Journal posts

I didn't care to write stuff until I got this far.

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12/24/09

Just completed Lesson 16 of Spanish 1a


Certainly the stuff they are teaching is practical. I also feel that the dialogue is a reasonable structure to move quickly to spoken spanish. Being conversational is the first goal. To understand stuff in movies and in television would be very cool. Understanding patients feels very far off. If I go through each lesson in one day
over the next 150d, that would be 5 mo. Understanding my patients well in 5 mo? I don't know if that's possible. If I go through each lesson 2/wk, that would be almost 3y. I want to get through the content as quickly as possible with good control of the content. It's easy to go through these beginning lessons quickly because I already learned the words in high school. The information is not a stretch.

The first 30 lessons should be pretty quick, but attaining the control is still a challenge. Part of the key for me will be internalizing the language, getting a chance to think over the dialogue, where I grasp the meaning in the word order of the spoken language. That means speaking and hearing the language at a rate that I can internalize the words. At full spoken speed, I can't hear the individual words. I have to practice speaking and hearing to the point that full speed is parsable. I might be able to speak at full speed with a short burst of practice, but to be able to hear it and parse it requires more practice.

Ese, este, esa, esta, can be very difficult to hear. The terminal vowel gets rolled into the next word, and if the next word begins with a vowel, I don't hear all the sounds I am expecting to hear. Very confusing to listen to.

Internalize and grasp the meaning listening at full speed in the word order of the spoken language.

Adding in the other tape and movies will add vocabulary, however fluenz is just offering the bones right now. I wonder how things will progress. You have to learn vocabulary at some point, but they don't really introduce very much at a time. They do a nice job integrating past lessons with current content. I get the sense that I am not learning much, but the metric will be what I can speak/understand at the end of the series. You may certainly add more vocabulary then...

Adding in what you feel will be important along the way. Body parts/ Organ systems are going to be much more important to me earlier.

The pace of the video certainly seems very slow right now. I am assuming that my level matches the level of the program, it will no longer feel so slow. Certainly in the chinese lessons, because of my lack of knowledge of the language, the lesson speed seemed just fine!

How did they figure out the lesson speed?
 
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12/25/09
 
Just completed lesson 20 of spanish 1a


Yeah! I finished the first disk. That felt like a full day of spanish. Lots of practice with numbers. I am going to look for a spanish movie on netflix to download to watch immediately. Started to watch Sin Nombre. What a gruesome movie. I guess it's reality for some, but wow. Really scary. I only watched the first 19min. I didn't understand much of the dialogue. Got a little motion sick, too. That movie seems too violent/graphic for now. I'll look for something a little milder. At the request of the language program, it is saying that I should watch a movie over and over again until I can understand the dialogue. Shrug. OK.

Milestone? A disk is a disk. That's 20 lessons, so that's cool, but my understanding of regular speech at full speed is minimal.

Everyday a little more!

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12/26/09

Just finished lesson 23 of spanish 1b


finished up numbers and now am doing time. it's going ok. just looking to finished spanish 1 by the end of the year. 3 lessons at a time for one sitting seems enough at this accelerated pace. 2 and 2 or 1 and 3 if I can break if up over the day. I don't think that finishing spanish 1 will be a big milestone as far as spanish knowledge. I will be close to refreshing my previous knowledge but I don't think I will have learned much new stuff. I will have gained valuable practice that I greatly need.

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12/28/09

just finished lesson 27 of spanish 1b


closing in on the end of spanish 1. kinda cool. important review chapters will be the numbers lesson and probably the last lesson, lesson 30. It's moving faster. I wonder how good my spanish skills will become after using fluenz. Certainly it's useful in the area of traveling. I mean what do you want to know how to say? I don't know.

I just want to express myself and understand my patients. I will supplement with spanish reading at some point, watch some spanish movies, and get the important phrases for medical spanish. 1/5 of the way is a huge way from the end.

I have to maintain the understanding that my learning will not be complete even when I finish this series. Will I have a good foundation to continue learning? That is the real question. Work at it and practice.

Reading the reviews, some people feel that Spanish 2 is still a bit slow. Maybe I will continue the pattern of multiple lessons per day through the end of 2. I feel like 4 lessons per day is quite enough, though. That's 7.5 d for the next level... haha. Obviously I don't have that much time on my hands.

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12/29/09

Finished level 1. Started level 2. Fast start! Sonia isn't speaking so slowly any more, we get tu, and we get the past tense. Thought it was quite a step up. Very excited.