Category: Learning Project

Welcome everyone! This is the last week of talking to you all. ☹ Thank you for embarking on my journey in learning Spanish with me. Let me give you a rap up of the last 10 weeks of seeking out a variety of online resources to assist me in learning Spanish.

As mentioned in my first post, coming into this journey I did have some background knowledge on the Spanish language. In 2017 I was backpacking through South America for five months. I visited Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia. While being fully submerged in Spanish speaking countries was beneficial to learning Spanish, I did not learn nearly as much as I was hoping for. Majority of the time I would be staying or working in hostels that welcomed travelers from all over the globe. Because of this, the universal language that majority people would speak at these hostels was English. This resulted me in speaking more English and ultimately learning less Spanish. Throughout this time, I noticed that my vocabulary, especially in certain settings, got strong, however my fluency in forming full sentences and the conjugation of verbs were quite weak. This led to me choosing Spanish as my learning journey topic. So, let’s recap!

Looking for apps that focus on fluency, sentence structure, and conjugating verbs and not just vocabulary was difficult. Apps like Duolingo, FluentU, and a few others were just that, vocabulary driven. While vocabulary is important in learning a language, I found with my previous experience with Spanish, my vocabulary was already decent. The other thing I noticed while searching for online resources was that many of them required costly monthly subscriptions to join. While I started many one-week free trails, I would not be willing to pay for many of these platforms if it wasn’t exactly what I was looking for.

I also stubbled upon a few different resources such as podcasts, YouTube, and even Artificial Intelligence (AI) that I absolutely loved. Not only do these require no additional cost, but I was also able to be extremely specific in what I wanted to learn. The variety of different pages or channels to choose from were endless. This drastically improved those aspects of the language I was searching for as I viewed many different teaching styles and strategies. I found myself being much more confident while articulating sentences, rather than just piecing a few words together.

Concluding these 10 weeks, I can honestly say that my knowledge of the Spanish language has drastically improved. While there is still room for improvement, my fluency in everyday conversations is quite impressive. This was evident as I have been talking to a few friends of mine whose first language is Spanish. They have complimented me on how well I am speaking, improving my confidence while doing so. I can understand much more as before I had to ask the speaker to talk and pronounce very slowly and clearly for me to comprehend. I am also much more diverse in the context of the conversation. For example, rather than just being comfortable in restaurant settings and brief introductions, I can now hold a conversation in many topic areas. I strongly believe that this was a huge success in learning the beautiful language, Spanish.

Thank you all for tuning in and experiencing this journey with me. Hope you all the best in your future endeavors.

Zach

Welcome everyone to another week of me trying to become fluent-ish in Spanish. I’m not sure about all of you, but I am finding it very difficult to find new online resources that I haven’t tried before. However, after some searching, I stumbled upon a podcast called, “News in Slow Spanish”. News in Slow Spanish is an online resource that is intended help language learners improve their Spanish all while staying up to date on current events. An interesting and quite innovative idea I must say!

Let’s begin the positives of the podcast. This resource provides new stories and current events all around the world in slow, clear Spanish. This content is aimed for Spanish learners who want to improve their listening and comprehension skills, a skill that I find I am quite weak at. Each episode covers a range of topics such as sports, politics, culture, and much more. With the entertaining host speaking slowly and clearly, it gives non-native speakers an easier chance to understand and follow along. In addition, many other resources I have explored have different categories to learn about. For example, I am extremely good at vocabulary and conversations in a restaurant setting now because almost every resource covers that. While this is important, this app stood out because it taught me vocabulary and phrases that I have not been exposed to yet. The last thing that I really enjoyed about News in Slow Spanish is the cultural insight that it brings. One of the main reasons I choice to learn Spanish as my learning journey is because I feel like love with the Latin America culture while I was traveling there. This podcast is great for learning that culture aspect, learning different types of slang while doing so. As much as I like this new resource, it was not all sunshine and rainbows.

It is with great sorrow to announce that News in Slow Spanish once again requires another paid subscription! ☹ This subscription, from what I could find, is $14.99 USD a month. For monthly, quarterly, and annually subscriptions do offer discounted rates, it is still too rich for my blood. When will these resources learn that I am a struggling university student lol. I was fortunate to sign up for a free trial and able to get the gist of the podcast. The other aspect that I wasn’t crazy about was the limited content that the hosts covered. It would be nice if they had more news stories that I was more interest to listen to while improving my Spanish.

Overall, News in Slow Spanish did ultimately improve my listening and comprehension skills. By regularly listening to these stories, my vocabulary and grammar improved giving me more confidence ability of the language.

Ciao,

Zach

Welcome my fellow bloggers. I hope everyone is finding great progress in their journey in whatever they may be learning. As mentioned in my previous post, I am finding it harder and harder to find a reliable online resource to help progress my Spanish. However, this week I stumbled upon a resource called “Coursera”.

Coursera provides access to online courses from universities and institutions all around the world. Coursera provides courses for a variety of topics that one may want to learn, including 21 different languages. Typically, topics are taught by professors and experts in their respected fields. Obviously, I was there in my quest to learning more Spanish. The specific courses that I explored was taught by Dr. Robert Blake at the University of California, Davis.

Being on week 9 of my journey of learning Spanish, I feel like I am progressively learning more and more Spanish everyday. Because of this, I feel like I am also becoming pickier on the resources I use. Being able to identify what works and what doesn’t pretty quickly. Coursera offers both free and paid courses. While free courses are available, gaining access to graded assignments, certificates, and choice of specific areas often require the paid subscription. And as many of my fellow students are in the same boat as me, being a university student is EXPENSIVE! Which means, no thanks to the paid subscriptions. Another aspect I wasn’t crazy about was the lack of interaction Coursera had to offer. Some other resources I explore had a great variety of discussion forums and community features, allowing the user to get instant feedback from peers and feel a sense of community among other Spanish speaking people. Lastly, I found this resource difficult to stay self motivated. In my opinion. Completing online courses takes a great level of self-discipline and without having any strict deadlines or in-person classes, I found it difficult to stay on top of lectures and assignments.

Now, Coursera is not all bad. There are a few things I really like about the resource as well. First off, there was a wide range of course options available. This caters to all levels of Spanish speaking students, from beginner to experts. The other aspect that was very apparent, was the structure that was laid out for learners. It was clear that these courses are taught by professionals and experts from top universities and institutions, ensuring that there are high-quality instructions. While I did harp on Coursera in the paragraph above for not being very self-motivating, I did find a silver lining in that. It allowed the user to become more flexible while learning. I could access course material, assignments, and quizzes all at my own pace, allowing me to be learning at my own convenience.

Overall, I found Coursera to be a decent online resource. Signing up for the free trail, I could tell why so many users would be driven towards the site. If it wasn’t for the subscription, I would most likely explore Coursera in more depth. Thanks for reading friends!

Zach

Buenas tardes todo! (Good afternoon everyone!)

I’m not sure you about you all, but I am getting to the point where I am starting to struggle to find good, reliable, online resources to continue my journey of learning Spanish. This week took me a bit longer than regular to find the resource I was going to use. But, nonetheless, I found one that might just be my favourite one yet! I present, Coffee Break Spanish.

For the ones who are not familiar with Coffee Break Spanish, it is a podcast that has mini lessons that you can listen to. I listened to these podcasts through the app Spotify. I found that Coffee Break Spanish has been the most convenient and accessible resource I have used thus far. It was so easy for me to plug in my headphones and just listen. Whether I was commuting to work or being at the gym, this kind of accessibility was unmatched. I didn’t need to set time aside just to learn Spanish, rather I would learn Spanish while doing something else. The other aspect I really like was how it had a structured lessons easy to follow, making it ideal for beginners/intermediates like me. Each lesson would focus on a specific topic such as greetings, restaurants, everyday conversations, and much more. The last thing that I loved about Coffee Break Spanish was in addition to the lessons, they also had quizzes. This was a great way for me to track my progress through my listening.

Some things that I didn’t overly like about the app was while Coffee Break Spanish was great for beginners and intermediates, I could tell it lacked advanced content. As I am continuing to improve on the language week by week, I could already sense that I would hit a plateau fairly quickly using this app. Another thing I noticed was while this resource provides a solid foundation, there were additional resources needed. The app did not go into great detail about grammar, comprehension, and conversations of the language.

Overall, as a starting point, this is my favourite online resource yet. As mentioned before, nothing can beat the accessibility that this app provides. Not having to set a specific time out of my day to learn Spanish saved me a lot of time and stress.

Thanks for listening!!

Zach

Bienvenido mis amigos (Welcome my friends). Today I will be reviewing learning Spanish via social media. Who knew I could use Instagram for something useful other than mindlessly scrolling through my feed late at night while I should be sleeping?

While there are many different social media applications, I would have to say Instagram dominates my use. Whether it be for following professional athletes to finding new recipes for supper, I use Instagram for informational and non-informational content. So, I thought, why not try using Insta for learning Spanish?

To start on this process, I had to find the Instagram pages I would use. I found a few with a simple Google search. The three accounts that I focused on during this journey was: @SpanishDict, @Ohlalagram, and @hablomosespanol. @SpanishDict offers daily vocabulary, grammar tips, and interactive quizzes to challenge the learner. @Ohlalagram provides visually appealing infographics and a variety of language memes to make learning Spanish fun and engaging. Lastly, @hablomosespanol offers short language lessons, and cultural insights that every other resource that I have explored has yet to touch on.

To begin, the accessibility of social media is unmatched. They are free to use and accessible for all ages and levels of Spanish speaking learners. With almost everyone having a phone at their disposal, hopping on Instagram for a few minutes here and there is accessible for almost everyone. This was especially beneficial to me with having a such a busy schedule; I could get a few minutes in during my lunch break or for the few minutes while I’m laying in bed. The other aspect I like about this resource was that it was a lot more fun and engaging than other resources. With the interactive and sometimes funny videos, I was excited to move onto the next video. Lastly, as I mentioned before, this was the first resource that I explored that also taught about the culture of Latin America. This is exactly why I wanted to learn Spanish in the first place, I love the culture! They would also teach slang terminology that native speakers use in their everyday lives.

While social media was an interesting online tool there were a few cons I’d like to mention. Being on Instagram learning Spanish was a bit of a double-edged sword. I found myself getting off task quite often as I would wonder off onto another page and go down a rabbit hole of nonsense. I found it difficult to stay on task for a long period of time. Another thing that I wasn’t a fan of was the lack of structure. There was no continuity in the learning process whatsoever. For a beginner, this would be extremely difficult to navigate the complex language. For myself, having a bit more background knowledge, it was a bit easier but still challenging to say the least.

Overall learning Spanish through Instagram is something I never thought was possible. It was a pleasant and surprising experience. For quick little tidbit lessons, there worked perfectly.

I’m curious, has anyone else tried learning Spanish through social media? Let me know!

See you all soon!

Zach

Hola mis amigos! ¿Cómo están?

(Hello my friends! How are you)

We are currently on week 6 of my journey of learning Spanish. I can honestly say that I am learning more than I ever thought I would. I am starting to become comfortable with saying full sentences, knowing common phrases, and being able to respond to questions. With the variety of exploring different online resources, I am benefitting from all the strengths each application has. This week I am focusing on using Artificial Intelligence to help me learn more Spanish.

With all the different AI’s out there, I decided to explore ChatGPT. Prior to exploring ChatGPT as a language learning tool I decided I would watch a short YouTube video explaining how to use the resource properly. I found this short video being extremely beneficial in how to navigate ChatGPT.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mS1dqyUu0c

I found my progression of learning Spanish was expedited using ChatGPT. I started off by telling the AI that I was trying to learn Spanish and I wanted to work on real-life conversations. I also instructed the AI to correct any grammatical errors I had before responding to the conversation. This allowed me to be more comfortable while talking about any subject I chose.

The only thing I didn’t overly like was that I was not verbally communicating. While I was still speaking to myself as I was typing out something, it wasn’t the same as truly speaking. I also was reading the responses rather than listening to them. I find one of my biggest struggles while speaking to a native Spanish speaker is understanding what they are saying especially when they begin to speak quickly. This is something that ChatGPT did not assist with in any way. In addition to this, there was also no real structure to my learning.

Overall, I really liked using the online resource as a tool to learn more Spanish. It gave me the opportunity to learn about anything I wanted to. This was beneficial because it allowed me to focus on conversations that fits my personality and something I will use in the future.

Has anyone used Artificial Intelligence to learn a new language. Comment down below!

See you all next week.

Zach

Welcome back from break everyone!

This week in my quest to learn Spanish, I turned to YouTube as an online resource. YouTube has everything, right?

After doing some research on Google, I stubbled upon a YouTube page called, Butterfly Spanish. On this page, the lady named Ana has many different videos starting from a beginner level all the way to an advanced level. In addition, she also has specific videos such as vocabulary, conjugating verbs, adjectives, everyday sentences and phrases, comprehension and much more. Honestly, this has been my favourite online resource thus far. Let’s get into the pros and cons.

Pros:

First and foremost, I must talk about the accessibility of using YouTube. As many of you probably know, YouTube is an extremely user-friendly resource. On top of that, you can use it on any computer, tablet, or smartphone. Unless you annoyed over a 15 second add, you are not even required to pay for a subscription like many other online tools I have reviewed.

The second thing I want to talk about is the variety of content. This has been by far the most beneficial resource I used while learning Spanish. I can look up specific topics I want to learn. More specifically, I wanted to learn more real-life conversational phrases. This was perfect for that. It helped me expand my vocabulary and helped me with forming complete sentences.

YouTube is also great for the flexibility it gave me while watching videos. I was easily able to pause and rewind the video as well as add subtitles and slow down the video. This gave me time to improve pronunciation with ease. After a few hours of watching a variety of videos, I can happily say that this avenue has had the most progress throughout my learning journey.

Learn Spanish in 35 minutes: The 100+ everyday Spanish sentences you need to know! (youtube.com)

The link above is one of Ana’s videos from her channel “Butterfly Spanish “.

Cons:

Now time for the negatives. While I had a good idea of what I was wanting to learn, there was a lack of structured curriculum. With this sense of structure missing, it makes it challenging for learners to progress systematically from beginner to advanced levels. This would make the user have to plan and organize the route they are wanting to take in advance.

Overall, I would recommend YouTube to anyone who wants to learn a new language. The wide variety of videos combined with the accessibility is unmatched to YouTube’s competitors. I’m excited to continue to learn more of the Spanish language through YouTube!

I want to begin this blog by saying, learning a new language is extremely hard and frustrating at times. But I am trying my best to stick with it! I have recently semi given up on Duolingo. As mentioned in previous posts, outside of some vocabulary, I’m not learning a whole lot. I have also fully given up on Babbel, as my free trial ran out and was too cheap to pay for a subscription.

This week I experimented with the app called FluentU. I am going to begin with the aspects a liked about FluentU. The first thing that stood out to me was their interactive approach to the learning of language. They use authentic Spanish videos, from movie clips to music videos and everything in between. It gets the learning away from the traditional “textbook” style of learning as the past two were mostly based around. This approach gave me a realistic picture of how people speak in everyday context. I found this helped me learn how words and phrases are used in real-life scenarios. These short video clips were also tailored to what videos I liked or disliked making FluentU more personalized to me. This was an underrated aspect that I did not think I was going to appreciate as much as I did. In addition to this personalized approach, FluentU also provides interactive quizzes and exercises to help with my understanding of vocabulary and grammar while keeping me engaged.

Now time to look at the negative FluentU has to offer. First and foremost, another paid subscription is needed! While it does offer a free 14-day trial, access to its full library of content requires a subscription. Not only is a paid subscription needed, but it is also a bit pricier than its competitors, Duolingo and Babbel. Outside of the price, one of the biggest things I noticed is that there is no real structure or progression path that the app follows. This almost makes me feel like I need to be using a different app to assist with this one which kind of defeats the purpose. Last thing, I find that the FluentU still has a few bugs to workout when it comes to technical glitches. In some cases, when rewinding certain video clips, the app would glitch, forcing me to shutdown the app and reopen it.

Overall, I found while using FluentU I learned more of real-life phrases and how to speak in proper slang while talking informally. However, once again I did not learn much sentence structure or grammar. Out of the three apps I have used so far, this would probably be my last choice.

Does anyone have anymore suggestions other than Duolingo, Babbel, or FluentU? If so, let me know!

Zach

This week in my journey to learning Spanish, I have continued to use the app Duolingo. As stated last week, this app is great for learning vocabulary, however in my opinion is not great for sentence structure or for one day being able to speak fluently. The application teaches non-practical phrases. For example, I now know how to say, “Where is the library” and “The cat drinks milk.” As you can see, these aren’t everyday phrases that a beginner of the language would say on a regular basis.

In addition to using Duolingo, I also incorporated the app Babbel into my repertoire. When it comes to practical conversations and phrases, Babbel is the opposite of Duolingo. The app emphasizes real-life situations, aiming to get learners speaking the language quickly. Phrases such as, “Where do you work?’ and “How old are you?” As you can see, phrases that you could potentially ask someone while meeting someone for the first time.

The other thing that Babbel does that Duolingo does not is focus on verb conjugation and explaining grammar rules to improve sentence structure. This is exactly what I have been looking for in an app to improve my learning. I strongly feel that if I would continue to use this app on a regular basis, it would greatly improve my fluency in the language.

Now time to talk about the negatives of Babbel. I’m glad that I have some knowledge in the language prior to using it. The app does not overly prepare the user with basic vocabulary that Duolingo does. While the phrases are practical in everyday scenarios, the app is very fast paced, and a true beginner could get lost very easily. Lastly, to be a user of Babbel, you need to pay for a subscription. The prices vary for how long you pay for the subscription anywhere from $12 a month to $20 a month. I was able to sign up for a free trial period while experimenting with the app. As good as I found the app to be, being a fugal university student, I think I will be trying other apps out in the weeks to come.

Has anyone paid for a Babbel subscription? If so, was it worth it? Let me know and comment below.

The link below comes from the T.V. show called, “Community”. The main characters rap a short song in Spanish talking about libraries and moustaches, reminding me the odd words that Duolingo teaches their users. Enjoy!

Spanish Rap | Community (youtube.com)

Hasta luego (see you later)

Zach Nenson