I’m about two thirds through level one of Learning Spanish Like Crazy. It’s getting harder, but not impossible. It is getting more challenging. Now when a new verb is learned, the past tense and the present tense is learned along with whatever other tense they can throw in. It takes me a little longer to think about which tense is suppose to be and what the answer is. They’re not really “trick” questions, but the questions definitely make you think. It’s not just a hear and translate mode. I’ve noticed the English part being said in different ways for the same Spanish answer.

I’m still listening to Spanish Pod. Newbie lessons are too easy, Elementary is good, Intermediate is about right. There’s still some English at Intermediate about half and half. One instructor will be speaking totally Spanish and the other will be speaking mostly English while explaining the grammar. Spanish Pod is a good listen and learn. They don’t give the listener any time to respond so any responding or practicing has to be done while the program is in progress. One thing I like about Spanish Pod is it’s very practical, very every day and modern. You can learn modern terms for using cellphones, texting and computers which is pretty cool.

I actually do my best studying while working. Since I haven’t been driving much I don’t get the study time I was getting before. And between another job and trying to find other jobs while I’m not working at my real job takes away from study time also. Plus, being really sick for about a week and trying to work through it didn’t put me in a studying mood.

These things happen. Life gets in the way of studying and fun stuff. A few days is easy, but this time a few days turned into a lot of days. One bad thing about Learning Spanish Like Crazy is there is no review. There is a ton of stuff that is learned but no little quizzes or review chapters. For myself, I can’t stand going through the entire half hour lesson for just a review. I’ve done podcasts and I actually became moderately good at using Audacity, an open source sound file editor. I’ve got the mp3’s, all I need to do is go through and take out the repetition. Easier said than done. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do. I’m not going to post it so forget about that idea. I will let you know how it turns out.