ShawnP's Spanish Adventure

[ShawnP]

Another week has flown by. Another good week of Spanish. This will be a very boring log as I don't plan on changing my routine around too much. Listening and Speaking are my first priorities, but I've gotten to reading a bit the last two weeks.

Anki has been my speaking out loud tool. I've got plenty of sentences that I've pulled from my old Glossika Spanish book, FSI programmatic book, and a couple other resources. I think maybe 4k or 5k total sentences, which I feel if mastered, will allow me to say just about anything I need. I've read a log or two with people with so many sentences, I'm not sure how they get to all of them.

Listening came to around 4 hrs this week. There's no reason I shouldn't be able to do at least 5 hrs. Maybe I was a little lazy. In the grand scheme of things, 1 hour a day is nothing.

As for reading, I've made it to chapter 13 of the first Harry Potter book. It still gives me fits and I still have to use the translator quite a bit, but I'm definitely enjoying it. Its gotten a little easier since chapter 1 to understand though. The first thing I did today, on a sunday, was get up and open up my Kindle to read. Didn't even get any coffee or anything. Apparently it has gotten a little addictive, since I told myself Sunday I would not do any Spanish study.

[ShawnP]

Although today is Saturday, I'm going to take today and tomorrow off and relax a bit, maybe play some golf. I got in a good bit of Anki and some listening in this week.

I also completed my first Harry Potter book this morning. I must say I had a ton of challenges but on toward the end, it was still slow-going but not as bad as the beginning. No matter, I still wanted to read more and more and skip on my other exercises (speaking & listening). I've got to make sure I spend my time wisely and hit up all areas each day.

My next book starting Monday will be Brothers Grimm (Spanish/English bilingual). What I think I like about this book is that it is bilingual up front, and the last part is the book again, but only in Spanish. I think having the opportunity to read it in this way will help solidify some of the vocabulary. Time will tell.

[Bex]

Anki has been my speaking out loud tool. I've got plenty of sentences that I've pulled from my old Glossika Spanish book, FSI programmatic book, and a couple other resources. I think maybe 4k or 5k total sentences, which I feel if mastered, will allow me to say just about anything I need.

Interesting idea for speaking, do you spend much time on this each day?

I too have Glossika 1 & 2 Anki Decks. What do your cards look like? I often wonder if I should get round to actually using them but I have a bit of a love/hate (definitely more hate) relationship with Anki.

Sounds like reading the first Harry Potter book went well for you, well done on completing it. And good luck with Brothers Grimm, I've always liked listening and reading this type of story because some of them I know really well, so picking up vocabulary is easier. Your bilingual version sounds perfect.

[ShawnP]

Bex,

I probably only spend 30-45 minutes a day with Anki. I have a bad habit of getting bored after a while, especially if I'm making dumb mistakes. I'm still working on my FSI programmatic deck at the moment. After I work through Programmatic, I may throw in some Glossika sentences (I have Fluency 1,2,3, and Business). I'm 90% correct on Glossika Fluency 1 and 2 sentences already so it'll be a good refresher. But I plan on spacing them out. I didn't follow the Glossika schedule according to their plan, nor did their GSR files as its 50% English/50% Spanish. I took all the sentences and put them in Excel, then converted them so I could upload straight to Anki. Also, I remove any sentences that I don't think I'll ever use/sentences I think are dumb.

Im looking forward to Brothers Grimm and all the tales it has. Its sitting in my Kindle just waiting til Monday.

[ShawnP]

Its been two weeks since last logged my Spanish adventure. I've had very little change over the last two weeks, just shooting for some Anki, L/R, and reading with some conjugation work thrown in. I don't forsee any changes in the future. As much as I'd like to get back to watching TV, I'm going to stick with my plan for the next couple months and try and boost my listening comprehension.

As for reading, I tried a Western book from my favorite Western author, Louis L'Amour. However, I found that the Western book seemed to be written differently. I can't explain it much better than that. So after a few days of not being able to "get into" the book, I broke down and got the 2nd Harry Potter book Now I'm back to enjoying reading.

[Cenwalh]

Its been two weeks since last logged my Spanish adventure. I've had very little change over the last two weeks, just shooting for some Anki, L/R, and reading with some conjugation work thrown in. I don't forsee any changes in the future. As much as I'd like to get back to watching TV, I'm going to stick with my plan for the next couple months and try and boost my listening comprehension.

As for reading, I tried a Western book from my favorite Western author, Louis L'Amour. However, I found that the Western book seemed to be written differently. I can't explain it much better than that. So after a few days of not being able to "get into" the book, I broke down and got the 2nd Harry Potter book Now I'm back to enjoying reading.

Whilst not succeeding in reading that book might seem like a failure now, if you keep it and come back to it every month, you might find that it serves as good motivation when bit by bit you find the fog of its pages clearing.

[ShawnP]

Two weeks have went by since last post. Nothing new for me. Still plugging along on speaking sentences out loud, listening to random Spanish speakers speaking on all kinds of different topics on my ipod, and reading the 2nd book of Harry Potter series.

I'm enjoying my learning habit thus far. I'm getting in at least two hours a day which is fine for me. I don't see myself in making any changes right now. I'm waiting to see if there any upcoming Challenges to be posted. I've never tried my luck at one.

[ShawnP]

Been a long time since I updated my log, but here I am again. Back at it. Taking a more simplified approach this time with just listening to native material and podcasts, reading, and speaking out loud sentences as much as possible.

[Cavesa]

Been a long time since I updated my log, but here I am again. Back at it. Taking a more simplified approach this time with just listening to native material and podcasts, reading, and speaking out loud sentences as much as possible.

That's quite an understatement Welcome back! Glad to see you continue

[ShawnP]

Been a long time since I updated my log, but here I am again. Back at it. Taking a more simplified approach this time with just listening to native material and podcasts, reading, and speaking out loud sentences as much as possible.

That's quite an understatement Welcome back! Glad to see you continue

Thanks Cavesa. Time waits on nobody.