Note For Roommate (in Spanish)

The exam part which turns out to be very tricky in a teacherless method is without any doubt Writing. Therefore, I’d like to ask you to correct my pieces.

Be merciless and pick up every single mistake. I intend to learn the correct version by heart later!

Querido Miguel,

?Quieres cenar conmigo en el nuevo restaurante en el centro de Pulawy? Tu has dicho que te gusta nachos y pozole. Pienso que el restaurante sirva comida mexicana.
El esta en un Calle Centralna 9. Esta cerca de la panaderia en que tu compras el pan maravilloso.

El restaurante esta abierto desde nueve por lo tanto nosotros podemos quedar a seis al frente del restaurante. Llamame si ya tienes planes por la tarde.

Besos,

Miguel

Nivel Inicial Escolar

If you take a look at sample DELE Nivel Inicial exams, you will notice that some of them are marked with the word Escolar. Escolar, as basic language intuition suggests, means ‘school‘. Every independent student such as I will ask ‘So they are easier or what?‘.

Well… it turns out to be quite a challenge to judge whether they are. The vocab items used in Escolar tests are not much different than on regular tests. I couldn’t say difficulty is an issue here.

As for my scores, the Escolar ones are on average:
2% better in Reading,
9% better in Listening,
10% worse in Spanish in Use.

So… is there a real difference in level? Probably not. That’s good news because in this way I have three more sample tests to learn from!

Writing – some useful phrases

The exam is getting closer and closer so I decided to work on the writing part a bit. So far I’ve ignored since there was nobody to correct it. But this time is over.

From my English learning experience I know that one of the keys to successful writing is the use of some scaffolding langauge, e.g. linking words.

Here are some that you may find useful:

Contrast:
but – pero
however – sin embargo
nevertheless – no obstante
in spite of – a pesar de
whereas – mientras que

Addition:
and – y
moreover – ademas de
besides – aparte de

Generalizing:
generally – generalmente (surpirse! surpirse!)
in general – en general
all in all – por lo general

Phrases to start a letter:
Formal:
Dear Mr Franson – Estimado Sr. Franson
Dear Sir or Madam – Estimado/a Senor(a)

Informal:
Dear Miguel – Querido Miguel

Phrases to end a letter:
Formal
Looking forward to hearing from you – Espero ustedes respuesta

Informal:
Kisses – Besos

My First Conversation in Spanish

This day is definitely a landmark in my Spanish learning process. After seven months of  vocab-learning, chat-listening and grammar-drilling I have had an unforgettable experience of having a REAL conversation in Spanish. With a real native speaker!

How was it? Absolutely, mind-bogglingly a-w-e-s-o-m-e! I was a bit hesitant at first whether I should even start a chat in Spanish but I boldly decided to have a go  and now I definitely do not regret having jumped at the opportunity. Although I don’t remember the name of my Spanish partner, I can proudly say that I understood and still remember most of the details of the conversation. Sure, it wasn’t about any profound ethical issue. But still, the most important conclusion is that despite learning individually I managed to hold quite an animated conversation on tourism of Spain. This proves once again that the alleged essentialness of having mates in learning a language is just BS.

The whole experience really uplifted my spirit. Your first successful attempts to communicate in a foreign language you learn are one of those moments that make you feel that trying new things in life really does make sense. Could there be a more optimistic conclusion of a post? Probably not.

END

Pretérito Imperfecto – what the hell is it?

Right now I’m wrestling with the following grammar problem. In one of the Nivel Inicial exams I’ve come across the sentences below:

Qué animal había en casa de la chica?
Tenía un gato cuando era un nino.

What’s that? Of course during the exam I had no idea what that was so after checking the scores I got back to the grammar theory and I found out that the verb forms relate to past. But…. in Spanish, just like in English there’s no single past tense.

The one with forms like había and tenía is called pretérito imperfecto or copretérito. It is used to describe background activities (like the sun was shining (background) when I got married (foreground, main action). You can also use it for actions that you did it in the past with some regularity just like in English you’d use I used to. You could say then that we use pretérito imperfecto for actions that haven’t been completed in the past. It’s interesting to see that English and Spanish tenses don’t overlap, isn’t it?

Ok, so here’s how they conjugate the verb in pretérito imperfecto:

verbs ending with -ar (hablar)
yo hablaba
tú hablabas
el hablaba

nosotros hablábamos
vosostros hablabais
ellos hablaban

verbs ending with -er (tener) or -ir (vivir)
yo tenía, vivía
tú tenías, vivías
el tenía, vivía

nosotros teníamos, vivíamos
vosotros teníais, vivíais
ellos tenían, vivían

So, where’s the catch? Where’s the exception?
ir
yo iba
tú ibas
el iba

nosotros íbamos
vosotros ibais
ellos iban

ser
yo era
tú eras
el era

nosotros éramos
vosotros erais
ellos eran

ver
yo veía
tú veías
el veía

nosotros veíamos
vosotros veíais
ellos veían

And that’s it. When I learn these, I’ll write some tasks how to master them.

My Method – Part 3

This will be, hopefully, the last post on my learning method. Brevity is the soul of wit, as they say, therefore I’d really like to finish this thing today.

DELE exams. From nothing to Nivel Inicial I planned to practise 9 months with these exams. I do one test monthly and then work on it. What does it mean? I check each and every vocab item, grammar form and re-read and re-listen the whole exam twice. Sometimes I even learn the Reading part by heart, which helps me (a tough word here) internalize structures, i.e. put them in my head as something I can use later, not just understand. I hope it’ll foster my speaking skills in the future. I have a whole month to play with such an exam which is just enough to master it.

Another aid I use are podcasts. I’ve tried lots and lots of them but the ones I found myself coming back to are Notes in Spanish recorded by a charming Anglo-Spanish couple Ben Curtis and Marina Diez. What I like about the podcast is that it is not only communication-oriented, which is a flaw of most language courses. Some think that if you just read out thousands of useful phrases, the learners memorize it and are free to use it. Curtis and Diez are better than that – each podcast on beginner level actually does some grammar bit, then there’s some audio recording to hone your listening and then some overall comments. This gives some structure to the whole process which is an essential part of any process, including language learning. Therefore, Notes in Spanish in an Mp3 Player is my companion wherever I go. To work, to the lake, or even to the shop.

I’m also open to the idea of keypals. If you want to join me, let me know in any way. The method described above motivates me as hell, so the only thing I can promise to my future keypals is blood, sweat and tears. Well… I guess it’s not the best way to encourage anybody to work but I hope there’s at least a bit of S&M psycho in you. Let him free when learning Spanish

OK, next time I’ll write something on a Spanish language aspect that caught my attention.

My Method – Part 2

Last time we ended with DELE exams – now let me write a few words on their central role in my method.

As I mentioned earlier, they are skills-oriented and therefore involve the practical aspect of Spanish. This gets rid of any fear that I am ignoring any crucial part of language. Another boon is that they’re designed for particular levels: Inicial, Intermedio and Superior. Cervantes Institute makes all the exams available for free (link: here). Altogether you get ca. twelve sample papers on each level of proficiency. Every so often I hear complaints from autonomous learners that they get discouraged by setting standards that are just too much for their needs and abilities. DELE’s tailor-made exams prevent you from this sort of discouragement and greatly facilitate your learning. Finally, it gives you a sense of structure. If you want to achieve a big objective you need to have smaller aims leading you to your final destination. A three-step way towards mastering is just perfect. If you were to have one thousand aims, you would lack a sense of achievement.

My plan is the following:
Nivel Inicial – 9 months
Nivel Intermedio – 7 months
Nivel Superior – 12 months

That totals 28 months – from zero to the hero.

I started my journey with Spanish this January. After learning basic grammar (ser, estar, presente, simple words) I started doing Nivel Inicial exams. I was shocked that with my rudimentary skills I managed to get positive scores (Reading – 70%, Listening – 82%, Spanish In Use – 60%). I had to miss Speaking and Writing as I had no interlocutor or a person qualified to check my letters. But still, it was a wowing experience. From March on I do one Nivel Inicial test monthly the results of which I include in a graph below.

More about the tests and other learning aids – next time.

And here is the promised score graph:

My Method – Part One

This blog is supposed to bring you hope! Too many people have thought that learning Spanish without registering on a formal course is an impossible venture. Not anymore!

I’d like this blog to become my companion in the process.  A companion that doesn’t make me do oral exercises with a moron from the group. A companion that doesn’t irritate me with ice-breaking jokes. Finally, a companion that is flexible and free.

The only resource I intend to have is the Internet. The core materials are DELE (Diplomas de Español como Lengua Extranjera) exams, a few penpals and some podcasts. All of the above are available without having to pay any charge.  Spanish coursebooks will be left somewhere deep on the shelf and bore someone else to death with their drills.

My aim is to learn Spanish. What does it mean? Well… definitely it is NOT memorizing all the arbitrary grammar rules such as ‘what are instances of using Future Perfect Continuous’. From my experience of an EFL learner I know the disappointment of mastering all the nuances of the elaborated grammar system just to find out later it was just a game. Language doesn’t arise from artificial rules and I am not going to fool myself with them.

Therefore, the only way to find out if I really know the language is to check my practical abilities: Reading, Listening, Writing, Speaking, and Spanish In Use. Each of them is language put in action. Fortunately, the Cervantes Institute grants certificates of Spanish which are based on checking the aforementioned skills. Thus I am going to use them as benchmark as to how advanced I am in learning Spanish.

More about them and other details of my method in the next post.