CarlyD's Spanish and German Log

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CarlyD
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Re: CarlyD's Spanish and German Log

Postby CarlyD » Mon Nov 07, 2016 10:23 pm

6 Week Challenge progress:

Meh.

Yesterday Memrise was down, Twitter seemed to be up and down. Today Memrise is kind of up, but the "memory" part is still down, so it will give you the same word over and over. I'm going to wait it out--the people on Facebook were mad that they all lost their streaks.

Good progress on reading a book about a guy that moved to Argentina, but I'm not going the claim the pages until I finish--about half done now.

Back to working on verbs.
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2024 15,000 pages Reading Challenge--pages: 1180 / 15000

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CarlyD
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Re: CarlyD's Spanish and German Log

Postby CarlyD » Sun Dec 11, 2016 1:05 am

Tomorrow's the final day of the 6 Week Challenge--I'm in #4 for target language at the moment, which is where I usually am during the challenges. I won't finish my total goal by tomorrow night--I have about 8 pages of textbook left with 6 lengthy exercises to do--but I've accomplished a lot and am happy with the challenge. I'll probably be done by Wednesday then I'm probably going to take a 2 week break for the holidays. This challenge was for Preterit.

Starting January, I'm doing Imperfect. Then I get to start wavering back and forth over whether I'm changing back to German again. :P But Imperfect is the LAST CHAPTER in this textbook--I've never actually finished a textbook before. :D Of course, the author has a book two that I already have and I'll probably just flow into that one. Or German. Or Spanish. :?

I was looking in a book and the author was talking about learning verbs like you learn Latin:
(for hablar) hablo-hablas-hablar-hablé (1st & 2nd present, infinitive, 1st preterit). I'm not sure if that would be helpful or not, but maybe it would help me mixing up the preterits for poner and poder.

I did a (slightly) crazy thing earlier this week. I'm always struggling with the textbook on my right, holding open and finding a word in the dictionary with my left, and then trying to write something down. This week I found a copy of my same dictionary, used. I tore off the binding, punched holes in all the pages and put it in a binder. IT IS AMAZING!! I can sit with the open dictionary on my lap while I'm doing something, flipping through pages, and it is sooooo much easier.

I've kept up (slightly) with the marking that I read about earlier. Every word that I look up that goes onto a flashcard, I underline in orange. (This was from Language Logic by Robyn Matthew). She uses an extensive system of circling and underlining in different colors for different reasons--maybe I'll look at it again, but the orange is telling me that I'm actively learning the word (or should be) and that's good for now.
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Tomás
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Re: CarlyD's Spanish and German Log

Postby Tomás » Sun Dec 11, 2016 1:38 am

This author also advocates a Latin-style method for learning Spanish verbs. He claims that it makes learning irregular verbs much easier, in that all but six of them fit into the pattern:

https://www.amazon.com/Practice-Makes-Perfect-Spanish-Irregular/dp/0071718087
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CarlyD
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Re: CarlyD's Spanish and German Log

Postby CarlyD » Sun Dec 11, 2016 7:45 pm

Tomás wrote:This author also advocates a Latin-style method for learning Spanish verbs. He claims that it makes learning irregular verbs much easier, in that all but six of them fit into the pattern:

https://www.amazon.com/Practice-Makes-Perfect-Spanish-Irregular/dp/0071718087


That's exactly who I was talking about--should have named the book when I made the comment. I'm using his Past Tense Verbs Up Close and I really like how he explains things. My textbook just said--here it is, and here's all the exceptions. He got into patterns which made more sense.
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CarlyD
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Re: CarlyD's Spanish and German Log

Postby CarlyD » Tue Dec 13, 2016 2:09 am

One of my biggest problems is being "out there" with my Spanish and talking to new people. I'm sure Benny Lewis would not be happy with me.

This weekend while I was on Facebook, one of the posts was a Spanish-learning page, asking for your favorite word that starts with a certain letter.

I had the perfect word! I would reply in Spanish!

My sentence was perfect Spanish. Except for my favorite word. Which was in German.

sigh
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CarlyD
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Re: CarlyD's Spanish and German Log

Postby CarlyD » Mon Jan 02, 2017 12:35 am

I'm switching back to German for 3 to 4 months, basically starting today. My notebook that details everything--which pages in various books I've looked at, which exercises I did--is gone. I've looked everywhere. So the last couple of days I've been reconstructing it into a new book. As soon as I'm done, I'll find the old book.

My plan was to start by reviewing what I already did--a variety of books, but I finished the first 14 chapters in German Step by Step. Now I'm going back to the beginning--and it's just too easy. My first progress right off the bat.

My goal for January: To find as many listening resources as possible as that's my weakest area.
My goal for this spring: To finally pass the A1 test.
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CarlyD
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Re: CarlyD's Spanish and German Log

Postby CarlyD » Sat Jan 28, 2017 11:23 pm

Gearing up for the 6WC starting next week. Hopefully the Bot will be fixed by then. Otherwise, I'm still doing it--I track everything in my Language Notebook anyway and then I'll post here once a week.

During the last challenge, I did Spanish, specifically Preterit tense. After the challenge was over I did the Imperfect tense, and bits of German.

But looking back--there are so many irregulars in Preterit--I just don't absolutely know them well enough. Some maybe I can't recall to speak but recognize in writing; others I recognize in writing that they're Preterit, but not from which verb.

So this challenge I'll again do Spanish and it will be a Preterit/Imperfect challenge. The goal will be to totally learn many of the common irregular Preterits, and be truly comfortable with which tense to use. (Actually the last will probably be the easiest part--I understand the differences already, just need practice to make it stick.)

I probably could have achieved this already, but I'm also working on building up my Spanish vocabulary so I haven't been drilling for just verbs.

Also I need to get back to tracking for the Super Challenge. I have been watching/reading--but I haven't been taking the time to track and report it. Oh, well. Bonus pages.
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CarlyD
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Re: CarlyD's Spanish and German Log

Postby CarlyD » Mon Jan 30, 2017 7:14 pm

OMG--what have I done???

I got an email from TakeLessons, kind of like italki, but local. I'd looked before for local language tutors, but never went any further. They sent me a discount code so I looked again.

I just signed up with a local Spanish teacher for once-a-week tutoring during the 6 Week Challenge.

She's going to make me talk!!!

I speak so much better Spanish when it's not actually out loud.

I need to go learn All The Things before the first session so I don't embarrass myself. :D
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CarlyD
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Re: CarlyD's Spanish and German Log

Postby CarlyD » Thu Feb 02, 2017 8:31 pm

I've been whining about the 9 million preterit irregular verbs in Spanish, while I drill on them. And complain.

Today Benny Lewis spoke to me about it. Well, it was on Facebook, but that's real, isn't it? :D

He was talking about the difference between language hackers and language slackers. The ones who whine. Ok, Benny, I hear you. Back to my vocabulary drills.

Here's the article:
http://www.fluentin3months.com/crybaby/
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CarlyD
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Re: CarlyD's Spanish and German Log

Postby CarlyD » Mon Feb 13, 2017 9:20 pm

Checking in for the 6 Week Challenge.

I'm still working on Preterits and Imperfects, but also doing bits of review on other things, so moving slow-but-steady. One thing I did do was drop a lot of my Memrise courses. I had way too many going at once and not making much progress on any of them. I'm back to 3 learning, 1 verb conjugation and 4 "no typing" vocabulary. Probably still too much but I'm making fairly good progress with all of them.

I found a book (Avancemos 2) at a local sale for 50 cents--seemed to be a high school Spanish text. It had some interesting things so I bought it. Even though it's from 2007, the website (www.classzone.com) is still active and there's all kinds of things I can do--quizes, listening, etc.--for each chapter. Pretty good for 50 cents.

I recently received a book--Perfecting the Past in Spanish--that's amazing. I knew it was all about preterits and imperfects and when to use what, but it starts out with a full review of ser/estar and is very methodical. It's written by a guy who learned Spanish, so he's basing a lot on things that he had trouble with back then. It's the same person that wrote Pocket Por and Para (wonderful book) and Demystifying the Spanish Subjunctive. My plan is to finish this new book plus all the pages in my text and workbook about the past tenses during this challenge.

Perfecting the Past https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/15349 ... UTF8&psc=1
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2024 15,000 pages Reading Challenge--pages: 1180 / 15000


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