Bex Spanish log 2019: a definitive guide on the slowest way to learn Spanish ever!

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Bex
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Re: Bex Spanish log 2019: a definitive guide on the slowest way to learn Spanish ever!

Postby Bex » Tue Jan 08, 2019 2:15 pm

Brun Ugle wrote:I liked Gramática de Uso del Español. I also did a lot of drilling with FSI. I think that gave me a good foundation in the grammar.
Gramática de Uso del Español does seem to be very well regarded amongst Spanish learners, I may start working my way through it.

I'm not sure I have the patience for FSI although it's probably exactly what I need right now - I wish there was a more modern version.
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Kwiziq
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Brun Ugle
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Re: Bex Spanish log 2019: a definitive guide on the slowest way to learn Spanish ever!

Postby Brun Ugle » Tue Jan 08, 2019 2:56 pm

Bex wrote:
Brun Ugle wrote:I liked Gramática de Uso del Español. I also did a lot of drilling with FSI. I think that gave me a good foundation in the grammar.
Gramática de Uso del Español does seem to be very well regarded amongst Spanish learners, I may start working my way through it.

I'm not sure I have the patience for FSI although it's probably exactly what I need right now - I wish there was a more modern version.

I don’t feel it’s really outdated. The language doesn’t change that fast. Of course, they don’t talk about mobile phones or computers, but that kind of vocabulary you can pick up elsewhere. It’s mostly the grammar you’d want FSI for. If it’s too boring for you though, you’d better find something else. It took me a long time to finish it and I’m the sort of weirdo that finds FSI drills fun.
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iguanamon
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Re: Bex Spanish log 2019: a definitive guide on the slowest way to learn Spanish ever!

Postby iguanamon » Tue Jan 08, 2019 4:16 pm

What a course like FSI Basic does for a learner is to help make Spanish usage automatic. The drills reinforce the grammar patterns/verb conjugations and common vocabulary taught.

Yes, it is around 45 years old and that's not a problem. You will pick up modern technology usage elsewhere. What this will do is teach and reinforce grammar and the drills will, hopefully, make them more automatic and ready for you to use in your speech, listening and reading.
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Bex
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Re: Bex Spanish log 2019: a definitive guide on the slowest way to learn Spanish ever!

Postby Bex » Tue Jan 08, 2019 8:57 pm

iguanamon wrote:What a course like FSI Basic does for a learner is to help make Spanish usage automatic. The drills reinforce the grammar patterns/verb conjugations and common vocabulary taught.

I'm sure it's very good for grammar drilling and that would be very helpful for me at the moment but I still have reservations about the very formal (usted) language used and the lack of vosotros in the course. Both 'tu' and 'vosotros' are very heavily used where I am.

Brun Ugle wrote:If it’s too boring for you though, you’d better find something else. It took me a long time to finish it and I’m the sort of weirdo that finds FSI drills fun.
How long is a long time?
It being boring would be my biggest hurdle, I have tried to do FSI before and I gave up at the end of lesson 3, which I believe is the first unit with the drills. Maybe the trick would be to just go through it slowly...no stress :)

Maybe Glossika GSR alongside Gramática de Uso del Español could be a viable alternative?
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Kwiziq
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Brun Ugle
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Re: Bex Spanish log 2019: a definitive guide on the slowest way to learn Spanish ever!

Postby Brun Ugle » Wed Jan 09, 2019 6:39 am

FSI does have tú, but not vosotros as it’s for Latin American Spanish. I think there was one chapter towards the end with vosotros, but that was it. I really don’t know how long it took me. I did both the Programmatic and the Basic courses twice through, but I did a lot of of other stuff on the side. Had I done only FSI, I probably could have gotten through everything in under a year, but I did other things too, including GdUdE and getting hooked on telenovelas.
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Re: Bex Spanish log 2019: a definitive guide on the slowest way to learn Spanish ever!

Postby Cavesa » Wed Jan 09, 2019 9:42 am

about the intermediate courses:

I second the Gramatica de Uso recommendation. As far as general intermediate courses go, I have less relevant experience, as I have been using mostly Czech based ones so far. But I have found Metodo (published by Anaya, I started with book 3, for B1, as my writing skills are the weakest and somewhere around B1), which I really like. I liked and considered buying Tema a tema (Edelsa). I liked it in the bookstore, but the price/value ratio didn't seem too favourable, the books were a bit too thin for the price. I don't know whether there is anything English based for your level, or rather what and whether it is good.
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Bex
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Re: Bex Spanish log 2019: a definitive guide on the slowest way to learn Spanish ever!

Postby Bex » Wed Jan 09, 2019 9:49 am

Brun Ugle wrote:FSI does have tú, but not vosotros as it’s for Latin American Spanish.
Good to know, thanks.
Brun Ugle wrote:I did both the Programmatic and the Basic courses twice through
BOTH OF THEM AND TWICE!!! :shock:

OK so you've convinced me to try it. I still want to complete the SC so I'm just gonna commit to working through the Basic course Volume 1 and see how it goes, I think 15 lessons is enough to see if I want to continue with it and it seems a lot less daunting if I commit to just 1 volume at a time.

Since you are an FSI master, do you have any top tips on how to use the FSI Basic course materials?
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Kwiziq
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Brun Ugle
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Re: Bex Spanish log 2019: a definitive guide on the slowest way to learn Spanish ever!

Postby Brun Ugle » Wed Jan 09, 2019 10:28 am

Bex wrote:
Brun Ugle wrote:FSI does have tú, but not vosotros as it’s for Latin American Spanish.
Good to know, thanks.
Brun Ugle wrote:I did both the Programmatic and the Basic courses twice through
BOTH OF THEM AND TWICE!!! :shock:

OK so you've convinced me to try it. I still want to complete the SC so I'm just gonna commit to working through the Basic course Volume 1 and see how it goes, I think 15 lessons is enough to see if I want to continue with it and it seems a lot less daunting if I commit to just 1 volume at a time.

Since you are an FSI master, do you have any top tips on how to use the FSI Basic course materials?

As far as I recall, it’s pretty self-explanatory. I think the first two lessons of Basic were pronunciation exercises and a little different from the rest. The rest of the lessons had a dialogue, which I went through as directed — listen and repeat, then participation, if I’m remembering correctly. I didn’t bother memorizing them. I read any explanations in the pdf, and did the drills as directed. There are different kinds of drills. Substitution drills: they give you a sentence, then a word that you have to plug into the sentence modifying the rest as necessary. Tense drills: they give you a sentence in one tense and you have to change it to some other tense. Number drills: they might give you a sentence in 1st person singular and you have to change it to 1st person plural, or vice versa. Translation drills: they give the English, you translate to Spanish. In the fourth volume (possibly even the third, I’m not sure of my memory), they started including only the Spanish translation on the recording for the translation drills, so you needed to look at the pdf for the English prompt for those, but in the earlier volumes, the English was recorded too. So, except for the translation drills in the later chapters, it is possible to do all the drills without looking at the pdf. I used to sometimes do FSI drills while walking. So, technically, I’ve done some chapters more than twice. Twice at home, plus additional times while walking.

My suggestion is just to follow the directions for each drill. Try to get the answer right without pausing. There is enough time. And have fun. FSI is loads of fun.
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Bex
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Re: Bex Spanish log 2019: a definitive guide on the slowest way to learn Spanish ever!

Postby Bex » Wed Jan 09, 2019 12:51 pm

Brun Ugle wrote:My suggestion is just to follow the directions for each drill. Try to get the answer right without pausing. There is enough time. And have fun. FSI is loads of fun.
I have managed to go through the whole of lesson 3 today. I have done lessons 1 & 2 previously, so I just read through them this morning to remind myself what they covered and then I read lesson 3 before attempting the audio.

My thoughts on lesson 3:
1) There are a lot of drills.
2) Apart for not knowing words like "embassy" and "ashtray" it was pretty easy to do the drills. I got almost everything correct once I understood what I was supposed to do.
3) I will repeat the lesson 3 audio tomorrow, just so that I am confident that I understand the method and then I'll move onto lesson 4.
4) I think [maybe] I can do this :)

Thanks Brun Ugle for all your help
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Kwiziq
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A1: 100 / 100
A2: 100 / 100
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B2: 53 / 100

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Brun Ugle
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Re: Bex Spanish log 2019: a definitive guide on the slowest way to learn Spanish ever!

Postby Brun Ugle » Wed Jan 09, 2019 1:32 pm

Bex wrote:
Brun Ugle wrote:My suggestion is just to follow the directions for each drill. Try to get the answer right without pausing. There is enough time. And have fun. FSI is loads of fun.
I have managed to go through the whole of lesson 3 today. I have done lessons 1 & 2 previously, so I just read through them this morning to remind myself what they covered and then I read lesson 3 before attempting the audio.

My thoughts on lesson 3:
1) There are a lot of drills.
2) Apart for not knowing words like "embassy" and "ashtray" it was pretty easy to do the drills. I got almost everything correct once I understood what I was supposed to do.
3) I will repeat the lesson 3 audio tomorrow, just so that I am confident that I understand the method and then I'll move onto lesson 4.
4) I think [maybe] I can do this :)

Thanks Brun Ugle for all your help

The point of the drills isn’t that they should be hard. They should become so easy that you can do them in your sleep. The point is to make the correct forms pop out of your mouth without you having to think about it, the same way they do in your native language.
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