Hello everyone. My name is Davie, I live in Scotland. I have been learning Spanish for so many years, flitting in and out of my studies. Learning then forgetting a lot of things. I have used many of the excellent online learning sites. I know a lot about the conjugation of verbs etc, but could not really construct great sentences. I then discovered SSI, that has all changed. I had completed up to lesson 14, when I visited Spain for 10 days, just arrived home on Friday last week. I was delighted with how much I could actually speak when I was there, a lot of this is genuinely down to SSI. It really did make my holiday so much better, with the reaction from the Spanish people being so positive toward me as a learner.
I would say though, I really did struggle to understand a lot of what was being said, my brain could not compute quickly enough, and or I was not hearing the words clearly enough. Or by the time I had remembered what a word meant they had moved on!
I would like to hear if it were possible. A reverse of translating English to Spanish. I am not sure if it is just me, but if I know what I am going to say, I can prepare my mind, but when Spanish is fired at me I do struggle.
Is there any suggestions, other than mine that I could use to help me understand/compute Spanish?
Hi Davie, and welcome, if that’s appropriate from someone who’s only a rare bird of passage in SSI Spanish. Great to see SSI Spanish having similar results to SSI Welsh! I haven’t kept in touch with developments in SSI Spanish as I should have as a hispanist myself, but one of the really original things they do in SSI Welsh (I THINK it’s available as backup to the course!) is listening passages at double, triple and even quadruple speed. Listening to them, assuming you would more or less understand the language in them at normal or slowed down speed, your brain adjusts to the pace of what you’re listening to, so that when you go back to normal speed, it seems slow, and pretty much intelligible. It’s a bit like driving fast, then slowing down, and you seem to be driving at a snail’s pace even at 40 or 50 mph. I hope I’m not talking out of turn here, but I assume that in the fullness of time this will become available for SSI Spanish.
And now I realise that I’m suggesting a solution that isn’t available, and I haven’t even really tried out properly with SSIW myself. What else is there? I like your suggestion of ‘reverse translating’, and maybe that would be possible with the SSI Spanish used as an English course for Spaniards without too much jiggery pokery with the computer??
I’d better be careful here or I’ll be getting myself roped in to something I don’t really have the time for, so maybe I can try to make some more obvious solutions - like putting something off the radio or TV on a loop, so it can be repeated till you can crack it. (Do you have the technical skills to do that?) Given an appropriate text, I guess I’d be up for producing a transcript and an English translation (HERESY: the written word) which you could record, but I’m pretty (no, hopelessly) pathetic with technical stuff, so not eager to get involved in that side of things.
Or if you’d like to produce an English text that suits your needs, we could get a native speaker to record the Spanish equivalent. ARAN - tell me if I’m off the wall here, please!!! - I’m probably intruding on all kinds of plans you have for developing SSIS! Maybe distorting your methodology, and probably misdescribing what’s already available.
I’m getting off this site, pronto! Hasta luego compañeros! Avisadme si teneis mas ideas!
I know what you mean about the Spanish speaking quickly! I learnt Spanish years ago now, but I still like using SSi from time to time to keep my skills sharpened, and I’ve found a useful app that I use for extra listening practice. It’s called FilmON and it gives a huge choice of TV from different countries. There is a section for LatinoTV and a channel I watch often called HispanTV. Surprisingly, it’s actually broadcast by Iran for Spanish-speaking countries, but they have a lot of interviews and news discussions that I find interesting to have on while I’m cooking etc. You might find it worth having a look.
Thanks Natalie, I have found a renewed enthusiasm since discovering SSI. I have been learning for many years, know lots of grammar, but really unable to use it until now.
