When I was new to Spanish and everything was completely fresh to me, I wanted to advance as fast as possible. I did my sentences (still doing them), listened to Spanish rap 6 to 7 hours a day (maybe it’s 4 - 5 hours now), read some simple EsParaLeer books with notes in Spanish and a limited vocabulary, etc., etc. But the thing I really wanted to do was watching movies, in Spanish. Original movies. Movies unknown to most people outside the hispanosphere. Movies that gave me an insight into the culture of the Latin-American countries. Yes, that would be awesome, but next to impossible with my comprehension level at that time. “Man, I hate myself. Why can’t I understand a simple movie? Why does it have to be so haaaaard?!” I asked myself. I *had* to find a way in, there had to be some enterence into understanding Spanish movies. But HOW?

Living in the Netherlands, almost all - if not all - movies are subtitled (except for the Dutch ones, of course). This leaves a population with quite some English language skills, but it also breeds a hate for everything that’s being dubbed. In the east there’s Germany. And the Germans are known for dubbing everything. Sometimes I watch German television (we have about 5 - 6 German channels), but when it comes to dubbed movies and shows I turn it off. I just can’t (or should I say couldn’t?) stand dubbed movies and shows, it’s just unnatural to me. Just ask a random Dutchman, and he confirms what I feel. It’s just weird… So I tried dubbed movies in Spanish, but I hated it, I really hated it. I couldn’t stand the somewhat unnatural voices, I couldn’t stand it that my favorite characters in The O.C. now seemed to have more or less the same voice.

But, back to the story. I needed an enterance to Spanish movies. Of course, I could turn on the subtitles, but at that time I thought that even exact Spanish subtitles would do more harm than good (in fact, later I came to the conclusion that exact Spanish subtitles are a great shortcut to watching movies). I could also just watch a movie, although I wouldn’t understand most of it. But that turned out to be another mistake, as I was bored as ****. So then what? I HAD to get input, I WANTED to watch movies in Spanish. But HOW? The simple solution, again: dubbed movies. Like I said before, I hated dubbed movies with all my guts, but it was something that had to be done. So I’d pick a movie which I had seen countless times and get the dubbed version. For example Toy Story. When I was little I got Toy Story on VHS for Christmas. I loved the movie and watched it over and over again. So when I grew up, I watched it now and then to get that nice feeling again. I knew the dialogues, I knew the funny parts, I knew the songs. So I got the dubbed version in Castillian Spanish on DVD and started watching it. Not once, not twice… No, every day, 2-3 times a day. Just looping it, enjoying it. Listening carefully, singing along with the songs. And it worked. I could understand a huge chunk of the dialogues the first time, and every time I watched it again I picked up more. More words, more grammar, more… just Spanish. It was great.

But still, an animated movie that’s being dubbed doesn’t look like a dubbed one. Most of the time, it’s perfect. You don’t look at the mouth, you don’t care that much with animated movies. So my next ‘project’ would be a ‘real’ movie. But which one? I’d seen American Pie countless times in English, and although some jokes are rather bland, I like the movie. So again, I picked up the dubbed version and started watching. I watched it one time in the afternoon, and one time in the evening. Next day, I did exactly the same. Although it was weird to hear other voices, the dubbing was incredibly accurate. 9 out of 10 times the words and movement of the mouth and everything were matching perfectly. Contrary to the German dubbing, Spanish dubbing is some kind of art, it’s almost perfect. So I watched, and watched, and watched. After a while I knew all the swearing of Stifler (cara culo, gilipollas, etc., etc.) and I loved it. So I decided to try The O.C. another time, and weird enough: I could stand it! I even liked it. Something happened: I could stand dubbed movies and was able to enjoy them! So this was the enterance I was looking for. And after a while I was able to watch movies like Volver and Las 13 Rosas.

I was able to understand original movies, in Spanish, without a sweat. So I’ll give you guys the same advice as I’ve given to other people who wanted to boost their Spanish skills.

To sum it up:

1. Get the dubbed version of a movie you really like in English (in the dialect you’re studying)

And I mean, you have to reaaaaaly like it and seen it so many times that you forgot to count. This is important, because you get bored easily if you can’t understand anything. But because you’ve seen this movie so often, you know most of the dialogues and this way you simple absorb all the Spanish vocabulary. Also, it’s important (especially in the beginning) that you focus on one dialect/accent. Want to get a Castillian accent? Get the Spanish version. Do you like hearing usted all the time and want to speak like a Mexican (which is cool, but not everyone wants to talk like that)? Get the Mexican version. Do you like… oh well, you get the point.

2. Don’t watch it once or twice, but again: countless times!

You watched it over and over again in English, right? Why wouldn’t you do the same thing with the Spanish version? Just watch and watch. Even better, look up some words during the movie. Not too much, but some. Every time you watch the movie, and look up - let’s say 5 words - you will boost your overall comprehension. The main learning factor is - of course - the dialogues you auytomatically memorized before. But looking up some words now and then isn’t a shame.

3. Take it with you

Yes, you heard me: take the movie with you. Do you commute a lot? Rip the audio and put it on your MP3 player (just ask Google for something like “DVD audio ripper”). Do you have an MP4 player? Convert the DVD to MP4 so that you can switch (listening when you want, or watching when you want) (again, Google is your friend).

4. Memorize it

Most of the memorization is done automatically because you watch the movie over and over again. But adding cool phrases you want to remember to your SRS is always a wise thing to do, so do it. I recently added some slang and really weird sentences to Anki, and I laugh every time Anki shows them to me: it really makes doing reps more fun.

There, this should get your television addiction up and running (which is good, but only if it’s in Spanish, hehe).

Yes, I’m still alive (whoohoo!), but I’ve been a little bit busy with work and some tutoring business (more on that later). In my vacation, I couldn’t stop writing at times so I’ve got a bunch of long-ass articles. Now, some of these articles may sound a bit negative or it may even look like I’m bashing people, but I’m not. It’s just that I’ve seen too many faulty methods and I try to warn people for this. So here’s the first article regarding shadowing.

I’ve written some stuff in the past about accents and pronunciation, why it’s so important and how to build you accent. Yes, I really think that a correct pronunciation is one of the most important things someone who calls himself fluent needs to master. I’ve met countless people who’s overall Spanish was quite good (a wide vocabulary range and no grammatical mistakes), but whose pronunciation was really bad. Why bother expanding your vocabulary if people can’t even understand you without trying hard?

Luckily I’m not the only person who thinks that a correct pronunciation is important. In a lot Spanish classes they give special attention to accent and stuff (unfortunately there’re more classes where they don’t give a **** about pronunciation), and people come up with methods to improve one’s pronunciation all the time. But what exactly is the best method? Does it even exist? Well, some think they’ve found the holy grail by applying the Shadowing technique. “What the heck is shadowing?” you might ask. Well, it’s actually a good question as most people who want to apply it don’t even exactly know what it is.

What it is, is that you listen to a piece of audio (audio book, news broadcast, maybe even a song) and repeat the speaker just a split second after he/she said it. So not at the same time (i.e. not speaking along, but rather echoing). Countless people applied it to their studies, but I’m skeptical. Why? Because I don’t think it works, and in the worst scenario it’ll damage your pronunciation for life. Yes, I’ve tried it, and no I couldn’t keep up with the speaker. Not that I can’t speak as fast as a regular native, but just because I can’t speak and listen at the same time. And I’m alone with that, most people can’t listen and speak at the same time. “But Ramses, how is it possible then that I sing along with my favorite songs and such?”. Well dear reader, it’s simply because you’ve heard the song so many times that it’s burnt in your brain. Even if you don’t hear the song or the music you can sing it. And here’s where input is going to help you.

I strongly believe that shadowing is not the best way to improve you pronunciation, like I said. So what is the solution then (I’m not saying that this is the best solution, but it’s one of the better solutions)? Simple: massive input. I’ve said it countless times and I’m saying it again: watch television, listen music, just listen to Spanish. Even better: listen to the same piece of text over and over again. For example: I’ve seen Toy Story about a dozen times now, and I just love the opening song (Hay un amigo en mí – Spanish version. Soy tu amigo fiel – Mexican version). Every time I watch Toy Story I rewind it a couple times to hear the song again. Heck, I even looked it up on Youtube to hear (yes, just hearing it can do magic, you don’t even need to concentrate all the time. As long as you listen to it enough and have some moments you do concentrate) it when I needed to feel happier. Now it’s burnt in my brain, I can’t forget it. I know the lyrics, I even know exactly how the singer pronounces the words and how his voice sounds. And the best of all: I can imitate it all; both his pronunciation AND his voice. Pretty scary huh? But it’s true, and only because I listened to it over and over again and keep enjoying it. If I’m now singing along (or shadowing it, whatever you want to call it), I don’t have to listen carefully and only have to match my words with the singer. I can’t damage my pronunciation because I know how it has to sound.

At the end of this post you’ll see a short video. Well, it’s not exactly a video, it’s more a voice you’re hearing while seeing some pictures. It may sound like a complete alien language, but it’s supposed to be English… learned by shadowing the same text over and over again. Yes, shadowing, not even listening, but proactive shadowing. As you’ll hear it’s bad, really bad. Why does it sound this bad? Do all shadowers sound like this? Well, I can’t believe that, but the other examples I’ve heard (for example Dutch and Frisian and to a lesser extent Afrikaans – which I can understand but can’t speak that well) sounded awful. It’s just that they aren’t able to analyze the sounds and produce it at the same time. This breeds some bad habits of the worst kind: a messed up pronunciation. I’ve seen it in class (both the college classes I attend and the classes I teach for my internship); a good pronunciation is really hard to learn if you already bred a messed up one.

So the best advice I can give, is: listen before you speak! And I mean that you need to listen for weeks and weeks before even considering to speak Spanish. I know that a lot of teachers insist you to speak from day one (they’ve done it to me as well, and I thought it was the best to do) as they think that speaking is the way to fluency. “If you don’t start speaking now, when will you speak?”. For long I thought this was true, but it isn’t. Starting to speak when you don’t exactly know how you need to sound is the worst thing you can do. The truth is that you will speak if you listen enough; it goes automatically. I mumble weird things in Spanish all the time. Why? Because I’ve heard the same exact lines over and over again. It can be rap songs, lines from movies I’ve seen, etc., etc. Learning a language is all about imitating, just like shadowing is meant to be. But shadowing is the bad form of imitating (like someone put it once: “It’s speaking before you’re able to speak“) and just listening and analyzing is (one of) the best way to learn how to speak.

Don’t worry, just enjoy your materials and in the end (it may be sooner than you think) you’ll start mumbling like I do. Further down the road you’ll start thinking in Spanish and wanting to answer people in Spanish (like I do, I have this all the time. Simply because I have massive input each and every day, throughout the day). And this will happen with a good accent, because you’ve heard it countless times.

So, Germany, Switzerland and Italy were great, no doubt about it. I’ve got some serious input over the last few weeks (think of days with 10+ hours of input - music, audiobooks, series, movies in the evening), which gave my overall comprehension a big boost.

So, now I’m back home and I found some bad ass materials surfing the web. For grammar but also for sentences. So let me introduce you to some websites you should bookmark right away (if you didn’t know them already).

Zona ELE - http://www.zonaele.com

A friend of mine recommended this site a while ago, although I didn’t give it a close look then. But it rocks, for sure. It has grammar, example sentences, vocabulary, some stuff regarding Mexican Spanish and more. Just take a look at the Material gratuito (Free material) section. The lexicon section is really, really bad ass as it not only gives loose vocabulary, it also has loads of sentences (without translation, but with explanation). Best of all, it’s in Spanish (well, most of it. I’ve seen some English on the way).

Tim Gambril’s grammar notes - http://www.timandangela.com/spanish

Not as complete as Zona ELE, but nice enough to work as a supplement to it. Like Zona ELE, it’s totally in Spanish and has example sentences, so it’s always good.

StudySpanish.com grammar tutorial - http://www.studyspanish.com/tutorial.htm

Yes, again, grammar. I shouldn’t concentrate too much on it, but there’s some really good stuff lying around the internet for free. This one’s actually in English, and not everything is free (the written lessons are free, and so are some exercises). But, why do I recommend this one? It’s not that much better, I actually think that Zona ELE is the best if you’re into grammar and you’re ready for the Spanish-Spanish phase with your SRS sentences. But This site had some good sentences for the beginner, so add them to your SRS!

Tomísimo dictionary - http://www.tomisimo.org/dictionary

I just discovered this website via a Spanish (about Spanish, in Spanish) blog. It has a nice forum, but an even nicer idiom -and dictionary section, so check it out!

Diccionario de Real Academia Española - http://buscon.rae.es/draeI

Yes, THE RAE, the people who think they’re always right (well, maybe they’re) when it comes to the Spanish language. They officially regulate the Spanish language, and best of it; they have a free monodict (monolingual dictionary). I just got myself the CD-ROM version of their dictionary, but the free online edition is good as well (and with example sentences all over).

Vagos.es foro del web - http://vagos.wamba.com

An interesting forum of which I’ve been a member for about a year now. It’s quite big and you can discuss anything, from politics to religion, to the newest fashion. It also has a section which contains Rapidshare and Megaupload links to movies, series, audiobooks and more in Spanish. As I live in the Netherlands (where it’s actually legal to download movies and music, as long as you don’t share) I’ve been getting my dubbed and original series this way (as it’s nearly impossible to get them in an official way here). So decide what you want to do with it, it’s nice as a general interest forum anyway.

Don Quijote de la Mancha - audio and text

A while ago I found this site (and forgot the URL later on), but forgot to use it (mostly because the overkill of materials I already have). Eleena over at Voices en Español reminded me of this fine site. So check it out and use the audio while reading the text.

Unfortunately, not to Spain, but I’ll be spending about 3 weeks in full-relaxing-mode in Italy. Of course not too relaxed; I’ll be doing my daily SRS reps and watching series when I’m alone and have some time left.

In the meanwhile, the comments are open and I’m trying to check them at least once a week. Don’t expect new posts; they won’t be posted during the three weeks. After that I’ll, of course, have some new neat stories to share with you guys.

¡Buenas vacaciones a todos! Nos vemos en tres semanas.

I have to be honest to you guys: I’ve never really used a language course in the time I’ve been studying Spanish. Sure, I’ve bought some stuff like Assimil and downloaded the free FSI course, but I never liked them too much - I’m pretty lazy by nature. Too lazy to get myself studying some pages of text in a book in order to understand a piece of grammar or to memorize a dialogue. Almost everything I know now is because of my SRS sentences, reading books (and looking up words now and then, not that much anyway) and watching movies and series.

Yes, I’m a person who wants to have fun - all the time. So it’s not only a case of laziness, I also believe that language courses in general are too boring to teach you a language. The only books I’ve really studied are the textbooks we use in college, and most of that has been done by mining sentences and putting them in my SRS. Still, I learned a bunch from the textbooks, especially grammar-wise but the fact is that I didn’t enjoy it most of the time. Dialogue A until dialogue Z can teach you a lot, but if you don’t enjoy them almost nothing will remain in the grey masses in your head, also called brains.

So do I think you shouldn’t use language courses at all? Well, I think they’re perfect for the very beginner. I actually wish I could have used them by showing some discipline. Why? I truly believe that a good language course can mean a rocket start for your language studies. Luckily there are more than enough great courses on the market for Spanish, like the FSI course or courses based on the FSI course (which, in general, are not free and can cost up to $300). On the other side, you really have to watch out with all the crap that’s filling the market. Pimsleur? Oh no, never burn your fingers on that. Teach Yourself? It can be nice, but so far I’ve heard it’s inferior to FSI.

But, should you finish a whole course? If you can, go for it, but don’t spend too much time on it. Try to go through it fast (not too fast of course, otherwise you won’t absorb that much), maybe within a month if that’s possible. After that you should be able to watch series (although you might need to watch certain episodes over and over again to know where they’re talking about. Don’t worry, this is good as repetition is the key to fluency) and movies. At least, go for the sentence method. Get yourself a nice and complete dictionary and start mining sentences (see here for the perfect examples); first Spanish - English (or your native tongue) and after a while Spanish - Spanish. I’ve just begun doing Spanish - Spanish sentences and although it can be a drag putting the explanation together, it’s great fun if you see that you can do it. After this, a nice grammar book should be in your bag all the time aswell. I often think about certain things in Spanish, and it’s just so good to be able to immediately look it up in your dictionary or grammar book.

So using language courses? Yes, definitely yes. But again; only if you can stand them and only if you use the best courses (like FSI, which can be quite boring as it’s based on drills. But if you can handle it; go for it!). Beware: don’t stick around too long with a course as it’ll mess up your Spanish in the long term. No one speaks like the people in the dialogues, and they’re only meant for the raw beginner. An advanced student shouldn’t use courses at all, native materials are you best friend and absolutely the key to fluency. Believe me, since I’ve been using native materials I can put a Spanish sentence (a correct sentence) together with no effort at all. Just enjoy it, all the time. If you don’t enjoy it, it’s not worth your time and it’ll never bring you to fluency (or at least not within the next 5 or 6 years).

A short story before I end this post: I know this girl who has been studying Spanish for about 6 years now. I must say, she’s good, but only when it comes to writing and analyzing grammar. Speaking? Yes, she can pull it off with a native, but only with lots of breaks to correct herself and a lot of thinking. The problem isn’t that she didn’t speak that much in the past, she has been analyzing the language too much. Everything needs to have a reason for her. When I say I understand something, but can’t explain why I know it works like that, she simply says I won’t be able to use it. But I AM able to use it. Natives actually prefer talking to me as I can do it more smoothly, with a better accent (not because I’m better, just because I spent more time watching and listening movies and series) and with more colloquial - non-textbook - words and phrases. And that’s just the work of one year (actually less, as I’ve been struggling with the wrong methods at the beginning of the college year).

So what does this prove? It proves that language courses are the axis of evil when it comes to long-term usage. Learning a language is like running a marathon; you don’t want to waste all your energy in the beginning. You want to be able to enjoy your run even at the end. It can actually become easlier when you beat the pain and see that the finish is near. That finish is a stage called total fluency. It can be hard to reach it, it can hurt, but using your energy in a fun and effective way will bring you to that stage.