Learning Spanish

Over thirty years ago I spent a year at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid – my junior year abroad. Over the years I lost most of what I had learned. I made attempts to keep up, but mostly to no avail. When my children began to take Spanish lessons in middle school; I decided to bring it back, and actually get good at Spanish this time. That was almost nine years ago. Since then I’ve been working on improving my Spanish, mostly half-heartedly. I could get by; I could almost understand ‘las noticias de la televisión.’

It became a minor focus of my life. I’d pickup a throw-away newspaper, some of them good like “Tiempos del Mundo,” others dreadful. Occasionally I’d pick-up El Pais, or read ABC online. I’d watch Telemundo y Univisión; but that didn’t last too long, the news was at an inconvenient time, the soaps were over the top, and confusing to boot. I learned later that many of them are produced in Brazil in Portuguese and dubbed, which explained my confusion - the lips didn’t match the sounds; my ear and eyes went into over-drive trying to resolve the discrepancy. The variety shows were pre-Ed Sullivan.

I was too unfocused to pull out the grammar books. I had 501 Verbs in Spanish, a few good dictionaries spread around the house, and a Franklin electronic dictionary I kept in my bag. At various times I’d concentrate on reading, phases, listening; it was all an unorganized jumble, and for the most part unproductive. I did make progress, my reading improved, even my listening abilities improved; but it wasn’t quite enough. It was slow. I guess I assumed that I’d learn through osmosis.

Next I discovered Destinos, a beginner’s language course in the format of a telenovela (Spanish soap opera). It’s a great series; click the Destinos link to learn more. It was advanced beginners so I didn’t learn much, but I could understand it; it was a big boost. I began to understand with what I was struggling. I knew about my problems with grammar; it was the struggle to understanding that was frustrating. I guess I understood intellectually that I was trying to learning Spanish by listening and reading from all the different countries of the Spanish speaking world, but when I could understand Destinos clearly I knew there was hope. Simply put it helped, I watched it for a while just for the pleasure of understanding everything.

This is only the beginning of the story of my adventures learning Spanish, next time I'll tell you ablout exploring podcasts and intercambios.

Logo Courtesy of Universidad Completense de Madrid
http://www.ucm.es/

Destinos Photo courtesy of Annenberg Media
http://www.learner.org/resources/series75.html