Newsletter #9
Don’t worry, I’m still here. A bit less active, but still here. The newsletter (which I post ridiculously late) should explain the most important things. Long story short: I need 30 hours a day, but only have 24 
. This weekend will be the tenth newsletter, and today or tomorrow I’ll post an article on the blog.
Please upgrade your browser
Further reading:
- Weekly Newsletter #4
- Weekly Newsletter #6 and #7
- Weekly Newsletter #3
Further
View full post on Spanish Only
Bookmark with:
Related posts:
8 Responses 
Leave a Reply 
"I would recommend this product to anyone who wants to improve their Spanish skills by using a range of different methods."
Word of the Day
- (el) trigo = wheatPronounced: trée-goh Type: noun Example: El pan de trigo es más común que el pan de maíz aquí. Translation: Wheat bread is more popular than cornbread here. Copyright 2012, GB Blanchard - Learn Spanish: www.braser.com […]
© Teach Yourself Spanish 2009. All rights reserved.
I thought watching TV and no subtitles was a waste of time, until I tried it. I could follow the gist of the story, and can pick up key words here and there.
But the test was in a real situation. I went to a church Sunday School meeting in Spanish. I suddenly discovered that I could now pick up the gist of the conversations, not by understanding sentences, but looking at the nonverbal clues and picking up a word here and there. I knew the general topic of discussion and could get a general idea of where the lesson was going. I even made a comment (in my broken Spanish).
Amazing.
i think i’m starting to understand
actually i’m a teacher of english in china. i realized long ago that neither grammer study nor conversation activities can help one get to fluency. in fact, i myself learnt english by watching TV, tons of them. i just simply enjoyed the time in front of the computer, not knowing why i could gradually understand and converse with native speakers without an effort, while most of my peers were strungling to produce their English sentences yet less than the real English ones.
i tried to introduce the mindset in my classroom. but now i know it’s near impoosible. becourse 1000 hours of native english input is a scary figure for most students, not to mention we can’t provide that many teaching hours.
Herman, I was picking up words because of the things I saw happening on the screen. Take this easy sentence for example:
Come la manzana – Eat the apple.
The first time I heard this sentence, I didn’t know what it meant. I didn’t know the meaning of “come”, nor that of “la manzana”. But when you see and hear both words in different situations, you can guess what it means. That’s why watching television in important, because radio can’t give you this visual clue.
The method the TV Methid is based on, is called ALG: Automatic Language Growth. You should read this blog of an ALG student who was able to understand everything in Thai after 1200 hours of listening class (classes entirely in Thai, without teachers trying to translate stuff, or trying to explicitly explain the meaning of stuff in Thai). If first thought it was also bullcrap, but sitting in front of your television more or less like a zombie, absorbing the Spanish language, really works.
However, after some 800 hours I’d start doing the sentence method to speed up the learning process.
Ramses, thank you for replying
another question: if you did start out with zero listening comprehension, how did you identify individual words and make your progress. at least you’ve to have something to build on, right? or does it mean that you only care about the sound of the whole sentence without recognizing the details?
don’t get me wrong, i’m all for the method of learning by listening. in fact, i consider myself a typical audio learner and it kills me to learn vocabulary by reading or writing. i’m just really curious to know the details of how you actually execute this method, for i haven’t develop my own way to do it (at least no starting from zero listening comprehension and always avoid using subtitile)
Why is it a nightmare? Because you keep telling yourself you should understand everything or a lot? Because you don’t like the show when you don’t understand everything? Often the problem isn’t that we don’t understand something, but that we keep telling ourselves that it’s a nightmare doing this. I’m more like a zombie when listening to (in my case) French television. I just look the pretty pictures and avoid thinking “gee, this is hard!”. The result is that I enjoy a show, although I understand maybe 10% of it. Also, often you know what’s the story about because you understand some words or expressions, or because you see what’s going on.
Everything gets better, of course. I started out with zero listening comprehension, and made rapid progress only because I didn’t use subtitles. Using subtitles will increase your understanding, but only in an artificial way because without them you’re lost and will only feel worse. Next to that, it keeps you from making progress because they’re no way you’re learning fast by reading the subtitles (which has been proven in several occasions)
Memorizing (short) dialogs is just a heavier form of the sentence method. The Assimil products use the same system, and for many it works to some extent. The main problem with dialogs is that they’re not natural speech (in other words: they’re made up by “language experts”), so the result will be less natural speech. Also, they’re by no means a substitute for real materials, like movies, music and shows.
I have no doubt they’re helpful for you, but don’t make the mistake by spending a huge amount of time using dialogs and neglecting real Spanish.
i have a question for Ramses
as your suggestion for beginning is
“:our goal should be to get 1000 hours of television-based input as soon as possible, so aim for 50 hours of Spanish-only television this week, without subtitles”
i actually tried this way months ago, watching the documentary program Comando Actualidad on RTVE. I enjoyed the show. But the without-subtitle thing was really a nightmare. i could understand no more than 10% of it. Is this also a necessary phase in the method? If so, how long do i have to hold on like this before i get to the next level of understanding? Would it be better if i look for some audio materials with transcription? Why do you emphasize on “without subtitle”?
Million thanks
I want to share a techniques used by one of the finest language schools. It is exclusive to LDS missionaries, as they are sent throughout the world. They have to learn how to converse and understand very quickly.
They memorize short dialogs. This helps with vocabulary, listening comprehension and conversation. I found spanishpod.com to be excellent in this type of learning. The dialogs are short and based on common situations. I practice listening to the dialog and write it down. I then spend some of my free time while jogging memorizing the dialog. It helps learning vocabulary, and listening to entire sentences rather than individual words.
I have been doing this for a few weeks and it has been very helpful.