The second week - 7th post

Following my first week's results, I decided that I wouldn't need to learn grammar the conventional manner, I should make my lists bigger and more intricate, and finally that I should graduate to different material.

This weeks results are also another stepping stone with interesting results.

All five lists (1 for each working day of the week) were bigger and more intricate than the first week's. The first week saw me learning base verb forms, such as 'quedar' whilst week two's lists included structures such as “cerre la puerta y se me olbidaron las llaves dentro” or perhaps another example is “no sabia que estaba haciendo algo mal”. The first week seemed to be full of phrases/ expressions containing 2/3 items on average whilst the second week was more or less an increase to about 5/6 items on average.

The problem

I will say that this weeks lists were far more taxing than last weeks. They took a few tries before getting 100% accuracy, they drained the brain substantially (that is, I often lost focus and my mind wandered on more than one occasion, I felt like I had been doing exercise)

The silver lining

I did indeed graduate to new material, watching three films with spanish subtitles (the tourist, clash of the titans, piranha), the song lyrics I had brought with me, and also the work a friend left for me (an awesome Londoner who came here for a couple of weeks to study Spanish, hence the material was lists of synthetic elementary exercises, lists of vocab suitable for the level and a few grammatical things here and there). Please note here that I am not using his material for the purposes of doing the exercises, but rather looking at the Argentine Spanish and lifting collocations that I think would be good.

So whats the silver lining?

Well, I found myself encountering all the words on my lists, even the obscure ones. I managed to understand over 80% of the subtitles (but damn are they fast) as they had familiar words and familiar structures. The Spanish I have been producing when interacting with people around me (bus drivers, waiters, the laundry lady, etc.) has never needed repeating, which has to be a good thing. As well as the few aquaintences I have here noticing dramatic improvements in my production of the language.

Another silver lining?

Seemingly so. In the words/ items this week there were verb forms for the past and future which I haven't encountered before. I did manage to connect one or two to the subtitles of one of the movies and found myself connecting time as well as meaning from the memory to the situation in the film. Although it only happened twice, this re-enforces my theory of zero grammar studies. With more repetition it can only get better.

Results?

No grammar? Check

Bigger, more intricate lists? Check

Different material? Check

Resolutions based on this weeks development:

1 – smaller lists, but keep intricacy (perhaps 15 items per list)

2 – find enjoyable movie, watch a little everyday drawing language from repetition.

3 – start with even more material (comics/books/music)

Week two? So far so good