Guest Post: Tilting At Windmills in the 21st Century

Hi! Hiding behind my anonymity as owld_skipper, I have leapt into the void created by Ali’s search for a little R-and-R. It wasn’t until I actually started to put some words together that I realized what a challenge being a fill-in blogger would be. I have been reading AliThinks for some time now, and I know what a personal thing her blog is. AliThinks is very much Ali, and she and I have very different histories and experiences. So, I wondered what I could write that would complement and add to what she has created.

One thing that Ali and I share is the experience of viewing North American life from the perspective of living in Europe. Eighteen months ago Ms. owld_s and I moved to Spain as part of her let’s-have-an-adventure project. I expected a different culture and a different way of life, and I haven’t been disappointed.

Where I have been disappointed is in my inability to master Spanish the way that I know Ali mastered French. I am nowhere even close to her kind of proficiency. Oh, I’ve taken some courses and I read the newspaper everyday (I can actually read more than I can speak) and I try to tune into some Spanish TV. The problem is that the spoken language comes into my ears as one long, continuous sound – one lonnnnng, continuous and meaningless sound. Sure, I can hear the lilt, the crisp vowels, the rolled ‘r’s, and the ‘c’s that are pronounced like ‘th’, I just can’t hear words.

What makes it worse is that if I speak a little bit of Spanish the person I am speaking to makes a leap of faith and assumes that I am “fluent”. They just speak more quickly and I just hear noise at a faster rate. ¡Que pena!

People tell me that I just have to keep plugging at it and one day it will seem like someone has thrown a switch and understanding will come flooding in. Hate to tell you this, but I’m still waiting for that day. Never mind though, I’ve found another class, a more relaxed slower-paced class, more in tune with the rhythms of life. Twice a week I meet with a really good teacher, three moms and their three one-year olds.

The theory is that the tots will play while the adults learn Spanish. The truth is that when the going gets tough, owld_s scoops one of the little guys up on his knee and helps them scribble all over his notes.  A very quixotic approach to the whole process, ¿no?

Comments

[bhd]

Nice!

[catheroo]

Learning a language is tough. Try as I might, I still cannot grasp Japanese. But I am good at Spanish. Do you know Japanese? Maybe we can do each other's homework!

[Margaret]

Learning a language is easy when young, and much harder when older. We lose that natural ability in our teens, and then it becomes hard work!

[Monty]

I was reminded earlier today by a friend from London that I don't speak English. Must be my accent.

[Monty]

Got any more windmills or one year olds lying around? I couldn't even get that into one comment. Sheesh.

[Thomas]

Japanese was one of the most fun languages to learn because of it's complete lack of commonality with any of the Romance Languages (i.e. Nihongo wa, totemo muzukashi kedo watashi no ichiban suki no gaigokugo to omete imasu.) I found that French was much, much harder to pick up and retain, so I would surmise that Spanish would be a bit of a challenge too.

Now Latin was a hoot. It was like learning all the behind-the-scenes secrets of the English language.

[barb]

oh, do I know this feeling!!

But what they tell you is right. Eventually it does come. I don't know if it came for me like a switch though. (I lived in Colombia for a year) I think just gradually I started understanding a larger and larger percentage of the words I was hearing. For example, when I first got to Colombia, I'd go to a meeting and everything sounded like this:

blabity blab blab blab derechos humanos blab blab blah. blabity blah, blah. gracias.

(you tend to hear words related to your field, or to whatever you do all the time, so I heard and understood "derechos humanos" very early on.)

and a few months later it'd sound like this:

blabity creo que tenemos que blab trabajando por derechos humanos blab blah. blabity blah, blah. gracias.

then this:

Ahora creo que tenemos que continuar trabajando por derechos humanos aunque sentimos blah. blabity unidos, blah. gracias.

and finally I understood this:

Ahora creo que tenemos que continuar trabajando por derechos humanos aunque sentimos que todo es perdido. Siguemos unidos en la lucha. gracias.

Just remember you have to hear a word X number of times before you remember it. I think it's something like 100 times. Every word. 100 times. And then you begin to recognize it when you hear it but you still don't incorporate into your own speech. And after 100 times more maybe you do start to use it. And then you've got it. You've got that word. That one word. Or phrase. And there are how many words/phrases in any given language? So the key is to listen and listen and listen. DON'T SPEAK ENGLISH! No English! NO, NO, NO!!! Go away from your wife, if you can't resist the temptation to speak English to her. Do NOT let anyone speak English to you. You have to train your brain to think in new channels and that's really hard. Especially the older you are. I wouldn't concentrate so much on classes as just on going out there and listening to people speak. Watch the tele. When you know no one's going to ask you how much you understood. When no one cares. Then you relax and when you're not nervous about it, you understand more.

One final thing. At some point you start to listen for phrases instead of individual words. When you can do that your fluency will go up noticeably. Stop hearing individual words. Train your ear to hear phrases: tenemos que. creo que. me da pena. el me dijo... me estas diciendo.... me entiendes?

Those are just a coupla things that I noticed when I was learning the language. poco a poco. escucha, escucha todo el tiempo y no tenga nada de hacer con el ingles! nada, nada! es mucho trabajo pero lo puedes hacerlo!

[newwavegurly]

Though I've had no Spanish language classes other than in high school, I find that I understand a lot more than I can actually speak. Part of that comes from having lived in South Florida, and hearing Spanish spoken aroundme quite a bit.

Hebrew... that's a tough language. And the sad thing is, there are very FEW words I actually remember the meaning of anymore. I can read it just fine, I know the phonics of the language. I just don't have much of a vocabulary in it.