I know James from some comments he posted on this blog last year, and I was really interested in his story and how going Spanish Only (Portuguese Only in his case, at first) helped him. He also explains why most language learning products won’t help you and why you always need a good amount of input before speaking. Read his story and don’t be afraid to share yours as well!

A few years ago I became obsessed with languages. It all started with Japanese. I was attracted to the beauty of the written language and the exoticness of the Japanese culture (ok, it was the anime, manga and video games – sue me). But after failing miserably to capture Japanese in my mind (by using the latest in language learning technology that 10 bucks could buy me, of course), my interest spread from Japanese to half a dozen other languages. I wanted to learn Spanish, French, Italian and German – for starters. Unfortunately, what my brief stint with Japanese failed to teach me was that learning a language was hard. I had no idea of what I was getting myself into. I had thought that you either knew a language or you didn’t, being as unaware of the Thousand Levels of Intermediacy™ as I was. But being ever the fast learner, I soon realized that it was hopeless. So I gave up.

Fast forward two years; I started work as a furniture salesman (promotion from delivery man, woop!) in an area of Texas that is simply saturated with a Spanish-speaking population. For much of that population, English is unintelligible; they speak Spanish. Like, Spanish only (see how I did that?). And, after the senior salesman of the establishment (who spoke Spanish) left, I was faced with the task of making myself the ambassador to the Spanish masses.

Now, I had heard the language growing up, being from that neck of the woods (figure of speech, really – no neck involved, or woods, for that matter), and had about a high school knowledge of it, more or less, but this was deemed insufficient. So, with visions of my previous experiences with cheap language products dancing in my head, I bought a pack of 1000 flashcards. It took me about a month to get through half of the deck, and I memorized them dutifully. So then, every time a customer entered the store – a customer that spoke no English – I was able to ask them what they were looking for, using lots of useful words like mesa, silla, barbilla, etc. Unfortunately, once they actually started to talk back, I was a bit lost.

And that’s pretty much where I remained for the next year, after which I found that I had only gotten through about 850 cards of my stack of flashcards, then had bought another deck of 1000 new cards, and gotten only 20 cards into that one… I began to suspect that I was getting nowhere. That’s when I stumbled upon Michel Thomas CD’s and tried his program. The method was brilliant, and the material really had a way of sticking. I thought I had done it; learned Spanish. So, after running through the tracks a few times, a tried my newfound knowledge on my customers… and encountered the same problem: zero comprehension on the response. Obviously something had gone awry.

I was not able to pinpoint my problem, however, and I just continued doing everything I normally did, setting aside a few minutes every day for Spanish. I continued this trend even when I took a 6 month vacation to Brazil. I would spend only as much time on Portuguese as  I had to, and the rest went to my normal English activities. The only thing that saved me from leaving Brazil with only a mediocre grasp on Portuguese was encountering the blog All Japanese All the Time, and at the same time, Spanish Only. The ideas and principles behind full immersion in these blogs really rang true to me, and I put the system into effect immediately.

I cut off all access to English; no books, no movies, no music, no talking. Everything English was considered an enemy of the State and was treated as such. I took no prisoners, and made Portuguese my language. I filled my iPod up with Brazilian music and audio clips ripped from movies and series. Every morning when I woke up, I put on my headphones and went about my day, listening to the sounds of Portuguese. I only took them off only when I had to. Whenever I got the chance I would read a book in Portuguese or watch a movie, but most of my input was from listening. After a month, I noticed my comprehension jump around 50%.

Unfortunately, my time in Brazil ended soon after that, and I had to come back to the US, but before I had a chance to re-settle I jumped on a plane bound for Mexico, where I currently reside. After three months of immersion (one spent in the US) I feel that I’ve come a long way. Every day has been filled with intensive viewing of American shows dubbed in Spanish, and (unfortunately) as little interaction with other humans as possible (seriously, I must fix this). So far, it’s paid off. My level in Spanish as of this writing is around lower-Advanced, and it grows every day.

After four more months of Spanish I must leave this sunny country to start a new language. I really would like to continue studying Spanish intensively, as I believe that one truly needs at least a year or two to become really proficient in a language. But right now, I don’t have an opportunity to spend more time in a Spanish-speaking country. So, although I’m still hard at work at Spanish, wheedling down the amount of words I don’t know (after a while you need to stop adding up the words you do know), I will be soon moving on to French, to study for a longer period of time. After that, who can say?

Further reading:

• English success story
• Learning More Languages at The Same Time?
• Success stories and guest posts

Further

My friend Jessica of ‘Ich estudio langues‘ sent me this article to publish while I’m relaxing a bit in Spain. She already published it before on her own blog but I think it can help many of you. Don’t forget to check out her blog (it’s pretty cool) and enjoy the article!

It’s a language learner’s dream: being absolutely emerged in their target language in a country where their target language is spoken. No matter where they go, who they talk to, what they see and read around them, their world is a classroom and they get to see the language they are learning come to life. Everything from reading advertisements on bilboards to listening in on people’s conversations on the subway (it doesn’t count as eavesdropping if it’s for educational purposes!), it’s all contributing to their language learning.

As amazing as an opportunity it is to be in the country where the language you are learning is spoken, it unfortunately does not mean that by simply being there you will absorb the language over time. Language learning takes effort. I have heard of people who have lived in a foreign country for an extended period of time and still can not speak the language. However, when with the right combination of activities and effort, you can set your language learning on the fast track and make the most of your time abroad!

Step 1. Preparation
Going to a target language country in order to learn the language without any previous knowledge of the language will waste valuable learning time once you get there. You should at least have an idea for the sound of the language, basic vocabulary, knowledge of how the language is structured and the basic “survival phrases” that you will need in the beginning of your stay, but of course the more the better! On top of the wide selection of beginner courses that you can buy online or from your local bookshop, there are nearly endless resources online for beginner language learners. Prepare as much as you can so that you can be prepared when you arrive and make the time in the country really count by being able to get out there and communicate with the locals!

Step 2. Structure (on the side!)
If you are specifically travelling in order to improve your language skills, then you must continue to actually study the language in a formal setting. But I must emphasize: this must be done ON THE SIDE. When I lived in Spain last year I spent way too much time cooped up in my apartment with my nose inside of Spanish books while the whole world outside my apartment was just dying to teach me Spanish. Do not let this happen! There are ways to balance formal studying with immersion.
I for one really enjoy in-country language classes. You get to have a regularly scheduled study time with people from around the world with similar goals as yourself, you have a native teacher and you have structured study time everyday so you can spend the rest of your time (other than maybe an hour or so everyday reviewing what you learned in class, which is important) doing the immersion stuff! If you do not want to spend money on a class, then you should at least allow an hour or so a day to work on your own with an autodidactic course.

Step 3. Language exchange partners
Find yourself one or two (or more!) language exchange partners and meet up with them regularly! This is a GREAT way to get out there and start meeting people, especially if you don’t know where to start. Language exchange partners are people you meet up with to learn each other’s native languages. You meet in a café or somewhere similar, and spend some time speaking in your native language and in their native language. It is a mutually beneficial experience for both participants, and it’s a great way to meet friends.

Step 4. Libraries are your friend!
If you will be staying in the country for an extended period of time, get a library card and make good use of it! Read as much as you possibly can (even if it is just children’s books!) use the study rooms, videos, magazines, etc. for free! Imput is an extremely important part of language learning,

Step 5. Listen!
TV, Radio, conversations in public. Your target language is surrounding you so LISTEN as much as you can!

Step 6. Talk!
As well as finding some conversation buddies, it is also very important to get out there and TALK! Don’t be afraid of making mistakes! Ask for directions, for the time, etc. (even if you already know the answer!) Every little bit helps. The ideal thing to do is to make a pledge not to speak your native language while abroad. Even if you can only speak a very broken version of your target language, it doesn’t matter! The more you force yourself to do it (and it WILL be exhausting at first) try to stick with it, it will pay off big time!

Step 7. Enjoy yourself!
You will be having a great opportunity to learn your target language, but don’t stress yourself! Remember to relax and enjoy your experience. Learning a language is just as much about learning a culture, so go and enjoy the culture that your target language country has to offer.

Happy Language Learning!

Further reading:

• What Is Learning Spanish Through Immersion REALLY?
• James’ Success Story and Why You Should Go For Full Immersion
• Speaking Won’t Make You Better at Spanish

Further

Today another post of Scott Thomas, who earlier wrote ‘How to Write Your Own How-to Spanish Book‘. It’s a bit a plug of his book and website, but because it looks real promising and fits the purpose of this blog I’m glad to share it with you (no, I don’t receive a dime for these posts, only some time off, jeje).

Ramses has given us permission to explain our approach to learning Spanish at Language Safari. To do that, we’re going to share an excerpt from the introduction to our most recent book, due out in the fall of 2009, Learn Spanish from Your Hollywood Favorites – The Movie Lover’s Guide to Becoming Fluent in Spanish.

Our approach is simple. Let’s take a line from the film The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe as an example:

The untrained ear hears something like what the eye sees here.

Mevoyatenerquehacerunpeludosombrerodecastor

But if you know ahead of time that:

me voy a: I’m going to
tener que: to have to
hacer: to make
un: a, an, one
peludo: furry
sombrero: hat
de: of, from
castor: beaver

You will hear this:

Me voy a tener que hacer un peludo sombrero de castor.

And understand this:

I’m going to have to make a furry hat out of that beaver.

It’s as simple as this.

1. Words and phrases: By knowing the words and phrases ahead of time, your ear will be predisposed to identifying them. This lets you avoid the frustration that comes when you are in over your head and unable, without tremendous effort, to distinguish what you are hearing.
2. Definitions: By knowing the definitions for each of those words and phrases ahead of time, you can attach meaning to them without having to search a traditional dictionary to find out what they are. This saves you time.
3. Marking progress: Having ready lists of common and actually occurring words and phrases for monitoring progress improves motivation.
4. Familiar films: Perhaps the biggest benefit is that when you watch movies you’re familiar with like those that are a part of this collection, not only does your comprehension go up, but you have more fun learning.

You do need to know basic vocabulary before you can take full advantage of our lists, but once you know those (about 600 of the most common words), you’ll find that learning can be a lot of fun this way. We don’t just apply the approach to movies. We use this approach to help people learn Spanish vocabulary from TV shows, novels, the Bible, and YouTube music videos. You’ll also find quite a bit of free content as well.

Further reading:

• How to Understand And Enjoy Movies in Spanish
• Learning a Language Is Like Running a Marathon
• Spanish Word of the Day: pájaro

Further

Today another guest post of Eleena of Voices en Español. Don’t forget to check out her blog after reading this great post!

Even though I live in Spain, there are times when I feel like my Spanish could use a tune-up. I felt like that recently this fall when I found myself communicating more frequently in English than in Spanish, so I decided to look for a private tutor just to do some high-level conversational practice.

On a budget, I looked for a Spanish instructor on Loquo.com, the Spanish version of Craigslist, a free classified-advertising web site. One ad caught my eye. It was from an instructor who had taught Spanish to foreigners at one of Spain’s top universities. We exchanged a few emails and finally decided to meet. He taught out of his apartment. The first session was a very general, superficial conversation where he asked me a few questions about myself. It was all very low-key. The next session was supposed to be the first real class. It was OK and he pointed out my mistakes and offered up suggestions on improving my pronunciation but it was, again, very low-key with no focus and no organization. After the fourth session, it was clear that this guy wasn’t preparing anything specifically for me. He wasn’t taking charge and he wasn’t leading. It seemed that he just kind of expected us to have a general conversation each time we met which wasn’t what I had in mind. In fact, if I just wanted to have conversations with people, I could do that with people I already knew who would talk to me for free!! In any case, it had reached the point where I decided I needed to stop. I wasn’t getting much out of our sessions and it was starting to feel like a waste of time.

Spend enough time studying Spanish and you’re likely to come across a teacher with whom you have no connection. By that I mean, you find the teacher boring or, worse, incompetent. The classes are repetitive and dull and you find that you’re not getting anything out of the sessions. So, what to do in a situation like that?

Express yourself: Be polite about it, of course, and don’t come right out and say that you find the teacher boring. Instead, say that you don’t feel like you’re covering enough ground in the classes and that you’d like him or her to pick up the pace. Be positive and find a way to convey your dissatisfaction without it seeming like a putdown.

Offer a solution: Tell the teacher what your interests are so that he/she can design lessons that touch upon those interests. Suggest books, magazines or web sites that you’ve used previously to provide the instructor with an idea of the kind of tools you’ve used and benefited from in the past.

Set a deadline: If after talking to the teacher you don’t see any improvement after a class or two, get out. Ask to be reassigned to another instructor, if you are in a language academy, or ask for a refund. If this is a private instructor, be honest and explain to him (or her) that you don’t feel like you’re advancing and that you’d rather not continue. If they ask you for details, don’t make it personal. Keep your criticism constructive. For example, telling an instructor that you are a visual person who learns primarily by seeing things, not by hearing them, is more helpful than telling them that you don’t like their accent in Spanish.

But what to do if you are in a situation, for example in high school or university, where dumping your Spanish instructor is out of the question? It’s harder in that situation but there are still some ways to work around this. Your best course of action is to try to become an ally of the teacher and seek out opportunities to speak to them one-on-one.

An university instructor I once had had a terrible reputation among the students for his dry lectures. He had office hours which nobody took him up on. Here’s the thing…one-on-one, this guy was great. He was funny, interesting and very helpful. In front of the class, he was as dry as toast but on an individual basis he was a way better teacher.

So, going back to my initial problem with my private Spanish tutor…what eventually happened? Well, I did follow my own advice (suggesting books, stating what areas I wanted our sessions to focus on, etc.) but things weren’t significantly improving. At the beginning of this month, a few days before I was going to tell him that I wanted to stop, he emailed me saying that he had gotten a full-time job that he would be starting the following week and that he would only be able to do his Spanish tutoring in the evenings or on weekends. This was perfect timing for me since I was planning on stopping anyway and meeting him at night or on the weekends didn’t fit my schedule anyway. So, as luck would have it, things worked out the best for both of us. All’s well that ends well.

Have you ever had a less than stellar experience with a Spanish instructor? How did you cope with it? What got you through the situation?

Guest blogger Eleena de Lisser also microblogs about Spain and the Spanish language on Twitter.

No related posts.

Today’s guest post is of Scott Thomas. Scott and his wife are the authors of the great book ‘Hollywood Favorites – The Movie Lover’s Guide to Becoming Fluent in Spanish’  and the website ‘Language Safari‘, the perfect book and website for every Spanish-Only.com-lover.

I’m not a native Spanish speaker and I don’t have a degree in Spanish, but as I write this in mid-December, my wife Gaby and I have just put the finishing touches on our second book Learn Spanish from Your Hollywood Favorites – The Movie Lover’s Guide to Becoming Fluent in Spanish, to be published by McGraw-Hill next fall.

How did I wind up being a writer of Spanish how-to books and more importantly how can you write books in your area of interest?

The old adage about how to earn money – find a need and fill it or find a problem and solve it – holds true in publishing and is how we got started. I’ve studied several languages, including Russian, and while I was studying Russian two of my favorite books were the Russian Learner’s Dictionary: 10,000 Russian Words in Order of Frequency by Nicholas Brown and Roots of the Russian Language: An Elementary Guide to Wordbuilding by George Z. Patrick. These were great helps in building a Russian vocabulary.

When I returned to studying Spanish, I looked for Spanish books similar to these Russian helps, but there weren’t any. Even though here in the United States Spanish is the most popular foreign language, my favorite tools for learning a language didn’t exist.

Long story short, I wrote the Dictionary of Spanish Roots and submitted it to two publishers. One editor rejected it and the other, Christopher Brown, a foreign language editor at NTC (later part of McGraw-Hill), liked the idea, helped improve it, and eventually published it as part of The Big Red Book of Spanish Vocabulary.

Here are our 7 steps to writing a foreign language book.

1. Find a need or solve a problem. Complete a phrase like one of these: “I wish there was a Spanish book about _________,” or “I wish these Spanish phrase books would include _________,” or “I wish they made ______ so I could learn Spanish faster.”
2. Involve a native Spanish speaker in the project. I’m not a native Spanish speaker, but my wife is. Her native knowledge is essential to making the end product valuable to language students.
3. Write the book. For a first project write the manuscript and submit it to a publisher, rather than querying first. You’ll have a lot more confidence when you finally do submit a query. This gives publishers confidence as well because the book is done. They don’t have to be concerned about whether you’ll meet the deadline and whether or not you’ll submit quality work.
4. Submit a hard copy with query. Limit your query to one page, telling them how you came up with the idea, who is publishing similar books and what the benefits of your book will be for the reader. It’s important that your editor know these things because if he likes your idea and decides to move forward he has to sell the idea to an editorial board.
5. Be flexible. If the editor makes suggestions for how to improve your work, follow them as often as you can. However, if you find that the editorial board wants your book to be something you don’t want it to be, stand your ground and be willing to walk away.
6. Golden Rule. When you are writing the book, do everything you can to make your editor’s job, the catalog writer’s job, and the book salesman’s job easier. They are all busy people, so if you can think of ways to make their jobs easier, everyone benefits.
7. Find a way. You have many options for publishing these days, so if you don’t find a print publisher, don’t despair because publishing on the web may be better than print in many instances. In fact, most of the publishing we do to help people learn Spanish is done at our Language Safari website. That may be your best option as well.

Further reading:

• Idea: Spanish book club
• Book Giveaway: 601 Spanish Verbs
• Learning Spanish Vocabulary from Movies

Further

A while ago I asked you to write for me (and you, of course) while I’m gone enjoying two glorious weeks in Spain. Right away my friend Eleena of Voices en Español and Cody’s Cuentos offered to write some neat posts to help you guys. Today’s article is about how to get your daily portion of Spanish news, even if you’re busy. Don’t forget to visit Eleena’s sites when finished reading this article!

There is one thing you can do daily to advance your Spanish that costs nothing, requires less than 10 minutes of your time, can be done at any hour of the day and, if done consistently, will improve your Spanish. Interested?

Fortunately there’s no catch or trick to this. What I’m suggesting to you is to read the news in Spanish.

Thanks to the Internet we’ve got 24-hour access to Spanish-language web sites, blogs and forums. With so much to choose from it can be overwhelming figuring out where to go. Here are four Spanish-language news sites worthy of your attention:

20Minutos: There are several free newspapers in Spain and 20Minutos is at the head of the pack in terms of national circulation. Don’t expect any in-depth, thought-provoking coverage of the news here. It’s broad and superficial and in many cases a bit of tabloid journalism. The reason why I’m recommending 20Minutos as a learning tool is because of its readers’ comments. Set up like a massive blog, the 20Minutos web site allows extensive space for readers to leave their reactions and opinions for each and every story. Nine times out of 10, these comments are highly entertaining. Reading the comments of native Spanish speakers is a good way to pick up new vocabulary and slang and laugh while you’re learning.

El Mensual: This is an intermediate audio magazine produced by the BBC. It uses news reports from BBC Mundo, the award-winning Spanish version of the BBC World Service, and provides practice exercises you can do online to keep your Spanish skills sharp. Unlike other news sites, this one is designed for language learners with stories categorized by topic and by grammar focus.

Spanish NewsBites: This is an excellent online news resource for people learning Spanish because everything on the site has been pre-selected and adapted for language learners. Three to four times a week the site chooses a news story from Spain or Latin America that generally isn’t available in English.They then edit and tweak it for language learners. PDF files of the text as well as online self-correction exercises are also provided. News stories are categorized by themes or by Spanish level.

Univision Noticias: For news from the Americas, particularly North America, this is a good site to visit. Univision is one of the leading Spanish-language television channels in the U.S. Since its audience is primarily Hispanic immigrants in the U.S. there tends to be a focus on news related to Mexico and immigration to the U.S.

Do you have a favorite news web site in Spanish? Share it with us in the comments section below.

Further reading:

• 15 Places to Learn Spanish for Free
• 8 Easy Ways to Immerse Yourself
• Learning materials provided by the Spanish state

Further