How to Learn Spanish

Nearly one year ago I began working towards my “bucket list” goal of learning Spanish. In June of 2015, we were in the midst of finalizing plans to move to Spain. We had sold, stored, or donated our belongings and turned over our house keys to renters. We had ‘moved in’ with our parents, alternating houses every 1-2 weeks in hopes that we didn’t drive them too crazy. And at this time last year, I began putting forth regular efforts to learn the language so I would have, at a minimum, essential phrases and vocabulary when we arrived. I thought I was on the right track until we got to Spain and realized I was starting at base camp, and I had a long, long, long way to go. For ten months I’ve been slowly ‘climbing’ towards an unclear goal. There’ve been ups, downs, and many seemingly endless plateaus. Regardless, I've kept at it.

Flash forward to June 2016 and something has finally happened in the past couple weeks. Puedo hablar español! Of course not fluently, but for the most part, I am understanding and speaking without the heavy, heavy weight of anxiety, frustration, and intense effort that I’ve been carrying around with me for the past ten months. It completely caught me off guard. It hit me - like "whoa"- this past Sunday when we had two different get-togethers with Spanish friends. We chatted for hours, communicating seamlessly and enjoying each other with the same level of comfort we have with our English speaking friends. While the learning process hasn't happened overnight, I went to bed Sunday night, bursting with excitement because I know I’m getting there. 

It actually reminded me of learning to drive a car (yeah, yeah, I am going to use a driving analogy because it’s nearly all I’ve thinking for the past three months). When you are first learning to drive, you are constantly managing loads of information around you while simultaneously having to make decisions and then react in an uncertain environment, which ultimately makes for a very unnerving and stressful journey. You continue driving like this, expending lots of effort and concentration to get from Point A to Point B...for how long depends on the person…until suddenly, one day later on you get in the car at Point A and when you arrive at Point B you realize that you were on autopilot the entire time and didn’t even think about what you were doing! OK, so my Spanish isn’t even close to autopilot, but I’m feeling ELATED because something *clicked* and all of the sudden I am having conversations comfortably in Spanish. I’m watching TV without subtitles and understanding enough to follow along and enjoy. Vocabulary words that I didn’t know I actually had stored in long-term memory are entering my speech naturally. I’m giving commands to my kids completely in Spanish rather than Spanglish. It’s so freaking exciting to not feel like an incompetent idiot!!!

When I started this blog I had always intended to share which resources I've used for language learning, and I finally feel like I actually have enough credibility to share. Using a wide variety has been really valuable to me and I've listed them below:

Books:

• Four Hour Workweek by Tim Ferris   
• Forever Fluent (https://fluent-forever.com/) Gabriel Wyner

Both of these books will inspire you to learn a language. Tim Ferriss is great for efficiency hacks. Forever Fluent was a HUGE score for several reasons. In the book and on the website it provides a step-by-step tutorial on how to make your own unique flashcards that will help you learn as an individual (and understand how you learn). Through this, I’ve created an ANKI account and each week I’d add vocab lists to my ANKI cards with pictures. Then I (intend) to practice them each day on my phone. The program knows exactly when I need to review cards before my short-term memory lets them go. It’s a really great program.

Language Workbooks:

• Easy Spanish Step-By-Step by Barbara Bregstein

• Practice Makes Perfect: Spanish Verb Tenses by Dorothy Richmond

I bought both of these books on Amazon.The first workbook was a great starter. The second book was required by one of my Spanish teachers. It is thick, but if you only want to buy one book, this is the one. The answers are in the back and it lays out everything very clearly and concise. I also recently bought the Practice Makes Perfect: Prepositions and Pronouns to review over the summer. While workbooks can be tedious and boring, I find the repetition and writing really help me.

Audible

• Collins Spanish with Paul Noble 1-4
• Pimsleur Spanish Levels 1-4
• Vagabonding by Rolf Potts

My husband is an audiobook fanatic and he turned me on to the above list. He first ordered the Collins Spanish and suggested I start with that. Later my mom turned me onto to Pimsleur, which consists of short, repetitive lessons, convenient to have on your phone and listen to when you are doing mindless tasks. I’m glad that I started listening to these audiobooks before we got to Spain because it got me on the right track with pronunciation (when I didn't have a teacher in front of me correcting my mistakes). Pronunciation is SO important to get right from the very beginning so you don’t learn words incorrectly and have to unlearn them. (Ex. BuenOs días, BuenAs noches-- UGH). The last audio book, "Vagabonding", is a purely fun, poetic account of how much traveling enriches our lives- something that every traveler should read.

Apps/Websites

• Duolingo

• Anki (online and app-based flashcards)
• www.studyspanish.com

I’ve already mentioned ANKI which isn’t a very user-friendly program (I couldn’t have figured it out without watching four youtube tutorials), but it is really engaging and fun once you get into it. I have large, growing, personal library of vocabulary/phrases and I don't have to remember when to study which cards because program intuitively does this for me. Duolingo is much more user-friendly and was recommended in many books so I started with the app early on, in addition to the audiobooks. I found it to be the most engaging, “fun”, way to learn because it feels like you are playing a game and you get immediate feedback. It did, however, frustrate me at times not knowing the “why” behind correct answers. Even though I've completed the course, I continue to use Duolingo to review. Studyspanish.com has quite a few free mini lessons and practice quizzes, ideal for when you need to review a particular topic and quiz yourself.

Classes

• Intermediate classes, 2 classes 2 hours per week

I started taking classes in October at an intermediate level, which was a stretch at first. Most of my classmates had a couple years of beginner classes under their belts so I had to play catch up. Both of my instructors are British and have lived in Spain for many years. Learning in a group setting is so much more fun than private lessons. In addition to the Spanish, I often leave knackered because my British classmates have taken the piss out of my ‘Americanisms’ (not only do I learn Spanish but I learn UK-English as well). I’ve learned a lot in these classes, but one element lacking is the speaking. We read, write, listen, but don’t have enough time for conversation in these classes...

Intercambio

• Hablemos Mas
• Openlanguageexchange.com

...thus “intercambios” or language exchanges. This concept seems so easy. You find a native Spanish speaker that wants to learn English and you “trade” language learning over a coffee. Simple. Well, I would argue it's not that simple. First, you have to find someone that has the time, second, has a level of English similar to your level of Spanish, and third, has enough in common with you to maintain interest in each other. I went to a community organized group on Saturday mornings called “Hablemos Mas” for a month, and while the group seemed great, it wasn’t a good fit for me because Saturday morning is family time, and the group was entirely made up of men- retired, and without kids so we didn’t have a whole lot in common. Luckily, I came across a flyer posted at the kid’s school by a mom seeking to learn English in exchange for Spanish or Valenciano. I grabbed the number and called her up. We now have been meeting for a coffee once a week for several months. It took a while to work out the balance of English/Spanish and to get comfortable making embarrassing errors together, but it has been wonderful to have a Spanish amiga! I just went over to her new flat last week and we drank Horchata while the kids played! Openlanguageexchange is an online version of this and while I've received lots of messages from people you want to chat I haven't had time to explore this.

Television & Movies

• Kids- cartoons
• Me- Gran Hotel on Netflix, Capadocia

Like other modes of learning, this one took a while sort out. We wanted to watch European Spanish movies/programs (rather than Latino) to hear the authentic accent. Most Spaniards will admit they don’t excel in producing great TV. Davin and I watched a tacky soap for a while before Spain finally came out with their own version of Netflix, which we subscribed immediately. Since then, I’ve been obsessively watching “Gran Hotel” which is Spain’s version of “Downton Abbey." Another great series I enjoyed was “Capadocia” which is Mexico’s equivalent to “Orange is the New Black.” Now I’m to the point that I can watch TV in Spanish, which oddly enough ends up being Garage Monkey, Wild Frank, and other Discovery Channel shows.

Journaling

• Writing a few paragraphs each morning about what I did the day before (great preterite practice)

I haven’t managed to do this consistently but I know that it helps me when I do it. Regardless of the quality, it'll be fun to go back and read in the future.

So, when you are 34 years old trying to learn a new language it takes A LOT of work. Of course, everyone learns differently so what works for me won't necessarily work for you. You may have noticed that music isn't on my above list. Someone suggested that I listen to Spanish music in order to learn through lyrics. Maybe it works for some people, but I tried and had no success (I can’t even figure out lyrics in English - I thought TLC was singing “Don’t go Jason Waterfalls” for years!!). 

The above list of tools has been working for me and I know that if I can do it, anyone can do it. When you put so much work into something and finally start seeing results, it is an incredible feeling. To a certain extent, this experience has changed me completely. Your mind expands literally and figuratively through language acquisition - something we desperately need in the world today so we are able to experience life from more than one perspective. Plus, though this process, estoy realizando algo estupendo and I now am in a new “club”. It's the "Spanish-Speaker club" which means that I have the potential to connect with 400 million more people in this world in their native tongue. And so can my kids. And to me, this gift is priceless.