Learning Spanish Vocabulary – Creating My First Flash Cards
Today I worked on creating my first flash cards using Anki. I am definitely bought into the benefits of Anki, having used the app for the last few weeks to help with my pronunciation. There is huge value as well as the enjoyment I am getting. I feel like I am making progress and I…
Learning Spanish Vocabulary – The Next Stage Of My Journey
I have spent the last week or so working my way through Gabe Wyner’s Spanish pronunciation trainer. It has really helped be get my tongue around the words and my ear around the sounds. Already I am starting to hear things differently. And when I try to pronounce a word, it sounds more Spanish than…
Time Slips By Very Quickly When Trying To Learn Spanish
So it is nearly 11.00pm as I write this and I have still to do my pronunciation training and my minimal pairs work on Anki. It has been left until the end of the day when there were many opportunities for me to have done it throughout the day. But that’s the way it is. What…
Am I Doing It Right?… And Other Missed Opportunities
It’s been a few short weeks of trying to learn Spanish now. And already, I wonder if I am doing enough or whether I am doing it right. This weekend I have been to stay in London with some friends. I was walking across the bridge from the Barbican underground station to the Barbican itself.…
Learning Spanish? Become Addicted To Learning
Perhaps the biggest lesson I am taking so far from learning Spanish is that you LEARN it yourself. You might have teachers who provide you with information. It’s possible you will own learning programmes in the form of audio recordings and online resources. You might even have an App that takes you through the language.…
Shifting From A Fixed To A Growth Mindset – Use Mind Mapping
In my last post I talked about the Fixed and Growth Mindset in relation to using Gabe Wyner’s punctuation trainer. I talked about how I seem to have hit the Fixed Mindset approach to getting things right with my pronunciation trainer. It seemed that I was’t really “learning’, merely transacting. Even though I am putting…
Pronunciation Training – Fixed or Growth Mindset?
I have been using Gabe Wyner’s Pronunciation Trainer for three days now. It is quite an impressive tool and is really stretching me. At this stage there are two sets of cards. One for minimal pairs where I have to distinguish between two very similar sets of sounds. When I get it right I press green…
It’s Just Pronunciation Training At The Moment
Well it isn’t a bad thing, but today my main activity has been the pronunciation training. And it is all about using the Anki App. This app presents new cards as well as reviewing previous cards. Though I only did 5 minutes – it seemed longer though. A part of me wanted to do longer,…
Let The Spanish Pronunciation Training Begin…
In Gabe Wyner’s book, Fluent Forever, he talks about the importance of pronunciation training and getting it right early. One of the things he has done is create a set of pronunciation trainers for different languages. These are based on his own language learning experience. He created a kickstarter campaign a couple of years ago…
Spaced Repetition System – Putting One In Place For Spanish
Well having read Fluent Forever, Gabe Wyner’s Excellent Book, my first task is to set up a Spaced Repetition System. Or SRS as we in the business like to call it. There is quite a lot to do if you are going to do it right. I have just spent the last couple of days…
