I thought that I would begin to record my experiences of learning Spanish through SaySomethingIn.com. Before I start, I need to say that I am not following the course exactly according to Aran’s recommendations. This is for a couple of reasons; firstly, I have had great success doing things this way with the Welsh courses, so I am not going to be changing a winning formula. Secondly, I really enjoy doing the Challenges and am not overly worried about making the fastest possible progress. Anyone new to the SaySomethingIn method really should listen to the advice that Aran gives and not follow me in this! He really knows what he is talking about.
Here are my rules:
Never ever use the pause button
Repeat challenges as often as I want, especially if they are really fun ones
I am trialling Memrise, Duolingo and Babbel at the same time. I will settle on one of these as an adjunct to the Levels at some point. The main reason for using these outside resources is to help with building vocabulary (I am not impressed by them as a way of supposedly being able to learn to speak a language). SSI will be the main learning tool
Right with that out of the way, I will next post my experiences with Challenge 1…
So it started one morning last week. I was driving around sleepy Cotswold villages at 4 in the morning, trying to get my one year old graddaughter to sleep. We had had a really bad night with her waking up in the early hours and being completely inconsolable. The only way for one of us to get some rest was for me to fall back on one of the tricks we used when our own kids were little - the soporiphic power of driving around in the car. There I was, sleep deprived and in need of something to keep me awake and the baby asleep. How about some SaySomethingIn? I decided to stick Spanish Level 1 onto the CD and see what I made of it. Boy it was hard! Of course, I recognised the script from the Welsh course, but now everything was new, and I had to fight the Welsh responses springing to mind and force myself to respond with my newly learned Spanish. The thrill of being able to actually do that, even though it was really difficult at first, was fantastic. And as I was driving, I couldn’t used the pause button if I had wanted to!
I got to the end and immediately repeated the lesson (sorry Aran, it was a real buzz to get through the challenge but I wanted to go through it again just to hear the words again). It was much easier the second time round, and I knew I was hooked. The excitement of starting a new language with a method I trusted would work for me was something else. My brain was pretty much fried at the end of that second run through, and I was convinced that I was too tired to remember anything of what I had learned the next day, but I did not really care. I had had a blast and knew I would carry on to challenge 2.
Doing the lesson whilst lacking sleep is probably not the best thing to do, but it fascinates me that I was able to finish it (twice) without the pause button and pretty much get things right, except for me mishearing some words the first run through. I wonder if you have any theories about how tired brains can still learn effectively Aran?
Thats it for Challenge 1, I will follow up with some thoughts on challenge 2 next time.
“There I was, sleep deprived and in need of something to keep me awake and the baby asleep. How about some SaySomethingIn?”
That’s fascinating, having the baby absorve all that Spanish at such an early age. I bet the repetition and different sounds was rather soothing to her ear. Like my wife says, it would be fun to see if your granddaughter recognizes my voice from the recording twenty years from now. I’m sure Aran will have more insights into the capabilities of the childs’ brain to absorve, process and retain a new language at that age.
Yes, the repetition and soothing Welsh and Spanish accents certainly helped lull her to sleep. I did wonder about her acquiring Spanish effortlessly via subliminal learning…
After a quick post on the forum to try and convince myself that I was hearing things correctly (thanks for the swift reply Gaby ), it was time to put any confusions about the sound of B/V in Spanish to one side, trust in the process and forge ahead with Challenge 2. Five a.m. this time, touring the Malverns in the soft dawn light, baby safely asleep. First though, I replayed Challenge 1, mainly because I was absolutely convinced that my tired brain could not have retained anything from the previous morning. I was wrong, as I breezed through the challenge and went straight on to the second one.
This went pretty well, all considering. aun (“yet”) coming at the start of a sentence is going to be tricksy to remember. In both Welsh and English it appears at the end, almost as a sort of after-thought. Now I have to know I’m going to add in that “yet” before I open my mouth! For some reason, pero and ahora refused to come out of my mouth without a major stutter. With pero, I just wanted to respond with ond, and ahora I found just plain awkward I think. More practice should sort that out. Another weird one was aprender, which is easy to remember but once again refused to come out of the mouth cleanly. Odd really…
Next time I will review my experiences with the other online resources I am trialling (Duolingo, Memrise and Babbel); my thoughts on these are crystallising having used them for a few days.
I wanted to point out that this stage that my only prior exposure to Spanish has been certain Arnie films and (more recently) Dora the Explorer, so this is all new to me. So I am trying out Memrise, Duolingo and Babbel as adjuncts to the SSI course, and wanted to give some initial impressions of them. These are of course extremely personal views, and I am 100% with anyone who currently uses them and finds them really useful. My aim in using these apps is for vocabulary support - I don’t believe for one moment I could learn to speak the language by using them.
Duolingo is the most “game-ified” of the lot, which is great fun (not sure what lingots are all about though). It has some nice features, including accepting voice input and giving you some feedback regarding your pronunciation (I am really not sure what it is actually doing with the voice input TBH). On the downside, the vocabulary it fires at you seems very random and I cannot discern a useful pattern to it. I have a good streak going with the app, and it mails me reminders to keep me motivated to return to it, but I think that this is the weakest of the apps I am trialling, and I will almost certainly phase it out of my routine.
I have had some experience with Memrise before (having written a couple of things using it for Welsh). I like it, and it is the one I will most likely continue with, at least in the medium term (until I can find a practice partner). It has some game trappings which keep it fun, but to a lesser extent than Duolingo. For some reason, I find the way it works more engaging than Duolingo, even though it doesn’t have the voice input feature. I’m using the “official” Spanish 1 course and the vocab it is giving me seems to at least have a theme.
Babbel I am in two minds about. I took out a short term subscription so that I can give it a fair crack of the whip in the trials. It has voice input like Duo and an engaging UI. It is by far the least gamey of the apps, but it looks great. The app doesn’t seem to badger me with emails, which may be a good thing, I am not certain! The lessons are themed and I really like the "conversations that you have to supply the missing words for, as they give the some listening practice and new words in context, rather than in the more formal lessons. I think this is a good thing. I am going to keep going as long as Babbel engages me I think, unless it veers off course too much for me to cope with.
There is no doubt in my mind that some vocab support is useful, but that the best way to acquire new words is through talking to native speakers (or more advanced learners). I currently don’t have that opportunity, so these kinds of apps do fill a void for me. However, the SSi challenges and the listening pieces remain the cornerstone of my attempt to learn Spanish.
Challenge 3 was conducted under more “normal” circumstances - on a walk down our local bike path, which follows the line of an old railway. People are used to seeing me wandering down the path, iPod headphones in, muttering away in Welsh, so no reaction to me swapping over to Spanish. This Challenge went really well, nothing too hard. The sentences are certainly getting longer, but I know from experience that it is these long sentences that are really doing me good, training my brain and forming those new synaptic connections. I am glad that the gaps between the English and the Spanish are pretty generous, as my replies are certainly not flowing at this stage, but there is enough time for me to um and ah my way to the whole thing before the female Spanish voice kicks in. All in all a very satisfying experience. Did the Challenge twice today, and will repeat tomorrow before I tackle Challenge 4 I think, just because its a lot of fun. I love being able to say how long I have been learning - even though its nowhere near a month!
I’m still dog-tired, yet the Spanish is nevertheless sticking in my brain, which I find amazing. I never would have started out with the Welsh in such a state TBH, but it does seem to still work. I’m still working with the 3 selected apps, and I also found a website that may help when it comes to pronouncing Spanish letters: Spanish Pronunciation It may confuse me more than help however. The Spanish B/V thing is still buzzing round my head - I don’t get it, but am persevering, going with the “B” sound that Aran seems to use, and the speakers mainly use. That websites description of hard-B and soft-B have my head spinning, and the audio doesn’t help me, maybe because my ear is not yet tuned into the language sufficiently at this early stage?
I really enjoyed repeating Challenge 3, and moved straight on to 4 whilst driving into work after my “holidays” looking after the granddaughter. Barely awake before I began, the challenges woke up my brain and I was motoring. Number 4 was fun as well. I’m loving the challenge of getting the right word order with tengo and mas - tengo mas que aprender vs. tengo que aprender mas - as it keeps you on your toes and sharpens up the attention having to watch out for the variations.
I repeated 4 on the way home, and am really beginning to believe that I can do this. Looking forward to the milestone of Challenge 5 and the first of the Listening Exercises… I seem to be getting the majority of things right, less um-ing and ah-ing during the long sentences but by no means fluid yet. I know that will take some time. Still, word retention is looking good. Interestingly, it doesn’t seem that way sometimes if I try to recall the words outside of the Challenges (its getting better, but the words do seem to come a lot easier in the context of the lessons; I wonder why?). I really need to see if I can sort out a learning partner, as from experience I know that real conversations are transformational. It will be a bit harder though, I guess, than finding fellow Welsh learners locally.
I think it must be something to do with the way the course builds synaptic/linguistic structures in the brain. A bit like how you can use an English word every day, then one day you stop to actually think about that word, how its spelled or whatever, and you think “Wow, that’s a really strange word!”. It’s that unconscious recall that the course is creating and building up, maybe?
Challenge 5 really pulls things together for me. For some reason I am mixing up algo mas and nada mas, but I’m relaxed about that - similar things happened when I was learning Welsh. As I correct myself straight away, I know that I am recognising the mistake, so all is good.
The really interesting thing about getting this far is the opportunity to test myself with the listening exercise though. It starts off great, I can follow everything, but about half away though it all goes blurry and turns to babble. I am really trying not to over-concentrate, but to let the words wash over me. I know that as my ear tunes itself more and more to the sounds and cadences of the language, this will get easier. I listened to the challenge throughout the day, and especially just before going to sleep (Gaby’s voice is sooo relaxing). Form this point on (until Challenge 10 at least), I will make sure that I review the listening exercise several times a day, even on those days I skip doing an actual Challenge.
A question for you all. You may have noticed that at no point during my learning log have I said that I sat down to do a Challenge. I always do a Challenge whilst doing something else at the same time - driving or walking in my case. Does anybody else find the same kind if thing more helpful than actually setting time aside to just sit and go through a lesson? Or is the opposite more beneficial to you?
I really need to something else while doing the lesson. Walking is my preferred thing to do, especially at summers (I get to enjoy the nature at the same time).
I’ve tried to sit (or lie) down to do a lesson but I can’t hold the concentration that way. Either I start to do something else or fall asleep.
I actually haven’t been doing any lessons for months, Spanish or the new Welsh. I’m really busy at work which requires lots of mental processing and I’ve found doing the lessons too tiresome. But the summer vacation is here soon and when I get my brains to switch the work stuff to offline mode…
This is fascinating - diolch yn fawr iawn i ti, Stu! Looking forward hugely to seeing how it all develops for you.
With the repetition - do you have a set maximum for yourself, or just go by feel? Of course, repetition doesn’t do any damage - my main concern with it is that it can be very difficult for less confident learners to choose when to move on, which is why I now tend to recommend finishing a level before seeing what you want to repeat…
Usually I repeat no more than 2-3 times - I don’t find any more than that fun. However, I do not set myself a conscious limit, but move on when I feels right for me. My “rules” are very personal as I said in my first post, and not recommended for anyone else I feel that I have found the right formula for me. Doing the Challenges gives me a real buzz and I don’t want to charge through them at a rate of knots, but extract the maximum pleasure from them that I can!
Challenge 6 is going great. I’m strolling around the local nature reserve, feeling good about my Spanish, when suddenly I’m hit with Usted esta haciendo. I splutter through the words, getting all tongue-tied. Boy that is hard! Then a little later, Aran tops that with Usted lo ha echo… You’ve got to be kidding! I stumble through the Challenge and sigh. It was all going so well…
A hour later, I am getting funny looks as I walk up and down the aisles at Tesco muttering pienso que usted lo esta hacieno muy bien and …usted lo ha echo bien over and over again, trying to get the rhythm of the words feeling natural, the speed up to what I need and to stop tying my tongue up in knots. By the end of the shop, its feeling a lot better. Time to stop fretting, stop working on repeating the phrases, and let my brain sort things out for itself. As an experiment in this respect, I am going to take a break from Challenges over the Bank Holiday weekend, just doing the listening exercises, and see where Monday leave me with Challenge 6. In the past, I have often found a short break beneficial, but I don’t think I have done it under circumstances where I have just hit a problem before. Should be interesting…
Finally caught up with real time! About 10 days into my Spanish odyssey and a sunny Bank Holiday Monday. It is with some trepidation that I embark on another walk around the nature reserve and start up Challenge 6 on the iPod. How will it go? It goes unexpectedly well. The phrases that caused all the heartache a couple of days ago are fine. I even find that I am starting to hear some subtleties that escaped me the last time I went through the lesson, like the slipping in of para into one response, and the way that lo sometimes moves it location in a sentence (before or after the verb - I will need to keep watching out for that). As a big added bonus, a Muntjac deer (ciervo de Muntjac) jumps out of the bushes onto my path about 10 yards in front of me, before making its escape ! am not quick enough to snap a photo with my mobile…
Challenge 7 later today I think!
The listening exercise is progressing nicely. The babble is kicking in later and later now, with just one or two sentences that I am still failing to make out clearly. When these occur, it takes several words after them before I am able to settle down and start to “hear” the Spanish again, forcing myself to stop trying to translate the hard bit in my head instead of just letting the meaning come naturally. I’d be really interested to hear everyone else’s experiences with the listening exercises as they are a really powerful part of the course.
Did Challenge 7 driving into work this morning and I’m finding usted lleva aprendiendo and lleva usted aprendiendo…? quite tricky. There must be something about the sound combinations that trip me up; luckily, my experiences with Challenge 6 assure me that I will nail it, but at least one more run through of this lesson is called for on the way home, I think. As far as the digraph “ll” goes, I am settling in on a “y as in yes” sound, but Gaby’s rendition sounds vastly different! I can also detect a hint of a “j” in that “y” when I hear the female voice… Any advice on this sound much appreciated!
At the end of this lesson, I can now say Estudio Español desde hace aproximadamente dos semanas. I guess I can also express this as Llevo aprendiendo Español desde hace aproximadamente dos semanas maybe?
), it was time to put any confusions about the sound of B/V in Spanish to one side, trust in the process and forge ahead with Challenge 2. Five a.m. this time, touring the Malverns in the soft dawn light, baby safely asleep. First though, I replayed Challenge 1, mainly because I was absolutely convinced that my tired brain could not have retained anything from the previous morning. I was wrong, as I breezed through the challenge and went straight on to the second one.
! am not quick enough to snap a photo with my mobile…