Man, I hate my commute!
It is 45 minutes at best and usually, it is 1 hr and 15 minutes w/traffic at its worst. There is only one thing that I can hang on to in order to stay sane and it is listening to my Spanish CDs. I practically seared the Berlitz Passport Spanish into my brain by listening to all 12 tracks every day for three weeks. I play Vocabulearn CDs until I can barely think in English. I keep my Assimil tracks on repeat.
It is that serious!
I am a professor, so I look at everything in four month increments. I expect my Spanish to be vastly improved by the end of the fall semester due to my commute listening habits. Further, I will admit that my listening habit decreases when the weekend starts. It's hard to stick to audio media when I can watch TV or read a book.
I know I would not have listened to the Berlitz Passport CD as much in my house. So thanks to my commute I can now rattle off phrases such as:
Hola. Quisiera pedir desayuno por favor. Quisiera cafe con leche y azucar, huevo rancheros, sin picante, pan dulce con mantequilla y jugo de naranjo por favor.
I have most of those phrases from that CD locked and loaded.
I will not let my commutes be in vain!
La tortuga gana porque el sigue caminando.
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Bakari Akil is a Professor of Communication, blogs for Psychology Today and has authored many books on Communication and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. This is his experience learning Spanish.
Tuesday, September 30, 2014
Monday, September 29, 2014
Weekend of Espanol - A Tally!
A perk of my job is that I do not have to work on Fridays. So my weekend begins Friday (or Thursday afternoon). That means I have plenty of time to work on my Spanish. Of course, that is when I am not watching our two year old, taking care of our lawn/house, running errands...
That aside, here is what I accomplished this weekend:
5 lessons in Spanish text and audio (Spanish)
2 children's books (read)
2 comics strips in Spanish (read)
3 episodes of a novella* (watched)
Watched an episode of UFC Latin America (en Espanol)
Viewed 3 episodes of a Spanish podcast (4 minutes each)
*Started a new blog about my Spanish journey - Habermelo Dicho!
I was a little bummed out about my progress this weekend until I realized that I accomplished quite a bit.
Y que tenga un buen dia!
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Bakari Akil is a Professor of Communication, blogs for Psychology Today and has authored many books on Communication and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. This is his experience learning Spanish.
That aside, here is what I accomplished this weekend:
5 lessons in Spanish text and audio (Spanish)
2 children's books (read)
2 comics strips in Spanish (read)
3 episodes of a novella* (watched)
Watched an episode of UFC Latin America (en Espanol)
Viewed 3 episodes of a Spanish podcast (4 minutes each)
*Started a new blog about my Spanish journey - Habermelo Dicho!
I was a little bummed out about my progress this weekend until I realized that I accomplished quite a bit.
Y que tenga un buen dia!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bakari Akil is a Professor of Communication, blogs for Psychology Today and has authored many books on Communication and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. This is his experience learning Spanish.
E-bay Spanish
My wife is going to be irritated with me!
Since I re-started my Spanish journey, I have always checked out children's books from the library. I didn't feel like paying $3.99 to $8.00 for books that I would probably finish in 10 to 30 minutes. Plus, with my goal of reading 100 children's books in Spanish, that would easily mean hundreds of dollars.
However, this past weekend, I decided to look for some Spanish products on e-bay and lo and behold, I bumped into cartloads of children's books. Let me get to the point, I bought 85 Spanish books for kids for $35 and $6 shipping and handling. The books are for kids aged 8 to 12 and are perfect for me. They cover a range of subjects, ranging from Henry Ford, Ghandi, astronauts, The Trail of Tears, etc., etc.
So not only will I be able to read, I will also learn or refresh my memories on a few things as well.
Now, I have to find out where I am going to put 85 books.
Yo soy feliz que tengo la capacidad de comprar libros y utilizar el Internet.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Bakari Akil is a Professor of Communication, blogs for Psychology Today and has authored many books on Communication and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. This is his experience learning Spanish.
Since I re-started my Spanish journey, I have always checked out children's books from the library. I didn't feel like paying $3.99 to $8.00 for books that I would probably finish in 10 to 30 minutes. Plus, with my goal of reading 100 children's books in Spanish, that would easily mean hundreds of dollars.
However, this past weekend, I decided to look for some Spanish products on e-bay and lo and behold, I bumped into cartloads of children's books. Let me get to the point, I bought 85 Spanish books for kids for $35 and $6 shipping and handling. The books are for kids aged 8 to 12 and are perfect for me. They cover a range of subjects, ranging from Henry Ford, Ghandi, astronauts, The Trail of Tears, etc., etc.
So not only will I be able to read, I will also learn or refresh my memories on a few things as well.
Now, I have to find out where I am going to put 85 books.
Yo soy feliz que tengo la capacidad de comprar libros y utilizar el Internet.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Bakari Akil is a Professor of Communication, blogs for Psychology Today and has authored many books on Communication and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. This is his experience learning Spanish.
Saturday, September 27, 2014
31st Book - Cuenta Ratones (First Post!)
I just finished reading my 31st children's book in Spanish! The book is titled, Cuenta Ratones. It is about a snake, mice, a glass jar and incomprehensible greed.There were about 1.5 long sentences per page and I didn't have to look up too many words to complete the book. I read it twice because it was relatively short. The new words I picked up this time are:
frasco - glass jar
hallar - to find
volcaron - (they) overturned - from volcar - to tip over
I want to become a MONSTER when it comes to reading Spanish books for kids and I am well on my way.
My goal is to read 100 books (50 before the Dec 24th).
Why? Well, sometimes the best way to start is from the beginning. I realized that after studying Spanish at the university (FSU), and off and on for years, that I never read a proper book in Spanish. I just studied textbooks and books solely about Spanish. Furthermore, I never, ever completed any of them. (More about that later).
Therefore, I had a lot of holes in my game when it came to reading Spanish. I used to get really frustrated whenever I came across a piece of Spanish literature and would be easily stumped. It didn't matter if it was a Jehovah's witness magazine left on a park bench in Spanish or the back of a cereal box, I had a lot of problems when it came to reading the language. Reading children's books has helped me turn that problem around and on its head. (I also do a lot of other things.)
Also, this weekend I did something that is going to take my Spanish training to the next level. My wife is going to be seriously irritated! I will talk about that in my next blog.
Gracias a todos para visitando mi blog!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bakari Akil is a Professor of Communication, blogs for Psychology Today and has authored many books on Communication and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. This is his experience learning Spanish.
frasco - glass jar
hallar - to find
volcaron - (they) overturned - from volcar - to tip over
I want to become a MONSTER when it comes to reading Spanish books for kids and I am well on my way.
My goal is to read 100 books (50 before the Dec 24th).
Why? Well, sometimes the best way to start is from the beginning. I realized that after studying Spanish at the university (FSU), and off and on for years, that I never read a proper book in Spanish. I just studied textbooks and books solely about Spanish. Furthermore, I never, ever completed any of them. (More about that later).
Therefore, I had a lot of holes in my game when it came to reading Spanish. I used to get really frustrated whenever I came across a piece of Spanish literature and would be easily stumped. It didn't matter if it was a Jehovah's witness magazine left on a park bench in Spanish or the back of a cereal box, I had a lot of problems when it came to reading the language. Reading children's books has helped me turn that problem around and on its head. (I also do a lot of other things.)
Also, this weekend I did something that is going to take my Spanish training to the next level. My wife is going to be seriously irritated! I will talk about that in my next blog.
Gracias a todos para visitando mi blog!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bakari Akil is a Professor of Communication, blogs for Psychology Today and has authored many books on Communication and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. This is his experience learning Spanish.
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