Using language courses. Or not?

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.