Recursos/Resources - PRACTIQUEMOS

This is a great resource! It's free, simple, and gives clear explanations. Mini-lessons like this help establish the foundation of the language. They also help avoid common errors.

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¡Este es un gran recurso! Es gratis, simple, y explica todo con claridad. Mini-lecciones de este tipo ayudan a establecer las fundaciones del idioma. También ayudan a evitar los errores comunes.

http://www.practiquemos.com/ 

You can subscribe to the Youtube channel. / Se puede suscribirse al canal de Youtube. 

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVMjfqNdDN-MoH0LRjZUFkA

Follow on Facebook. / O sigue Facebook. 

https://www.facebook.com/PRACTIQUEMOS

The Path to Knowledge

This graph (stolen from Twitter) illustrates my experience studying Spanish as a second language. The first three years of college were fun, with zero fluency and little usefulness. Since I was constantly learning and improving, I had a blast.

At the end of six years as I was finishing a Bachelor's, I felt like I could conquer the world in Spanish. I knew just enough to be a hazard. I had some great opportunities that I wasn't qualified for, and I did them anyway.

Then I started a Master's degree. Right away it really began to sink in how little I knew, and how much is left to learn. I have officially returned full circle to the "I know nothing" phase. Now is the time to either give up, or resolve to be a student of the language for the rest of my life. I have chosen the latter.

I share this because I was totally unprepared for the stage I'm in now. I didn't think the learning curve would feel like going downhill. I don't feel like an expert. I thought I would have an invincible level of confidence by now. I hoped I would be more fluent too. I miss the excitement of the first few years. But would I go back now? No way. My optimism was not totally misplaced. I can do things now that I couldn't back then, but I also have a better awareness of my own skills as they relate to my limitations. It's been a huge reminder that perfection was not the goal in the first place.

No matter what stage you are in today - enjoy it! Maximize your strengths. Don't stop working because you don't feel instant gratification. Find ways to measure and recognize your progress. Be realistic about your weaknesses. Study on, because if you haven't figured it out by now, languages are as infinite as the creativity of the human mind. You will never finish, so let that be your inspiration to keep going.

The Human Connection

Back to School

This great cartoon by Tom Gauld is a reminder for all students - read the book!  

If you're studying a foreign language, then in addition to following all the other good advice you hear, you should also read as much as possible in your target language. Reading is slow. At first it feels ridiculously difficult. "At first" meaning for a long time... it won't be easy.

When I say "book" I'm not just talking about tackling Don Quixote, or the fancy-sounding classics. When you are able, dive in to a big book. Go for it! Keep in mind, however, that fiction is difficult to comprehend. The art of fiction relies on creativity and subtlety. Find your level. Don't despise the small start. Read news articles, short stories, or magazine articles. (Pictures help!) Read about familiar subjects that already interest you. Read bilingual children's books. Seriously.

Time spent reading is never wasted. You're absorbing vocabulary, sentence structures, and subtleties that you may not catch at listening speed. You're also seeing correct spelling, grammar, and details that disappear when speaking. If a movie or a summary helps you understand context and storyline, that's okay. But remember that there is no substitute for reading.

How to Keep Calm and Carry On

Q. Are you going to make mistakes as you learn a second language?

A. Is the Pope Catholic?

I hope language teachers everywhere noticed this story: Pope Francis accidentally slipped and said a rather vulgar word while speaking at the Vatican.

My favorite part of the video is that he handled it like a pro. He literally did not even blink. He corrected the error, and kept speaking. Speaking of errors in high places, remember George W. Bush having issues with his native language?  And let’s not forget that Barack Obama choked during the oath of office. Speaking a foreign language might make you hyper sensitive to your mistakes, but you probably haven't paid much attention to how often you slip up in your native language. It happens! And people probably aren't judging you for it like you are judging yourself. 

The fear of these mistakes can wake up in new ways as you grow in a language, and as your opportunities to use it increase. If you let it, that fear will undo all the progress you make studying. Fear will send you back to where you started out. The only way forward is to accept mistakes as part of the process. Have a strategy (or strategery) in mind. You have lots of options: Correct yourself. Apologize if necessary. Do nothing and keep going. Laugh. But remember, it’s not a big deal if you don’t make it a big deal.

Embarrassing mistakes happen to the best of us. Many leaders have made hilarious, humiliating errors on the world stage that will be memorialized forever on YouTube. They kept going because they have bigger things on their minds, like wars, economies, and policies. These errors are small things. As for the Pope, I’d love to know if he had a good laugh about this later. I have a feeling he might have. 

Cultural Encounters - Have you fallen for a single story?

This is a great TED talk, where writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie explains the danger of the assumptions we make based on a single story. Anecdotes from her experiences show show both sides of seeing and being seen as "a single story." This is an interesting, crucial, and sometimes unspoken area of learning a foreign language. 

Since I can't say it any better than her, here are a few quotes:

"Show a people as one thing, as only one thing over and over again, and that is what they become...  

The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. 

They make one story become the only story." 

"It is impossible to engage properly with a place or a person without engaging with all of the stories of that place and that person. 
The consequence with the single story is this: it robs people of dignity." 

"Stories matter. Many stories matter.
 Stories have been used to dispossess and to malign. But stories can also be used to empower and to humanize.
 Stories can break the dignity of a people, but stories can also repair that broken dignity." 

As you study a language, listen not just for morphemes and dialects, but also for the stories of the people you encounter, and for the many stories that make up a culture. A single story is never enough.