My Experience
Since graduating high school, foreign language learning has been a constant love of mine. Before going to university, I entered a gap year program at a Bible school in Argentina, where I joined a group of 20-or-so Americans in the midst of a 400-student campus. The experience was unforgettable and I left with a decent grasp of the Spanish language, though the following years in New Brunswick and Maine have diminished my abilities.
Two years after finishing that bilingual program, I lived with a friend in Italy for 10 weeks. In preparation for the trip, I studied Italian on my own for nearly a year. That, combined with the similarity of the language to Spanish, ensured that I came to a respectable proficiency in the language by the last few weeks of my stay.
Aside from this, I have been able to have rudimentary conversations with the African refugees in my community. These immigrants from the countries of DRC Congo, Angola, Djibouti, and more speak Portugese and French. With my knowledge of their respective sister languages, I have been able to form friendships and have even done a small amount of English teaching.
Based on my experiences and my research into the study of contemporary foreign languages, I have come up with a handful of my own personal best practices. I recently wrote these out for a family member of mine who was interested in beginning to learn Spanish, so I thought it fitting to post the advice here, with minor adaptations:
5 Steps
Let me break down my recommendations not only for the tools and methods of language learning, but also the best order of doing it. I’ve had many friends learn English in what I would consider a “backward” way. For example, they might know a lot of vocabulary, but their pronunciation is horrible, even after 5+ years of living in Canada. The same problem can happen with any language.
The other big problem people have is burnout. You need to set reasonable goals, or you will get discouraged rather quickly. You also need to mix the more intensive learning (straight-up lessons) with “fun” learning (watching your favorite show in Spanish, for instance) in order to keep you interested. So don’t try to do everything at once, no matter how tempting all the learning opportunities are. Start with 1 or 2 of my recommendations to start. And after a week or a few weeks, look into another one. This will keep you at a doable pace. (See the bottom of the post for links to all the resources I’ve mentioned.)
Part 1 – Pronunciation
If you speak with a bad accent for long enough, your brain will “fossilize” that bad accent, and it is quite difficult to reverse this. So, I recommend that you take some Pimsleur Audio lessons to begin your learning. They are only audio and are available on Audible, so you can do them in your car. You will be surprised at how fast you can learn to have a basic conversation and to speak similar to a native accent. Even after 5 lessons you will have a decent accent. I would recommend doing at least 10 or more lessons though. You can probably get at least 5 lessons free with an Audible Credit.
And let me advise you not to try to find some other program. Pimsleur is the Rolls-Royce of foreign language audio lessons. They have mastered the art of getting the accent right and maximizing retention. Even if you have to pay a little bit for the lessons, it will be well worth it.
Part 2 – Training Your Ears
Another thing you will need to do is train your ears for the flow of the Spanish language. What this means is to listen to Spanish audio where at first you will only understand 5-10% of the words, but you will start to get used to the flow. After a while of practicing this, it won’t seem so jumbled as at first.
For me, since I have seen movies like Toy Story or Shawshank Redemption many times, and I knew all the lines by heart, I simply downloaded the Spanish version. I either watched it over and over, or I simply made an mp3 of the Spanish dub and listened to it over and over. Along the way you will notice, “Oh, that’s how to say that in Spanish!”. You can do this with virtually any program. And you can find an interesting Podcast or two in Spanish as well. You don’t have to wait until you’ve done a certain amount of audio lessons for this. If you decide to watch a whole series in Spanish, make sure it’s one that you’ve already seen before, and you will really enjoy getting a little better at understanding each episode.
Also, a great “bridge” to getting used to this is to listen to an actively translated speech, wherein you hear someone speaking English and the interpreter says the same thing in Spanish. There are hundreds of sermons online that I used to listen to like this, for example. Unfortunately, I don’t know of many speeches besides sermons that have this active interpretation. But maybe you can find something more interesting to you. That being said, it’s one of the best ways to find out “Oh, that’s how you say that in Spanish.”
Part 3 – Vocabulary
I would put vocabulary lower on the list of importance compared to the audio lessons. But having a good English to Spanish dictionary–as well as Duolingo lessons–will build your working vocabulary little by little. Please don’t overwhelm yourself trying to build up your words. It is much better to try to use the words you already know than to go crazy trying to memorize a bunch. If you are doing regular “ear training” by listening to shows and podcasts in Spanish, you will also pick up words that way.
Part 4 – Sentence Structure & Grammar
Duolingo is probably the easiest way to start getting used to the grammar of Spanish. Don’t overwhelm yourself with lessons, as it’s easy to burnout. Instead, try to set a goal of X number of lessons per day, even if it’s just 1 lesson per day. After a while, you will be surprised how advanced you get.
I am also including a link to Spanish for Everyone, a book that I found really helpful especially in explaining the different conjugations and tenses. But maybe hold off on that for a few weeks. Like I said, the audio lessons and the ear training are more important at the beginning.
Part 5 – Practice with Native Speakers
This is the part that most people skip, and it’s arguably the most crucial aspect of learning. If you are always taking in knowledge but never use it with native speakers, you will never get very far with learning. A few of my classmates who went to Argentina with me for 10 months learned almost no conversational Spanish at all, believe it or not! They simply did their required lessons, and then hung out with the Americans, speaking English in all their free time.
If there aren’t many locals who you can practice with, you will need to use some websites to put in your practice hours. If you want to practice texting conversations in Spanish, try out the HelloTalk app. It pairs you with native Spanish speakers to text back and forth. I used to love doing this. It’s very low pressure, since it’s not a live conversation. Keep in mind that they want to practice their English, so you have to do a bit of both.
Also, you can eventually use Italki.com for a similar program, except it is a live conversation on Skype. It is intimidating as a beginner, but I ended up loving it especially once I got my conversational level up.
These online Skype conversations are where you will make most of your progress, since you will get to have dynamic conversations and perfect your method of expressing yourself. But you can hold off on them for a little while until you get some of the other material done.
Additional Material
In addition to my own tips, I have greatly benefited from the advice of Boris Shekhtman in his How to Improve Your Foreign Language Immediately: Foreign Language Communication Tools. This booklet runs less than 100 pages, and it provides a good handful of practices that will help you to practice your fluency skills. These practices will give your speech more naturalness and help “prime the pump” for satisfying conversations with foreign speakers.
Links:
1. Pronunciation – Pimsleur Audio Lessons from Audible
2. Training Your Ears – Spanish Podcasts, Spanish dubs of your favorite shows, etc.
3. Vocabulary – Ascendo Dictionary App, Duolingo.com, Anki or Memrise
4. Sentence structure & grammar – Duolingo or Spanish for Everyone Book
5. Practice with native speakers – HelloTalk app or Italki.com (Skype sessions)