Hablar Espanol?

Learning another language is difficult. Every company that makes learning software wants to cash in on this difficulty, and each has its own method it believes will leave you speaking the language fluently.

I should know. I’ve tried a multitude of different methods in the past week to find one that will work. This year I’ve decided to learn Spanish. So that this new skill has an incentive, I’ve also decided to visit a Spanish speaking country this year (details will come later, naturally).

In the past week, I’ve exposed myself to Spanish through CDs, DVDs, books, flashcards on my phone, and even dictionaries. The problem with all of these methods is that when we first learn to speak our own language, everyone around us speaks that language. We hear it every waking moment, and if we don’t learn it, we are unable to communicate. I don’t come into contact with Spanish speaking people during the course of my day. I do have a Spanish speaking television station that I plan on checking out this week. That will have to suffice at this time.

I have learned what doesn’t work though. I can repeat nouns and verbs all I want, but I will not recall but maybe one word out of a hundred when the repetition is done. What is working so far is the Pimsleur method which teaches conversational Spanish. So now when I arrive in the Spanish speaking country, I can tell them non hablar espanol (I don’t speak Spanish), or hopefully by the time of the trip I can say hablar un poco espanol ( I speak a little Spanish). The drawback to this method is that I’ve learned how to speak a little Spanish, but I can’t read or write the words. I’ve had to look them up to add them to this writing.

I don’t know what the solution is, but I do know I will learn the language this year. I’ve always wanted to be able to speak a different language and in keeping with my list of discoveries for the year, I am going to jump right in and be at least somewhat bilingual.