twenty-first week – twenty-ninth post

weeks results

well, apart from another couple of phrases in the memory, a lot of this week has been retrospection.

Later in this post I will expand on this concept, but the idea was basically getting more comfortable and confident with what I have.

The theory of the 'reference bank'

the basic idea which I have previously mentioned is the idea of reference bank being established. That is to say that the foundation of learning is having many examples and a grading of importance of these example (such as commonly used vs. rarely used, general meaning vs. specific meaning, etc.) this type of learning needs data through observation to be able to produce accurate language. Hence a side effect of this type of learning is confidence as you are more sure of the piece of language than through other methods of study.

Here are the stages of learning I am proposing:

1 – reference base

• establishing the limits/ range of grammar
• word forms/ tenses/ register
• contexts of importance

2 – solidifying

no new input but focussing on fluency and strength of known language

• verb forms (Spanish specific, any other language is unique in its own way)
• groups of words (typical expressions using combinations of words already known)
• extra words (taking new forms of known words/ new vocab that is strongly connected to the known vocab

3 – expanding reference base

• as much vocabulary as possible to push proficiency up
• formal/ unusual grammatical structures to push proficiency up
• increased knowledge of contexts to push proficiency up

Where I am at (the point at which I am up to)

so without any doubt I would say that after 5 months I am up to the second phase. I am at a place where I am ready to consolidate my current knowledge with much more strict and specific principles.

I did an online test to check my level of proficiency at this website, and it placed me as an intermediate learner. I thought that I would like to see if I were able to do the other levels or at least understand the higher levels, so I went back, changed answers and progressed to the next levels.

I found two things surprising. The first is that I understood all the sentences in the test (general meaning) and the second is that I got more of the advanced questions right than the intermediate ones (although truth be told I flunked out of the upper intermediate questions, too specific for me)

but this does still testify to the acquisition process I have mentioned above. With the reference base created, most of what is presented is understood. Specifics escape me somewhat, but generally the gist is there.

Next week?

Another 10 expressions. But looking specifically for language which I know but combinations or groupings I wouldn't have thought of nor been able to guess.

( a quick example is “me di cuenta de que habia olvidado las llaves cuando...” all the vocab is known. Di = I gave, cuenta = story/ account, de = of, que habia olvidado = that I had forgotten, however the combination of words, me di cuenta = I realised, makes a lot more sense but difficult to arrive at this meaning alone!)