How to set the right size goal with native Spanish speakers

 

Every week I speak with students who have a Spanish-speaking significant other/coworker/friend, and yet they do not practice their Spanish with them.  There are a myriad of reasons for this, but I feel that the most common mistake is setting too big a goal.

 

Many students will say that every night at dinner they will speak Spanish the entire time, or for an hour after dinner, or all of Sunday for example. The reality is that most of us want to connect with our partners, friends, and coworkers. If we are learning a language we are not able to communicate as well as we would in our native language, which makes us not want to practice, but rather speak in a language that is easy, familiar, and that allows us to connect on deeper level with our loved ones.

 

So what am I suggesting? If you have a Spanish speaker in your life, I suggest that you set a very small goal. Here are a few examples:

• Speak Spanish together on a daily basis, but only for five minutes at a time
• Speak about three specific things that happened that day
• Repeat something that you just spoke about in English, but this time in Spanish

The goal is to take advantage of the fact that you have a Spanish speaker in your life, but to keep the conversations short and consistent.

 

Do you know someone that you could practice with for five minutes a day?

 

Besos,
Caro

Do it in Spanish!

Practically every language learner knows that the way to consistently improve their language skills is by incorporating their target language into their daily life.  However, what often occurs, is that we don’t take the time to figure out how to make this happen.

The easiest way to incorporate Spanish into your life is by doing some things in Spanish instead of (or in addition to) in your native language.

For example:

– Listen to music in Spanish
– Read or listen to the news in Spanish
– Watch a television show in Spanish
– Greet Spanish speakers in Spanish. You never know where the conversation could lead!
– Listen to podcasts in Spanish
– Journal in Spanish
– Read a book / magazine in Spanish

 

These are just a few recommendations, and they may seem obvious.  The important part of this post is not the examples, it’s the act of actually taking the time to figure out what will work for you.

The easiest way to figure out how YOU can work Spanish into YOUR daily life is by making a list of things that you do every single day, and then figuring out which ones you could do in Spanish instead of in English.

What does your list look like?

Besos,
Caro

Spanish and those damn verb conjugations!

 

Among language learners the joke is that Spanish is a very easy language to learn…except for those damn conjugations!

 

It’s true. Spanish is a phonetic language, which makes it very easy to pronounce.

Thanks to the millions of cognates, recognizing words in Spanish can be much easier than recognizing words in other languages.

In addition, Spanish has about 50% less words than English, so there is much less vocabulary to learn.

But then there are those damn conjugations!

 

So how do you learn them?

 

Many students will study them for hours, only to find that they can memorize the conjugations until they are blue in the face, but it doesn’t mean that they will easily conjugate correctly while speaking.

 

My recommendation is:

• attempt to conjugate while you’re speaking (without overthinking it)
• allow yourself to make mistakes
• allow your teacher to correct you
• repeat the verb (sentence) in its correct form before continuing with your conversation

This is how you learned to speak your native language, and this is the best way to learn to speak any other language.

Do NOT underestimate the power of learning a language from using it!

Attempt, get it right, keep going – OR –

Attempt, get it wrong, get corrected, repeat the correction, keep going.

Either way, the conjugations will start to come to you naturally after enough use.

 

It really does work!!!  (If you pay attention, listen, and learn from your mistakes)

 

Besos,
Caro

Overestimating & underestimating the language learning journey

 

I remember reading a quote a while back of Bill Gates, that really got my attention:  “Most people overestimate what they can do in a year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.”

 

This quote is absolute perfection for someone learning a language.

 

It is not that we can’t learn a lot in a year, because we can. If I think about it, a year ago I could not speak any Italian at all, and now I can carry on a conversation about basic topics for over an hour. But imagine how much Italian I will know in nine more years? If I am consistent, I will be at an advanced level, maybe even fluent!

 

Right now 10 years seems like a very long time, but the reality is that 10 years goes by very quickly! And if we have learned anything so far in life, we know that it’s all about the journey, not the destination.

 

So the next time that you get discouraged, thinking that you’re not moving along fast enough in your language learning journey, take a moment to remember where you started and look forward to what is to come in the future!

 

Besos,
Caro