#polyglot-path

The challange:

Consists about doing Spanish a little bit every day for 12 weeks. The goal being achieving the B2 level and/or possibly a higher level of proficiency 

My backgroud with Spanish:

I am a native Brazilian Portuguese speaker, since Portuguese and Spanish share 80% of vocabulary similarities, I am able to understand most of what is happening, but when trying to speak or read the blank spaces in my knowledge make it hard for me to output. I cannot really speak without slipping into Portuguese or funny enough, English. 

How do I know if I’ve reached my goal? 

I’ll be using The  Council of Europe grid to define my goals

The B2 level consists of:

Listening:  I can understand extended speech and lectures and follow even complex lines of argument provided the topic is reasonably familiar. I can understand most TV news and current affairs programmes. I can understand the majority of films in standard dialect.

Reading:  I can read articles and reports concerned with contemporary problems in which the writers adopt particular attitudes or viewpoints. I can understand contemporary literary prose

Speaking:  I can interact with a degree of fluency and spontaneity that makes regular interaction with native speakers quite possible. I can take an active part in discussion in familiar contexts, accounting for and sustaining my views.  I can present clear, detailed descriptions on a wide range of subjects related to my field of interest. I can explain a viewpoint on a topical issue giving the advantages and disadvantages of various options.

Writting:  I can write clear, detailed text on a wide range of subjects related to my interests. I can write an essay or report, passing on information or giving reasons in support of or against a particular point of view. I can write letters highlighting the personal significance of events and experiences.

Schedule: 

First month: Will consist of Listening and building up vocabulary, as well as creating the habit of studying Spanish a little bit everyday. 

I’ll also try to learn most of the beginner gramar   

Seconf month:  Will expand the first by adding listening and reading, I will be using the Percy Jackson series as a reading experiment, as well as listening to the audiobook when possible. I also have the files for the shadowhunger chronicles for reading experiment. 

As well as going through most of the intermediary grammar

 Third Month: Will be focused on output, spoken and written output, this month will also be the one where I’ll try to have a conversation with my friend who lived in Argentina for 10 years. If necessary, I might use Italki for further conversation practice. 

Since I don’t intend on achieving C1 or C2 I don’t need to focus on advanced grammar, but I might go deeper into Intermediary Grammar if necessary 

Resourses: 

for listening: Youtube and Netflix 

for grammar: Practice Makes Perfect: Spanish (complete) 

for reading: Percy Jackson: el ladrón del rayo and Ciudad de Hueso. 

for vocab: Anki cards 

for speaking: HiNative, Tandem, Discord or Italki 

extra: Language Learning with Netflix and Youglish will also help me with vocab

Method:

minNo, this is not clickbait, and yes it might sound like it is, but first I want to clarfy that I speak portuguese and therefore I understand the majority of spoken words in Spanish (because both languages share 80% of common vocabulary)

This was my first week of my 90-Day-Spanish-Challenge, which is exactly as it sounds like: I’m spending 3 months focusing most of my time on spanish learning 

What I Did: 

the first thing I did was to start watching content in Spanish, I got a Disney+ subscription and started to do watch Violetta and Soy Luna (mostly because of nostalgia, but I was obsessed with those shows and therefore I knew the general plot of both of them) 

I think I watched around 5 episodes of them combined 

I also Went through 150 pages of Practice Makes Perfect, that being 10 chapters that focused on:  Subject pronouns, the present tense, Gustar, ser, and estar, The preterit tense, progressive tenses and The imperfect tense.

As of today (saturday-6:30pm) I read the first chapter of Percy Jackson y El Ladrón Del Rayo, that’s 18 pages long, and listened to the audiobook (first time just listening and second time reading and listening), and I understood most of it, the especially after listening and reading together.

The Stats: 

made by Polylogger:

Time today(May 7th): 2h20min

Daily Average(from May 1st to May 7th):1h8min

Total time: 8h

Listening: 3h6min

Grammar: 3h

Reading:1h22min

Mixed:32min

I also might start Spanish lessons at the place I work at which is going to rapidly improve my speaking skills

Holá! Cómo estan?

Hello everyone! I’ve been wanting to make this  update, and since the year is almost over. How did it go? Did I learn Spanish in 3 months?

well...

the start

okay so, I started my spanish journey speaking very little but I got accepted into a A2 class (my course currently has 5 levels A1, A2, B1 and B2 combined, C1 and C2), I had never before spoken spanish but I studied really hard during the weeks before my class started to get comfortable with the present tense and some basic vocabulary

the class

It was really good! I really like my teacher but I had a bit of a struggle, because I decided really early on that I’d like to pronounce the ‘ll’ as an ‘y’ sound but my teacher varied in pronouncing it from ‘sh’ and ‘j’ and to this day it’s a struggle to remember that during class!

But I learned a lot of grammar and vocabulary

the problem 

After some time, I slowly became overwhelmed with my personal life and left the language learning community. I only studied the basics for my classes but didn’t go beyond that.

after some time I wanted to go back to spanish but couldn’t find enough motivation 

the hope 

I was able to get a trip to Argentina in January of next year and will probably update the experience here

so now I’m extremely motivated! Just this week I’ve listened to 30+ hours of Youtube in Spanish and it’s amazing how much I can already understand! I’m also practicing some regional and advanced words using pre-made Memrise flashcards

so, while I consider my experiment a failure, I still think it’s worth trying, so I’ll follow the same schedule and I’ll tell my experience on January 23.

My point is: it’s okay to fail as long as you understand why and take measures so that it doesn’t happen again