CarlyD's Spanish and German Log

[CarlyD]

6Week Challenge--starting week 3

I lost two days to shaky internet access, but I'm back doing Memrise every day again now. Going well with the textbooks. I continue to schedule 6 hours of work thinking I can do it in 2, but I'm making progress.

I need to find some resource that talks about synonyms and shades of meaning. Example: caminar and andar--both 'to walk' and some resources use one, some use the other, and I'm not sure if there's a difference or maybe regional usage or what. I'm getting a whole list of words like that.

A while back I found--or someone mentioned--the Destinos video series, available free online. Wonderful series. I've discovered that there's both a textbook and a workbook that exactly follow the series, available very cheaply used from Amazon. I think the textbook was $1.70. I'm waiting for both to arrive now.

Goals for this week:

1. Continue with chapters in Spanish Step by Step, Spanish Now and Complete Spanish Grammar.
2. Work on vocabulary pages at least once a day.
3. Memrise/Duolingo/Babbel every day (at least one of them).
4. Reading/writing--At least 15 minutes a session, 5 days a week. Hopefully.

My birthday present (to myself) this year is a new kitten. Jäger is a Lynx-point Siamese and will be coming home on Monday.

Editing post to add: Just found "Using Spanish Synonyms" on Amazon--$26 used but it has the "look inside" option and it was exactly what I'm looking for--all the variations and how they're used.

http://www.amazon.com/Using-Spanish-Syn ... _14_text_z

[aokoye]

How I use German
With my online knitting group--many native German people in the group. Before going further, I need to develop practice partners and find a conversation group.

Are you on Ravelry by chance?

Edit: I'm slowly seeing multiple world combining - I'm Knitguy on rav.

[emk]

Are you on Ravelry by chance?

Edit: I'm slowly seeing multiple world combining - I'm Knitguy on rav.

Language-learning knitters of the world unite! And yes, Ravelry is awesome.

I remember a long discussion with a lovely older French lady—who knit very fast and very well—which ended up giving my French knitting vocabulary a real workout! But sadly, I'm out of practice now, and don't dare to resume any of my more complicated knitting projects.

[CarlyD]

How I use German
With my online knitting group--many native German people in the group. Before going further, I need to develop practice partners and find a conversation group.

Are you on Ravelry by chance?

Edit: I'm slowly seeing multiple world combining - I'm Knitguy on rav.

Yes, charity knitting is a big part of my life--also CarlyD there.

emk--and anyone else reading this--Ravelry has many groups about many things having nothing to do with knitting and many are in other languages. There's over 5 million members so far from most of the world's countries and it's free. www.ravelry.com

[CarlyD]

Spanish Word of the Day--la esposa (singular)--wife. las esposas (plural)--handcuffs. Hmmmmm.......

Starting Week 4 of the 6WC.

When I first signed up, the plan was to improve my grasp of verb tenses. But I've been ignoring Spanish for longer than I'd thought, so I've been doing more review work than I expected. No problems--just keep plugging away.

I received both the textbook and the workbook for Destinos--I think both together were under $10 used. There's a wonderful review at Amazon for the Destinos textbook where the person goes over every edition and what's in it, and what matches to what. The chapters in the text and workbook exactly match each episode and reinforce it--and are very short.

I've found that "What's New, Scooby Doo" episodes have been dubbed into Spanish, if you switch to "alternate audio" on your tv. What I haven't found is why every voice-over person available was over at least 50. There's no young people wanting to do voice-overs?

Goals for Week 4:

1. Continue with textbooks--Step by Step and Spanish Now.
2. Vocabulary--coming along, but need more review.
3. Memrise at least 5 times a week; Destinos--trying for 2 episodes a week.
4. MORE LISTENING--not listening enough. Radio/tv/youtube/eavesdropping on people in the store if it comes to that--need to listen everyday.

My birthday present from last week (new kitten) eats my yarn, chews on my needles, steals my pencils and BITES. And the other cat still hates her and wants her to die. Or leave. Whatever works. Her name's already been changed from Jäger to Jaeger (pronouncing the J) because I tired of people smiling and saying "Like the beer?" and then telling me "I was sooooo drunk" stories and about their Jäger shooters.

Phrase for the Week:

¡No Muerda!

[CarlyD]

Memrise is making me slightly crazy. It's wonderful that they require proper accent mark placement--in Duolingo if you forget you get "almost correct" and they move on.

Nope. At Memrise, you forget that accent mark, you get a big red NO. You forget it twice and it moves to Difficult Words and they bombard you with it. Which is why, even thought I've totally moved on, I'm still being bombarded with él and adiós. Thanks Memrise.

And if you are working on Memrise too late at night and ahem...fall asleep....it marks the words as wrong. Or if you're trying to get the pencil away from the kitten and it times out.

The dangers of Distracted Learning.

[CarlyD]

Aack! Haven't posted in like forever. I started a huge house reorganize/remodel in September and I did keep plugging away with language, but a lot got set aside. It's slowing down now until the next part gets started--maybe next Spring--so I'm going to see what kind of progress I can make in the meantime.

I'm trying to figure out how to store all my language books in one place without admitting that I have too many. Right now the Spanish books are in 6 different places, the German books in 3.

I do need to get rid of the books that I either didn't like or won't go back and reread. If anyone wants Level 1 and Level 2 Santillana books Leer en Español books (example--La Sombra de un Fotografo) I have I think 4 books in each level. Asking postage only.

All my language books are currently in boxes for a week until the carpet gets torn out, then I'm making a new study plan for the next month.

[CarlyD]

Goals for the rest of the month:

1. 10 phrases/words a day
2. Work in textbook
3. Finish one fiction book

I signed up for Kindle Unlimited and besides the regular romance/mysteries that I got it for, I found there's quite a few language books and foreign language fiction books available in the program, so it seems like a pretty good deal.

[CarlyD]

I've read three short books this week--two were below my level and have gone into the donate box, the third I had to look up several words, so I set it back in the pile to re-read a couple more times.

Progress for last week:

One chapter (each) in two different textbooks
Reviewing vocabulary words
3 short fiction books (unfortunately, not any of the ones I listed in the Reading Challenge.)
2 hours of tv, that I can't remember the name of. The Secret of the Hotel, or something like that, and Caso Cerrado.
2 hours of Spanish-only speaking. Had to change how I said a couple of things, but it was fine.

Goals--now until Spring Quarter starts (April 4th)
3 chapters in textbooks
3 short fiction books
Get back into online--Memrise, etc. that I haven't been doing lately.
Back to Spanish Sunday (or any day that will work)--no English all day.

I'll probably be taking a one-week break the first week of school as everything seems a bit crazy, then I'll post my next goals.

[CarlyD]

I've been floating along making progress, but nothing quite kicks it up like a solid 6 Week Challenge.

Tentative goals for the challenge:

Textbooks--8 chapters
Bilingual readers--12 chapters
Lower-level books (A1-A2)--one a week, already picked out and in a stack.
Online--back to Memrise and Duolingo daily, which I've let slide lately.
Television/YouTube--lots and lots, my Spanish is too "book."

I've friended two people on Facebook that had liked language posts I'd made--both Spanish, learning English. I know that reading their posts out loud can help (for example, d q=de que) but they seriously do this text/Twitter speak that I'm struggling to understand. Of course, I'm running into the same thing with German and a lot of the abbreviations that people are using now.