With the summer holidays coming near, lots of people tend to take a break everything. A break from school, a break from work, just a break from the daily things in life which can make daily routine so boring. Today I had my last exam, so my holiday started when I left the classroom. When I ask people what they’re going to do in the summer they often say: “Taking a break from Spanish. I love the language but I *need* a break!” When I say I’m just going to watch as much series as possible (of course I’m taking my daily time to relax, but when I’m traveling I’m watching my PSP – loaded with That 70’s show subbed in Spanish or Aquí no hay quien viva) or finally finishing La Conspiración, they look at me like I said some dirty word. “But you neeeeed your time off Spanish. It’ll drive you nuts hearing and seeing it every day. It’s not healthy!” or similair crap (yes, crap, poop, sh*t!).
Well, is hearing English bad for you mental state? Is it bad reading a book while you’re on holiday? Don’t you watch TV in your free time? Is it weird? NO! So why would it be weird doing all those things in Spanish? It’s just another language which I (and you) happen to not speak fluently (yet). Therefore I try to avoid people who say crap (yes, again, CRAP!) like that. For me that’s quite hard, as my own parents say the same things and I’m spending 3 weeks of my summer with them… But, just keep saying to yourself: “I’m not a quitter! I WILL speak Spanish! I’m not very good at it now, but I will. And I will prove all those people wrong, because I know hearing, reading, seeing, living Spanish each and every is *good* for me.” [/brainwash mode]
Lots of people started studying Spanish, but they quit and therefore failed. Why? They wanted a break. Now, a break is good but just put some extra Spanish in that break. Driving to the country-side? Why not listen some Salsa or Reggaeton? (I’m actually going to load my PSP with Joropo combined with contrapunteo, just discovered it and I LOVE it!). Going to your destination by plane? Get yourself an audiobook (if you’re at the level that you can enjoy it. Otherwise; music is your friend). There’s always room to replace the English (or Dutch/French/German/whatever your native tongue is) by Spanish. The only thing you need to do is… actually doing it.
Breaks are fine, breaks from Spanish are impossible. They don’t exist, will not exist in your study. The only thing that’s possible is putting Spanish in everything, including your holidays.
Edit: I wanted to say something about maintaining sentences while you’re on holiday; do them EVERY DAY! Yes, each and every day. It can be difficult to do so, but taking a break from sentences for a few days, let alone a few weeks, ruins the whole space repetition magic. So taking your laptop may be a wise thing to do or just using the web-interface of Anki. I know it sounds extreme, doing sentences while being on a holiday, but it’s just important that you maintain them if you already started doing them on a daily basis.
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
I definitely agree with you on this one. For me, any break from my Spanish or Portuguese studies will be the end. I keep putting it off and I find myself 6 months or a year later saying “now I have so much Spanish/Portuguese to catch up on.”
Even if I study for 30 minutes a day, I know that it’s keeping all of those new facts/words/grammar fresh in my mind.
So yes, I agree, even if you are on a beach in the Caribbean, you can still read a book at your level in Spanish, or just listen to some Spanish song lyrics, or an audio book, etc. Just remember that it’s not worth taking a break because you may not come back to your studies for a long time (and you’ll regret it then because you will have lost so much of your knowledge of the language).
Good one Jeff, I’ve encoutered it with my Russian studies. I took a break, thinking that it wouldn’t harm my progress that much, but it did. Now I don’t speak Russian on the level I’d like to be able to speak it and each and every time I meet a Russian(-speaker) I regret my breaks. And although I don’t like my college classes all the time, they keep me studying and prevent me taking a break.
About the 30 minute thingy; I think that’s the key to fluency. I often don’t want to study (my natural laziness, hehe), but I just start doing some sentences or watching some Spanish TV and I end up doing hours and hours of Spanish. The key is; just do it, the rest will come.
Also, music is great for your progress. It’s something you can do passively but it’s a extremely powerful tool. On a normal day I listen about 3 – 4 hours of Spanish music, all input that’ll bring me closer to fluency.
I find it’s about finding something you enjoy. I have found a TV show I enjoy so I don’t have to worry about finding motivation to watch it. Same with music, I did the same thing as you and found music I enjoy and placed it in my list.
People have asked me about my source of motivation and I’ve answered that I don’t need it, it comes naturally. My laziness pays off, as I just want to be lazy and watch my Spanish TV shows and listen to my Spanish music