My commute time just doubled to almost half an hour. I’d like to take advantage of this time to improve my Spanish. I have an iPad and an ipod so I could listen to either in the car.
I have basic Spanish skills. If I were dropped off alone in Mexico City I could get home, just with some chuckles from the locals.
Apps or podcast are fine. I’m open to other suggestions as well.
This place just ain’t what it used to be.
Well, fine, then, if you’re going to whine, I won’t mention SpanishPod101 or my past experiences in just downloading the first episode of numerous Spanish podcasts, and seeing which ones I like best.
I enjoyed Learning Spanish Like Crazy. I downloaded it with credits from my Audible subscription, so it effectively cost $11. Something I found to be effective was combining an audio course with spaced repetition.
Spaced repetition is based on the finding that you get the best retention of the thing you are studying if you review a fact just before you are about to forget it. When you first learn something (like a vocab word) you will forget it quickly. The next time you review it you will remember a little longer, after the next time you will remember it longer still, etc. until it gets lodged into your long term memory. Reviewing a thing just before you would have forgotten it gets you the longest interval and the quickest path into long term memory.
The original program written to assist with this was called Supermemo, and its algorithm has been used in several other applications. One you can download for the iPhone is called Study Arcade. It presents you with question/answer flashcards. You can have it give you an English word or sentence and you try to remember the Spanish, or vice versa. After you look at the answer you rate how well you remembered it from “Didn’t have to think about it” to “I remembered when I saw it” to “I didn’t have a clue”. Over time the application figures out what the ideal interval is for presenting you with a flashcard the first, second, third time and so on. Each day it will have a set of cards for you to review, and the better you learn one, the less you will see it.
What I would do was listen to the audio lessons in the car, but never more than one or two at a time (about 30 min). It was tempting to keep going, but if you try to do too much at once it doesn’t stick and it’s a waste of time. Later I would open up the transcript of the lesson and type the words or sentences into the program as flashcards (this can be done on the pc rather than the phone). This was a way to actively engage the material and get it into my head. Passively listening and speaking along isn’t enough to make it stick. I always used the sentences from the lessons rather than individual words in the flashcards because the sentences were designed to repeat and reinforce the vocabulary.
At spare moments during the day, like standing in line at the grocery store, I would pull out the phone and run through some of the day’s flashcards. The only time I needed to spend that wasn’t “found” time was typing up the flashcards. That only took about 15-20 minutes a day, and was easily done during some down time at work.
Since you know a little bit already, try the News in Slow Spanish podcast. It’s great practice/brush up.