Yes, I've tried the listening videos, and they kinda disheartened me a bit. I live in the Philippines and I know they talk fast but those bloggers seem to be talking REALLY fast and all these weird sound effects kinda make it distracting. It might be too early for me I guess but I was starting to think I had a fair sized vocab and understanding but I keep finding reasons to prove me wrong lol. But I will keep at it.
@AMBoy Yeah, it could be that your vocabulary is not quite there yet...there also the two "rewind" buttons on the video page to fine-tune your rewinding for this reason -- you should expect, especially in the beginning, to go over and over again, piece by piece, each part of the audio. In the beginning you should click every word to look up the definitions, even if you're 90% sure you already know it. Eventually you'll start picking up larger chunks and common verbal "tics" and phrases so you'll process it faster.
BUT...my general advice is, that if you're really struggling on something in the language, you're probably jumping too far ahead and it's time to back up and work on the fundamentals more. The sweet spot is to study material that is challenging, but not frustrating.
but what's the end game here? How will you make money?
Do I need an end game? ; ) I'm building some of the tools I wish I had to learn the language, and leveraging some of the skills I have with my regular job...hopefully to help a bunch of others! Eventually I might hook up something like Patreon for people to show appreciation and they can get some acknowledgement in return for it on this site...but I don't feel like the site is where I want it to be yet. I'm lucky to have a good job where I can work on this on the side as a hobby.
n my real life experience in PH most foreigners are perfectly happy never learning it.
I know!...that is really weird to me. But I think there is a large group of people who really want to learn the language...at least a little bit. To me, it's a matter of respect...I want to have some facility with the language since I enjoy the country and culture so much. The language also gives some nice insights into the culture and people.
Even when I see things that make me feel that man, I will probably never be able to read or understand this, I just need to realize that I'm just not there yet. I'm sure my current level of understanding would have been hard to imagine before I arrived here, I just gotta keep at it and let things keep building over time.
This. 100%! Learning a language well is just really hard... Those "Learn Spanish In Two Weeks!" books are so deceptive...they're just a marketing gimmick. No one can do a language justice in that kind of time frame...It takes many, many hours of focused effort.
I got them on Lazada w/ the CD's all 4 was around $80 US. I think without the audio CD's they are a little cheaper, you can find them at National bookstore as well.
@AMBoy Ouch...I don't remember paying that much for them...I think I got them used on US Amazon for ~$8 each.