What a week it has been!!!

Ups and downs of Language learning

Crazy, crazy, busy week.  I’ve been doing projects at work and almost all my time has been devoted to them.  I love the projects, but it has meant a lot of things have been put to lower levels, including this blog.  I’ve missed it a lot.  There is so much good that comes out of this blog. I truly do hope that I can help others learn languages.  I don’t try to give false expectations on what it does and doesn’t take as a language learner, but I hope to give small advice and encouragement.

All that said, this blog helps me more than I think I help others.  It helps me organize my thoughts, set a game plan and be accountable for what I say I am going to do.  I’m not always successful, but I hope this blog helps keep me going even when things get the hardest.

Since it has been almost a week since I have been able to be on to write, I thought I would give a little summary of the ups and downs of my week.  Despite not being able to write, I have had many an opportunity to feel good and bad.  So here they are.

The Ups

Despite my business, I have kept a solid learning routine.

What to do when you can’t do anything

Miles Davis knows a lot about language learning. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I often talk about the various things I like to do that fit my current situation in life.  I usually practice speaking during my 45 minute commute to and from work.  During work, I listen to Spanish radio and podcasts.  When I am home, I will the use some program that is computer based to supplement what I am learning through those two methods.  It’s a great routine and it has worked great for me.

Some of you may be thinking, “Sounds great for you, but I don’t have all that available.  I don’t have an audio course to use or a podcast to listen to.  I don’t have a software program to help me out.  Even if I did, I don’t have the freedom to do all that at work or on my commute like you do.”  I feel for ya.  We can’t control what life throws at us, but we can make the best of what we have and run with it.   Specifically, I have learned a couple little tricks that require no outside material except your brain.

SYL

In case you don’t know I am a big fan of SYL or Speak Your Language.  

Chancing upon a Native Speaker

Salt Lake City (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I have learned 2 languages, not counting English, in 2 very different situations.  I learned Thai as a 19-20 year old missionary for my church in Thailand.  I HAD to learn and my ability to be a missionary would have been very limited without being able to speak Thai.

On the other hand, I chose Spanish because it’s something I have always wanted to learn.  I don’t NEED to know it.  In fact, it’s hard for my to find a normal opportunity to converse with someone in Spanish even though I live in a semi-Spanish speaking country.  I am also learning it as a full-time working father of 4 kids.  To say that the two experiences are not the same would be the understatement of the year.

The Biggest Difference

The biggest difference for me has been how I handle finding a native speaker

Software Review

Recently I had a great opportunity to review a software program that would be beneficial for anyone learning to speak another language. My software review is over at womenlearnthai.com.  So go check it out by clicking the picture below:

3 months and counting

Language (Photo credit: Jan Marlyn Reesman)

Last post I talked about which languages I’m not learning next year.  This means that there only 3 left that I could be possible learning.  Once again, for full disclosure, I’ve already chosen the language.  I know which one I learning, I just trying to build a little drama around the pick I guess.  On that note, don’t forget to take the poll on which language you think I will learn next.

Also on the right you will notice a big old count down calendar.  Thanks to a comment that was left of my fake post, I realized I had the year in wrong and now it’s counting down properly.  Not only are there 3 languages left, but there are 3 months left.  3 months to get as fluent as I can.  So I have reprioritized myself and set some goals to get me through the next 3 months.

More Speaking off the cuff

I have spent a good deal of my time, inadvertently  practicing my speaking in a very structured manner.

It’s so hard to say goodbye…..to another language

English: Flag of Portuguese language of Portugal-Brazil (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It’s the end of the month and time to get rid of another language.  Each language I drop gets harder and harder to remove, but it’s not like I can effectively learn 8 or 9 languages at once!  It’s not like I am saying goodbye forever, I will be coming back to these languages eventually.  It’s still hard to say that this language or that didn’t make it to the end.  Okay, no more stalling:

And the next language to be removed is:

Portuguese! Yeah I know I have just gotten rid of all the romance languages now.  

Reading Thai Newspapers

Starting this blog has put me in contact with some fantastic people who help me as I go about learning and improving the languages I speak.  One of those people is Catherine Wentworth, the creator of womenlearnthai.com.  Recently we had a fantastic opportunity to talk about reading.  We discussed the benefits of not stopping to look up every word.  Reading, not fast, but naturally.  The brain learns and understands differently than if we stop every other word to look up the meaning and grammar of each word we don’t know.

This conversation helped me change how I practice reading.  When I read Spanish, I use a program called Learning with Text.  You can find out more about how to use it here at this website.  Learning with texts, allows me to take real Spanish I find on the web, put it in the program and as I find words and phrases I need to look up, it helps me to quickly do so.

Prior to my conversations with Catherine, I used to spend a lot of time laboring over each word to make sure I got the correct nuance.  Now I read the same text a couple of times.  First without stopping, but without skipping any words.  Then I go back and look up words I don’t know, but still trying to not to stop very long.  I then read it again without stopping.  Once I feel I got a B, or in other words I understand about 80 percent of it.  Then I go on to a new text.  It’s been a fantastic system

Reading Thai

This week is Thai week and my goal this week was to improve,

Go for a “B”

Image from Wikimedia commons

In high school, I was pretty lazy.  I was plenty smart, and I’m not saying that as a brag, but I was lazy.  For example,  I took the ACT (SAT of the Western United states) without studying and got good enough score to get into a University.  I never took it again, because of that.  I also knew how many “easy A’s” I could get and their fore how many C’s to get so I would get B average.

When I went to University, something about paying for it myself, made me grow up and I got an A- average.   The study habits a created in University has helped me as I now learn Spanish on my own.  I learned how to “study everywhere” and to take advantage of the minutes of free time I find.  It has been a fantastic experience to go to University, but one thing I learned there held me back for a while.

How could it hold you back?

When at University, I learned not to accept less than the best I could possible do.

The Myth of Fossilized Errors

psiloceras planorbis (Ammonite Fossil) (Photo credit: cobalt123)

Even though I have my own blog about language learning, I don’t think I know it all.  I search and read and learn from other blogs out there.  I love reading the experience of others so I can take what I like and use it to improve the way I learn.  Everybody learns a bit differently but you can always get, at least, inspiration from others.

Fossilized Errors

Out there in the blogosphere, It’s common for me to read about “fossilized errors.”  It gives this horrible impression of dead fossils stuck in stone.  If you are not careful and “Speak too much, too Soon,”  then you are going to get these fossilized errors, like it something that just becomes permanent.

What is a fossilized error?  It’s a habit.  That’s all it is.  I know habits can be hard to break, but by calling it a “fossilized error” it creates this scary thing that makes it so people are scared to talk at all.  Language learning is hard enough, don’t make it harder on yourself by creating monsters in your closet that don’t exist.

A real example of a “fossilized error.”

In English, there are two words that a large number speakers, both native and non-native, mix up.  They are ‘good’ and ‘well.’  Good is an adjective and Well is an adverb.  To speak properly, you don’t use ‘good’ to describe an action, only a noun.  Or in other words, you can speak well or be a good speaker, but you can’t speak good.

Up until recently, I commonly made this mistake ALL THE TIME.  My wife hated it.  Every day, she would correct my “horrible American grammar.”  This fossilized mistake, that I had used almost all my 30 years of life, I corrected in about a week.  Why?  Because it was a habit and that’s it!  I won’t use the phrase fossilized errors in this blog.  I will only call them what they are: habits.

How not form bad habits

You still need to avoid getting into bad habits.  How do you do that?  Always be trying to get better! Don’t became complacent with where you are.  No matter how good or not at the language you are, never accept that you are “good enough.”  Don’t get down on yourself, just always be ready to improve.

Back from my “Thai” Vacation

Last week was Thai week.  It was great.  I listened to Thai TV, especially a very interesting hour all about Taxi driver’s not legally being able to reject passengers without a valid reason, and I read and practice speaking in Thai.  It’s great to have this monthly vacation from Spanish.  Eventually you work yourself so hard you get frustrated and you wonder if you are making any progress.  Today, I felt my Spanish is the best it has ever been, and I did not actively learn Spanish for over a week!

Despite last week being about Thai, I still found a fantastic tool that I want to share with you to help you learn Spanish.  What is this tool you may ask?  It’s a website called Duolingo.

What is Duolingo?

The best way to answer that is to watch this video:

It’s a win/win situation.  They get more people to translate, which the more people who translate, the better their translation is, and you get to learn Spanish.  Functionally it is a great program.  If this was your only method of learning Spanish, you would be lacking a lot.  As a complement to your other programs out there, it is great.  You can test out of subjects and levels you already know, which lets you move on quicker to the subjects you don’t know as well.

The vocabulary builds on itself, so you need to learn basic animals and clothing before you learn colors.  Why?  Because you will be taught using sentences such as gray elephants drank water or I have a red hat.  So you are constantly reviewing old vocab as you study new ones.  Don’t worry if you learned plumo instead of bolígrafo.  It will accept any answer for “Pen” that exists.

Four more months!

As of this month, I only have 4 more months of Active Spanish left.  I really need to get down and push myself hard.  I have turned my Google Chrome immersion tool to “fluent” so that it translates whole paragraphs now.  I sometimes feel like I am way off, but I know that If I push myself hard enough I will make my goal to be basically fluent in speaking by the end of the year.

So four more months and you will hear me Speaking a new language.  What is that language going to be?  It’s one of those 4 on the right.  Which one would like to learn?  Vote now and share which one you would like to learn.

Related articles

• Want2SpeakThai’s Greatest hits (want2speakthai.com)
• Nulu: A useful tool for learning Spanish (want2speakthai.com)
• Reading is even more Fundamental (want2speakthai.com)