Hank's Adventure in Spanish (Now with 100% more Welsh!)
Posted: Sat Jan 02, 2016 10:03 pm
I enjoy reading all the language logs, so I guess I'll start my own. I suspect it will mostly consist of my victories, setbacks, thoughts, and feelings that I want to share. My wife listens patiently, but it would be more fun to share my journey with like minded individuals. At least I can keep all this contained here and not take up valuable forum space with seemingly random threads.
I'm not motivated by goals for the most part. My only goal here is to "get good at Spanish". My motivator is enjoyment, and as long as I'm having fun I know I will stick with it. Since I don't set goals, I like to think of my studies as a learning plan. If I miss a day, then I'm not going to beat myself up about it. Stuff happens. Having said that, I have only missed one or two days since I started in August.
My daily learning plan consists of:
Meeting my daily goals on DuoLingo and Memrise.
Listening to native Spanish speakers on TV, internet videos, or Latin American music (¡Chuy Lizarraga es muy bueno!).
Reading.
I realize this is a fairly loose and fluid plan, but it is working well so far. I'm very impatient, but I want to make sure I understand the lessons and remember the new vocabulary. What I'm missing is output. I try to make it a point to speak a little Spanish every day, and try to have an inner dialogue at some point. I don't have any feedback, though. It's something I want to work on. I'm not necessarily worried about my lack of vocabulary or performance anxiety, but I'm sure interacting with me in Spanish would be like speaking with a child. I would think that would be boring for someone with a good enough grasp of the language to give me valuable feedback.
I recently finished my first book in Spanish: Huevos verdes con jamón. It took a while to get used to Conditional Tense since I haven't studied it yet, but it was a fun accomplishment. Next up is Clifford la colección. A collection of Clifford the Big Red Dog stories. Then I want to power my way through La telaraña de Carlota, which is way over my head at this point. I'm sure I'll learn a lot of new vocabulary.
I'm not motivated by goals for the most part. My only goal here is to "get good at Spanish". My motivator is enjoyment, and as long as I'm having fun I know I will stick with it. Since I don't set goals, I like to think of my studies as a learning plan. If I miss a day, then I'm not going to beat myself up about it. Stuff happens. Having said that, I have only missed one or two days since I started in August.
My daily learning plan consists of:
Meeting my daily goals on DuoLingo and Memrise.
Listening to native Spanish speakers on TV, internet videos, or Latin American music (¡Chuy Lizarraga es muy bueno!).
Reading.
I realize this is a fairly loose and fluid plan, but it is working well so far. I'm very impatient, but I want to make sure I understand the lessons and remember the new vocabulary. What I'm missing is output. I try to make it a point to speak a little Spanish every day, and try to have an inner dialogue at some point. I don't have any feedback, though. It's something I want to work on. I'm not necessarily worried about my lack of vocabulary or performance anxiety, but I'm sure interacting with me in Spanish would be like speaking with a child. I would think that would be boring for someone with a good enough grasp of the language to give me valuable feedback.
I recently finished my first book in Spanish: Huevos verdes con jamón. It took a while to get used to Conditional Tense since I haven't studied it yet, but it was a fun accomplishment. Next up is Clifford la colección. A collection of Clifford the Big Red Dog stories. Then I want to power my way through La telaraña de Carlota, which is way over my head at this point. I'm sure I'll learn a lot of new vocabulary.