How to learn Spanish
Here I am, on my way to Argentina in November, and I have not learned Spanish. I have not really applied myself to it.
I forget who it was but someone, perhaps in a story, had to learn the contents of a book. He slept with the book under his pillow with the idea that he would learn in his sleep. He did learn that easily, as I remember.
Well, I have not even gone that far.
A dear friend kindly sent me about fifty Spanish language CD's. What a windfall. Any excuse I have for not immersing myself in Spanish certainly doesn't come from a lack of Spanish-learning materials.
I say I don't have the time, and yet I find the time to eat and to do everything Heaven-related! My feeling is always that the issue is never time as it is never money – or almost never. But what am I waiting for?
I did try playing one of the CD's over and over again, as suggested, and it got so I just couldn't stand the lady's voice any longer. I had to turn it off and have never been able to turn it on again.
There are two sites I have discovered that I like very much. The first one I'll tell you about is www.freerice.com/index.php This is simply Spanish words, not syntax. It's kind of mindless. When I go to the site and do it, it's addictive.
Every time you get a right answer, you get a little harder question. For every answer you get right, this site donates 10 grains of rice to the United Nations World Food Program to feed people who are hungry. Every time you get 5 right, 50 grains. This is reason enough to play this game.
When you get an answer wrong, all that happens is you get an easier question.
Here's a sample:
la computadora means:
.
Incidentally, 16,259,460 grains of rice were donated yesterday!
As I said, this is addictive. Once I actually start playing this game, I don't want to stop. But to get me started is another story.
Of course, I ask myself daily: What more motivation do I need to learn Spanish?
The answer I get though is: I don't know how to fit learning Spanish in.
Until this morning, my computer was down. A cut in the fiber optic again. So I am way behind, and there are LOTS of things to take care of.
So, if it's okay, I'll tell you about the second site tomorrow which I was going to tell you about today. This site is also very generous in a different way.
Meanwhile, I'm going to put one of those CD's under my pillow.
How I love the idea of waking up and being conversant in Spanish!
Comments
Dearest Gloria, you had suggested I put my response to your email of last week on the forums. I wasn’t sure where, so I selected here. I had been away at a medical conference cruise in Alaska. I will give a short series of impressions about this cruise.
What a wonderful experience! Alaska is so beautiful. Even the whales we watched seemed to know we were watching them. They did antics (for our pleasure?) that I imagine they don’t do much on their own. One killer whale smacked its tail three times prior to one of its dives. Several babies kept jumping to the boatload of viewers’ oohs and aws! I could go on and on about these exquisite creatures!
We rode on a dogsled on the Mendenhall glacier. Boy, do those dogs love to pull and run! The drivers have to tie the sleds to a pole to keep the dogs from running with the sled when the drivers want to rest. One lead dog wanted to run so badly as we rested that he kept leaping forward into the air with his harness snapping him back to the snow. He was doing everything he knew how to do to get us started again. You feel the enthusiasm and joy of these dogs pulling for all they are worth as your sled glides through the snow!
I think a cruise is really just a boatload of people waiting to answer any request you have as soon as they are aware of it. There is so much to appreciate about this experience. The medical conferences were wonderful, too. Such a pleasant way to learn!
I am having some difficulty with my original idea of using the 15 chapters and Personal Questions to God Forums as an introduction to Heavenletters. The main problem is that the questioners are mostly people already familiar with Heavenletters and Godwriting. This makes it difficult to use the way I initially intended without a lot of editing. Editing doesn’t seem appropriate in this setting, though. I do not know how to fix this problem at this point so I am just giving the matter more thought.
Love to all……Chuck
Dear Chuck, thank you very much.
Glad you had a great trip, and glad you're back! I too visited in Alaska some years ago. I have a nephew who lives in Fairbanks.
Re the book, it will find its way. I've gone through what you did many many times Thank you so much.
You might want to post about the projected book on the forum because there are more people there who have been following this saga, I believe.
God bless you.
With love,
Gloria
The best way to learn Spanish is to think in Spanish! I will speak Spanish with you on the road trip and it will all come naturally.
"Ahora estoy de conduccion. Por favor me preparar un cafe ricisimo!"
You will be my guide? You would like me to prepare some coffee for you? Gladly!
Of course, we don't know that you will be served the exact coffee you requested!
Ricsimo? I should throw in a few grains of free rice perhaps?!!
I have some generic advice about learning languages. I taught English to Vietnamese workers at Tan Son Nhut air base as one of my volunteer activities during my tour in Vietnam. I spoke very little Vietnamese at the time. The results of my efforts, though amazed me. My students, after three months of twice weekly two hour classes spoke good conversational English, and with MY accent. That was a hoot!
Here is what I learned that may help you learn to speak Spanish. First and foremost, One is absolutely correct, far and away the best way to learn a language is speaking to someone who speaks it fluently. Here is the insight: do not read the language at all if you can avoid it while you are learning it! I did not write ANY English words for my students in my English classes. When you read a language, you automatically begin to translate what you read into your native tongue and this tremendously inhibits learning. What I did with my students was say a given English word and demonstrate it through actions or drawing pictures of it until the class could identify the concept and mimic my voice sounds in response. This connection became quick and easy and automatic in just a few seconds! Once learned it stuck. So we just built new concepts to add on each class. And we all had fun.
Another insight. You cannot learn any concept from just one example of it. It is necessary for the teacher or teaching program to provide at least two examples so that the mind can develop the concept. As you hear the same sound associated with examples of the same concept your mind will form the concept and associate the language’s sound effortlessly.
Learning a language for adults is often hard because most teachers put you into the translation mode and inhibit our natural learning process. Of all the teaching programs out there, it seems Rosetta Stone comes closest to incorporating these insights, but I was a little disappointed when I sampled a lesson and saw that they still incorporated the written words as part of their learning sessions. Maybe someone from that company will read this and improve their product further
Hope this helps……Chuck
Beloved Chuck,
Your insights are fabulous!
Loving you,
Gloria