Post: #26

(11-13-2013 03:08 AM)Tenerife Wrote:  I'll procrastinate on my spanish studies to comment on this thread.....

Getting fluent in such a short time is going to take about 3 solid hours a day of deliberate practice (not including time zoning out, and refocusing), for at least 6 months. It´s probably a random number, but there is a tipping point somewhere above 2 hours of deliberate practice where you learn something much more quickly. Adding a few hours of passive exposure and immersion would be good. Music, TV, Movies, Newspapers....and of course cutting off from english Setting wikipedia to spanish, bbc news to spanish, etc.

I concur with what VP said. Communicating on a daily basis with native speakers either in person, through text, or video chat is critical. Having content in the language you find fascinating is also super super important. If you´re into a spanish novelist, or literary period, bingo. If you love spanish history, etc.

I´m in a similar position with Spanish in terms of having holes in my knowledge. I had four years of it in highschool, got mostly A´s, but now I´m finding myself going over basics. It´s important to use multiple grammar methods to cover up deficiencies. I´m currently going through Study Spanish . com, then I´m going to go over the same material with the Practice Makes Perfect series. On top of that I´m using Pimsleur, which I find is basically just review. I´ve got multiple readers (essentially spanish content that gets progressively more difficult). I'm also communicating with a bunch of latinas via iphone, and online.

I´m using Anki for flashcards, plus physical flashcards, notepad for typed up notes, and a physical notebook for physical notes. It´s nice to have all the mediums covered and be extremely engaged.

As for the specific question of which immersion schools are out there, I'm also interested in this. I'm curious how necessary it is over going to a normal school. Ultimately your passion quotient determines how much you will learn.

If tomorrow RVF was only in spanish, you would probably achieve native fluency in a month

That is a fantastic idea, setting most daily websites to spanish only. I'm using pinsleur as well and i'm loving it already. I'm enjoying it more than HS Spanish classes which i easily forgot.

Post: #27

(11-13-2013 08:32 AM)ASOT Wrote:  Paninaro having spent 2 months and only achieving basic level may be able to advice on what NOT to do for language immersion (paninaro, this is not a cheap shot at you, it's just it seems that at 9 hours per week you didn't work very intensively).

I didn't study intensively, because I was working at the time. So I never really "studied" other than in class. We didn't have homework, and I didn't study on my own time. My only "studying" outside of class was figuring out how to do tasks in daily life using the language (grocery shopping, etc).

I think I had in total about 6 months of classes (the latter were less intense) and then just made friends with many native speakers and started reading the newspaper every day. After about a year or two of that, I passed the official language exams (I think it was C-1 or maybe B-2.. I forget).

YMMV of course.. just explaining my path to proficiency.

Post: #28

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Thanks for the input gentlemen.

So nobody else has done intensive immersion courses abroad?

Post: #29

i did two semesters in china

Post: #30

This thread has really inspired me to spend 3 or 4 months before I go to university learning spanish intensively. I found this website which looks pretty good, I'll probably do a 3 month course in Central America from it;
http://www.studyabroad.com/programs/inte...fault.aspx

Post: #31

I did 5 weeks at the school I posted about in Guatemala. I went from getting off the plane with two semesters of college Spanish under my belt yet not knowing how to have a real conversation to being able to talk local politics and history with taxi drivers throughout Central America five weeks later. I'm thinking about going back sometime in 2014, since it's been about 7 years and my Spanish is getting pretty rusty.

Post: #32

Get the apps Babbel and Duolingo. The first on is for words witch you get to chose from different categories with 10 word in every and a total of over 3000 to learn. When you learn a word it will go to the refreshment menu. If you spell the word right straight away it will be back again after three days, if you pass it then it will be back in seven days, then fourteen, third, sixty and then after six months. If you spell it wrong it will be back again tomorrow. I have learn over 690 word already.
Duolingo is for grammar and I find it very good. Use them both everyday. Started myself a few months ago, last week I meet some French girls and they where impressed. I wouldn't take any classes. At least not for another European langues.

Post: #33

Anyone have a good recent experience with a Spanish Inventive School program in LA or Spain? Or recommend a program.

Money is not an issue (at least for 6 months) and unless I'm in some indigenous community, country does not matter, I'm sure I can find girls to my liking.

Any suggestions?

Post: #34

(05-28-2015 09:04 AM)godzilla Wrote:  Anyone have a good recent experience with a Spanish Inventive School program in LA or Spain? Or recommend a program.

Money is not an issue (at least for 6 months) and unless I'm in some indigenous community, country does not matter, I'm sure I can find girls to my liking.

Any suggestions?

There are several good programs, but more important than the program is what you do.

If you really want to get fluent in a language, the number one thing you have to do is to stop using English (or any language besides the target language).

Get your news only in Spanish, do not talk to any other foreigners or hang out with people from your language school, get a Spanish girlfriend and make Spanish friends, do not go to bars or entertainment options like Irish Pubs where other foreigners congregate. Live your life literally 100% in Spanish. Take a break from RVF or anything at all in English.

At least for the first month, don't even call your parents. Afterwards, if you must, maybe have a short conversation with them every couple of weeks at most.

With this approach, in 6 months you will not only be fluent, you will speak and sound more or less like a local.

Post: #35

I really hate the concept of fluency because I believe it is a misnomer among people who talk about language acquisition.

Fluency is probably the least important thing about being proficient in a language because it has nothing really to do with how good you are at that specific language. It has nothing to do with reading, writing, nor does it generally show which level of the language you actually have.

If you are going to use a hard line definition of fluency, something like "ability to speak clearly and rapidly without making much mistakes or searching for words" then you will quickly realize that many people aren't even fluent in their own languages. I know for a fact that sometimes when in a conversation with a lot of nuance, I search for the right words all the time in English, my native language.

If you use a baseline definition, something like "ability to converse freely" then what is that exactly? I regularly am able to have fluent conversations in Spanish on simple topics to which I would appear as a fluent speaker, but something else comes up with that I don't talk about much and all of a sudden I am struggling. Or you could be an intermediate speaker of a language and be very capable in a 1 on 1 conversation, but as soon as it becomes a group setting you can't follow along. Are these people fluent? Who knows?

Learning a language to a highly proficient level (the ability to read, speak, comprehend basic and complex themes/concepts, the ability to use grammar properly, and the ability to be understood by proper use of connotations) takes literally years to master. I have been learning Spanish for over two years now both intensively and passively and have spent much of that time living in Latin America and I am just breaking into/have broken into an advanced level of Spanish. Even then, I have troubles all the time and have a lot to learn still.

I made a datasheet on Spanish, but it could be applied to any language really (although languages with different alphabets will have to put a lot more focus on understanding the alphabet at the outset). I don't think my advice is gospel, but I do think you need to attack language acquisition from a number of angles and that's probably the main message out of it.

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Post: #36

Thanks for the good feedback.

Post: #37

(11-10-2013 11:27 PM)Hades Wrote:  The brain is sort of a pipe, it can only take up so much information at a time.
If you do a serious intensive course for like two months you'll probably retain less than you would over the span of a fifteen minute smoke break every work day for a year. 'Immersion courses' while starting from nothing sort of ignores how the brain works. YMG I'm not sure if you've learned any languages yet or done any prepwork so this is just a rant.

The net investment of a two month course is higher (two months vacation? insane) than fifteen or twenty minutes of flash cards and grammar chapters per day for a year.

If you're serious about learning a language then being dense and efficient about it simply shouldn't matter, you wouldn't care if you became fluent in 3 months as opposed to 5 years as long as it happened. I don't understand the attitude that language acquisition must happen quickly. Does everyone have to prove that they're smart? "Oh, I started speaking Mandarin "fluently" inside of three months, guess I'm a genius" ?

If anything, greater commitment is showed by taking twelve months to methodically go through a serious grammar book, maybe 1500 flash cards, and learning a lot of conjugation and tenses (among other particulars). Persistence will give you the gains that immersion will promise but fail to deliver.

Once you have a strong foundation of nouns, verbs, grammar rules, and common phrases built, you can go to your immersion course and school the shit out of your peers - really fine-tune your understanding of the language and pick up on some of the more advanced material (saves you lots of money and effort!) while your peers are still struggling with the basics -- those basics being easy shit they should have studied before they even bothered to show up. The brain is a pipe and there's a finite rate of information storage - in short if you're going to an immersion school to learn vocabulary then you're doing it wrong.

Procrastinating on learning at least the words of a language because you "don't have time for an immersion course right now" is part of the issue here, methinks.

Even mastering 500 vocabulary words with flash cards right now would give you an enormous edge once you get to immersion school.

Go the lazy route and get a big box of language flash cards from Amazon right now, take out 1/10th of them, and carry them around in a plastic cigarette case and read them every day at work.

If what Hades says is right then there is only so much you can absorb on a daily basis. I am working on my Russian. I just try to get exposure whenever I can (listening to Russian on CD in the car, watching some Youtube videos, listening to Russian while working out). I also have a tutor on Skype, I do 90 mins twice a week, we need to establish a stronger routine but it helps.

I recently ordered 501 Russian verbs to help me understand the conjugation of verbs, a Russian English dictionary, and am debating making flash cards. It seems flashcards are good for short bit of info, not long complicated items. So great for vocab.

I think continuous exposure with some structure is the way to go? I google language learning techniques but everyone has a theory.

Post: #38

Off of the Russia thread someone suggested Anki. I had seen it before for the iPhone but the desktop version is free. From what I understand you can make your own flashcards. Then there are sets of premade flashcards that you can download. Many for for free (some request a donation). I think it is a good way to see if flashcards work for you or not.

http://ankisrs.net/
https://ankiweb.net/shared/decks/russian

There are many different language decks, I linked to Russian because that is what I am working on.

Post: #39

^
This Anki App is very cool! Just spend an hour with it.. really glad I have stumbled across your post! Thank you!
May I ask you where do you found your Skype tutor and how does a training session look like with you tutor (rougly). Would you recommend this for improving pronunciation in generall or would you better say doing this in real life? Because this is what I mostly struggle with at the current moment.

Post: #40

Met my tutor while traveling.

The Skype connection isn't great and makes it difficult to hear sometimes.

Try italki.com to find a tutor. Or just a language partner to trade languages with.

Part of the reason for having a tutor is someone being on my ass. Plus, I paid in advance for a bunch of lessons. I think the best way is constant immersion. Even just hearing the language in the background keeps you working on it.

But what the fuck do I know? I'm still learning the basics.

Post: #41

Immersion schools are a good way to learn, but not the only way that you should use obviously.

Be careful when you sign up for a language immersion school. I've done five different schools in Costa Rica, Spain and Peru.

Careful in what? Some schools will treat you like a little kid if you don't show up or skip classes. I personally hate that.

Choose a school where you can skip days if you wish without dealing with annoying coordinators etc. Also, I found five days a week to be too much, which caused me to skip classes now and then.

Post: #42

I've been studying Thai for ~6 months and I'm fluent. I can write essays, talk about science, go on dates, etc. if you want me to recommend you places, hit me up.

Post: #43

Rawmeo, pretty fucking awesome dude.

Anyone accomplish fluency in Russian quickly? Drop some tips here

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Post: #44

I would never pay such exorbitant amount of money to go to any of these schools. The probability of you learn anything substantial in such short period is extremely low.

Go to the country you are planning to go, sign up for whatever language you want to learn at an affordable school and approach lots of girls and try to speak to them in their native language. I want to learn french and if I get the time to travel for few months, I am doing that.

Post: #45

I think you should do both. To learn a language, you must be in that country.

For roughly 6 months, I was attending school 15-20 hours per week, and watching 1 hour of Thai TV every day. No break. I was gaming multiple girls and going on dates while using only Thai.

Studying will get you the vocabulary, sentence building, and correct structure.
Talking with locals will get you faster, learn the unwritten expressions, and improve your conversational skills.

Studying is a must if your goal is to be able to speak the language beyond ordering beer and going to 7-eleven. No local will give you full time lessons on how to start speaking, making sentences, etc. as they often don't even know the rules, they speak it right because they are natives.

BTW, I'm still studying full time, and will do so until early December. I have my language proficiency exam at the Ministry of Education next month and I'll keep you guys updated.

Post: #46

How old are you Rawmeo?

Post: #47

As someone who speaks multiple languages , I found the easiest way for me to learn was by taking a preliminary college class like Spanish 101 to learn basics. And Then I would pull out a dictionary and focus on flash cards with:

1000 nouns
500 verbs
1000 adjectives

At one point my conjugation was terrible.

I would literally say eat red apple but it didn't matter initially as I got my point across. Then after learning how to communicate like a 5 year old I started working on future , subjunctive , grammar Etc.

Post: #48

Apologies: add on

Of course in my early days of Spanish - wrestling and soap operas helped considerably

Post: #49

(10-25-2015 01:09 AM)pitt Wrote:  How old are you Rawmeo?

I'm 24. Living abroad since 3 years.