I was thinking Wordpress might be easier to use. We'll see.
Anyway, the new site will be:
fluenzspanish.wordpress.com
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Vuelvo al caballo?
Hacía un descanso de aprender español hace dos meses! Quisiera empezar con el review ultimo que terminé. Estuvo leccion once nivel tres. Todavía practiqué español en estos dos meses pero no menudo y no con Fluenz. It's actually intimidating to restart. Tuvo tiempo la semana pasada pero no empecé. Hoy terminé leccion once nivel tres otra vez. Feels rusty. Tomé dos días a terminar, pero terminé es muy importante. Trato otra vez. Gracias por los comentarios.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Estoy empezando Fluenz Spanish nivel tres
Acabo de terminar lección tres de Fluenz Spanish nivel tres.
En nivel tres, las conversaciones son más rápidos que en los niveles pasados. Quedamos en el tema del restaurante. Ellos hablan que la comida es muy importante de la cultura latina. Estoy impaciente a usar el español en situaciones médicas, pero necesito estar paciente a aprender la structura de la idioma. I feel constrained que entiendo demasiado poco. Sólo quiero entender más de español hablado. Aprender parece un proceso muy lento. Es bien, no? I suppose if I don’t relax my expectations, I’ll burn out. Estoy aprendo mucho. It’s relevant structure, too. Learning sólo, para, word order. Voy a aprender el vocabulario médico importante en el hospital de mis colegas y Google. Puedo practicar las frases importantes con flashcards. I will learn to make my grammar more sophisticated with Fluenz. The Fluenz system may not be exactly relevant to what you want, but it’s laying down a good framework. You’re progressing. Be happy!
Creo que the Oxford Vocabulary Builder is unnecessary for now. For example, is it a better tool than News in Slow Spanish? For more usable vocabulary, OVB is probably more important, however, the purpose for using NSS is to listen to more Spanish. To listen to it effectively, I need to read and listen to the stories. I suppose if I get through the stories for the week, then I can use the OVB for more practice. Primary vocabulary is Fluenz. If I need a word, I’ll look it up. For listening practice, I have NSS. For extra practice, I have OVB and livemocha.
En nivel tres, las conversaciones son más rápidos que en los niveles pasados. Quedamos en el tema del restaurante. Ellos hablan que la comida es muy importante de la cultura latina. Estoy impaciente a usar el español en situaciones médicas, pero necesito estar paciente a aprender la structura de la idioma. I feel constrained que entiendo demasiado poco. Sólo quiero entender más de español hablado. Aprender parece un proceso muy lento. Es bien, no? I suppose if I don’t relax my expectations, I’ll burn out. Estoy aprendo mucho. It’s relevant structure, too. Learning sólo, para, word order. Voy a aprender el vocabulario médico importante en el hospital de mis colegas y Google. Puedo practicar las frases importantes con flashcards. I will learn to make my grammar more sophisticated with Fluenz. The Fluenz system may not be exactly relevant to what you want, but it’s laying down a good framework. You’re progressing. Be happy!
Creo que the Oxford Vocabulary Builder is unnecessary for now. For example, is it a better tool than News in Slow Spanish? For more usable vocabulary, OVB is probably more important, however, the purpose for using NSS is to listen to more Spanish. To listen to it effectively, I need to read and listen to the stories. I suppose if I get through the stories for the week, then I can use the OVB for more practice. Primary vocabulary is Fluenz. If I need a word, I’ll look it up. For listening practice, I have NSS. For extra practice, I have OVB and livemocha.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Terminé el nivel dos de Fluenz español!
Voy a tratar a escribir en español. Entonces voy a mostrar las palabras nuevas que uso en rojo.
El nivel dos está terminado! Cómo lejos estoy ahora? No muy lejos pero me siento bien que terminé otro nivel. Pienso que estoy mejorando mi español. Hace tres semanas no fui a poder escribir mucho en español. Ahora puedo escribir más. Mi objetivo está muy lejos, pero un día pienso que puedo llegar allá.
Escuchar, hablar, leer, y entender en español. Un día si trabajo mucho, no?
Cuándo voy a poder hablar que yo puedo hablar mi mente en español? Cuándo voy a poder escuchar a the average Spanish speaker y poder entender? No ahora, verdad. Cómo cerca estuve en la idioma de aleman? Estuve cerca. Communicating and understanding direct speech was no problem. Movies, news, and newspaper was still really tough. I had broad strokes of understanding in those situations but I knew my limitations. I didn’t push myself in those things, though. Although the hospital experience in Germany was not a complete waste of time, it certainly was more time than I should have spent in that setting. What lost potential. I think I am working smarter with Spanish now than I did with German. Fluenz provides a nice roadmap that did not exist 16 years ago.
Pienso que puedo pedir comida en un restaurante, hacer una reservación en un hotel, alquilar un auto, comprar cosas, y conseguir direcciónes. Muy práctico! También puedo hablar en el tiempo preterito y la futura. Puedo hablar algunos sobre anestesia. No puedo hablar sobre familia, pero el tema no es práctico.
I think I have a good idea about a Spanish learning course. First, medical Spanish seems to be taught as a collection of phrases. Second, medical Spanish courses seem to assume that you have studied Spanish to the intermediate/advanced level. Fluenz does a nice job of showing you that you can learn to speak and communicate very practical things rather quickly. You don’t need all the conjugations/ tenses right away. Fluenz starts with two basic locations, the restaurant and the shopping center, and it continues to complicate the language, grammar, and scenario as one progresses. Why not do the same in the healthcare context. Why not progressively complicate the scenario of identifying the patient with chest pain? Other scenarios include taking care of patients on the med/surg floor, in the OR, and in the office. To mix up the pace, one can go out to lunch with the office staff, interact at home, or go shopping for office supplies. Learning Spanish in these scenarios will be immediately useful for the healthcare worker. The goal is to learn learn the language, rather than learning a few yes or no questions and phrases. I imagine that maintaining a meaningful, practical context, will hook the learner to continue with a program and feel less frustration.
El nivel dos está terminado! Cómo lejos estoy ahora? No muy lejos pero me siento bien que terminé otro nivel. Pienso que estoy mejorando mi español. Hace tres semanas no fui a poder escribir mucho en español. Ahora puedo escribir más. Mi objetivo está muy lejos, pero un día pienso que puedo llegar allá.
Escuchar, hablar, leer, y entender en español. Un día si trabajo mucho, no?
Cuándo voy a poder hablar que yo puedo hablar mi mente en español? Cuándo voy a poder escuchar a the average Spanish speaker y poder entender? No ahora, verdad. Cómo cerca estuve en la idioma de aleman? Estuve cerca. Communicating and understanding direct speech was no problem. Movies, news, and newspaper was still really tough. I had broad strokes of understanding in those situations but I knew my limitations. I didn’t push myself in those things, though. Although the hospital experience in Germany was not a complete waste of time, it certainly was more time than I should have spent in that setting. What lost potential. I think I am working smarter with Spanish now than I did with German. Fluenz provides a nice roadmap that did not exist 16 years ago.
Pienso que puedo pedir comida en un restaurante, hacer una reservación en un hotel, alquilar un auto, comprar cosas, y conseguir direcciónes. Muy práctico! También puedo hablar en el tiempo preterito y la futura. Puedo hablar algunos sobre anestesia. No puedo hablar sobre familia, pero el tema no es práctico.
I think I have a good idea about a Spanish learning course. First, medical Spanish seems to be taught as a collection of phrases. Second, medical Spanish courses seem to assume that you have studied Spanish to the intermediate/advanced level. Fluenz does a nice job of showing you that you can learn to speak and communicate very practical things rather quickly. You don’t need all the conjugations/ tenses right away. Fluenz starts with two basic locations, the restaurant and the shopping center, and it continues to complicate the language, grammar, and scenario as one progresses. Why not do the same in the healthcare context. Why not progressively complicate the scenario of identifying the patient with chest pain? Other scenarios include taking care of patients on the med/surg floor, in the OR, and in the office. To mix up the pace, one can go out to lunch with the office staff, interact at home, or go shopping for office supplies. Learning Spanish in these scenarios will be immediately useful for the healthcare worker. The goal is to learn learn the language, rather than learning a few yes or no questions and phrases. I imagine that maintaining a meaningful, practical context, will hook the learner to continue with a program and feel less frustration.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Down to last seven lessons for level 2
Just finished lesson 23 of level 2.
Termine leccion veintitres de nivel dos.
The last few lessons have been about saying "it", more restaurant vocabulary and making comparisons.
Las lecciones unas pasadas son sobre hablar lo/la, mas vocabulario del restaurante, y hacer comparativos.
Solo siete leccions todavia en nievel dos hasta empiezo el nievel tres. Keeping things moving.
I learned an expression. El camaron que se duerme se lo lleva a la corriente. The shrimp that falls asleep is carried away in the current. I feel like I'm making some progress. I worked hard to get through my first episode of News in Slow Spanish (NSS). La actualidad del mundo is something like the current events of the world. I've had some talks about the Spanish that I was reading on NSS. The grammar of noun + adjective is often not followed in their transcript. I don't know why. A Puerto-rican colleague confirms that the NSS grammar is sometimes confusing and that a fair number of expressions are probably particular to Castillian Spanish. So again, what I'm taking away from the podcast is practice at having my ears keep up with spoken Spanish, albeit despacio. If I want to use a particular expression, I will run it by someone.
Some other expressions: de servicio and de guardia are ways of expressing on-call.
The Puerto-rican accent drops terminal s'es on words and uses a j-like sound for (y)o and e(ll)os... really?
Termine leccion veintitres de nivel dos.
The last few lessons have been about saying "it", more restaurant vocabulary and making comparisons.
Las lecciones unas pasadas son sobre hablar lo/la, mas vocabulario del restaurante, y hacer comparativos.
Solo siete leccions todavia en nievel dos hasta empiezo el nievel tres. Keeping things moving.
I learned an expression. El camaron que se duerme se lo lleva a la corriente. The shrimp that falls asleep is carried away in the current. I feel like I'm making some progress. I worked hard to get through my first episode of News in Slow Spanish (NSS). La actualidad del mundo is something like the current events of the world. I've had some talks about the Spanish that I was reading on NSS. The grammar of noun + adjective is often not followed in their transcript. I don't know why. A Puerto-rican colleague confirms that the NSS grammar is sometimes confusing and that a fair number of expressions are probably particular to Castillian Spanish. So again, what I'm taking away from the podcast is practice at having my ears keep up with spoken Spanish, albeit despacio. If I want to use a particular expression, I will run it by someone.
Some other expressions: de servicio and de guardia are ways of expressing on-call.
The Puerto-rican accent drops terminal s'es on words and uses a j-like sound for (y)o and e(ll)os... really?
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Adding in News in Slow Spanish to the Mix
Just finished lesson 16 of level 2.
I learned about using the ir + a construction in the past tense to convey the past tense of a verb in lesson 15. I have a lot of apprehension about learning so many conjugations, so learning a simple way to express the past tense is really convenient. That's two tenses, future and past that are effectively expressed using this construction. Really fantastic! Of course I still have my work cut out for me because I still have yet to learn the actual conjugation which I will be confronted with in the spoken form. However, just to be able to express the idea increases my abilities tremendously. Was it taught like this in school? I feel like it wasn't... wonder why.
Lesson 16 goes into the specific past tense conjugation of regular verbs.
I decided to buy a one-month subscription to News in Slow Spanish. Looks like a great resource. The podcasts are free on iTunes, but the subscription gives you the transcript of the sessions. For $9/mo it's worth it. I should learn more quickly reading + listening rather than listening only. Is it too much information? Lots of vocab and additional conjugations make much of the text difficult to follow, but I'm taking it as an immersion tactic. The transcripts also have a fancy roll-over function which shows the English translation of the text. Fluenz does recommend immersion by way of watching movies or TV en espanol, but watching full-speed stuff is going to go way over my head anyway. I think it's a good idea to get as much out of the media that I can. In learning Spanish via the news, I get to keep up on some current events. What better way to have a context for learning?
I learned about using the ir + a construction in the past tense to convey the past tense of a verb in lesson 15. I have a lot of apprehension about learning so many conjugations, so learning a simple way to express the past tense is really convenient. That's two tenses, future and past that are effectively expressed using this construction. Really fantastic! Of course I still have my work cut out for me because I still have yet to learn the actual conjugation which I will be confronted with in the spoken form. However, just to be able to express the idea increases my abilities tremendously. Was it taught like this in school? I feel like it wasn't... wonder why.
Lesson 16 goes into the specific past tense conjugation of regular verbs.
I decided to buy a one-month subscription to News in Slow Spanish. Looks like a great resource. The podcasts are free on iTunes, but the subscription gives you the transcript of the sessions. For $9/mo it's worth it. I should learn more quickly reading + listening rather than listening only. Is it too much information? Lots of vocab and additional conjugations make much of the text difficult to follow, but I'm taking it as an immersion tactic. The transcripts also have a fancy roll-over function which shows the English translation of the text. Fluenz does recommend immersion by way of watching movies or TV en espanol, but watching full-speed stuff is going to go way over my head anyway. I think it's a good idea to get as much out of the media that I can. In learning Spanish via the news, I get to keep up on some current events. What better way to have a context for learning?
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Developing a strategy
Just finished lesson 11 of level 2.
Es frustrating a saber que yo entiendo muy poco. Que un trabajo grande una lengua a aprender!
Empiezo a mirar la pelicula The Motorcycle Diaries. Es divertido, pero no entiendo mucho.
Puedo tratar a entender, no?
Yo aprende estos verbos nuevos: traer, llevar, venir. Necesito review numeros otra vez. Manana.
I need to have patience. Learning is a marathon process. My metric is the Fluenz lesson count. I know I'm making progress if I am getting through the lessons, right? I am a beginner with a head-start. That's all. I want to practice listening more. There is an interesting podcast I discovered. It is for a weekly news show that is spoken slowly in Spanish. Seems like a good idea to spend some time on it. I can burn the podcast to CD and listen to it in the car for a week.
I'll wait on purchasing a reader until I complete level 3.
Es frustrating a saber que yo entiendo muy poco. Que un trabajo grande una lengua a aprender!
Empiezo a mirar la pelicula The Motorcycle Diaries. Es divertido, pero no entiendo mucho.
Puedo tratar a entender, no?
Yo aprende estos verbos nuevos: traer, llevar, venir. Necesito review numeros otra vez. Manana.
I need to have patience. Learning is a marathon process. My metric is the Fluenz lesson count. I know I'm making progress if I am getting through the lessons, right? I am a beginner with a head-start. That's all. I want to practice listening more. There is an interesting podcast I discovered. It is for a weekly news show that is spoken slowly in Spanish. Seems like a good idea to spend some time on it. I can burn the podcast to CD and listen to it in the car for a week.
I'll wait on purchasing a reader until I complete level 3.
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