Learning a language is something most of us want to do. Yet it’s something we never get around to. We buy the Rosetta stone, listen to a few lessons and then stop.
My theory is that we stop because:
Progress and feedback are crucial to learning, and without them it feels like you are stumbling around in the dark.
I spent years learning Spanish in school, the usual one hour a day in the classroom kind of thing. After say 8 years I thought I was actually a good Spanish speaker.
Fast forward to the study abroad program I signed up for in Oaxaca, Mexico. I landed in the airport feeling all cocky and ready to blow everyone away with my skills.
I could not understand a word anyone was saying.
Luckily there was another girl who spoke English living with my host family.
My failure was that I did not know enough “real” Spanish, and I had very few hours speaking to actual people.
That’s what we all want to do when we learn language right? To speak to actual people.
Unfortunately, in the classroom we spend most of the time being spoken at by the teacher, and then reading scripted conversations with other students.
In those next few months on study abroad I really struggled with my Spanish. Every day at the end of the day my brain felt like it was aching. But eventually at the end of the term, I could hold a conversation in almost anything with any person there.
It probably wasn’t a great conversation, but I was speaking to people, which is what I wanted to do in the first place.
I’m going to outline a method David Bailey did to learn French, which I think is very effective. (He all in 17 days).
Note: David was in France while doing this so of course his progress was sped up, you can create a similar experience if you learn with your spouse or kids by installing an only Spanish at home policy
Particularly irregular verbs. book is the holy grail of Spanish verb learning. It’s important to actually to repetitively write them out, we learn much better writing than simply reading.
David used language learning MP3’s. I prefer , they are more modern and responsive.
When you are doing chores, or exercising make sure what you are listening to is in Spanish. Luckily there are tons of great music in Spanish. Check out the Latino section in Spotify. I’ll also add that you should watch TV in Spanish, try watching shows you’ve already seen so you can follow along easily.
You can do this with . This one is really important, do not skip it because you’re shy!
This is a great way to learn because the language tends to be simple. David read Winnie the Pooh, it is in Spanish.
Most likely when you are learning a language you will need to introduce yourself a lot and answer questions about yourself. This is a great way to learn all of the vocabulary and sentence structure that goes along with that.
This is a great way to make it sound like you know more Spanish than you do. For example: “entonces” and “pues” are the most popular, but you can take a look at here.
This will feel overwhelming at first. Learning language is similar to being a kid, you won’t be able to express yourself very well and this will make you frustrated. Just keep going even if you feel like you are not learning. that when we feel like we are not making progress is when we are actually learning the most.
I would do this by type of word (ie noun, adjective). Here is a website with lists of the in Spanish in different categories. This will make it seem like you know so much more Spanish than you do.
If you are in the United States you will most likely want to learn Mexican slang. What you will notice is that native speakers, like in English, use a lot of slang. In school, you will probably learn that job=trabajo in Spanish, but often times when talking with a Mexican Spanish speaker job=chamba.