SUMMARY
Active study for this week: 28 hours (Yabla, vocabulary, pronunciation, grammar)
Additional immersion for this week: 5.5 hours (music and TV)
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Total time actively studying Spanish so far: 150 hours
Additional light immersion with music and TV: 41 hours
Grand total of Spanish study and immersion: 191 hours [28 days]
WANDERLUST CONFESSION BOX
No new sins to divulge this week.
TEANGO’S WORD/PHRASE OF THE WEEK
I have an idiomatic expression for you all this week: “Hijo de tigre, sale pintado” (like father, like son).
I also love the way the opposite of amigos is “enemigos” – what a great language! 🙂
NOTES
I’ve tried to prepare a little over the last fortnight and begin laying down some Spanish steel to bridge the gap between passive and active knowledge. With other commitments popping up, and no real tried and tested plan in my pocket, this proved to be more challenging than anticipated.
I tried out a variety of techniques, and covered a relatively broad area. This included some mini-adventures with pronunciation training, singing songs off by heart, studying videos, and learning more about Spanish-speaking cultures. In this respect, Yabla has turned out to be a fantastic companion in my journey, and I’d thoroughly recommend LoMásTv to anyone interested in beginning or improving their Spanish.
The most useful technique I re-discovered was “phrase picking”. This seems very similar to Khatzumoto’s idea of taking new sentences directly from a target language environment (e.g. words/phrases I can clearly hear and repeat in Yabla videos), and then putting these into flashcards (e.g. Anki), to review later at spaced intervals over time.
Similar to Khatz learning the meanings of the kanji first, I refrain from phrase picking until I’ve built up a basic passive vocabulary through listening and reading first (the “study-and-click” method works best for me here). This is the first initial phase of my study. With a comprehensible base in the language after two intensive weeks of study, I find those handy phrases pop up much more frequently earlier on.
With my focus on “activating” passive knowledge and conversing with speakers as quickly as possible in the second stage, my approach slightly differs when it comes to Anki reviews, where I prefer to translate aloud from English to Spanish. I also try to keep a special lookout for “linking phrases” and common expressions that I think might be useful in conversation. Regretfully, I started this all far too late in the experiment, but will consider using it as a key approach in future.
So how far down the road am I so far? Well, I can read through and get the gist of most texts now, with the aid of a dictionary for some of the finer details. I’ve also tried to listen to a wide variety of spoken Spanish, and this has helped me attune my ear to picking up far more words and phrases than I ever did a couple of weeks ago.
As for other areas, I’m still very much fumbling around in the dark as a beginner. So I’d like to spend next week focusing on speaking and writing with a tutor each day to bring these skills up to a better level. I was initially worried about looking like a complete blockhead on Monday, as I’ve never actually spoken with anyone in Spanish yet, but now I’m quite looking forward to meeting my tutor and making this week really work out for me.
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