This month, most of my writing time has gone into creating my new ebook, Five Keys to Learning Spanish Rapidly. You can sign up for it from the top right corner of any page of this site. It isn’t grammar or vocabulary; it’s based on research on how people learn how to speak Spanish, or any language for that matter.
I’ve been happy to see quite a few people downloading it, and it occurred to me that readers might wonder if I walk my talk.
If you had asked me a year ago how much effort I was putting into improving my Spanish, I would have had to admit that about all I was doing was chatting with local Mexicans every chance I got and sometimes skimming the local Lake Chapala newspaper, El Charal. But I wasn’t making any concerted effort to remember the new words I learned, nor was I studying.
At that point, I was doing pretty well compared to most of the thousands of foreigners who live in this region. Mexicans were always telling me how well I spoke Spanish, but I knew I could hardly engage in any real conversation without errors. I remember getting really frustrated one day when I tried to translate for a Mexican friend the George Burns line, “If I’d known I was going to live this long, I’d have taken better care of myself.” I couldn’t get the verb tenses right on that one!
Eventually I decided that I wanted to move to a higher level with my Spanish. I began by reading widely about the most effective methods for learning Spanish. This website grew out of my desire to share that information.
So here’s what I am doing now:
- Making a point of conversing with Mexicans, and trying to get my grammar a bit better as I go along. My past tense verbs are coming out more smoothly most of the time.
- Asking the Mexicans I know well to correct me, and they usually do.
- Using a flash card program on my computer to review and learn new vocabulary.
- Watching a two-DVD set I bought at the local tianguis (street market) called Acapulco Cuerpo y Alma (Acapulco Body and Soul), a telenovela (soap opera) series from television. They sure speak fast, great for educating my ear. Not my usual entertainment but I am hooked: will David end up with Lorena? What about his other girl friend? Will the evil Marcelo get his comeuppance? And will I understand it all?
- Listening to Mexican music with vocals, on CDS in the background.
- Trying to remember to speak Spanish rather than English to my dogs and cats. (But not much to my husband, as we tend to squabble about fine points of grammar.)
- Reading in Spanish more
- Going to spanishnewsbites.com quite often for practice and exploring other sites
- Using mental rehearsal. For example, this morning I had to tell a local vendor of chickens that the legs we had gotten last week were so tough (duro, which also means “hard”) that we had to run the soup through a blender to be able to eat it. I mentally practiced that one in advance, telling her a true story about a time when we raised chickens just for eggs and tried to eat one of our roosters.
This sounds like a lot but it really doesn’t take a lot of time.
Whatever level of Spanish you are at, it’s always a thrill to be able to communicate better than you could before. Here in Mexico, where the people are so gracious and appreciative of our efforts, sometimes a conversation I’ve had is the high point of my day.
