Spanish lessons starting next week

Sunday, January 20. 2008

One of our neighbours here in Spain has been very kind and spoke to his Spanish teacher about taking on a couple of novices with the result being that next weekend we hopefully get our first lesson.

Spanish like any other language is best learned in a total immersion manner, we have proof of this, for a couple of years now we've been trying to learn Italian with a book and CD, and honestly if I was speak to an Italian they'd probably ask me to revert to English since they might understand me better.

Before we arrived in Germany we had done the same thing, try to learn from a book and CD, problem is, the dialect spoken by the older people in Düsseldorf is nothing like the standard German being taught, and the same thing when we were in Berlin. Basically what ended up happening is family and friends had to try hard to understand us, but after a while things got a lot easier because we were exposed to the language and could emulate local pronunciation, we can even understand Bavarians when we see them on TV, but we had to be there to really learn the language.
That's why we arrived in Spain not speaking a word of the language, a couple of Spaniards have commented we need to learn their language if we want to live here, and when we explain that's exactly why we are here, well, you should see the smiles on their faces. Too many expats don't bother, in fact some are even proud of living here and not speaking a word of the language.

For us this is just incredibly rude and disrespectful. We never expected anyone in Germany to speak English unless they wanted to practice, and towards the end we were quite comfortable having German friends and only socialising in German, and all that after only 9 months. Contrast that with over two years trying to learn Italian from a book and I still wouldn't be happy to open my mouth for fear of the wrong word being uttered.

Having said this though, we now feel really good about continuing to learn German by book and CD here in Spain having had the initial shove that we needed.

So next week we have an appointment with the school to sort out timetables, payment etc, and next weekend we get our first proper lesson. I'm sure we'll only be learning really basic stuff in the first few lessons but nevertheless we're looking forward to trying it out on a couple of Spanish people we've met who seem genuinely interested in getting to know us.
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in Carl's Journal   Comments (3)
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  1. Paul said,

    Sunday, January 20. 2008 at 05:05 (Reply)

    I agree that learning from a book or CD isn't the way to go. I think that books and CD's can help increase vocabulary after the fact, but my experience is that no one knows what the hell you're talking about. I remember when I got to Costa Rica after one month of book / CD learning. I couldn't even get a glass of water without people having to ask me three times.

    Another thing I've found is that people who deal with foreigners more often are usually easier to speak to / learn from. People who don't interact with foreigners very often tend to have a hard time picking up things through the accent. It's important to watch your pronunciation though as someone who understands what you mean might not say anything when you pronounce something wrong (like my wife to me), but other people will have no idea what you're saying. Try hard to pronounce things properly, and don't be afraid to ask someone to say a word again or write it down to practice. The best part of Spanish is that things sound just like their written for the most part. Learn the sounds of the letters and a few of the basic combinations and you're golden.

    Also, now that I understand a good deal of Spanish, I can half way understand Italian and French as well. I would guess that all three have strong Latin influence, so once you wrap your head around many of the words (a large number of which have a common relative in English) it becomes easier to understand all three. The wife and I are planning on learning Mandarin next for a trip to China. Now that should be a challenge.

  2. Carl said,

    Sunday, January 20. 2008 at 05:18 (Reply)

    I think the variety of English you natively speak also has an impact on learning a new language. Many Australian's (the other half included) just never seem to be able to pronounce things the way a local would.

    Similarly, many Americans I've met have that twang that is so prevalent in the US accents and never seem to be able to shake it even after years of living in a country that doesn't speak English.

    As for me, I used to sound very South African and after years of practising the Queen's English I think I have a better ability to sound Spanish. Of course the rest of the world might be too polite to say anything.

  3. Paul said,

    Monday, January 21. 2008 at 08:41 (Reply)

    Ditching an accent is always possible, it's just hard work. Some people like working on lessening their accent. Others are happy if people can understand them and stop there. It's taken a lot of work, and I have to concentrate to do it, but I can drastically lessen my accent. I usually only do it when people have a hard time understanding me, or when I'm practicing new words to make sure they're perfect. That being said, the accent in Spain is weird ;-)

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