Book Review - Citas en el Restaurante

Citas en el restaurante is a quick and easy read if you are at least an advanced beginner to intermediate reader. The e-book follows the foibles of a guy who enters the dating scene after 6 years of being in a relationship. His method of finding love is through e-dating. As you can guess, he is a mess when it comes to dating and his best foot forward is often his worst.

The chapters are short and easy to digest. The author keeps it interesting by changing the scenes in every chapter. I think this is a great book to help the reader maintain their level of Spanish while also picking up some interesting words and phrases. I enjoyed reading it and it took me only 2 days to finish it by periodically reading a chapter when I had a bit of free time. 

The book is one of a series of e-books created by Jorge from thatspanish.com. I could not find a last name for the author and I think he meant it to be that way. Anyway, it is free if you are with Kindle Unlimited ($9.99 for unlimited number of books each month that are registered with Amazon's KU program). Or, it costs $1.69, if not enrolled in the KU program.

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Bakari Akil II, Ph.D. is a Professor of Communication and also writes for his blog at Psychology Today. He is also the author of Spanish Conversations: Realistic Conversations to Improve your Spanish and Conversaciones en Inglés: ¡Conversaciones realistas para mejorar tu inglés!

Inspiring Spanish Learners - No. 1

While learning Spanish, many have inspired me to continue when I have felt my worst. When I need motivation, I often look for videos of people who have succeeded or that teach in a way that makes me want to believe my goals are possible. This will be one of a series of posts that highlight these individuals as they deserve much attention for their work.

1. Nathan Heightz

Nathan is a passionate learner of languages and when he focuses on a language it has nowhere to hide but in his brain. Watching this guy's growth in languages was amazing and he offers many good tips on how to process languages. Here are a few of his other videos that are inspiring or helpful to language learners.

My Spanish speaking progress: 6 months
How To Learn Spanish Fast (In 6 months or Less!)
My Spanish speaking progress: 7 months
My Spanish speaking progress: 8 months
Me speaking after 1 year of intense study

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Bakari Akil II, Ph.D. is a Professor of Communication and also writes for his blog at Psychology Today. He is also the author of Spanish Conversations: Realistic Conversations to Improve your Spanish and Conversaciones en Inglés: ¡Conversaciones realistas para mejorar tu inglés!

FluentU - Powering up my Listening Skills (and my ability to read, write...)

               

¿Que estoy haciendo ahora?/What am I doing now?

Even though I am always all over the map in my Spanish adventure, there is always one thing I am focusing on for an extended period of time. For now, that is using FluentU for listening comprehension.

FluentU is probably one of the best services that can be used to learn Spanish. Sometimes, I wonder how long the service will last because it is so valuable. It covers listening, reading and writing. If you desire, you can add a an aspect of speaking by reading aloud. In short, they offer the learner short video clips of all types and they provide:

Advanced bi-lateral subtitles
Dialogue (line by line)
Definitions for words (that you place the arrow over)
Interactive questions for reinforcement
PDF transcripts

You see, hear, read and experience the learning process in a totally different way than you are used to. They also offer videos ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous. Pick your medicine.

They offer different tracts for the beginner, intermediate and advanced learners. It also predicts how much you will know of the vocabulary that is new in the video. It keeps track of what you learn so it can forecast what you will know as you advance and it allows you to master videos. Or if you just want to watch videos in another language then you can choose between ¨Learn¨ or ¨Watch¨

When I have free time I just go through the list of videos (Upper Intermediate for now). I watch it first and see how much I know. Then I go through the dialogue page. Next, I watch the video again and maybe once more. After that I go to the next video. When I want to be more thorough I will choose ¨Learn¨ and spend a few minutes going in depth.

There is no better feeling than watching a video after reviewing the dialogue and the person speaking Spanish seems like they are using English.

I pay $18 a month for there Premium version and I am grandfathered in (until they change the policy of course). They do have a free version which will provide many features that allows it to still be very useful. I like watching videos so it is a painless way of learning and no drudgery is involved.

¡Paz!
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Si tienes tiempo, visita el sitio. Me lo puedes agradecer después.


Bakari Akil II, Ph.D. is a Professor of Communication and also writes for his blog at Psychology Today. He is also the author of Spanish Conversations: Realistic Conversations to Improve your Spanish and Conversaciones en Inglés: ¡Conversaciones realistas para mejorar tu inglés!

Pato muy hambrienta - A very hungry duck - Kindle Unlimited

Okay, I read this book by using the Kindle Unlimited program (KU) through Amazon. For $9.99 a month I can read as many books as I want on my Kindle and devices that have Kindle apps. You can check out ten books at a time and can exchange them as often or as much as you would like. Also, Amazon has a general fund that they use to pay the authors or publishers so all parties profit.

For now, I only spend money on children's books in Spanish if they are classic fairy tales, such as Peter Pan or Jack and the Beanstalk. However, with the Kindle Unlimited program I can read as many books in Spanish that I can stand.

Pato Muy Hambrienta is a simple book that introduces or reinforces many simple words for pieces of furniture, fruit and animals. The easy sentences and structure will help to build sentence making ability and to learn easy phrases. The repetitive nature of the book will ensure that the reader will take away valuable skills for the future.

It is a cute book for beginning Spanish learners and can be shared with a child learning the language. It is not a bilingual book, but you can easily look up anything you don't know and will not be slowed down too much, as it is a short book. It is a good book for learning and will give beginners a sense of accomplishment for reading a book.

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Agradezco que la lectura de mi blog. Hasta la próxima vez.



Bakari Akil II, Ph.D. is a Professor of Communication and also writes for his blog at Psychology Today. He is also the author of Spanish Conversations: Realistic Conversations to Improve your Spanish and Conversaciones en Inglés: ¡Conversaciones realistas para mejorar tu inglés!

Two new books just arrived! - ¡Dos libros acaba de llegar!

Okay, two books have just arrived that I have been anticipating! While searching on Amazon for libros en español to read earlier this week, I found this little book by Alan Galán titled, ¡Qué Cosas Dice Mi Abuela! (The Things my Grandmother Says!) No, it isn't a profanity laced diatribe like the book,  S#@% my Father Says. This book is for children aged 4-8 or pre-k to 3rd grade and it has words of wisdom for little tykes learning to read.

However, that is not why I bought the book. I bought it, because, when I read the first couple of pages the words flew off the pages and I understood them in a way that made me feel good. I understood most of it, but the parts I didn't understand was written in a way that I could guess easily what I missed. I have read over 100 children's books and not every writer is capable of doing this, so I got excited. It has a solid paragraph on every page and yes, I will probably finish it 5 or 10 minutes. But, I reinforce my ability to read in all types of ways so I don't view this as a bad investment ($2.99).

Finding this gem of a book made me hungry for more so I searched for every book Alan Galán has ever written and I came across this book Mondragó: La gran prueba, Libro 1. It's about a little boy who gets a dragon for his birthday and runs into a whole lot of trouble afterward.

Now this book is 142 pages and is written for juveniles or could be considered YA. I have scrupulously avoided books like these because I have been gradually trying to build my reading skills up by taking baby steps. But this guy's writing style translates well to his YA books too. I found that I could easily understand the part that I sampled on Amazon so I figure I will not have a problem for the rest. I abhor having to continuously check the dictionary or having to always resort to a contextual understanding. I like to fully grasp what I am reading.

This is a new challenge for me, but I need to start reading denser books, especially since I am going to be tackling a John Grisham novel this summer. I am up to the task though, as I read Spanish articles and study Spanish everyday.

It's time to crack them open and see what's happening!


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Gracias por leyendo este. Nos vemos en mi próximo entrada!
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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.

I can read! - Puedo leer!

This weekend, my wife and I went to the movies to see the Wedding Ringer at the local mall. We had some time on our hands before the movie, so we stopped by the Books-A-Million. My behavior was noticeably different this time. Usually, I make a beeline to the Language section and start searching for Spanish books to study. This time I looked for the Libros in Espanol.

I skipped over the children's books and instead started to look at the novels. One of the first ones I picked up was a John Grisham novel. Lo and behold, I could understand most of it without any problems. I would venture 80 percent. I want a smooth read so I will not start reading books like this yet, however, I was more than happy that I could read a book like that. I predict that at my current rate of learning I should be able to read books like this in about 4 months. I am also close to being able to read regular news articles without out having to constantly look up words and terms. I figure I will be able to have no problems with that by August.

This is a major breakthrough for me as I having been working non-stop on learning to read Spanish (and in other aspects to).

After learning that I was almost novel ready I went to the Spanish section. I ended up buying Ingles para Conversar. Why would I buy a book written in Spanish that teaches English? Well, this book is amazing! It uses Spanish to explain American terminologies, sayings and expressions. It also tells you how to say something in many different ways. I find that most Spanish instruction books in English only teaches you one way at a time. I love the fact that this book tells you five different ways to say something and I learn the natural way of saying it in Spanish as well. It is also full of pictures, conversations and doesn't use the standard word lists that bore me to tears. Also, there are no, "Where is the bathroom?" type stuff. It is realistic.

Anyway, I am ripping my way through the book.
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Gracias para visitando mi blog. Hasta pronto!
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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.

Verbling! First Spanish Class online - and I took no prisoners!!!

Okay, it has been two months since I have posted to this blog. In that time I have done so much with my Spanish training that I am getting tired just thinking about it. Yet, that will have to wait for future posts and I will just start with my present adventures.


Yesterday, I had my first online Spanish lesson. After months of looking at the Verbling website, which offers language classes and tutors 24-7, I finally decided to try it out. They have two major plans. You can choose 10 classes a month for $19 monthly or you can pick the unlimited plan for $49 a month. I chose the $19 plan. As I have to carefully carve out time for something like this due to work, a wife and a two year old, 10 classes a month is more than enough for me.

I signed up for a class at 7AM and the theme would be Jeopardy. In Verbling you can have up to 9 students in a class and they use Google hangout to run them. In the classes that I watched on Youtube before signing up there were usually four or five people in each class and mine ended up being no different. There were four of us that showed up at the beginning and another guy popped in 20 minutes later.

The instructor seemed easy going and had an air of experience about him. Since it was a beginner class, he used both English and Spanish. After the intros he explained the rules of the game and the categories. Some of the categories were - tener - saber vs. conocer - ir...

To be brief, I ended up winning the game. Now, I didn't go in with the intention of winning, but when it became apparent that I could win I did everything in my power to do so. I also learned a few things such as I need to brush up on saber and conocer. Overall, it was a good experience. I was able to speak a little Spanish, hear it spoken live and interact with a native speaker. Even though in the past two months I have had quite a few conversations in Spanish (I will tell you how I managed that in future posts.), each time it feels as if I am new to the battlefield. I have to remember to relax more when first engaging with native speakers.

Verbling seems like a great tool and they offer many classes throughout the day so I will be able to use it to my advantage. I was wary of doing the Google Hangout thing, but it felt natural and I was comfortable. I already have my next class picked out so I am looking forward to it.

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Ha sido un tiempo, pero todo es bueno. No noticias es bueno noticias!

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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.

Spanish Workshop! - "You've Gotten Much Better!"

Okay, I attended my third Spanish workshop this weekend. It is the third one in two months. Nothing says dedication like attending a workshop. Two hours of working on a foreign language is hardcore!

The regulars were in attendance (15 in total) and they seem to be a serious group of characters all motivated to learn, maintain or share their knowledge. People seem to come from all backgrounds and I have seen people from 10 to 70 years old.

We started off by introducing ourselves and sharing why we were learning Spanish (en espanol). Then we had readings followed by questions (all in Spanish). Following that, we all had to answer a question about how we celebrated holidays and what countries we have traveled to.

Highlights: I engaged the instructor in a conversation and didn't bail when I felt a little nervous. I asked him about his job and he asked me about mine. He was drawn away, first, by someone who came up to him.

That's what I'm talking about!

When I read out loud, today, it was was much smoother than last time. (I have a new issue though. I have to reconstruct my voice to sound natural. Since I mimic the instructors on audio, my voice sounds like a radio announcer when I read.)

Also, a guy who I saw a month ago told me three times how much I had improved.

Three times!

I shared with him that I had been reading children's books and studying an audio course since I last saw him. I didn't share that I had probably completed two semesters of college level work in the past 30 days. It is a wonderful thing to be able to study as much as I have and have the passion to continue (even when frustrated).

Low points: When we introduced ourselves and on one of the questions, instead of just talking and using the language as I know how, I focused too much on not making any mistakes. I felt like a newbie both times.


Overall, it was a very solid day.

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Hoy, fue un dia de buen desarollo. Estoy agradecido!

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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.

A commute is good for one thing...

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.

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.

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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.

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!


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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.