Newsletter #3

by Ramses on March 10, 2010 · 7 comments

Last week I didn’t publish anything, because I was way too busy being depressed (yes, I know, I’m weak ;-) ) and working on the newsletter. So far it has been going strong, and because some of you aren’t receiving the newsletter yet, I’m publishing the third edition here. I hope you sign up, simply because it’s worth it!

Related Posts:
Spanish-Only.com Launching Weekly Newsletter
Bye Bye Forum!
Success stories and guest posts
New Year, New Design

Stop Learning Spanish, Acquire It

by Ramses on March 8, 2010 · 19 comments

I always hear people talking and see people writing about trying to learn some freakin’ language or, when they’re serious, learning it.

The slogan of this blog is Learn How to Learn Spanish. Man, even I’m making this mistake. Learning a language… Ha! Officially, babies don’t learn a language, they acquire it. It’s thrown at them and they absord, that’s all they do. They don’t put effort in it, they don’t worry and are not even thinking about learning something. And they’re good. They end up speaking the language, even though it takes them several years. But again, that doesn’t matter, because they’re more fluent than most language learners will ever get.

I talk a lot about babies and language acquisition, but that’s because I think we’d make our lives easier if we’d all be “learning” a language like they do. I mean, people became fluent in a language without learning it. They understand and speak it because they acquired the darn language. They put no real effort in it, they just absorbed and had fun. Schools and colleges just destroyed that idea of absorbing a language. They think you have to learn it. Even when you try to just acquire a language, they come up will all kind of things to supplement your “learning”.

Lately I’ve been reading this blog of an ALG student. ALG stands for Automatic Language Growth, and like the name suggests it’s all about language “growing” inside you. You’re not learning it, but rather absorbing it, acquiring it, because of which it starts growing in you. Just read the blog and you’ll see how amazing the system is.

ALG pretty much works like this: a student enrolls in a course for which he has nothing to do except for attending class and listening. There’s no homework, no textbooks, no speaking. Just listening to some teachers for several hundreds of hours. And because of all that comprehensive listening (even though it’s not that comprehensive at first), the language starts growing in you.

Later on, the student learns (yes, as in studying a bit) how to read and write. Even speaking is covered, but only after more than 800 hours of listening. You see, after that many hours of listening the language has grown in you, making it an “adult”. You’ve acquired the language, but maybe not perfectly yet. There’s room for improvement, but that’s covered with more input and practice.

As this student proved, you don’t need to learn a language to actually speak it. Acquiring it is the goal, learning is just a way to do it. You see, the student in question had lived in Thailand for several years and learned some Thai, but didn’t speak it. So he decided to move from learning to acquiring it, and he succeeded.

Unfortunately, the ALG program is only available for a limited number of languages in Thailand. But we can replicate it and apply it to our own environment. Keith has been a great advocate of the TV method and has shown how far it can take you. But just as with ALG it takes diligence to keep going and to finally succeed.

I strongly believe we should stop talking about learning a language, because that implies that we use some kind of tool to learn it, and that’s not the most effective way to learn a language. Instead, just absorb and let the Spanish language grown in you. That’s how you learned your native tongue, and now that’s how you’re going to learn Spanish as well.

Related Posts:
Reasons why NOT stop studying Spanish
Immersion is the way to go (and stop looking for excuses)
Learning a Language Is Like Running a Marathon
What Is Learning Spanish Through Immersion REALLY?
Learning More Languages at The Same Time?

Voices en Español & Ramses

March 1, 2010

Just a quick message to let you know Eleena of Voices en Español just published a podcast I recorded for her some weeks ago. The sound quality isn’t superb, but that’s the best I could do as a poor student.
In short: it’s me reading a short story in Spanish, about a Japanese farmer. I just [...]

Read the full article →

How to Make Progress as An Advanced Learner

February 24, 2010

Sooner or later, every language learner that goes beyond the beginner’s stage hits a plateau, especially advanced learners. At that point you’re probably still making some progress, but you’re not noticing it. This is especially the case when you immerse yourself in a language. When learning a language through grammar study you know what verb [...]

Read the full article →

Serious Time Management for Language Learners

February 18, 2010

The main problem when learning a language like Spanish, is that you have the idea of learning it, but are holding it off because you simply procrastinate. Spanish looks so easy for most people, because it’s closely related to English. Why would you put serious work into it? It’s pretty easy to learn, right?
Now, what [...]

Read the full article →

Spanish-Only.com Launching Weekly Newsletter

February 16, 2010

In order to continue building our community and bond a bit better with you, the readers, I’ve decided to launch a weekly newsletter. A newsletter?! Yes, a newsletter. This Friday I’ll be sending out the first one, after which I’ll send one out every Friday.
Why a newsletter?
I ‘ve always wanted to make a newsletter for [...]

Read the full article →