I've been listening to a French program recently on TV and have been quite amazed at how much I can get, despite very little use of my French for ages!

I've tried to pick up Spanish in a variety of ways since my renewed interest piqued over the last few years. I hadn't had Spanish since High School more than twenty years ago so I enrolled in a Span 101 course at a local college for a refresher and also spent 2 weeks studying in Mexico in 2008. The key to remembering is to use it! I was proud of what I learned in Mexico but saw how quickly it fades when you aren't using it daily. Now, I'm back at trying again. While in my host home, there was a young woman from Germany and the only way we could communicate was to use the Spanish we were both learning.

I also volunteer at an adult ESL program downtown. Many of those students are learning English as a third or even fourth language. I see them struggle with it and just keep encouraging them to use it and use it often! They, too, sometimes fumble with words from thier native or other languages. They've also been able to help one another out because several know various languages.

It can be frustrating but well worth the effort!

Thanks for sharing!

George

Now I am trying to move to live in Mexico and in the meantime live part time in Spain but find Spanish very difficult indeed. Earlier this year I lived for 4 months with a family in Mexico City who only spoke Spanish and when I thought I was beginning to relax and speak reasonably well I found without being aware of it, I was in fact relapsing into Italian and the faces of the recipients of my conversations said it all!! In the end I gave up and enrolled in a marvellous school for a month and my ability to speak improved enormously after that comparatively short time !

Thank you Rosana for your website and you newsletter etc It is great.

Others, please chime in, whenever you come this way.

Many, many words are very similar, cuando/quando etc.

I find that it both helps and hurts me in trying to learn Spanish. I know many words, and understand word order, that you “have” hunger, instead or are hungry, and “how are you called” instead of “what is your name”, and so on.

It seems to me that Italian is much more consistent, such as a word ending in “o” is masculine, and “i” is plural, “a” is feminine and “e” is plural. Uno/Una . In Spanish, sometimes the masculine ends in “o” , sometimes not. Doctor/Doctora.

Many words seem to be totally different. Anche Io vs. Yo Tambien (me too).

I also had a little bit of French and German in High School

I seem to always be able to understand far better than I can speak. I seem to remember that was the case in Italian as well. At one time I became fairly fluent in American Deaf Sign Language. There, I can always “send” much better than I can “receive”.

Anyway, so far, I find that whenever I get in a pinch trying to speak Spanish, it may start off in Spanish, but it soon devolves into some weird combination of Spanish/Italian/Deaf Sign Language, as I try to communicate as best as I can.

So to sum it up, having learned Italian from Italians while living in Italy, I “think” that I could pick up Spanish fairly quickly if I were in Mexico, or some other Spanish speaking country. Trying to learn from various tapes, books, websites, seems to be much more of a challenge, but it definitely helps to have the “core” vocabulary down to at least get started.

Thanks for all your efforts with you website/blog. I really need to carve out more time to spend trying to learn.

Hopefully I can get down “Mexico Way” for a long enough period to time to test out my theory of being able to quickly pick up more of the Spanish language.

George

I’ve been in Mexico about 2 months now, and must admit that I’m barely into learning my Spanish… I took French in high school (that was in the 60′s — a lonnnnnnnng time ago) and I find myself NOW remembering long-forgotten French when I’m trying to speak or remember my Spanish.

I so admire multi-lingual people but wonder sometimes if it’s going to be possible at my age to un-jumble the strange rebirth of long ago language usage? I’m not going to give up, but did want to share that you are not alone in your dilemma. :)

I would add that I never became fluent in French, but do find it strange that words I’d not used in over 40 years suddenly have re-emerged as I try to integrate more and more Spanish words & phrases into my vocabulary.

Thanks for your great website!

Donna