Sound in mind and body, or something

[adina_atl]

One of the benefits of telecommuting is that I have a flexible workday, which means lately that I've been going to the gym every (almost every) morning and then working in the afternoon and evening. Today I cut my workout short to get home in time for a phone/internet meeting, only to find that the meeting was canceled (canceled ten minutes after

Comments

[beadattitude]

Well. ::marches over to Amazon:: Now's the time to get through my preterite (sic) and imperfect tenses.

Good for you, hon. I'm doing swim therapy these days and loving it.

[adina_atl]

It's a great book if you're okay with it giving you the grammar FAST. Preterite and imperfect tenses are introduced in chapters 7 and 8--so I haven't done them yet, but they're not left to the end of the book or the beginning of the next book.

I should warn you that this is a book for reading Spanish, not speaking it or writing it. So it concentrates more on helping you recognize and understand grammar, but doesn't teach you when to use one tense or another. On the other hand, it would probably be a dandy refresher if you've had Spanish before.

[therealjae]

I am so proud of you about the Spanish! I know language-learning doesn't always come easy to you, but it sounds like this time it's been a remarkable success.

-J

[adina_atl]

I think this just works with how my brain is wired. Learning vocabulary by context and cognates is how I learn English vocabulary, so this ties into one of my strengths there; it's much easier than trying to learn them by rote, which is definitely not one of my strengths. And having so much access to real world Spanish instead of stilted, trite, and boring "schoolroom" Spanish is another advantage. When I was taking Russian I enjoyed watching Vremya, the Russian news program, but it was the only real world Russian I had access to in those pre-Internet days.

[sashajwolf]

Oh, excellent! I'm about to start re-learning Spanish and would like something like this to supplement the more touristy stuff that I'll be spending most of my time on (I'm hoping to make a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela in 2011 or 2012).

[adina_atl]

We could practice on each other if you'd like. I'm going to start posting occasionally en espanol as soon as I can figure out how to type it (I have the instructions for configuring my computer, I just need to do it). Feel free to respond in English or Spanish.

It is nice to have something that's not so touristy. I learned from the two weeks that I spent in Costa Rica that I can pick up the practical stuff pretty quickly, if I have incentive to do so. Even with zero Spanish instruction (beyond the obligatory Sesame Street level, at least) I could figure out taxis and reading menus and such after a couple of days, though it helps that San Jose is so bilingual.

[sashajwolf]

Sure, practice sounds good!