Answers
Mar 09, 2014 - 11:40 AM
I think if you spoke to a Fluenz person they could justify presenting the same vocab and sentences in both modes. But I do think you are right about the "repeating the phrases" exercise, it is much more useful as a listening-translating exercise. However, I only do it that way as a review, because the exercise before has value as a English to Spanish exercise, and one gets the best benefit of the listening-translating exercise on the last one if the one before is skipped. Sorry it this sounds a bit confusing.
Mar 09, 2014 - 04:29 PM
My reaction was different from yours. The repetition you describe, learning theory calls “retrieval”. While it may seem unnecessary, you need to retrieve the contents of working (conscious) memory in order to retain what you’re learning; for me, the repetition is an essential part of the program.
I, too, am challenged by conversational situations in a foreign language, mostly because language has a cultural component: i.e., Spanish people don’t speak Spanish just because they don’t know English—what they have to say is Spanish. The cultural component is difficult to learn by self-study. A resource you may find useful for Spanish communication is the set of educational videos originally aired on PBS as the telenovela Destinos, available for free streaming from the publisher at: http://www.learner.org/series/destino...
I, too, am challenged by conversational situations in a foreign language, mostly because language has a cultural component: i.e., Spanish people don’t speak Spanish just because they don’t know English—what they have to say is Spanish. The cultural component is difficult to learn by self-study. A resource you may find useful for Spanish communication is the set of educational videos originally aired on PBS as the telenovela Destinos, available for free streaming from the publisher at: http://www.learner.org/series/destino...
Mar 11, 2014 - 07:14 PM
The good news is when you get to level 5 in LA Spanish, the last set of matching exercises and "repeat what you hear" are in fact different, and more difficult. Fluenz takes the matching Spanish sentence from the previous exercise and changes it just enough to make you listen closely.
Mar 14, 2014 - 09:25 AM
I agree. I skip a lot of exercises. In particular, I find the matching unhelpful if done as instructed. Matching could be done with very little knowledge. I just look at the English and try to translate.
Mar 15, 2014 - 08:45 AM
For me i found it helpful in the matching ones to do it backwards. read the english and try to translate to spanish without looking at the matching list. Otherwise it is too easy to match up. In the last exercise, i press play to try and listen to what they are saying-but not reading what it says in spanish. so i challenge myself to listen and translate to english without looking at the words in spanish. i have found it forces me to listen
Mar 18, 2014 - 10:28 AM
The purpose of the matching is to give practice translating from Spanish to English. I agree, it is better to just look at the Spanish, try to translate, then see if you got it right. But it has to be set up this way, in contrast to the English to Spanish exercises, because the program cannot predict all of the different and correct ways the Spanish could be translated to English. We know too much English. On the other hand, going English to Spanish, the program can insist that we use the exact vocab and structures we were taught, given there is some flexibility, i.e., using est-ce que or not for example. I also agree, the very last exercise is best done by first listening without looking, then looking at the Spanish, then if the translation isn't obvious, right click to see the English.