ShawnP's Spanish Adventure

[garyb]

I agree with the others, sounds like a great trip, good luck with the preparation!

I agree with James, the latest Assimil Spanish is a good course. It's quite focused on Spain - not only the language, but also a few of the lessons that talk about different parts of the country - but at the end of the day Spanish is Spanish. I've not seen the older courses so I can't compare it to them, however.

[ShawnP]

MmeFleiss,
I definitely agree I'm more engaged with SWoT over the my 87 version of SwE, but I also feel its a little harder with everything they pack in. However, I find that I'm more of an FSI person and the info they provide right out of the gate will probably assist more in the near future. I'm sure I'll give them a thorough passive wave at least, but sticking with FSI primarily for now (until I need a short break).

James29,
I wouldn't mind checking out the new Assimil Spanish course but dont see much value in spending the $80 bucks on amazon when I have SwE and SWot at my desposal, especially when I've only completed the passive waves of both. As for Guatemala, I'll arrive around 1pm and I'll ensure whichever immersion school I choose first (in Antigua) will have shuttle service from the airport.

garyb,
Are you currently working through the new course?


As for my log, since Monday I've covered the following:

FSI - 4.7 hrs
Glossika Mexican Spanish - 1.8 hrs
Book 2 - 1.5 hrs
L/R Native Material - 1 hr (SpanishListening.org)

GRAND TOTAL: 9 hrs.

I think I'll start updating this log every Sunday with my numbers to give me a main goal to work towards.

[James29]

James29,
I wouldn't mind checking out the new Assimil Spanish course but dont see much value in spending the $80 bucks on amazon when I have SwE and SWot at my desposal, especially when I've only completed the passive waves of both. As for Guatemala, I'll arrive around 1pm and I'll ensure whichever immersion school I choose first (in Antigua) will have shuttle service from the airport.

I agree. The older Assimil Spanish courses are great. But, just so you know, Schoenhof's is always much cheaper for Assimil. You can get the new book for $15:

http://www.schoenhofs.com/Spanish-with- ... 94369.html

That's just the book. I don't see the audio on their website, but it is probably there for a pretty reasonable price. Their website is difficult for me to navigate on.

The best money I spent on each of my immersion trips was having a driver pick me up at the airport. Very good move. Well worth it.

[ShawnP]

Well,
My first week didn’t go as well as I had planned and I didn’t log as much time as I wanted. I’m going to attempt to reach 15 hrs per week/6 days a week. My wifi connection at my location is very weak so I didn’t get to get into my L/R (spanishlistening.org) as much due to the lag time and failure to load. So until I’m able to get decent internet speed, I’m back to Assimil along with FSI as primary. However, I’ll be back in the States next month where I plan on going back to L/R of native speech as much as possible.
On a positive note, I’ve acquired a bootleg PDF of Assimil Spanish with Ease, thanks to a forum member’s advice, that I can use until I get back home where my book is.

For Week 1:
FSI Spanish- 6 hrs
Glossika Mexican Spanish - 2 hrs
Book 2 – 2.0 hrs
L/R Native Material - 1 hr (SpanishListening.org)

GRAND TOTAL: 11 hrs.

175 days to Guatemala.

[ShawnP]

Subject: Assimil Spanish 9782700580488

The pack with audio is currently out of stock. The price is $86.95. If you order this week you can take advantage of our special price of $52.95 + free shipping. Please contact us to 847-676-1596 to place your order and reference ISBN# 9782700580488
Thank you!

This is an auto-generated email from an address that does not accept replies.

Please respond to this message by clicking here: http://www.schoenhofs.com/crm.asp?mk=twslnccnhm-2419

Important: If you have a "this is not spam" button in your email program, please click it to ensure you receive our next email when a representative responds to this case.

Schoenhof's Foreign Books
The Oldest Foreign Language Bookstore in the United States
At your service since 1856
76A Mount Auburn St, Cambridge, MA 02138
(617) 547-8855

[ShawnP]

Week two has about came to a close. Unfortunately, I didn’t put in nearly the amount of time as I wanted to do. Felt ill on Wednesday so I decided to take that day off and just pick it back up on Sunday. But today (Sunday) just wasn’t a day for study.
In my defense, I haven’t had a day off since early March and I do work 80-84 hours per week. Ok, that’s my crybaby excuse. However, tomorrow starts my final week of working overseas. I’ll be headed back stateside soon and will have much more time to work on my spanish. I'm definitely feeling burned out from the job.

Another thing that bugs me is that I can’t keep any sort of schedule. I seem to bounce around on materials. I still plan on keeping FSI as my main study course. I will probably keep Book 2 a close second as I think I’ll be able to complete it in the next couple weeks and move forward. Having two Assimil courses at hand are presenting a challenge especially since I’ve completed the passive waves with both. I’ve just been listening/reading from lesson 1-50 to keep things fresh in my mind. SwE seems easier, SWoT seems more interesting.

So here are my numbers for this week:
FSI – 170m
Spanish w/o Toil – 77m
Book 2 – 93m
Spanish w/Ease – 112m
7.5 hrs.

167 DAYS TO GUATEMALA

[ShawnP]

It is Saturday night and my study for this week is over. I felt pretty good, and not so good, about my accomplishments this week. I’ve hit FSI Spanish and Assimil Spanish w/o Toil pretty hard. Also, tomorrow is my last day of working overseas so no more 80 hour workweeks. Starting Monday I’ll be packing up and in travel mode so I expect I’ll have a lot more time to dedicate to language learning since it’ll take me about 5 days to get to the States. Lots of downtime over the next week.

I completed LESSONS 16 and 17 of FSI Spanish this week and will move on to LESSON 18 Monday. This week I’ve been mostly drilling LESSONS 5-10 along with the main lesson. Next week I will be drilling 11-16 and doing LESSONS 18 and 19. I used Audacity to break up my FSI lessons between Translation/Variation drills and Response/Substitution/Replacement drills. I’ve mainly focused on Translation and Variation drills thus far but I need to hit up all drills. I find the Response/Substitution/Replacement drills boring. My goal is to not burn out before I get to lesson 30 and the way I’ve been using my study time with FSI seems good. We shall see.

As for Assimil Spanish without Toil, perhaps I’m just not assimilating the material good enough. I’m currently on LESSON 64 and listened and read previous lessons multiple times but I haven’t yet went back and started Wave 2. I’m understanding 90% of the material before moving on to the next lesson and I understand nearly that much the following day when I review previous lessons. I don’t find it particularly hard at all except now and again with vocabulary. However, I’ve attempted to go back and see how my translating skills were with several earlier lessons. I WAS NOT HAPPY at all. Although Assimil gets rave reviews from a lot of people, I don’t think its for me, Right Now. I think I will completely bow out of Assimil and stick with one main course, FSI Spanish.

I’ve decided to go back with Glossika Mexican Spanish as my primary supplement with FSI as the main course. I was going to hold off on Glossika until I completed SWoT but maybe using two actual courses at the same time is holding me back. Perhaps I could use Glossika much like an Assimil course, listening/reading 25 sentences a day until I completely understand them and go back at the halfway point and start translating. The sentences used in Glossika are much more relevant to me than Assimil anyway. I just need to stop taking this language learning so serious.

I just noticed I’ve done nothing but FSI and Assimil Spanish w/o Toil this week. Not sure why that is. I need to work on that. Anyway, here are my numbers.

FSI – 6.21 hrs.
Assimil- 3.68 hrs.

TOTAL TIME: 10.5 HOURS

160 days til Guatemala.

[garyb]

garyb,
Are you currently working through the new course?

Sorry, I missed this question at the time and only just noticed it now! No, I worked through it a couple of years ago. I have the Italian base version, which I believe was available before the English one. My Spanish learning has been a bit on-and-off, I studied it for a good few months two years ago but then decided to stop and focus on my other languages, then I started again this year.

[ShawnP]

My plan at studying a lot this week was miscalculated. I only hit the books 4 days this week due to travel from overseas. I'm still in travel mode and will be home tomorrow night. I focused mainly on FSI with just a dab of Glossika Mexican Spanish. Today is Monday and I've not done anything. Perhaps I'll run a few FSI drills just for fun. I'm gonna attempt to study on the airplane a little tomorrow but perhaps I'll not speak out loud. It would probably freak some people out. Not a good idea on a plane. I'm looking forward to getting settled and back into a routine. I'll be starting FSI lesson 20 this week with lots of review from lessons 14-19. On a good note, I eavesdropped on some Mexicans here in El Paso this morning at the chow hall and understood a little, but still too fast. When checking into my hotel this afternoon, I could easily understand the receptionist that was taking a reservation from someone on the phone in Spanish. I probably understood 90%, but it was short and basic conversation. Still a plus. I think native material from spanishlistening.org and the material from the university of Texas Spanish listening exercises will help tremendously. I've yet to do any reading.

FSI- 5.4 hrs
Glossika-1.2 hrs

[b]TOTAL: 7.0 hrs[/b].

153 days until Guatemala

[ShawnP]

I fell off the log for the last month. My returning home threw a big monkeywrench in my study habits and from mid Aug to mid-Sept I barely did much study. However, this past week I did mostly review of FSI Spanish and Glossika Mexican Spanish as well as some Assimil.

For FSI, this past week I re-listened to lessons 5-15 (thanks to audacity). Although I couldn't answer each prompt by heart, I got a lot correct and understood the ones I didn't. This week, I will focus on Units 19 & 20 with review of previous lessons. The next week will be 21 & 22 with review of previous lessons, and so on.

For a supplement, I'm still using Glossika Mexican Spanish. This week I will focus on sentences 1000-1500 and try and listen to 500 sentences each day.

Lastly, I'll focus on listening to Showtime Spanish podcast and doing of L/R with SpanishListening.org. I think this will vastly improve my listening skills. They are shorter and easier than an Assimil lesson so I don't forsee any problem here.


103 days to Guatemala