Just a quick note to say that I’m really enjoying the new Spanish course. It’s been interesting to see how you’ve slightly changed your approach to introducing the language. I feel like I’ve learned loads and enjoying the more complex sentance structures which are real workout for the brain. I’ve just finished lesson 13 (which was a real brain teaser) and just have a couple of questions:
With the use of aun and todavia - you introduce todavia to mean “still” and aun to mean “yet” but when you introduce “el” (as in “he”) in that lesson “aun” is used to mean “still”. I looked it up and it looks as if both are interchangeable to mean “yet” or “still” -is this right? Or are the occassions when the ne is more suitable than the other.
In the old course “otra vez” was used for again whereas (as with the tourist course) “de nuevo” is now used - is there a subtle difference or again are they pretty interchangeable?
Brilliant, thanks very much indeed for the feedback, Dai…
Great to hear you’re doing so well.
aun/todavia - ideally, we’d have kept to exactly the same usage the whole way through, but it’s surprising how tricky it is to avoid any switches like that when there is a certain amount of crossover. I wouldn’t want to promise that they’re always perfectly interchangeable, but you certainly don’t need to worry about playing fast and loose with them, and you’ll develop your own regular patterns of usage based mostly on the people you hear speak Spanish most often…
otra vez/de nuevo - I can’t think of anywhere they wouldn’t be interchangeable, but that’s not a guarantee! Use whichever comes to mind first, though, and you’ll certainly be understood.
Comenzar/empezar - yes, just varies according to individual preference - as far as meaning goes, you’ll always be understood either way…
And in related news, we’ll be opening a forum for the Spanish course in the not-too-distant future…
Aran wrote: And in related news, we’ll be opening a forum for the Spanish course in the not-too-distant future…
Excellent! I have decided to start following the new Spanish course (alongside course 3 and the new southern course) to refresh what I learned at school. Even from the 1st lesson, I was surprised at what I DIDN’T know to what I did! It just shows that after doing 5 years of Spanish 3 times a week at school (albeit with 3 different teachers), you still won’t learn as much as quickly, as you can with SSi!
That’s really interesting, Gav, diolch yn fawr iawn! I’d love to get some proper comparative research done at some stage, but it’ll probably have to wait until we can fund it properly…
Diane: Er, wait, new Spanish course? When did that come out?! It looks like it has 20 lessons so far , , , more to come, or is that the full Course 1?
The new Spanish course 1 covers more or less the same words and patterns as the new Welsh course. It will have 25 lessons, like the Welsh level 1. Another course 2 and listening practise session are promised. I didn’t read anything about Vocab lessons or a Bonus lesson.
I hope, you enjoy the course as much as I do.
@Aran I’m absolutely thrilled! I’ve been waiting for this
I have a few questions for you though, cause both me and my partner (he did Spanish in school) are keen to try doing the level 1 as intensive challenges, as mentioned before. Do you want us to wait until the full 25 lessons have been released? And do you have any tips/requests? Originally we were thinking of doing it in 2 days, but with 25 lessons it might become 3.
Just finished lesson 16 now. I’d say 13 through to 15 were a bit of a roller coaster with al the “I met who said you said i knew…” etc. I thought my brain was going to explode. I can’t remember anything as intense as that in the 1st course. Although I have to say I enjoyed it.
Comparing the way I’ve gone through this course compared to the old one is interesting. Because I drive quite a lot I only ever listen to the lessons in the car and so obviously never use the pause button (i actually found that I need to be doing something else when listening to thee lessons, as on the few occassions I’ve sat down to do a lesson in front of the computer I find I get far too distracted and can’t concentrate on what’s being said).
In the origional course (which I did aorund this time last year) I remember having to repeat the lessons to begin with in order to achieve th 80% but by arond lesson 12 (not sure exactly) I found I could just listen to it once and get the 80% to move on so after around lesson 12 I went striaght through them. (I’ve since re-visited lessons 16-20 occasionally just to re-cap).
This time I’ve gone through the lessons up to and including lesson 16 without any repeats but have been very close to thinking I need to go back over lessons 13 onwards. I think I just hit the 80% but because of the complex sentances I don’t feel as confident that they’ve stuck. However, I’m carrying on anyway as I realise the rest of the lessons will help the other stuff stik anyway and I can always re-visit them later if needs.
After that long ramble, I think the point which I was trying to make was that where the origional course seemed to me to get a little easier as you progressed through the course. There’s no such let up in the new one and if anything the intensity seems to increase.
I’m not saying that’s a bad thing, in fact it’s probably a good thing as it shows that your still learning new things at a breakneck pace and I was thinking about it as I went through lesson 16 this morning so I thought I’d feed it back.
Hugely interesting and valuable feedback, Dai, diolch o galon i ti…:seren:
@Marie - ww, I’m always delighted when people are up for some intensive sessions! Fantastic. You might as well hang on for the full 25 - they should be up by the end of the week…
And although some of the sessions run over the half-hour (which we’ll fix one of these years!), I suspect that 13 in a day would be possible, if you committed to a fair old haul of a day - 9 through to 7, something like that. It would be really, really interesting to hear if you could get through all 25 in two days!..
I’ll try my hardest! I’m actually going to Wales on Sunday for a week and a half So it’s going to be at least two weeks until I have a chance. But you will definitively hear from me when I’m done
It’s all gonna be in the south, staying in Newport, as usual. But one day in the not too distant future I hope to do a whole road trip around Wales and will definitively pilgrimage to the north!
