Dec
12
The Spanish learner’s manifesto
Tips, advice and words of encouragement related to learning and improving one’s Spanish are some of the recurring themes here at Voices en Español. That’s why I think the Linguist’s manifesto is a fabulous idea. It’s kind of like a mission statement for language learners. Here’s a sample passage:
Nunca diré que no soy bueno. Cuando leo y escucho me diré a mi mismo, “buen trabajo”, aun si hay partes que no son siempre claras. Cuando trate de pronunciar el nuevo lenguaje y cometa errores, no me importara. Yo sé que estoy mejorando en forma natural. Siempre seré consecuente conmigo mismo. Trataré de no estar nervioso. Si cometo un error diré “No importa”. Si olvido una palabra diré “No importa”. Si tengo un problema diciendo lo que quiero decir, diré “No importa”. Yo seguiré adelante hasta que hable en forma FLUIDA.
There’s also a podcast recording of this manifesto that you can find on iTunes. Just do a search for “The Linguist” in the educational podcasts category. A fun and useful exercise is reading the text out loud while listening to the podcast. That’s an excellent way to work on pronunciation since you can check what you’re saying immediately against what the native speaker is saying. (In this case, the speaker is a woman from Colombia.)
But even if you don’t do that, having something like this manifesto at hand, either in written form (like a print out) or in audio form (on your mp3 player), could be just the little bit of encouragement you need to keep up with your Spanish studies.
Eleena,
I’m really enjoying the blog and podcasts – very well done and helpful for someone who is trying to learn Spanish. This “Spanish learner’s manifesto” is especially insightful – today in my Spanish class, it seemed like we students were so busy trying not to be wrong, that it got in the way of our learning. I think that there’s a time – even during a difficult grammar lesson – that you need to sit back and relax and trust that you can’t force it right now and that it might come to you later.
I have a theory that we could all speak a second language much better after drinking one glass of wine. Before the first glass, we’re nervous about making fools of ourselves and after two or three, some of us even have trouble with our own language!
Hey Mark,
I’d agree that some of the best “Ah ha!” moments in studying Spanish happen outside the classroom when you’re not even in “learning mode.” You overhear somebody using a phrase or verb tense that dogged you in the past, and then it’s like a light bulb goes off and you say, “Now I get it!”
A few years ago I remember asking a couple different Spanish people how to say “go with the flow” in Spanish. They’d ask, “well what does that mean?” And I told them that it kind of meant to relax, to stay cool and not get uptight about stuff all rolled into one phrase. Well, you can imagine that for some people that explanation just confused them even more. Several people told me just to say “relajarse” or “tranquilo” or “tranquilizarse” which all mean to relax or to calm down, but that wasn’t really the precise meaning I was going for.
Then one day, totally out of the blue, one of my Spanish co-workers said “dejate llevar” to a student who was very nervous and kept tensing up during a group activity, and I was like Yes! That’s the phrase I’ve been looking for! So it popped up when I wasn’t even looking for it.
By the way, I like your glass of wine theory and have put it into practice a few times myself!