Sunday, October 14, 2007

road trip follow-up

Yesterday I took my road trip to Greenwood for the Delta Dinner and Blues class at Viking Cooking School.

It was a moderately long drive, so I used the opportunity to plow through Learning Spanish Like Crazy lessons on my iPod through lesson 12.

Even if the LSLC lessons didn't introduce new material, the review would be handy. But right from the first lesson there's a slight divergence between material covered, so I'm continuing to get a mix of novelty & review.

But it's familiar enough that going through a bunch of lessons during a road trip doesn't introduce a meaningful amount of stress.

The road trip itself, however, was exhausting. It kept me on the road until midnight, which blew my schedule.

The most intense Spanish-related exercise today was watching El Canal de Historia with closed captioning on.

Saturday, October 13, 2007

How long does it take? Part 3

Is there any real point to all this speculation? Maybe in some odd way I can't think of off-hand. It might scare off people thinking of learning a foreign language, which would be unfortunate.

The point isn't that it takes a long time to learn a foreign language, but that it doesn't take that long to learn a foreign language.

I work as a Programmer Analyst at Sourcelink (which I love, despite my constant bitching). I spend 40 hours each week behind a desk, 5 hours at lunch, 5 hours commuting, etc.

Those 40 hours belong to the company as long as the checks clear. It used to be that the 5 hours of commuting time belonged to the road, and then I started devoting them to Spanish.

That time wasn't mine at any point, because I was stuck behind the wheel. I don't just dislike the commute, but deeply loathe it. Audio Spanish lessons turned that lost time into productive and enjoyable time!

Instead of letting the stress of the commute eat at me (and oh how it did), Spanish lessons have redirected my thoughts in better ways, and my quality of life is better as a result.

After my lessons have run their course, I expect I will reactivate one of my old satellite radio subscriptions and use that time to listen to piped-in Spanish audio in the form of news, music etc.

If you have a half-hour commute like mine, I'd say you can pick up the basics of a second language within as little as four months just by putting that commute to good use.

How long does it take? Part 2

It's tough to say with any accuracy how much time I'll spend over the next several months reading and writing Spanish, working with flash cards, etc. I'll have to keep an eye on that and see if I can figure out some estimates.

The LSLC Teleclass is one hour each week (missing some weeks, such as this past Wednesday, when I was too exhausted to participate).

Each episode of Destinos is half an hour and takes place entirely in Spanish. So it should be easy enough to figure out how much time I put into watching the show by noting the number of episodes I've watched and how many times I've viewed each one.

Tracking my viewing of Spanish language TV and such may be trickier. Some times I'm paying relatively close attention for comprehension, and some times I'm just contemplating Paulina Rubio in ways that would not likely win points with her father.

But even the more casual viewing has been paying dividends, because a catchy hook will get stuck in my head, and my subconscious will slowly decode what's being sung, so in the middle of the day I'll suddenly figure out a Belanova lyric. I believe that kind of language internalization is actually quite valuable within the scope of a disciplined study routine.

It's considerably more difficult to factor the actual duration of brief exchanges in Spanish with local native speakers. That sort of thing is very valuable time spent, but can't be fit into neat blocks of study time.

How long does it take? Part 1

Just for kicks, I did a bit of googling this morning on how long it takes to learn a foreign language.

Although I consider this sort of question something just barely north of pure entertainment, I did find some comments that seemed interesting and possibly even true.

After learning that first foreign language, no matter what it is, learning any other additional language is said to be much easier.

Learning a language similar to a language you already know is said to be made easier due to the similarity. Example groups of similar languages were Romance languages (Spanish, Romanian, French, Portuguese, Italian, etc.) and whatever grouping includes English and Dutch.

Estimates of the sheer number of hours of focused study vary pretty wildly for a variety of reasons.

So I got to thinking about the number of actual study hours I put in toward learning Spanish.

First off, I don't count time spent browsing language forums, blogging about Spanish, etc. But I do count the time I spend writing posts in Spanish, reading posts in Spanish, and such, because that is time spent actually in the target language.

I opened IDLE (an interactive Python programming thingy) and started adding up a few figures.

Pimsleur Spanish I-III contains a total of 90 half-hour lessons. (I don't count the "bonus" lesson in each set, because I don't use them.) That's 45 hours if one only went through each lesson once.

I've worked through each of the lessons in Spanish II and Spanish III at least two or three times, but seldom more than that. And I slogged through the Spanish I lessons over and over, because that's what it seemed to take to get them into my brain.

I believe I can safely say that I put 150 hours into Pimsleur and could easily put in another 50 for review of sets II and III at some point.

If I counted right, LSLC (through Nivel Dos) contains 72 roughly half-hour audio lessons and about an hour of video.

Assuming I zip through some of the LSLC lessons with relative ease due to Pimsleur having already made me familiar with the material, I'll estimate 100 hours of additional study with the audio lessons.

That puts me at 250 hours just working the audio lessons.

Friday, October 12, 2007

terminando Pimsleur y mi excursion este fin de semana

Acabo de terminar la ultimo leccion de Pimsleur Spanish III.

Mañana voy a manejar a Viking Cooking School en Greenwood para estudiar como cocinar tamales y otras comidas de la Mississippi Delta.

Mientras manejando, voy a estudiar unas lecciones de Learning Spanish Like Crazy en mi iPod.

Es muy importante que no termino mis estudios. Hay tanto mas que aprender, y debo continuar mientras puedo.

Creo que aprendiendo español está haciendo mi vida mejor. En todo caso, hay tantas personas muy agradables para quien español is el idioma primera. Espero que conocer unas estas buenas personas.

Thursday, October 11, 2007

fluency re-visited

While idly skimming a language learning forum shortly ago, I saw someone asking the question that never dies for long about what constitutes fluency.

One can blow a lot of time chasing that one. And some times I do for kicks.

Some of the suggestions I've seen involve the knowledge of enough vocabulary, rules, and colloquial speech to be able to do XYZ without having to look things up or mull it over.

Despite my unusually large and esoteric knowledge of English, I do still frequently pause while speaking to figure out how to express myself, and I look up terms for meaning, spelling, etc. So I will be surprised if I ever attain a level of Spanish mastery such that I don't have to do the same.

Some point out that terms such as "competency" and "proficiency" are far more useful than "fluency" in meaningful discussion, and I'm inclined to agree.

In my last entry I balked at the Minutemen patrolling the southern U. S. border and engaging Spanish speakers without any knowledge of Spanish. For some of these guys, a desirable level of competency might involve a core set of terms and expressions useful for conveying to migrant workers that one has no intention of shooting them but to smugglers that one is indeed willing to pull the trigger.

I'm more interested in being able to talk about food, computer programming, weather, current events, etc. I would like to be able to get through business meetings, enjoy a little recreational reading, and make friends.

So it makes sense for me to learn some specialized Spanish in addition to generalities. The Minutemen really just need to pick up a very small subset of Spanish in order to get by.

For day-to-day matters, it's less a question of "Am I fluent" and more one of "Can I do this thing I need to do?"

reflections as I prepare to finish off Pimsleur Spanish III

Tomorrow I will work on the final lesson of Pimsleur Spanish III. I've enjoyed the program quite a bit and have learned a good bit of useful Spanish.

Although I can't really claim that Pimsleur has given me an advanced level of fluency, it goes deeper than some had led me to expect.

For instance, I heard a commercial for an internet service provider in Spanish shortly ago and was able to make out the gist of it from Pimsleur-provided knowledge and context.

Interestingly enough, this was during a show about the southern U. S. border featuring a bunch of Minutemen who patrol the border. The fact that not one of these guys can read or speak any Spanish at all comes into play in scene after scene. Not one? Seriously?

By the end of Spanish 3, the lessons have dealt with scenarios such as an ATM eating one's card, dealing with various business-related matters in more depth than in Spanish 2, scrambling to find express dry cleaning service, renting an apartment, and quite a bit more. The scenarios are common enough needs for travelers and provide context for conversation practice.

To further boost my vocabulary as well as improve my level of literacy with the vocabulary I've learned verbally, I've obtained a set of 1000 Visual Education (Vis-Ed) Modern Spanish Bilingual Vocabulary Cards. I'm a long-time fan of flash cards, because they seem to work well with my learning style and can be used in literal spare moments instead of half-hour increments.

Stuck at a red light? Waiting in line? On hold? Draw a random card & see if you can guess its meaning.

Although I plan to use my Pimsleur lessons for review after the last one is done, I'll be moving on to Learning Spanish Like Crazy, Destinos, and other programs in a more determined way starting this weekend. Review is always important, but at this stage I think the best thing I can do is keep the levels of challenge and novelty pretty high for a while.

LSLC may present some additional challenges for the commute than did Pimsleur, because at a glance it seems that their lessons aren't always a neatly packaged 30 minutes, but I expect that will prove to be a small matter. However it works out, I'll share what insights I can here in hopes it will help someone else.

In honor of my soon-to-be achievement....

Friday, October 5, 2007

pressing ever forward, and a few reflections

Nothing dramatic to report today, but I've been continuing daily study & practice.

Lesson 25 of Pimsleur Spanish 3 today, and last night I zipped through lessons 3 and 4 of Learning Spanish Like Crazy (LSLC). The early LSLC lessons are mostly review so far, but there's still value in going through each of them at least once in my opinion.

They introduce new general-use vocabulary, speak at a different tempo from the Pimsleur speakers, emphasize a less formal manner of speaking than does Pimsleur, and adopt a somewhat different approach in general. And more advanced lessons will assume a foundation of the earlier material.

Mostly, though, my experience with Pimsleur has proven to me that repeated exposure to and practice using fundamental Spanish will increase my confidence and facility with the language.

LSLC came with lessons in .mp3 format and transcripts in .pdf (plus a number of .mp4 video lessons). I refer to the .pdf transcripts when/if doing so suits me, but Pimsleur's trained me to focus on listening & speaking first before letting my mental impressions of the text get in the way.

We'll see how my approach develops as I engage the material further.

The LSLC Wednesday evening Teleclass really has me kinda excited, though. I've now participated in two of them, and I have a feeling this may turn out to be a really valuable resource for accelerated improvement.

I've also been reading a book entitled Easy Spanish Reader by William T. Tardy. I've read the first 15 pages in idle moments over the last few days, and it is indeed pretty easy reading.

I hit up international news in Spanish in my Treo's web browser when I'm out & about some. Reading the news is more challenging, but I find it interesting. And anything that keeps up my interest in Spanish surely helps keep the whole process going.

The other day I scooted through a crowded gas station in Madison on my way to work, because I wasn't feeling well & figured I'd better start the day with a full stomach.

While ducking & weaving through the crowd, I noticed how rapidly strangers & I spoke to one another in passing, rattling off things like, "Skewzm'therebd." (Excuse me, there, buddy.)

We had no trouble understanding one another as native speakers of English, but I saw a fair number of people in the room for whom English did not appear to be a primary language. I wondered if they found my utterances totally incomprehensible.

I'm acquainted with some local expats from Spanish-speaking countries to the south, and have noticed some of them gradually cultivating reasonably advanced English skills over the last several years. How much time and effort have they had to invest?

Tuesday, October 2, 2007

spiffy new Ko̱nyin keyboard

I've been beyond sick of trying to insert non-ASCII characters into documents, email messages, google searches, etc. for some time now.

And to address it, I've hunted for a Spanish keyboard, but never found anything that quite did it for me.

But now I have a new toy!

It's a Ko̱nyin K-2060UM-US, to be specific, one in a series of keyboards designed to take the pain out of using international characters in documents. The main feature that wooed me was a 2nd shift key designed for easy access to international characters and character modifiers.

For example, I can press the [e] key on the keyboard, then hold down the 2nd-shift key while pressing the key with the backtick to create the character "è".

Previously, this meant recalling and entering a special code, or sluggishly looking for the desired character in the Character Map utility in Windows. I never really came to appreciate either method.

My only meaningful concern was whether the keyboard would work with Vista, because an impressive lot of stuff doesn't. But it installed quickly & painlessly.

Monday, October 1, 2007

an unexpected source of Spanish-language entertainment

I'm a fan of the show Heroes. Not a rabid fan, but I'm into it.

I not only watch the show, but in the stray idle moment I poke around in some of the odd websites & such they've created that supposedly take place in the Heroes universe.

What's this got to do with Spanish? Well, a very small bit, as it turns out.

This season, they've introduced some Spanish-speaking characters, and I received an email alert of sorts notifying me of updated content on a blog supposedly maintained by one of the characters. In it, she's taken to collecting newspaper articles in Spanish about mysterious deaths & Mayan prophecy, complete with translations.

http://www.samantha48616e61.com/ has it for now.

noting a bit of progress

Either early this year or some time last year, I watched several episodes of Destinos to see if I could make out much of what was said. At the time, I couldn't make out any meaningful amount of what was spoken, although I did recognize a few words & phrases, and could follow along with some of what was happening based on context.

Today I received a package from someone with whom I've been swapping some Spanish study materials. Inside was a... "well-loved" old Destinos book and set of audio CDs intended to be used along with it in a classroom environment (by the looks of it).

This got me wondering if I might notice any progress in understanding Destinos now that I've worked most of the way through Pimsleur Spanish III.

To my mild surprise, I was able to follow all but literally a couple of words/phrases in the first episode!

Hey, it's progress... right?