Officially, the contest is over. Which, I suppose, means the summer project is over.
I don't want it to be over so I am going to keep going! When it comes down to it, I won the contest... by a landslide! Now, I wish I would have studied more some weeks but we did "ok". Over the 10 weeks I studied for a total of 91.61 hours.
Overall, I know that I understand and can speak Spanish better than I ever have before. I still have so much work to do but I'm happy I've had such a nice springboard into the language. It's depressing when I turn on the radio or the television and still have such a hard time catching what is being said. BUT, I know I'll get nowhere if I give up... so I won't give up!
I took a test from the local community college continuing education department. According to the test I can sign up to take intermediate Spanish II or Conversational Spanish II. That's cool, huh? I'm going to try to take one of those classes this semester and try to take a "for credit" class next semester. We'll see how it goes. In the meantime, I think I'll try to keep up the blog... better than I have been :) It helps me remember to study/practice when I feel like "someone" is watching.
Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Monday, July 12, 2010
En la fase dos/On to Phase Two
Alrighty, so when The Husband and I started this little project, I kind of divided it into phases (in my mind). During Phase One, my main priority was to get through Rosetta Stone. I knew I would do other things like listen to podcasts in the car. I figured that if I worked through Rosetta Stone I would at least have organized lessons to do everyday that followed a prescribed order. I needed that since I really felt like I was starting from scratch.
Well I have finished Phase One and am excited to begin Phase TWO!!! Here's how it is going to work. I bought several books (for example, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Charlotte's Web, and Twilight) in SPANISH! Now I'm going to translate them! After looking at all of the books I have, I've decided to start with Charlotte's Web. It seems to be the easiest based on my experimenting a bit with a few different ones. I was actually able to translate it quite easily (without having to look up so many words). I'm also going to work on getting painfully familiar with verbs. I have a Spanish Verb Drills workbook that I've already started (yay!). Also, to help with the verbs and to continue building my vocabulary I'm going to put more time into using my flashcard program (that is on my phone).
I know these steps will help me but what will help me the most is actually USING Spanish at home! Early on we decided to spend XX minutes each day only speaking Spanish and we didn't really follow through. NOW IS THE TIME (AHORA ES EL TIEMPO!) I know we won't get any further in our Spanish studies if we neglect this.
So whatdaya think?
Oh, I've posted our weekly scores (almost up to date) on the Keeping Score page. It's kind of difficult to read. It sufficeth to say I've got the contest in the bag! Just put it this way, at the end of week 8, I was beating The Husband my 70 hours to his 52.
Well I have finished Phase One and am excited to begin Phase TWO!!! Here's how it is going to work. I bought several books (for example, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Charlotte's Web, and Twilight) in SPANISH! Now I'm going to translate them! After looking at all of the books I have, I've decided to start with Charlotte's Web. It seems to be the easiest based on my experimenting a bit with a few different ones. I was actually able to translate it quite easily (without having to look up so many words). I'm also going to work on getting painfully familiar with verbs. I have a Spanish Verb Drills workbook that I've already started (yay!). Also, to help with the verbs and to continue building my vocabulary I'm going to put more time into using my flashcard program (that is on my phone).
I know these steps will help me but what will help me the most is actually USING Spanish at home! Early on we decided to spend XX minutes each day only speaking Spanish and we didn't really follow through. NOW IS THE TIME (AHORA ES EL TIEMPO!) I know we won't get any further in our Spanish studies if we neglect this.
So whatdaya think?
Oh, I've posted our weekly scores (almost up to date) on the Keeping Score page. It's kind of difficult to read. It sufficeth to say I've got the contest in the bag! Just put it this way, at the end of week 8, I was beating The Husband my 70 hours to his 52.
Con mezcló emociónes.../With Mixed Emotions
The day finally arrived. Today I finished Rosetta Stone's Level Three of Latin American Spanish. I was so ready to be done! It's a fine program but I used it so much in the last nine weeks that I just couldn't take it anymore! (¡No puedo más!) I was very happy to finish. However, those moments of happiness were soon followed by a little bit of frustration, followed by a little bit of sadness.
A little review of Rosetta Stone Latin American Spanish, Levels 1-3:
I think it was very helpful; introduced new vocabulary; got me comfortable speaking the language. It did start out really slow, only to introduce too much too fast at the end. There is a lot that I did in the lessons in the last sections of Level 3that I still don't feel comfortable with using in "real life". I think that it probably got me into maybe a college-level Spanish 3 class (but then, I never took Spanish 2 so what do I know?... and I did take Spanish 1 like, 15 years ago).
Let's face it there is not one program on the planet that will get you from basically knowing nothing to speaking conversationally all on its own. I think Rosetta Stone did what it was supposed to do: gave me a good introduction. I could go to Mexico now and get by alright. I could travel, ask for directions, shop, etc. But I couldn't hold a conversation.
That's where the sadness comes in. I've studied A LOT over the last nine weeks and I still feel pretty stupid. Don't get me wrong. I'm willing to feel that way because I want to improve (wink, wink). I had just hoped that the difference between then and now would have been greater.
And here's where the additional bit of sadness came in:
We went to a Mexican Restaurant to celebrate. Of course, the waiter was a native Spanish-speaker (or whatever the PC term is now). The Husband spoke up (in Spanish) first. I then added a little bit in Spanish. The waiter took a step back, sized me up said something like, "¿Tú hablas en español?" I replied, "Un poco" and smiled. He then said, "But you look more latin than him!" Ugh. He had no reason to believe that I didn't speak Spanish until I opened my mouth.
Clearly, I have much more work to do.
A little review of Rosetta Stone Latin American Spanish, Levels 1-3:
I think it was very helpful; introduced new vocabulary; got me comfortable speaking the language. It did start out really slow, only to introduce too much too fast at the end. There is a lot that I did in the lessons in the last sections of Level 3that I still don't feel comfortable with using in "real life". I think that it probably got me into maybe a college-level Spanish 3 class (but then, I never took Spanish 2 so what do I know?... and I did take Spanish 1 like, 15 years ago).
Let's face it there is not one program on the planet that will get you from basically knowing nothing to speaking conversationally all on its own. I think Rosetta Stone did what it was supposed to do: gave me a good introduction. I could go to Mexico now and get by alright. I could travel, ask for directions, shop, etc. But I couldn't hold a conversation.
That's where the sadness comes in. I've studied A LOT over the last nine weeks and I still feel pretty stupid. Don't get me wrong. I'm willing to feel that way because I want to improve (wink, wink). I had just hoped that the difference between then and now would have been greater.
And here's where the additional bit of sadness came in:
We went to a Mexican Restaurant to celebrate. Of course, the waiter was a native Spanish-speaker (or whatever the PC term is now). The Husband spoke up (in Spanish) first. I then added a little bit in Spanish. The waiter took a step back, sized me up said something like, "¿Tú hablas en español?" I replied, "Un poco" and smiled. He then said, "But you look more latin than him!" Ugh. He had no reason to believe that I didn't speak Spanish until I opened my mouth.
Clearly, I have much more work to do.
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