Starting my Resource Collection

Empezando mi colección de recursos. But I still don't trust my ability to write in Spanish.

Pero todavia necesito contar en Google Translate. nope, GT says:

Pero todavía tengo que contar con Google Translate.

See what I mean? Maybe my unaided version was readable, but the GT version certainly makes sense and seems to be correct now that I've seen it. Awkward is one thing, misleading is another. Sigh.....

All that to say this, which will, one day, be translated into Spanish, I swear!

There are several different "word a day" resources out there, but I really like the sentence examples of Spanish Dictionary's Word of the Day, 

http://www.spanishdict.com/wordoftheday

The sentences are simple, use few unusual words, and are in present, preterit, imperfect tenses, maybe more.  I'm gradually pasting them into a Flashcard Machine study list, 

http://www.flashcardmachine.com/machine/?read_only=3360440&p=7tg7. 

The goal is not really to memorize all of the words, but what it is doing is letting me read a lot of simple sentences, over and over.  I would like to do my own practice by changing tenses of these sentences, maybe putting them into dependent clauses, something where I can repeat the same thing over and over, with variations. I'm hoping things will become more instinctive this way. So much of language study seems to involve sample sentences that you struggle to make sense of and then never see again.

OK, so right now this is becoming a blog in English about studying Spanish. So be it, at least for now.  I actually love reading language study blogs, so maybe this wouldn't be so bad long term, but it's not my goal to only speak ABOUT Spanish.  I am wondering if greater reading/sentence creating ability will eventually translate into greater speaking ability. Again, we shall see. 

I'm wondering if becoming interactive with vocabulary lists, in the way I'm considering above, or some other way, is going to be helpful in language learning. I'm wondering, over all, just what IS most effective in language learning. And I imagine that, whether or not the method is the most effective, hypothetically, anything that gets us into daily contact with the new language is more helpful than not.  Well, yeah, obviously.....