6WC: Spanish!

I’ve decided to join in on a project announced on HTLAL, which is a “6 week challenge” (6WC) in Spanish. Participants are expected to be at a beginner level in Spanish, and we see how much we can accomplish in 6 concentrated weeks, starting on May 1. My previous experience in Spanish consists of one university course that I took in 2002 or so, so I’ve previously studied a bunch of the grammar and basic vocab, but I have a lot of trouble reading real things, and I can’t speak it or understand it when spoken.

The idea of the 6WC is to work hard for 6 weeks to achieve whatever you can. In many cases, the same results can be achieved by lowering your allowed time period, creating some urgency for yourself. We hope to work harder than we normally would, due to this. We’ll also be able to easily sense the “end” of that period (although many of us may continue working afterwards anyway). Having the end in sight can help eliminate that sense of floating where you wonder what you’re doing and for how long.

With a short time limit like this, we also tend to get a lot of people who will join the challenge, since they can afford to spend that short period of time working with us. We plan to use a twitter bot to keep track of our work and create a “high score” sheet for amount of work, which will hopefully offer another type of motivation. We’ll also be making comments about what types of things we’re doing as we study, which will offer inspiration and motivation too.

I think I have some easy stuff in mind to start on, but I’m looking for further suggestions of Spanish authors to read. I’d like to try some poetry by Neruda and Lorca, since I’ve heard there are some parallel versions around, but some interesting novels would be good too.

Currently I’m still in Berlin, staying with some friends. My flight back to Canada is in a few days, and then I have a week to relax until the 6WC starts 🙂