How do you Study?
I am curious as to how you study on a day to day basis? Not really the medium (TV, books, audio lessons) but more of the method (repetition, adding a number of new vocab each day, etc)...
The reason I ask is I am trying to learn how to use the Imperfect and the Preterite... Just having trouble retaining the information I am studying. Thought I might try some new methods... I have been just doing the repetition, reading the verb, writing the verb than writing the verb in different sentences.
Thanks
7 Answers
I found these workbooks really helpful, and this one deals with the preterit and imperfect tenses.
As for vocabulary, I make about 25 index cards a week and keep them by my bed. I read them at night and in the morning to memorize them. I get my vocabulary mostly from the newspapers, novels, and online news.
I work from a textbook. It's the Buen Viaje series, but you can probably find almost any textbook and work from it. I make a flashcard set for each on this website and look over that daily, and I do exercises from the book as well. I agree with Marianna that an instructional book will really help with the preterite/imperfect. (It did for me.) I also pick the brains of my family, for example, during an amusement park chapter, asking them to describe an event they wanted to go to, and then saying it back in Spanish.
Finally, use examples from your life. The most helpful exercises to me are "free roleplay", when the book gives me a scenario and I must act out both sides of the conversation. Those will get you putting together words in new ways.
Here's a preterite/imperfect "free roleplay" question from my book. It deals with, "I was doing this when that happened." The first verb will be in the imperfect because it tells what was going on. The second will be in the preterite because it describes one specific moment.
Vincente el vago: Lazy Vincente needs excuses for not turning in his homework. Something always interferes with his reading, writing, etc. Give him excuses like, "Yo estudiaba cuando el Presidente me llamó!" Make them as outrageous as possible. Later, as a twist, change the subject, like "Ustedes estudiaban..." or "Laura estudiaba.."
Have fun!
Whenever I want to learn something in Spanish i always make sure I'm listening to my favourite Mexican radio station, I have my trusty Collins easy learning Spanish grammar book and that I have plain paper and coloured pencils, pens etc. I am a visual learner and I learn best when my mind is doing something creative like making posters, making a story with any new vocabulary or one that features a lot of the grammar point I've just learnt. I also find pictures and diagrams help me. 
As well as this, I think using the grammar from the other languages that I've learnt has been very helpful for me. And along the way you can learn so much about the grammar of your own language. If Spanish were the first non-native language I'd tried to learn I hate to think of how hard I would find it
. But because I've met similar concepts to do with grammar in other languages, it helps me with Spanish.
http://espanol.blogfa.com/
To help with preterite and imperfect, noticias are awesome. Go to BBCMundo.com and just look at different stories. Not only will you keep up on current events, but you will learn more words from the articles that have a very SPECIFIC context, and you will see a GRATUITOUS amount of Pret/Imper.
I can relate to your question. Throughout the week i use different mediums, books, audio and internet. It seemsI 'm not retaining a much as information as I would like. Glad you asked that question. I'm a little confused also with the preterite.
Repeticion roza, cava las informaciones en el cerebro como los antiguos discos de vinil. Por eso uso repeticion.
The repeticion rubes, diggs the informations in the brain (like the old vinyl disk). So I use the repetition.
