So what better way is there of testing our Spanish Android app than by using it to learn Spanish…?
It also seemed a good idea to keep a log of how I’m progressing with the course.
March 6 - Friday
Lessons 1 and 2 once each
March 7 - Saturday
Lessons 3 and 4 once each
March 8 - Sunday
Lesson 5 once
Things going great so far. I can speak Spanish! Sort of.
March 9 - Monday
Repeated Lesson 2 as suggested, and it was much, much easier this time around. Fine with most of the material, but still confuse “I am trying” and “to try”.
March 10 - Tuesday
Lesson 6 once, half of it while driving to a Welsh pub meetup.
March 11 - Wednesday
Lesson 7 once. A streak of narcissism has developed. Now that I’m having to talk about other people my attempts are straight out of 70’s Brits abroad sitcom
March 12 - Thursday
Lesson 8 once. Some of the stuff from lessons 6 and 7 seems to have stuck. Still several lapses into Gloria from Modern Family territory.
March 13 - Friday
Lesson 9 once. Noticed that some of the things I struggled with over previous lessons have finally stuck. I also noticed that when some of the new stuff to this lesson was repeated I had instantly forgotten it, but thanks to the way things are repeated I was able to say it late on.
March 14 - Saturday
Lesson 10 once
March 15 - Sunday
Listening practice 2. A nice way to fit in a bit of Spanish in between courses at posh restaurant for mother’s day
March 16 - Monday
Lesson 11. Sigh. Although I did manage to work out the pattern for “the man who needs” based on only being directly taught “the man who wants”, so that’s a good sign.
March 17 - Tuesday
Lesson 12
March 18 - Wednesday
Horror. Only Listening Practice 2 today
March 19 - Thursday
More horror, and only 75% of Lesson 13 after I dozed off.
March 20 - Friday
Completed challenge 13. And by complete what I mean is managed to remember the Spanish for the word “something” during the last quarter of the challenge when I should have been saying that the old woman/man/cat wants you to tell me/him/you what to do. Sigh.
March 21 - Saturday (On holiday)
Started challenge 14. Fell asleep halfway to the soothing tones of @aran through my earphones.
March 22/23 (On holiday)
Total lack of Spanish commitment.
March 24 - Tuesday
Redid and completed challenge 14
March 25 - Wednesday
Completed challenge 15. The bits about he said that he met someone who knew your brother’s giraffe and said that she wanted to say something are still giving me grief. And Challenge 16. Though by the end of it was very much in Joey speaking French territory. Especially for the word film. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqwzvtjeYBQ)
March 26 - Thursday
“Completed” Challenge 17. If anyone is compiling the lesson guide for this course, and wants to check something, here are my notes: blah, blah, blah, blah, weekend, blah, blah, blah, blah, that film, this book, Sue Hermana, Sue Hermano, blah, blah, blah, blah, muchos gracious muchachoes (but that last bit may have been from Terminator 2)
March 27 - Friday
Challenge 18. It seemed to go better than the previous one. The weekend, friday night and anyone telling anyone else things is still a mystery
March 28 - Saturday
Challenges 19 and 20
March 29 - Sunday
Challenges 21 and 22
March 30 - Monday
Challenge 23
March 31. Tuesday
Nada.
April 1st. Wednesday
Challenge 24
April 2nd to 12th
Holiday. And recovering from holiday. Included specialist therapy to get over the prices of drinks in Paris. No Spanish
April 13th
First go of Challenge 25. Not yet a Spanish speaker…
My answers are broken down into the following categories:
Um. Say what? - 39%
Got most of the words out, and mostly in the right places - 39%
Almost perfect - 22%
April 17th
Second go for Challenge 25. A slight improvement
Um - 27%
Most of the words, and some of them in the right place - 51%
Perfickish - 22%
April 26th
Third go of Challenge 25. Since I was out walking I had to keep track of how I did using my fingers, hence I’ve only tracked what was near perfect (the definition of perfect being somewhat less precise towards the end of the lesson…)
Near perfect - 35%. So a 13% increase /without/ revisting the challenge. There were still plenty of phrases that were a total mystery to me though.
Something I forgot to mention - I’m not using the pause button, which means there are times when I’m saying the Spanish during or after hearing it
It’s going to be really interesting watching this develop - and you’re building an excellent model for others to imitate
And that’s a superb rate of acquisition - 8 lessons in 6 days is going to see you to some pretty amazing results in a few weeks, if you stay anywhere near that kind of speed…
I did the Welsh courses by repeating each lesson a few times until most of it seemed to have stuck. I’m intrigued to see what will happen if I do a lesson once and push on regardless of how well I think I’ve done.
I’m fairly sure you’re going to find that approach significantly more efficient - the brief revisit of 2 shows (I suspect) that it’s working for you - once you get to 25, it’ll be really interesting to hear what you make of revisiting (say) 10, 15, 20…
It just takes a bit more determination (and faith in the process) to keep on moving on when you’re making mistakes…
Watched Vicky Cristina Barcelona last night. Managed to pick out the word “now” in Spanish.
Perhaps the latter reaches of Course 1 will include the kind of vocabulary that mentally unstable artists use when arguing with each other in street, and I’ll be able to pick up more the next time I watch it…
This is impressive to say the least. Having gone through the first 10 lessons, I find that I am really slowing down in terms of the new material. Much of this delay has been due to the interruptions that life brings; no fault of the course! I am now on to challenge 22 and still very much enjoying things.
I’ll be interested to see if I can hold any kind of conversation with my brother next week when I head back to wales ( he is a Spanish teacher)!
I was also surprised that my enthusiasm lasted that far into the program.
It would be interesting to see how your conversation goes with your brother. Every time I try to talk to my nieces and nephews, who are learning Spanish in high school, I get nothing but blank looks and awkward “I have no idea what to say” smiles.
I have been using my spanish a little at my school with some success. The Spanish spoken here is different from that presented in the course I am taking, but not measurably so. A smile goes along way and I am now happy to be able to discuss things other than that I am “learning the language.” Asking about the weekend has been particularly useful! Most spanish speakers in the US are happy that you are making an effort.
Only 0.25 of a lesson so far today because of holiday, but I’m in a pub in London listening to a Spanish conversation whilst trying to keep a welsh one going.
Okay, so I failed in my goal of getting all 24 challenges of course 1 done before I went away on holiday. But it’s been a week of no Spanish practice aside from a few eavesdropped words whilst stood about in Paris tourist queues. It’ll be interesting to see how Challenge 25 goes when I try it in the next couple of days…
Extremely interesting, especially since it’s a ‘recap everything’ kind of lesson, so about as tough as it gets. Looking forward very much to hearing how it goes
My first session on the bobsled run for Spanish was this morning. Loved it and it encourage me immensely. One aspect confused me - Aran’s email introducing the bobsled run stressed only listen to it once and, when complete, don’t return to it; at the end of the session there was encouragement to return to the session a couple of times until you achieve 80% or so recall.
Have I misunderstood?
No, I’ve just not expressed myself all that clearly!..
The listen once, carry on is what you need to be doing once you’re working through it - then, once you’ve got to where you’re going, you can keep it all active by revisiting the last session you did every now and again
Not all that far off genuine functionality, though…
Hold fire there, soldier - give your brain some consolidation time. Do it again once in 3 days from now, and then once again 7 days after that, and see how it shapes up for you…
But 60% ‘mostly right’ is really, really solid for this brute of a challenge, so you’re almost certainly ahead of where you think you are…
