In which Dee decides to learn Spanish

[Dee in MI]

I've been working on Spanish for about a month. Much of that has been researching how the heck I was going to do this. I've figured out a few things I'd like to share, made some progress, and been completely flummoxed more than once. In the past, on a different site, I had an exercise log, in which I posted my training progress and others jumped in to encourage me and give advice. Here, I plan to keep a log of my progress on Spanish. So welcome to my log.

 

I recently read How to Learn any Language, and found it inspiring. I'll talk a bit about it in the future.

 

I've had about a year of Latin. I've used Henle, and I've nearly made it through Unit 7. This has been helpful. I plan to keep up my Henle as well, so I may mention it from time to time.

 

My main text is Madrigal's Magic Key to Spanish. It was published in 1951. There are 44 lessons, and I just completed lesson 23. The lessons appear to get harder as you go along, so I probably won't keep up at this pace. I like the book a lot. It's written for autodidacts. It's casual and fun. A few things have changed in Spanish since 1951, but this is not my only resource, so I'm not too worried.

 

I also have the first set of Barron's Mastering Spanish CDs. They're full of drills. This works for me, because my 45 year old brain needs a lot of help, but I wouldn't recommend them for someone with a halfway decent memory.

 

In the fall I plan to start So You Really Want to Learn Spanish with my ten year old son. I've done the first unit, and I plan to pick it up from time to time over the summer.

 

My very favorite resource is Mnemosyne, a flashcard program. I use it every day. I am building flashcard sets for my son and I that I plan to share in the future.

 

I don't know if I'll post here every day, but I hope to add to this thread regularly. Tomorrow I plan to talk about how I got my keyboard to type mācrons, áccents, and tildes(ñ).

 

Dee

[Anna]

I recently read How to Learn any Language, and found it inspiring. I'll talk a bit about it in the future.

 

 

Wait Dee, come back!!!

 

What's the author's name and what is the ISBN number of this inspirational book?

[Dee in MI]

I was going to post all that, but I can't find the blessed thing right now!

 

I'll check my librarything...

 

here ya' go.

 

http://www.librarything.com/work/7586/book/30912597

[Kareni]

It might be this one by Barry Farber:

 

http://www.amazon.com/How-Learn-Any-Language-Inexpensively/dp/0806512717/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1213900398&sr=1-1

 

I have a copy and found it a good read.

 

Regards,

Kareni

[Lisa L. in MI]

I've been trying to call you...your phone is not accepting messages?

 

Sorry, this isn't about Spanish. :)

[Jan P.]

Good job Dee! I like the books you've mentioned, too. I took two years of Spanish in high school and some Spanish in college. Yet, I've probably forgotten most of it, except when I've gone over work with my ds. I can remember the basics. Let me know how the Madrigal book works out. I need to pick mine back up again. It's just that my dd has been learning Italian, so I've tried not to look at Spanish too much lately. I'm trying to learn a little Italian so I can be a help to her. I'm not doing too good on that language either. But, I'll keep trying.

 

Jan P.

[Anna]

here ya' go.

 

http://www.librarything.com/work/7586/book/30912597

 

Thank you, dearie.:D

Now I can go check it out at amazon.:leaving:

[Dee in MI]

A big help for me in learning my grammar and especially my vocabulary is my flashcard program, Mnemosyne. But first I had to learn to type my vocabulary. I have Windows XP. I followed the instructions on this web site:

 

http://www.studyspanish.com/accents/typing.htm

 

and now I have the option of setting my keyboard up as United States-International. This allows me to type accents, tildes, and the cute upside-down punctuation (what IS up with that?)

 

This also lead me to the solution of a problem I've been trying to figure out every since we started Latin - how to do macrons. Follow the same instructions, but choose the Maori keyboard. Apparently, the Maori language uses macrons. With the Maori keyboard chosen, you add a macron by hitting the tilde button before typing the vowel.

 

One little note: With the International keyboard you type a ñ by hitting the shift-tilde, then an n. With the Maori keyboard, you just hit the tilde button, without the shift, before you type the vowel.

 

With Windows XP it is very simple to switch between keyboards during the coarse of the day once you've added a different keyboard definition. A little keyboard icon is added to the bottom of my screen, and I hit it to change keyboard definitions.

 

Sorry if this explanation is a little confusing to follow. I found the Learn Spanish website instructions very clear.

[Dee in MI]

About How to Learn Any Language...

 

My good friend Jamie recommended this book to me. I had seen it at Barnes and Noble, and had hoped it was a book about how languages work, about linguistics. It is not.

 

It IS a fun read. It is a lot about the author's own history in learning languages. That part is not necessary, but it is fun. This takes a good bit of a slight book.

 

The system itself is pretty straightforward. It recommends learning a bit of grammar - five chapters of a grammar book - then getting a dictionary and a newspaper and busting into it. (My impression is that by "grammar book", he means something like a high school text book.) If you don't know a word, write it on a flashcard and carry that sucker around until you know it. At the same time, keep up with your grammar book.

 

It also recommends an audio system with a LOT of tapes. And a phrase book. And finding native speakers and taking every opportunity to practice and ask them questions. But his idea of translating something real right off the bat is what is most unique about his approach.

 

The book is inspiring. If you're learning a modern language, read it for fun, at least.

 

I've misapplied the system. I didn't have a Spanish paper, and I'm not interested in reading a Spanish paper, anyway. So I picked up the novel "Zorro", by Isabelle Allende. Problem - Zorro is written at way too high a level for me. The sentences and the paragraphs are long and complicated. It takes me an hour to translate a paragraph, and at that I have only a fair sense of what is going on. I'm putting it away until I'm further along.

 

I'd like to continue with the system, though. Happily, there is a children's version of Zorro, adapted from the novel :) I have ordered the Spanish and English versions, and I plan to try that.

 

I've also found Spanish Wikipedia. It's more likely written at the level of a newspaper. I haven't done anything with it, yet.

 

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portada

 

My main resources remain Madrigal, Mastering Spanish, and Mnemosyne, but this could be a neat little project to practice on.

[Halftime Hope]

The system itself is pretty straightforward. It recommends learning a bit of grammar - five chapters of a grammar book - then getting a dictionary and a newspaper and busting into it. (My impression is that by "grammar book", he means something like a high school text book.)

 

Not sure exactly what the author means by "grammar book", but if anyone needs a real grammar book for Spanish, one that is accessible and very well laid out visually, try !Exacto! by Ann Ortega

 

ISBN-10: 0071396519

ISBN-13: 978-0071396516

 

http://www.amazon.com/Exacto-Practical-Guide-Spanish-Grammar/dp/0071396519/ref=pd_bbs_sr_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1214056778&sr=8-3

 

My students and I used this to supplement our somewhat grammar-deficient :glare: textbooks with great success!

 

hth

[Dee in MI]

That one looks interesting. I picked up these two:

 

Spanish Grammar for Independent Learners

 

and

 

Spanish Verbs and Essentials of Grammar

 

Of these, I get the most use from the second one.

 

My expectations of a grammar book are from Henle. Henle Book One is an exercise book, with nice explanations. But Henle Grammar is just the facts. All of the pronouns, declensions, and conjugations are in the Grammar book. You use Henle Grammar for all four Henle exercise books.

 

For Spanish, my Madrigal book corresponds to Henle Book One and Spanish Verbs and Essentials of Grammar corresponds to Henle Grammar. It's short - only 125 pages. It gives only the facts and a few examples. No exercises. It and my dictionary are always handy when I do any Spanish.

 

Spanish Grammar for Independent Learners is a lot meatier. I'm sure, down the road, I'll use it more. But for right now, it's more information I need, and I was having too much trouble wading through it trying to find the little bit I am able to understand at this point :)

 

I hit Madrigal lesson 26 today. As I expected, it's taking a lot longer to do an exercise. When I started, I was able to do an exercise in fifteen to twenty minutes. Today took about forty-five.

 

I'm more and more pleased with Mastering Spanish. I'll discuss it a bit more tomorrow.

[Dee in MI]

Having done a year of Latin, and being one who likes to learn from books, my Spanish studies haven't been that different for me. Reading and writing Spanish are not unfamiliar exercises.

 

But listening to native speakers and speaking Spanish at a fluent speed is a whole different skill. And I have a good idea that the Mastering Spanish cds can get me there.

 

It requires a lot more time than I figured when I bought them. Which means that there's more for my money than I expected. They include many, many little exercises that get you comfortable with listening to and speaking the language. The first time I heard a dialogue, they were so fast and fluid that I had no idea what they were saying. But with the help of the included (and needed!) book, and the exercises, I've been able to get to where I can not only understand them, but respond at their speed.

 

Mastering Spanish is, I understand, very similar to FSI Basic Spanish and Platiquemos.

 

I WANT to learn Spanish, so I don't mind the exercises. I'm not sure that a high school kid wouldn't rebel - they are very repetitive drills. But I do recommend them if you can handle the repetition. Or, frankly, need it as I do.

[Dee in MI]

This thread has been referred to a couple of times, so I thought I'd update it a bit.

 

I stopped posting because I got a gorgeous, sweet, VERY HIGH ENERGY dog. This consumed a great deal of my attention for a while, but he settled in some time ago and I just never got back to posting here.

 

I have continued my Spanish. I am nearly through Madrigal's. I still like it. But it recognize that the way it introduces grammar is kinda strange.

 

I didn't get very far with the Mastering Spanish CD's. I've been concentrating on reading. This is probably a mistake, but I like reading. (The audio on the Mastering Spanish CDs is exactly the same as the FSI Basic Spanish course Sara R recently posted about.)

 

I have also discovered Coffee Break Spanish. These are fun, friendly spanish podcasts that have a nice balance of grammar and phrases. I was glad to have a good bit of Madrigal under my belt before starting them, though. It fills in on some of the tenses and grammar that Madrigal is light on.

 

I also found, at a used book store, an old 1960's ninth grade textbook called Español: Entender y Hablar. This book has twenty units. The first page of each unit is in English, then the following page is the same text in Spanish. The rest of the unit is all Spanish, mixing up the text in different ways. This was a good way to build vocabulary and reading stamina. Upon finishing it, I could pretty much follow a Spanish Wikipedia article.

 

I've got my brain around most of the grammar, so I'm feeling greedy for vocabulary and idioms now. I'm very humbled when I turn on Spanish TV - I can't follow at all. I can read far more than I can understand, so I'm finding reading more interesting. To that end, I'm now working through Spanish Book One, a very old Spanish textbook with graduated reading and a lot of vocabulary - more than would ever be expected in a modern textbook. This is also giving me a chance to cement the grammar and supplement Madrigal.

 

All new vocabulary goes into my Mnemosyne software. I don't see how my old brain could learn Spanish without it.

 

I still can't read Zorro, even the kids version. It's pretty humbling, really :)

 

I don't know if I'll ever speak or understand the spoken language. I'll keep working on it. But I'm pretty confident I'll be able to read it.

[Beth in SW WA]

I'm enjoying this, Dee. Thanks for posting & keep it up! :)

[Laurie4b]

Madrigal is great for getting a good start on Spanish. I'd recommend Practice Makes Perfect Spanish Verb Tenses and Practice Makes Perfect Spanish Prepositions and Pronouns as a follow-up. Those programs take a more traditional grammar approach and you do translations right away.

 

Easy Spanish Reader is a really good book for beginning Spanish. It starts with typical high school Spanish class stories, then moves to the history of Latin America, and finally has an easier version of a classic Spanish tale.

[Harriet Vane]

I appreciate your posting this thread. I am seriously considering picking up Spanish. Dh speaks it passably, and the kids have been taking lessons for years. I would kinda like to be in on the action. You've given me food for thought.

[Sara R]

Thanks for the update, and the new podcast link. I'm going to check it out. Understanding spoken Spanish is difficult.

[Dee in MI]

I have another reading resource that I like a lot, this one from the seventies. It's called Adventures en la Ciudad. It has cute little two page stories with kind of a sit-com plot. Each one ends with a funny little twist. Each story has new vocabulary and phrases in the margins, and a dictionary in the back. Unfortunately, it's overpriced. But it is nice.

[Beth in SW WA]

Madrigal is great for getting a good start on Spanish. I'd recommend Practice Makes Perfect Spanish Verb Tenses and Practice Makes Perfect Spanish Prepositions and Pronouns as a follow-up. Those programs take a more traditional grammar approach and you do translations right away.

 

Easy Spanish Reader is a really good book for beginning Spanish. It starts with typical high school Spanish class stories, then moves to the history of Latin America, and finally has an easier version of a classic Spanish tale.

 

I bought all 3 and they should arrive today.

 

Any suggestion for a good online flashcard program? OR I could try the free software and make my own. It seems a bit complicated. Dee seems to have a hang of it. :)

 

Either way, my dc have had tutorials w/ a local Spanish tutor. Pretty language.

[buddhabelly]

Webster's New World Spanish Grammar Handbook. It is good for folks (like me) who used to know some Spanish but need a refresher. And it would be a good supplement to an audio-based course. When I learned Italian, I thought Pimsleur was amazing. I spent a lot of time with it and did all three levels (I think -- they are in the attic now) and they really did the trick.

 

Also, "How to Break Out of Beginner's Spanish" is a good one so that you won't sound like you learned from a book. Even if you did. ;)

 

Julie

[cathmom]

I would get news articles from a Spanish website. When I was teaching last year,I would sometimes print out articles on current events from Univision - http://www.univision.com/portal.jhtml.

 

Newspaper articles have a real advantage over literature like you are trying to read. They start with the important things and get more detailed as they go. That helps with editing and arranging the newpaper because you can always make articles shorter by lopping off paragraphs. They are much shorter than a book, so you can get a real feeling of accomplishment. In most places in the US, you can probably get a real newspaper in Spanish, but online articles will work just fine.