Learning Spanish
Feb. 16th, 2007 08:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livingdebI think I am going to start learning Spanish again. I suck at learning foreign languages, but one thing I've learned over the past couple of decades is that even slow learners can learn; it just takes longer.
The little session on why we should learn a second language I went to was unconvincing, but there have been a few times I've wished I could speak Spanish, both when Spanish-speakers have been working on my house and at some of the little restaurants and food carts around my neighborhood. I don't feel I need to; everyone has spoken English well enough that I could get across basic information. But it would just be more fun.
Plus now there are more resources than ever before for me.
Destinos: An Introduction to Spanish
This is a program involving video and workbooks, episodes of which I first saw on PBS. My sister bought almost all the stuff for a class and then gave it to me! Woo hoo! You can also watch the videos on demand at the above website.
This is a really great program for beginners because it has accomplished the difficult task of being possible for beginners to understand and also being interesting. For example, on the unit on clothing, the main character talks about the kinds of things she will need for her trip from the northern to the southern hemisphere, and she names each item as she packs it. It's not forced at all, but part of the plot. There is a whole soap opera detective show and you really don't know and want to find out what's going on. It's a good story, and the characters are likable.
Madrigal's Magic Key to Spanish
I love this book. Of course all language learning requires a lot of memorization, but this book pretends it doesn't. The author does everything she can to teach you everything in ways that make sense. She finds every pattern she can so you just have to memorize a few patterns. This is exactly how I like to learn. She doesn't totally succeed, and it's still hard, but not crazy. I have never quite made it all the way through this book yet, but one day I will.
I can study from this on the way to and from work.
If you have ever expressed interest to me in learning Spanish, I have probably given you this book.
Graded Spanish Readers
I have three readers from the 'fifties when they actually used science to teach languages. The editors took classic stories written in Spanish and re-wrote them in simplified Spanish so that only constructions you already know are used. Every time they introduce a new word, they try to repeat it several times afterwards so that it sticks in your brain.
Pimsleur Comprehensive Language Program
This is a mostly listening course recommended to me by raaga123 which is really great. There's lots of repetition of all the new stuff for a long time, and you get to practice speaking, even if it's just pre-composed sentences. Lots of people go nutso with how much repetition there is at the beginning and how long it takes to start learning real quantities of stuff.
I got to try these out from my library for a while before the discs started getting lost and too scratched up to listen to. I was actually able to remember numbers very easily for a while afterwards. I think this might be totally worth the money, especially since you could sell it again afterwards and get most of your money back if your disks weren't missing or scratched.
Library
My library has a large section of children's books in Spanish. At my peak, I was able to slowly get through the Spanish language edition of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I did have to look up one out of every five words, but I enjoyed the writing so much that it seemed worth the time. Even the toddler books have plenty of difficult constructions.
DVDs
Many, many DVDs come with Spanish dubbing, subtitles, or both.
Ahora Si!
This is a free local Spanish language newspaper that is actually interesting to me. The other papers I have seen have focused on immigration issues and were full of ads by companies that seemed like the slimiest of the slimy catering to the poor. But this one has articles on all kinds of topics and is also my handiest source for sales brochures from Target and Home Depot. Also, I have several times found out about events such as the annual Settlement House Garage Sale from this paper which I hadn't noticed from any of my other sources.
Utility Bills
Our utility bills often have inserts in both English and Spanish. I often try to see how much I can figure out from the Spanish side before reading the English side. I fear these are not well-written: I found a typo today. And if I can find a typo, that's a very bad sign. Still, I learned how to say carbon monoxide.
http://www.meetup.com/
This website is the one resource I learned about from the conference session I attended. There is a new meetup group for Spanish in Austin which I may look into later.
Classes
Various classes are available in my town including informal classes, community college classes, and university classes. I don't think they'll let me audit any classes, though, because you just don't learn by auditing (since they're not supposed to let you talk or turn in homework) and because intro Spanish classes are very difficult to get into. Also, they're five hours, and we only have permission to blow off three hours of work to go to class. So I won't be using these, at least not for now.
Spanish-speaking Countries
I know the best way to learn a language is immersion, but that's not happening. Yes, I have a Spanish-speaking country right in driving distance! But I'm not wild about the aspects of Hispanic culture I have seen so far, with few exceptions. I do like Latin dancing. I do like beans, rice, and tortillas. And I like the idea of girls celebrating their fifteenth birthdays by wearing dresses that look like wedding dresses--I like to think this makes it less likely they'll marry someone just to get the fairy princess wedding and that it minimizes the Bridezilla phenomenon.
But basically Hispanic culture seems in many ways the exact opposite of my favorite culture: computer geeks. I'd generally rather hang with minimally religious egalitarian overthinkers than macho Catholics. It's a bias I have.
The important thing is to find some way to practice reading, writing, listening, and speaking. I think I have plenty of resources for the reading (which I find relatively easy) and the listening (which I find harder). Also, an old friend who learned Spanish faster-than-average said that he would always try to compose Spanish while he was walking from place to place.
**
But you know what? I probably shouldn't. If I'm going to be doing something this time-consuming, I should probably be working on getting ready for my next career, which I'm pretty sure won't require the amount of Spanish I could learn between now and the time I start it.
The little session on why we should learn a second language I went to was unconvincing, but there have been a few times I've wished I could speak Spanish, both when Spanish-speakers have been working on my house and at some of the little restaurants and food carts around my neighborhood. I don't feel I need to; everyone has spoken English well enough that I could get across basic information. But it would just be more fun.
Plus now there are more resources than ever before for me.
Destinos: An Introduction to Spanish
This is a program involving video and workbooks, episodes of which I first saw on PBS. My sister bought almost all the stuff for a class and then gave it to me! Woo hoo! You can also watch the videos on demand at the above website.
This is a really great program for beginners because it has accomplished the difficult task of being possible for beginners to understand and also being interesting. For example, on the unit on clothing, the main character talks about the kinds of things she will need for her trip from the northern to the southern hemisphere, and she names each item as she packs it. It's not forced at all, but part of the plot. There is a whole soap opera detective show and you really don't know and want to find out what's going on. It's a good story, and the characters are likable.
Madrigal's Magic Key to Spanish
I love this book. Of course all language learning requires a lot of memorization, but this book pretends it doesn't. The author does everything she can to teach you everything in ways that make sense. She finds every pattern she can so you just have to memorize a few patterns. This is exactly how I like to learn. She doesn't totally succeed, and it's still hard, but not crazy. I have never quite made it all the way through this book yet, but one day I will.
I can study from this on the way to and from work.
If you have ever expressed interest to me in learning Spanish, I have probably given you this book.
Graded Spanish Readers
I have three readers from the 'fifties when they actually used science to teach languages. The editors took classic stories written in Spanish and re-wrote them in simplified Spanish so that only constructions you already know are used. Every time they introduce a new word, they try to repeat it several times afterwards so that it sticks in your brain.
Pimsleur Comprehensive Language Program
This is a mostly listening course recommended to me by raaga123 which is really great. There's lots of repetition of all the new stuff for a long time, and you get to practice speaking, even if it's just pre-composed sentences. Lots of people go nutso with how much repetition there is at the beginning and how long it takes to start learning real quantities of stuff.
I got to try these out from my library for a while before the discs started getting lost and too scratched up to listen to. I was actually able to remember numbers very easily for a while afterwards. I think this might be totally worth the money, especially since you could sell it again afterwards and get most of your money back if your disks weren't missing or scratched.
Library
My library has a large section of children's books in Spanish. At my peak, I was able to slowly get through the Spanish language edition of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I did have to look up one out of every five words, but I enjoyed the writing so much that it seemed worth the time. Even the toddler books have plenty of difficult constructions.
DVDs
Many, many DVDs come with Spanish dubbing, subtitles, or both.
Ahora Si!
This is a free local Spanish language newspaper that is actually interesting to me. The other papers I have seen have focused on immigration issues and were full of ads by companies that seemed like the slimiest of the slimy catering to the poor. But this one has articles on all kinds of topics and is also my handiest source for sales brochures from Target and Home Depot. Also, I have several times found out about events such as the annual Settlement House Garage Sale from this paper which I hadn't noticed from any of my other sources.
Utility Bills
Our utility bills often have inserts in both English and Spanish. I often try to see how much I can figure out from the Spanish side before reading the English side. I fear these are not well-written: I found a typo today. And if I can find a typo, that's a very bad sign. Still, I learned how to say carbon monoxide.
http://www.meetup.com/
This website is the one resource I learned about from the conference session I attended. There is a new meetup group for Spanish in Austin which I may look into later.
Classes
Various classes are available in my town including informal classes, community college classes, and university classes. I don't think they'll let me audit any classes, though, because you just don't learn by auditing (since they're not supposed to let you talk or turn in homework) and because intro Spanish classes are very difficult to get into. Also, they're five hours, and we only have permission to blow off three hours of work to go to class. So I won't be using these, at least not for now.
Spanish-speaking Countries
I know the best way to learn a language is immersion, but that's not happening. Yes, I have a Spanish-speaking country right in driving distance! But I'm not wild about the aspects of Hispanic culture I have seen so far, with few exceptions. I do like Latin dancing. I do like beans, rice, and tortillas. And I like the idea of girls celebrating their fifteenth birthdays by wearing dresses that look like wedding dresses--I like to think this makes it less likely they'll marry someone just to get the fairy princess wedding and that it minimizes the Bridezilla phenomenon.
But basically Hispanic culture seems in many ways the exact opposite of my favorite culture: computer geeks. I'd generally rather hang with minimally religious egalitarian overthinkers than macho Catholics. It's a bias I have.
The important thing is to find some way to practice reading, writing, listening, and speaking. I think I have plenty of resources for the reading (which I find relatively easy) and the listening (which I find harder). Also, an old friend who learned Spanish faster-than-average said that he would always try to compose Spanish while he was walking from place to place.
**
But you know what? I probably shouldn't. If I'm going to be doing something this time-consuming, I should probably be working on getting ready for my next career, which I'm pretty sure won't require the amount of Spanish I could learn between now and the time I start it.
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no subject
on 2007-02-17 04:57 am (UTC)no subject
on 2007-02-17 08:54 pm (UTC)Maybe some telenovelas on other stations might be better. But I'm not a big soap opera fan. (Except when I am. I used to watch "Soap." And, you know, "Buffy." That was quite like a soap opera.)
Destinos rocks!
on 2007-02-17 05:57 am (UTC)Re: Destinos rocks!
on 2007-02-17 09:54 pm (UTC)For example, there's an entry called "11 Ways To Learn Spanish or Any Foreign Language (http://www.tomisimo.org/blog/2006/language-learning/11-ways-to-learn-spanish-or-any-foreign-language/), which is a more generalized version of my entry. Here's my favorite part: "If you’re at work, and you can’t walk around listening to your Spanish CDs, you certainly can carry the flashcards in your hip pocket and pull them out from time to time to review. The advantage of using cards over your notebook is quickness. You can pull out one card and review it while waiting for the elevator, waiting for the phone to ring, waiting for the barrista to serve your cappuccino, waiting for the parking attendant- shall I go on? One card can be pulled out, reviewed and put away in the space of ten seconds and no one will be the wiser and you’ve not tarnished your professional image in the least- heh."
Quick draw flashcard study on the sly. That's good.
The meetup group
on 2007-02-18 05:18 pm (UTC)Re: The meetup group
on 2007-02-18 11:19 pm (UTC)Quinceanera
on 2007-02-21 05:31 pm (UTC)Whether the quinceanera experience makes girls less likely to marry early for the fairy pricess wedding or not is an empirical question I can't answer. (As with questions about the effect of pornography, violent video games, etc., I can see the hypotheses running either way.) But I admit that the whole thing is really icky to me. A religious ceremony that presents a 15 year old girl as a woman eligible for marriage and reaffirms a traditional, sexist view of a woman's place in the world, and all with girlish tiaras and whatnot, strikes me as a bad idea. Obviously this is not unique to Latin American culture, but I dislike it in other cultures, too, including our own (debutante season).