 12
Joined: Mon May 15, 2017 6:00 pm
Languages: English and Hindi (bilingual), Spanish (beginner). Also wish to learn: French (A1-A2), Italian, and Latin.
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=5846
x 11

Re: Mission Spanish

Postby aspiringpolyglot12 » Sun Jun 04, 2017 9:22 pm

Not much Spanish this week, unfortunately, as I started a summer job this week on top of my summer courses. I know it's not an excuse, since many people work full-time and still manage to get in a lot of language learning every day, so I will try harder next week. In a fit of inspiration, I did actually print out the first few pages of la Biblia de las Américas and translated it into English. I was pleasantly surprised by just how much of it I could actually understand on my own. As an agnostic from a non-Christian background, the Bible has always been a source of interest and curiosity for me, especially because so many of my favorite books seem to draw a lot from it. Reading the Bible in Spanish will knock out two birds with one stone, so I look forward to making a project out of this.

Next week: a review of the verb tenses I already know, a little bit of direct and indirect object pronouns, and more intensive reading in Spanish.
1 x

aspiringpolyglot12
White Belt
Posts: 12
Joined: Mon May 15, 2017 6:00 pm
Languages: English and Hindi (bilingual), Spanish (beginner). Also wish to learn: French (A1-A2), Italian, and Latin.
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=5846
x 11

Re: Mission Spanish

Postby aspiringpolyglot12 » Sun Jun 11, 2017 3:59 pm

Not much Spanish this week either, sigh. It's been really exhausting, working and going to classes and finishing truckloads of homework this week. I did manage to do some more intensive reading of the Bible, however, and have noticed that it is starting to yield benefits - everything else I read or watch or listen to in Spanish has become a little bit easier to comprehend.

At any rate, I need to step up my game. I'm going to make myself a solid schedule and stick to it no matter what.
0 x


Return to “Language logs”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: emk and 2 guests