CarlyD's Spanish and German Log

[CarlyD]

Thank you. That's my Tucker when he was a puppy. He's a purebred Pembroke Corgi and is 4 1/2 now.

[CarlyD]

How Learning Spanish Almost Killed Me.

I left today for shopping and took along a set of Spanish-learning CD's that I'd forgot I had. I was listening--she's say it in English, then I'd try to say it in Spanish before he said it in Spanish.

As I was coming up to a major intersection, she said something, I replied and then he said something totally different. What?? I was looking at the CD player as he repeated it, glanced up, saw the car ahead of me had apparently already gone, and hit the gas.

My light was red. Totally red.

I sincerely hope that intersection didn't have cameras.

Otherwise, I'm working on verbs and waiting for 6WC.

[CarlyD]

Ok, here's my plan for 6WC

Textbooks: Spanish Step-by-Step. Currently just finishing Chapter 5, plan to finish entire book during 6WC
Spanish Now. Work on 5 days a week.
Verb Workbook--review.

Online: Duolingo--I'm down in Adverbs I think. Work on at least 3 days a week.
Memrise--I'm signed up for 2 Spanish courses--work on every day.
Babbel--I'm signed up through the end of the year--don't really like it. Keep plugging away.

Other: Extra en Español--video, mostly set in Spain. 3 times a week.
BBC Mi Vida Loca--video classes, very good, set in Spain. 3 times a week
Destinos--very interesting, a mystery I think.

Reading: Pobre Ana--read entire book
El crimen de la Ñ--read at least half the book
Graded readers--2 to 3 pages a day

Vocabulary: Review 2 to 4 pages a day, every day

Listening: At least 1 hour a day of Spanish tv--I have two shows on DVR, or choose any live show. Listen to Spanish radio station while driving.

Goals for 6WC:

1. Improve verbs dramatically.
2. Increase vocabulary.
3. Improve listening comprehension.

[CarlyD]

I am in love with Memrise.

Someone told me about it when I was doing German--go sign up for this course. I did, the course was way too hard for a beginner, and I faded away.

Now I'm doing Spanish for a bit, and Memrise is perfect. I've signed up for: regular Spanish, Vocabulary, Verbs, Latin American Verbs and Duolingo vocabulary. I set a daily goal for every one of them and I ended up spending longer than I would have so I would meet each goal. The Duolingo courses are great--do the vocabulary either before or after visiting Duolingo to reinforce what you're doing there.

I still have Babbel for the rest of the year, but I don't think I'm going to renew that. I have to force myself to go there, so obviously there's no love.

So....between now and the beginning of 6WC, I need to review 9 chapters of Practice Makes Perfect Verb Tenses book. They're all review, so should go fast. I hope.

[CarlyD]

6WC--minus 1 day.

Just a note to list my divisions:

#text -- any book I'm using. Primarily Step-by-Step and Spanish Now
#Memrise -- currently doing 5 courses
#read -- any fiction book, whether graded reader or regular. Must be read and understood--not just skimming.
#listen -- tv shows, radio, youtube videos. This includes tv shows that I have on DVR and plan to replay sections over and over while making notes.
#vocab -- this is just my green notebook with every unknown word written down. The plan is at least 15 minutes a day going over words.
#misc -- this is everything else. Duolingo, Babbel, BBC Mi Vida Loca, Destinos, any other website or resource. Not a lesser resource, just lumping all the time together.

[Stelle]

¡Buena suerte! I was really pleased with my progress during my first 6WC! I'm sure you'll find that your Spanish gets a boost!

[CarlyD]

6WC--Day 1 (no, I won't post every day)

Off to a good start. Working on Verb Tenses book, going over vocabulary. Went to Duolingo, went to Memrise. And Memrise was a mess. My courses wouldn't load, or if it did, it was giving the totally wrong word then saying it was correct. (Example: type-in Hello. I type adios. It says hola, correct). I eked out 30 minutes, then gave up.

For later today, reading my fiction book and try again at Memrise or look at another site.

In the meantime, another book review.

Correct Your Spanish Blunders, 2nd ed. by Jean Yates, McGraw-Hill. 387 pages. Used from Amazon, arrived looking brand-new ($5.98).

I thought this would be like the 1001 Pitfalls in Spanish book, but it is sooooo much more. More examples, exercises to do, just for por/para it's nearly 8 pages with lots of explanations and example sentences. Plus throughout the book there "Blunders"--sentences done wrong, with an explanation of why it is wrong. Wonderful book.

I've been talking to my dog in Spanish. He's not particularly interested--he already understands Dog, English and a bit of Cat--so he's generally ignoring me, unless I say something worthwhile, like ¿quieres un COOKIE? I was going to translate cookie, but when I did it before--Hundekuchen--he explained that that was just wrong.

[CarlyD]

6WC--Day 3 (Spanish)

Lots of progress--must learn All The Things. Apparently by Friday the way I'm pushing.

I finally started writing today. I found a workbook that has guided writing--they give a paragraph of where they want you to go and then have an answer key so you can see how far off you are. It was horrible. I did 2 paragraphs, it took 50 minutes and I needed a cerveza afterwards. Although I didn't make as many errors as I thought I would. But it was still horrible.

Also I started a book I found--La adventuras de Isabella. Very cute. Very easy. I'm already on chapter 4--instant gratification.

Still no tv shows or radio listening. But I did the verb workbook, Duolingo, Memrise, vocabulary book, the writing and the reading. Enough for one day.

For the rest of this week, I need to add in the textbook, and do some listening. Plus everything else.

[CarlyD]

Seen today on Facebook. Posted by someone asked why they are learning a language.

When you're creeping on your crush's fb page but it's in Gaelic and Google Translate won't be your wingman.

[CarlyD]

Week 2 of the 6 week challenge.

So far I'm spending between 2:45 and 3:15 a day, broken up as:

early morning--textbook, grammar or verb workbook
during lunch--online Memrise or Duolingo
early evening, sitting on the patio--reading either the fiction book or the bilingual reader, doing writing exercises
throughout the day (generally not even counted towards the challenge) listen to whatever bits of tv or radio I can; going over my vocabulary notebook.

I haven't even gotten into some of the resources--Destinos and Mi Vida Loca; the tv shows I DVR'd. So many plans, too few hours.

Plan for this upcoming week:

1. Use both Step by Step and Spanish Now books, trying for 3 chapters total.
2. Finish first 3 chapters of the grammar workbook.
3. Memrise every day--4 courses, 15 minutes each. So far have a 7 day streak. Do review work on Duolingo (prefer Memrise).
4. Finish first fiction book--La aventuras de Isabela. Very cute and funny book. Then start Pobre Ana.
5. Read--aloud--next 5 chapters of bilingual reader, add new vocab to notebook, make sure you understand every sentence before moving on.
6. Catch up on vocabulary notebook. I want to go over each page 15-18 times to make sure they're going into long term memory, but I'm adding words faster than I'm finishing pages.

Went to the big booksale yesterday at the library warehouse. Got June B. Jones y el cumpleaños malo de Jim and Escalofrios HorrorLandia ¿quién es tu momia?. Both are the "chapter books" variety, so around 100 pages. I was never interested in the Goosebumps series, but hopefully it should be good. I also found a Harlequin romance in Spanish, but way more verb tenses than I've studied yet, so setting that aside for now.