Well we are just a click away from June. I am looking for people who are dedicated to taking their language learning to the next level.
Currently, I am studying Spanish and spend a good amount of my day focusing on the language. My initial reason for learning the language was so that I could better communicate with my students parents. While that is still a goal I am now focusing on communicating with teachers in Mexico. I have been helping schools for the past three years and as I move deeper into Mexico I need to be able to explain my projects to a larger audience of people.
I am looking for like minded people that want to share their language learning struggles and successes. What plans and schedules are working and what is not working. What additional resources you are using or what are you looking for?
We could also have weekly discussions using zoom or google meets.
Since my mother tongue is Spanish and I’m currently willing to improve my English speaking skills, perhaps we could try an exchange. However, I don’t have any professional experience in either pedagogy or linguistics, I’ve just used the full immersion/input approach mainly through LingQ, the last year for German and since March 2021 for English. I think I’ve made good progress in those two languages. So if it’s just casual talk about our experiencies, strategies and resources, I think I could participate.
I don’t think I’m going as hard as you on Spanish. But I am bumping up my daily study time from 1 hour to 1.5 hours.
In June I’ll be reading 1 hour a day using LingQ. My goal is to get through all of the Intermediate 1 Guided Course content here, finish reading the novel Brujas by Brenda Lozano, and a real stretch goal is to also to start and finish Eva Luna by Isabelle Allende.
I’ll be spending 30 minutes a day on DuoLingo as it’s been helping me reinforce grammar. I’d like to finish level 4 this month.
On top of that, I have general reading goals (outside of my study time) that are starting to include Spanish books. These I’ll be reading outside of LingQ. I have one children’s book that’s been on my Kindle for a while, Los Bichos y el QuĂmico Loco. It’s for 5-11 year olds. And I’m buying / hoping to get through Los Fantasmas de Fernando, a chapter book for 9-12 year olds.
By the end of 2021, I really want to be able to read Spanish novels somewhat comfortably without LingQ. So I’m really excited about my foray into unassisted reading this month.
I’m trying to hit 40K known words and 300 hours of listening by the end of the year. I don’t know if im going to be able to do it. But I’m going to keep going at it.
You absolutely can reach your goals. Make a daily plan and start with you free time. We all have the same about of time in the day. We just choose to use our time differently.
I block out about 30-60 at a time during the day. In the morning I start my lingqs and try to work for about 30 minutes. Then I actively listen to audio that I repeat for 60 minutes. During my drive to work I listen to the radio or pod cast in my L2 language and do the same on the way home. On and off through the day I have 3-4 conversations going on with my L2 partners using WhatsApp. I normally have the same conversation with all of them and get a little bit of correction throughout the day. I read Spanish books out loud at about a B2 level. When I struggle I read them to my L2 partner and they make corrections or record an audio for me and then I record an audio for them.
I just added a new program called Beeboop and can have as many live lesson a day as I want :0
Today I has 3 lessons and I am going to jump back on for another one. I use a Goldlist method notebook, daily note cards but not for memorization mainly for spelling and yes Anki.
I don’t track my time or words, but I do try to keep content in the same area so that I am building a tool box for different projects and parts of my language learning journey. It has taken me about 5 months to build up to this level.
I wont state what level I am currently on because that is like stating and IQ without a formal test. I am still a beginner but can hold down a basic conversation.
Thanks for joining the adventure. Let me know you you need help with planning our schedule development.
P.S. there are days I feel like my head will just explode!
You are doing great! We have to use what works best for our own learning styles. Over time your style will change along with your needs. Just keep moving along. 1.5 hours is a good amount of time. Are you able to purchase the audio version of Brujas? If so that would increase you input time naturally.
DuoLingo is a great program for helping with grammar and pronunciation. 101 conversations in Spanish by Olly Richards is a good book as it uses natural dialogue. I have some of his books on Kindle but I found I enjoy reading the physical book more read and when I have the book in my hand, it also gives me a break from the computer.
See if you can fit in an extra 60 minutes a day by the end of the month, 3-4 hours a day 6 days a week is truly the learning sweet spot. While I don’t take time off I do normally have at least one slower day each week.
It seems that due to security measures, LingQ doesn’t allow us to post personal information in comments, I’ll try to post my mail in my bio so you can write me
My listening skills are so poor. A novel would be way too advanced. I haven’t found anything that’s both at a low enough level for me to understand the audio and also interesting enough for me to care to listen. I’ve tried doing heavy input on basically every Spanish language podcast but my comprehension didn’t improve at all so it was super frustrating. I think I have to do really intensive listening exercises to improve my ability to distinguish sounds and place words. I’ve always complained about my hearing and I’ve started to suspect that’s hurting my listening ability. Either way, I’ve decided to put off figuring it out until next year. Reading is my biggest motivation for learning other languages so I’m spending 2021 focused on that. It’s been really motivating to see how my progress has accelerated by focusing on one skill at a time. Next year, when my passive vocabulary is bigger, I’ll focus in on listening.
Only read content that was originally written in your L2 area. Translated content can be confusing.
Olly Richards has some good books on amazon. I would recommend purchasing the hard copy of 101 Spanish Conversation at the CEFR A1-A2 level and then purchasing the audio.
In the language community people like to talk about all of the complex books that they have read but lack the ability to speak. Speaking is truly the foundation for communication. I read and re-read my books. I start with a few stories adding a new one and then dropping an old one.
You can do this! Rinse and repeat until you find you Spanish ears and tong
Yeah, I definitely don’t read translated works. Brujas was written by a Mexican woman. Eva Luna was written by a Chilean woman. I’m working my way through LingQ content, which is translated / not great. But that’s a pretty small part of my reading.
I’ll definitely add speaking to my arsenal eventually. But to be honest, I read, listen, and write waaaay more English content than I ever speak. I’m a writer, marketer, self-employed introvert and I maybe have 2-3 real spoken conversations a week. So my Spanish speaking skills will probably be the last that I develop. I did a sprint of iTalki lessons last year and it was fun learning about other people’s lives, but trying to develop all four language skills with the limited time I have wasn’t getting me noticeable progress, so I’ve had to prioritize.
I’ll definitely check out the book you recommended though when I get to improving my listening skills.
A self-employed introvert who writes and can market to people? You ma’am, are my heroine.
Strategywise you are paralleling much of what I did. Obviously the more time you can put in, the better. A serious and committed langague learner, especially employing “our” methods will put in 1-1.5 hours per day over a longtime. Anything more than 2 hours/day is someone who is beyond committed–they are devoted and very motivated.
You might have heard be drone on about variants of this before, but for me, the 90 day challege was a huge turning point for me. I make sure to do at least 1.5 hours/day, sometimes more as I got addicted, and then I would usually try to do 3 hours per day on Saturday and Sunday. A did a lot of listening and reading, but any listening I did was of stuff I was interested in AND had already read, lingqed, etc. The core skill was reading–not only becuase that was what I was most interested in and the primary use I had for Spanish, but also because I wanted to expand my vocabulary.
Later on, during a second 90 Day challege, I did both listening and reading again, but really wanted to improve my then poor listening comprehension. As Master Steve counseled in an email or forum reply, after a few hundred hours (3-400) things were really much improved. I personally liked Netflix shows becuase i coiuld watch the show, read the Spanish subtitles, and obviously hear the dialogue. I’ve listened to over 800 hours to date, most of which was these shows. What I think is excellent now, and I wish I had then, is the ability to import Netflix subtitles into LingQ so you can read it ahead of time, lingq it up and start learning the words! What I’ve been doing for forever is loading and lingqing all those hundreds of hours into LingQ now, after the fact in order to have all the vocab saved and to get a better accurate count of words read. (It is incredibly tedious work so I bore with it quickly and then end up not doing it so it’s taking me a very long time also for that reason. Right now, I have a 50 day streak going and only about 1600 blue words left to go!)
Thank you, it does take a lot of time. I am not 100% on my game today, but I have been under the weather for the past week.
I am spending time daily with an online tutor on a program called BeepBoop. I can sign up for as many 25 minute direct conversations as I want daily.
It is my goal this summer to move beyond the girl talk, food, gardening, and house stuff that I talk about with my friends. I find it very difficult to have normal everyday conversations that don’t revolve round my work.
I have not been able to import the Netflix subtitles on the computer I am currently using. I just updated an older computer and I hope I can use it to import content.
I am watching Monarch on Netflix with the Spanish subtitles this week.
Lol, it sounds better than it is. But yeah, I’m excited to get to improving my listening comprehension by using podcasts and Netflix. I’ve imported a couple of episodes of various shows to LingQ, but its not as fun to read them as it is to watch and read, and right now subtitles move too fast for me. So I totally get why its taking you time to LingQ show transcripts. They’re just not as much fun without the moving pictures.
I just found out that someone created audio files of most of DuoLingo’s stories and was surprised that when I went back and listened, I understood most of the early ones. The audio clips are short so that’s probably where I’ll start once I get my reading to a better place. And then hopefully move on to YouTube videos, podcasts, and Netflix. Even though I’m focused on reading right now, I’ve been building up my listening resources for when I’m ready to give it more attention.
