When I first started studying Spanish seriously, I hunted around for podcasts in Spanish that I could listen to, so that I could add listening practice to the reading, chatting and writing that I was already doing. And the best one I found for my level was News in Slow Spanish. It was great – a weekly show of about 50 minutes, with several sections – news, grammar, expressions, and an Exploring Latin America section. The two presenters spoke slowly and clearly, and I could understand a fair bit.

The podcast itself is free, but you can pay to have access to transcripts and other goodies on-site. You can see the transcripts for the first part of each lesson for free, which I found really useful for getting my ear in, getting used to the sound of the language. It also helped me identify individual words that I wasn’t familiar with, which I could then look up in a dictionary.

I still listen to News in Slow Spanish, although I find it too slow now and listen to it at double-speed – which is about normal speed I think. Sometimes it’s even where I hear news for the first time, which is quite cool.

One of the ways I’ve been trying to learn Spanish is by watching Spanish movies. I’d love to watch TV in Spanish too, but I usually haven’t been able to because we travel so much, and I can never find Spanish channels on hotel TVs! When we arrived here in Mui Ne I flicked through the channels, and found (in addition to the multitude of Vietnamese ones) channels in English, French, German, Russian, Italian, Thai, and Australian. One channel occasionally has Spanish programmes on, but they’re dubbed over in Vietnamese!

We bought a whole bunch of movies in Spanish when we were in South America, but sadly some of them don’t work, and none of them have subtitles in Spanish. We usually watch them with English subtitles, but I’d prefer to have Spanish ones. Well, actually I’d prefer to not need subtitles at all, but I’ll get there.

The most recent movie we watched was called “El otro lado de la cama”, and it’s about two couples who keep sleeping with each other’s partners. They keep breaking into song in the middle of things as well, so it was good value – sometimes I get one of the songs stuck in my head and can’t get it out … “dime que me quieres….” (“tell me that you love me”).

A friend of mine said he learned a lot of English through watching movies. First he’d watch them in with subtitles in his language, then again with subtitles in English, and finally with no subtitles at all. I think this is a great technique and I’d love to steal it … if only I had the technology.

Estoy sentado en un bus entre Villach (en Austria) y Udine (en Italia). Hay una vista increíble de la ventana – un río muy celeste, cerros verdes, y montañas grandes en la distancia.

Esta semana he estado en Viena, y hacia mucha lluvia así que tuviste tiempo de estudiar. En Valencia compramos un libro de gramática y en Barcelona los encontramos dos mejores, así que los compramos tambien. Así que ahora tengo tres libros de gramatica, en adición de mis novelas, mi diccionario, algunas revistas, y mi silabário de Patty. He estudiado al menos una unidad cada día, y he aprendido mucho sobre género, artículos, indefinidos, comparativos y otras cosas.

He aprendido una palabra nueva cada día, incluyendo: tacaño, las nupcias, las víveres, la cólera, las ojeras y sarampión.

Ayer trato de escribir un texto largo y lo envié a Moroni para que el lo corrige. Pero había muchísimos errores y no estoy contenta conmigo misma … yo sé que puedo escribir mejor y estoy triste que no lo hice.

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I’m sitting on a bus between Villach (Austria) and Udine (Italy). There’s an incredible view from the window – a turquoise river, green hills, and large mountains in the distance.

This week we were in Vienna, and it rained a lot so I had time to study. When we were in Valencia we bought a grammar book, and in Barcelona we found two better ones, so we bought those too. So now I have three grammar books in addition to the novels, my dictionary, some magazines, and the silabarius that Patty gave me. I’ve studied at least one unit every day, and have learned a lot about gender, articles, indefinite articles, comparitives, and other things.

I’ve learned at least one new word a day, including: stingy, wedding, provisions, anger, dark circles under the eyes, and measles.

Yesterday I tried to write a long text and I sent it to Moroni for him to correct. But there were lots of mistakes and I’m not happy with myself – I know that I can write better than that and I’m sad that I didn’t.

There are a lot of networks out there to help you learn a language, I’ve heard of Livemocha.com among others, but I chose italki.com – mostly because someone else set up a profile for me as part of a trip I was supposed to go on that didn’t happen. The trip was to China, so the idea was that I learn Chinese, but I’m much more enamoured with Spanish. The account lay dormant between being set up in March and me finally getting around to using it in August 2009, but it has been great for me.

There’s a lot more to it than I’ve been using it for, but basically the idea is that you can meet people online and practice your new language with them. First you set up a profile (kind of like Facebook) where you state which languages you speak and which you want to learn, and you can also indicate which level you’re at. Then, you can search for people who speak the language you want to learn and chat with them using the instant-message function.

I found it incredibly useful because with instant messages you have a bit more time to think about what the person has said and how you want to respond, than if you were talking in person. Plus it’s faster and more interactive than just writing emails for example. And if you have no idea what they’re saying, it’s pretty easy to copy and paste into Google Translate.

The most important thing for me about italki though, is that it kept me motivated. In the past, I’ve promised myself that I’d do something “every day” or “every week” but I almost never keep those promises if the thing is boring. And, honestly, learning a language can be pretty boring. But because I made friends on italki, I wanted to speak to them, and because we were communicating in Spanish, I wanted to improve my Spanish so that I could communicate better.

I didn’t think I was the type of person to meet people online, but I now count some of my “imaginary friends” (as Craig likes to call them) as among my closest. Perhaps it’s because I spent between one and three hours every day talking to them in the months leading up to February 2010 – that kind of time does build relationships.

Italki often had problems with its chat function when I was using it, so I don’t use it much anymore – I chat to the people I met there using Facebook chat, Gtalk (the Gmail chat function) or Skype. But italki will always have a place in my heart.