So my new task: learning Spanish...and as this is a somewhat cliche endeavor, I am excited by a new method my roommate pointed me in the direction of by the guy who wrote 4-hour Workweek, Tim Ferriss. The basic synopsis is: completely absorb the 300 most commonly occurring words in print, and then study the language and additional vocabulary through an area of great interest. In English apparently the 300 most printed words constitute about 65% of printed literature. Basically, rather than learning through the grammatical way they try to teach you throughout high school that you forget instantly, you effectively learn in a similar manner that you learned your native language, and most importantly, you learn in the context of something you're genuinely interested about. I spent the afternoon at Barnes & Noble going through a book list of the most frequent Spanish Words and put the top 300 words into an iphone flashcard program.
Of course the weather sucks today and its a major blizzard. I dont anticipate I'll be leaving my apartment anytime soon. Starting my studies by watching a full replay of the Chelsea v. Liverpool match from Sunday on Fox Espanol. Suddenly homework is fun.
Ron, Please tell me if this method is working to learn Spanish. The best players on my high school team are mainly Hispanic, and so I really need to start learning. Is there a way you could forward me the top 300 words? You can send it to my IPhone - I found one my bachelor party weekend and have been using it ever since. Seriously, tell me if the Spanish is working. If I can learn Spanish while watching soccer...
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