What are some good progress markers?
Just need to know when progress is being made or when it's time to throw in the towel. I really have nobody to talk Spanish to, so can't bounce vocabulary that way. Any suggestions are helpful.
3 Answers
While I do have some people I speak spanish with (very tenatively right now!), I also like to mark my own progress by hitting my own milestones. So here are some ideas for you:
Re-take past flashcard exercises on SpanishDict.
Every Friday, I take a few minutes and go back through the tests on a past set of flashcards, without actually re-watching the lesson, to see if I remember the vocabulary. For instance, if I am currently in lesson 3.5, that Friday I'll go back and review lessons 2.1 - 2.5, since I usually complete five lessons in a week. If I get 100 on the vocabulary (especially the recall section, even if I don't always get all of the points), then I know I'm really making progress and retaining what I know!
Reading in Spanish. I check out a children's book that I know I enjoy from the library, and struggle through reading it. Start easy. I started with Dr. Seuss and Shel Silverstein. I write down and look up all the words I don't know (be careful with those two though, they make up words), and force myself through the book. Then I go back and read it again. I mark my progress by the number of words I have to write down. Some fund books/authors include Beverly Cleary (the mouse and the motorcycle/el ratoncito de la moto was my favorite) and the Harry Potter series (Mudblood = el sangre sucio!). It really brings your lessons to life.
Watching or listening to the news or music in Spanish. There are some good online resources for this (for instance, iTunes has a weekly free Latin track to download...). But if that is a bit confusing to start with, a fun thing to do is to watch Disney movies in Spanish. All of the Disney DVDs I've tried have a Spanish language track. You can also turn on subtitles. While the subtitles never exactly match the language tracks, they can often help you detangle things that are quickly spoken. When you start singing "A Whole New World" in Spanish, I'd consider that progress!
I hope this helps!
A good way to mark your progress, if you have no one around with whom you can speak, is by reading. If you start to do "graded" reading in that what you read becomes more technically difficult book by book, that is a very obvious way to track and realize the progress that youre making.
Type "graded reading" into the search box and you may find some threads that will speak more about it, if youre interested.
It's really when you think you are making progress, I think! I think you should also keep learning, even when you're really good, so that you don't forget. (And reviewing what you've already done is also a good idea!) 
