I am going to try and keep this short, just want people’s option on my current language learning routine for Spanish. I only speak English at the moment.
And have never studied or done anything to learn another language until now.
Currently working my way through Assimil 2014 Spanish with ease.
I spend 20 minuets on the train relistening and reading yesterday’s lesson (I take photos of the book and read them while I listen to the audio)
I then walk 10 minuets to work listening to some Spanish rap music as it is my favorite kind of music.
I will then repeat the above on my way home.
Then do my assimil lesson for 35 minuets taking it in turns to read the Spanish text and to read the English translation.
I plan on finishing the book in under 3 months then moving onto more interesting content and starting to speak.
I do this routine everyday, approximately 1:30 hours a day.
I do not revise any grammer or study any flash cards if a word is freqent enough it will appear again, and I will only review the grammar very lightly as me reading will teach me the grammar passively.
I think it’s a good routine to get you started in the language. I’ve used Assimil as my first learning material for several languages and I find that it does provide you with a solid foundation in the language.
The next step is to tackle more advanced material and begin using the language actively, just as you have planned. If you keep this routine, I’m sure you’ll end up speaking the language. Just be patient.
Later on, you may consider adding one or more “immersion” experiences
Look prince, the native speakers won’t benefit you except in case of two things : illustrate grammar to you or practice speaking. So first try to use Duolingo and finish all of it with watching the necessary videos of Grammar you face in Duolingo ( try to finish this as possible as you can at maximum two weeks), and you do the previous routine with the LingQ of course daily at least one hour. You are in Spain, that means that you see Spanish walk in front of you everywhere, try to read Spanish in streets and everywhere you go, and speak as possible with people. Sorry if the ideas aren’t arranged. Good luck.
Not sure if you plan on using lingq for that, but if not please reconsider. I have started my French journey some 3 weeks ago as a break from German, at the beginning I didn’t study much, maybe 20 minutes a day, but now I really enjoy it and even though I am still pretty bad, I can struggle my way through articles or some other lessons here at lingq. I am fairly certain that I can learn without using grammar book, because it is just so much more fun to actually read real content. I have nothing against assimil, but my book for German is just lying somewhere collecting dust. Lingq is single best thing that happened to my language learning.
As for your routine I think it is good, but still would consider leaving assimil a bit earlier.
Well I understand your point and do plan on leaving assimil but I said to myself I would like to finish the book or even perhaps get 70% through it, I have only been using it for a week and do not yet have a good Spanish Base to work upon.
Once I have a good base and feel comfortable more than likely after I have finished the book I will most definitely be moving onto Lingq for my listening and reading. to continue my Spanish journey.
Thank you for your feedback! and yeah I do feel like I have a good little routine going and I do feel myself day by day slowly but surely becoming better at reading the Spanish words and only how they are supposed to be pronounced in my head.
Once finishing the book I do plan on getting an audio book to import into lingq and to read and listen everyday and doing some other things that have came to mind, but I will probably create another forum on that once my 3 months or just under is up
Based on my own experience, and what I plan to do with other languages, I think it’s pretty good what you have here.
As a native English speaker, I think three months, at 1.5 hours a day, is probably a good time span to work on the “beginner material.” I have never used Assimil, but this it probably doesn’t matter what you do here. Assimil, Teach Yourself, Living Language, or taking a class. This is where you start with easy material and are essentially going through the “How To Learn Spanish” phase. You learn how the language works, a good amount of the grammar, how verbs get conjugated, etc. I suspect that this may take longer (6 months?) for harder languages.
After this, you move into the “authentic content” and start using LingQ to access it. You can it with the easier stuff in the LingQ library, or by importing your own stuff. LingQing, reading, and re-reading are at the heart of the learning. You’ll most likely do this during your night time learning, which is where you will get the most mileage. Where your time is less dedicated, you can do the listening (your walk to work), or better yet, the reading and listening at the same time (your subway ride).
The Spanish rap music isn’t for actual learning per se. It is just because you enjoy it and will be listening to it anyway. At the very least, it could help keep you motivated and help you pretend to be Spanish as you attempt to immerse yourself to get into the role.
Thank you for your reply, what you have just said is exactly what my plan is. I am going to spend 3 months more or less on the beginner material with my Assimil to give myself a good base foundation so when I come to the more interesting content I will hopefully be not too lost!, which compelling content I choose I am not sure yet perhaps a popular book like harry potter or something in Spanish that I can find in Ebook form so I can import into Lingq and then listen and read while I am on the tram and when I am at home, upon other things slowly but surely building up my listening skills and my vocab, then goes without saying my speech,
Ultimately within 6 months I would like to be at perhaps a strong B1 level or even B2 if I really put the work in! spending minimum 2 hours a day everyday learning Spanish after my 3 month Silent period and beginner period.
Sounds great. B2 is probably too much of a reach at only two hours a day for six months, of 360ish hours total. But a good start on b1 or at least higher a2 is definitely attainable.
One of the tools I like was Steve’s the Linguist book. It’s a neat story about his language learning and has some good tips. I have listened to it soooo many times, even at the level I am now. It’s good to read a few times, as it uses many common words. Then, when you know it pretty well from the reading and listening, you can just listen to it freely. The audio is not the greatest, but it’s decent enough if you are using headphones.
I actually pretty much ignored grammar completely for a few months and only read on lingq and worked on getting lots of vocab and then decided to work through the Assimil book. I don’t do the “assimil method” as the book describes it (instead I put the sentences into Anki), but I think the book is really helping me improve my grammar.
Basically I did kind of the opposite of you…lots of Lingq then back to Assimil. If I could do it over, I think I would have been going through Assimil at the same time as all the reading on Lingq.
Sorry for the rambling, but I’m just trying to say going through the Assimil book with audio is not that different from doing the beginner lessons on LingQ and it might even be better because of the structure of the lessons.
I think I would just a quick little almost 1 month update, I feel like my reading has improved and I am some what able to guess the sentences and of course my known words have increased I have only been using Lingq for about 5-6 days but did a little bit of assimil before I am happy so far with my progress but look forward to hitting the 6 month mark and prehaps moving onto another language more than likely yes if I keep up my 2 hours everyday of study!
One suggestion: before moving on to another language, consider deciding what level you want to reach in the language, what you want to do with it, etc. Do this instead of just allocating a certain pre-set amount of time.
so 8 nearly 9 months on and yes I have most definitely improved but I was very stupid thinking I could move onto another language of only 6 months study of my first foreign language! perhaps if my native language was a romance language and I was learning another romance language I would be much better than I am now maybe I will move on once I have hit the 1.5 years of study mark of even little over 1 year who knows…
