Bodybuilders are very familiar with the phenomenon of the muscle plateau: you continue working every bit as hard as you ever have, but progress seems to slow and occasionally, backpedal. For whatever reason, you just aren’t building muscle anymore and it seems as though you’re working awfully hard merely running in place. While bodybuilding is one field where this phenomenon is widely known, the occasional plateau will frustrate students of any discipline. It happens to guitarists, cyclists, intellectuals, and yes, even Spanish language learners.
Switch It Up To Push Through To The Other Side
Fortunately, the solution to a plateau in almost any discipline is the same: change it up. What do bodybuilders do when they are no longer seeing the gains they once were? They change their routine, attacking their muscles from completely different angles often tricks the body into building muscle again. This makes perfect sense when you consider the reason for the plateau in the first place was that your body had adapted to having the same stress placed on it day after day, week after week. A new workout introduces new stresses, stresses your body is completely unprepared to handle. Hence, muscle growth resumes.
The same idea can work for you when your Spanish efforts reach a plateau. The reason for the plateau is that your mind has become accustomed to the same old stimulation over and over again. It’s not that what you’ve been doing isn’t effective, it’s just that you’ve saturated your brain from that particular angle for now. The solution, as with bodybuilding, is to change it up.
If you’ve been focusing on grammar drills using the FSI program, for example, put that program down for a week or two and focus on beefing up your listening or reading skills. A good Spanish read will reinforce the vocabulary you’ve already learned and expose you to new vocabulary you probably wouldn’t come across in a typical grammar book.
Similarly, if you’ve been using a program like Pimsleur or Rosetta Stone that minimizes the importance of grammar drills and you’ve reached an impasse, it might be worth it to pick up a quality grammar workbook like Marcial Prado’s Advanced Spanish Grammar or my all-time favorite Spanish grammar workbook, Dorothy Richmond’s Practice Makes Perfect: Spanish Verb Tenses
This brief interlude can make all the difference in the world between advancing your Spanish to the next level and struggling with a demoralizing plateau. Besides, if learning Spanish becomes a boring chore, you’ll probably stop doing it. Switching things up a bit can help out with that aspect, as well.
Developing Spanish listening skills is one of the most difficult skills to acquire, second only to speaking the language in everyday conversation. Learning to read and write in Spanish is relatively easy because you have plenty of time to look up new vocabulary words in your Spanish dictionary and reread difficult passages. Understanding the language as it is spoken in the real world, however, is extremely difficult for two primary reasons.
- Spanish is usually spoken very quickly
- Native speakers tend to slur words together, blurring their boundaries
That said, there are several steps you can take that will dramatically improve your listening skills over time.
How To Develop Spanish Listening Skills
Of course, the best way to improve your listening skills is to engage in actual conversations with native Spanish speakers. Unfortunately, most of us don’t have a lot of opportunities to do that on a daily basis (although you probably do have some opportunities). Barring real-life interaction, here are a few ways to improve your comprehension.
- Watching Spanish Talk Shows On Television – Most major cities have at least one Spanish television station. Talk shows in particular offer excellent listening practice because they tend to feature real people speaking naturally, in contrast to the exaggerated speech on most soap operas.
- Watching Spanish Movies – Watching Spanish movies is a great way to hear a variety of accents spoken in a (mostly) natural manner.
- Listening To Spanish Radio – Okay, most disc jockey’s take care to speak slowly and clearly enough to be easily understood by everybody, so the radio isn’t the best way to hear Spanish spoken in its natural setting. However, the radio is also the most available source of listening practice since you can do it every day on your way to work.
Last week, I wrote that Spanish language classes suck and are a waste of money, advocating instead that you spend your money on a quality self-study course such as Rosetta Stone or Pimsleur. While I fully stand behind that advice, it was mostly tailored towards the group class format found in high schools, colleges, and most language learning schools. There is one form of Spanish class I whole-heartedly recommend, however, and that is the immersion class format.
Spanish Language Immersion Class
Spanish immersion classes are among the very best, and most expensive, methods of learning Spanish. A good immersion class forces you to learn to actually think and converse in the language rather than just memorize vocabulary and grammar rules. Immersion classes are generally small and led by an instructor who communicates in only the target language, in this case Spanish. While grammar is of course covered, the focus of the program is on verbal communication. At first, you will probably find yourself struggling to understand what’s going on, but you will quickly acclimate to the fast-paced learning environment and make huge advances in less time than you thought possible.
What To Look For In An Immersion Class
Since immersion classes are so expensive (often $100-200 per week, plus airfare and accommodations), it is important to shop around. The only school I have direct experience with is Enforex, which I can highly recommend and has many schools scattered throughout Spain and Latin America, but there are literally dozens of reputable schools in almost any Spanish-speaking city you’d care to visit. It’s really up to you and exactly what you really want out of the program, but there are a few characteristics you should look for to make sure you get the most for your money.
- A maximum of 4-6 students per class – The smaller the class size, the more individual attention you’ll get. While one-on-one tutoring is best, it’s also prohibitively expensive. Classes of 2-3 students represent the best value for your money with 6 students being the upper limit. Any more than that and the instruction starts to suffer.
- At least 4 hours of class per day – Since you’re going to spend all this money to travel to a foreign country to learn Spanish, you should commit a serious chunk of your time to the task. Four hours per day of intensive immersion classes will be enough to dramatically improve your Spanish language skills in just one or two weeks’ time whereas two hours per day probably won’t be. In fact, if you are already at a relatively advanced level, four hours per day for two weeks is probably enough to get you at or at least very close to fluency.
- Located in a Spanish-speaking city – It’s probably possible to find a good Spanish language immersion class in the U.S., but you will get so much more out of the experience if you study overseas since it will give you practically unlimited practice time after class to solidify what you’ve learned. Obviously, it’s better to leave class for a Spanish-speaking bar than an English-speaking one if the goal is to learn Spanish. Besides, a vacation never hurt anyone!
- Multiple locations with references listed – This may just be me being paranoid, but I feel more comfortable sticking to the larger, more-reputable companies like Enforex. I’m certain there are plenty of quality mom-and-pop schools out there, but there are probably also plenty of rip-offs. A good rule of thumb is if they don’t have any former students listed as references (with contact information), it’s probably best to give it a pass. Most of the more reputable schools will be happy to provide references, so there’s no point skipping this step.
How many among you took Spanish language classes for 2, 3, even 4 years in high school and can’t even order a pizza? I know I certainly fell into that group after 2 years of high school Spanish. Another year in college helped a bit if only because of the extra practice required by the increased workload, but even after getting an A in my intermediate Spanish conversation class, I could barely manage more than the basics in a real-life conversation.
Oh sure, by that point I knew the grammar and a decent amount of “standard” vocabulary, but I couldn’t string them together to utter a coherent sentence for the life of me. As it turns out, my experience was far from unique. In fact, I don’t believe I’ve ever met a single person who managed to learn any language fluently in a classroom.
Why Spanish Language Classes Are A Waste Of Money
Since Spanish language classes are far from cheap, it makes sense to seriously weigh the benefits and pitfalls of learning Spanish in a classroom before shelling out your hard-earned money. As it turns out, there are tons of pitfalls, including…
- Not enough individual attention – Most Spanish classes in school have between 20-30 students. Obviously, there is no way the teacher is going to be able to give anybody individual attention during the few hours per week the class is in session.
- You go at the slowest person’s pace – In a class-room setting, you are limited to advancing at the pace of the slowest learner in the room, or at least a pace the majority of students can follow. That’s fine if you happen to be the slowest learner, but otherwise it will impede your progress. Eventually, you’ll get bored by the lack of challenging material and tune everything out. Once this happens, you can pretty much guarantee you aren’t going to learn anything. Smaller classes limited to just 4 or 5 people can mitigate this problem to a large extent, but will obviously be much more expensive.
- Most class time is wasted on unimportant details – Sure grammar is important, but it shouldn’t comprise 90% of your learning effort like it does in most Spanish classes these days. An effective class would focus 80% on conversational ability, 10% on grammar, and 10% on vocabulary. These are just rough estimates, but it illustrates the point that while grammar is nice, it won’t help you speak. My own experience proves this: after 3 years of Spanish, I had an advanced knowledge of Spanish grammar but only a beginners ability to converse in the language. Additionally, out of a 1 hour class period, how much of that time is actually spent learning and not on administrative concerns such as taking roll, handing out papers, etc? I’d guess less than 40 minutes.
- Simply not enough exposure to the language – The biggest problem with Spanish language classes is that they only meet for 3-5 hours per week, with perhaps another 1-2 hours or so of homework in between. That simply isn’t enough exposure to learn the language effectively and advance at a decent pace. And as mentioned above, most of the time you are in class is wasted on things that won’t actually help you speak the language.
In my opinion, the quickest and most effective way to learn Spanish is on your own time using high-quality Spanish language courses such Rosetta Stone, Pimsleur, or FSI. For those on a budget or who just don’t want to invest that much money, it’s still possible, albeit much more difficult, to learn Spanish for less than $50 without ever stepping foot in a classroom.
One of the oldest and most time-honored way to learn Spanish is the “phrase method.” The phrase method is simply where you memorize a long list of common phrases related to activities like asking for the bathroom, ordering dinner, reserving a hotel room, etc. There are many excellent and extremely inexpensive resources revolving around this method (1001 Most Useful Spanish Words
Context Is Important
The primary reason you can’t learn Spanish using the phrase method alone is that it lacks context. The human brain is amazingly adept at retaining information that has some meaning in relation to something else. That is, remembering the phrase “¿Donde está el baño?” is going to be far easier if you really, really have to pee or the phrase appears within the context of a funny anecdote. That way, whenever you have to use the restroom you will associate that experience with the correct Spanish phrase and vice versa. This is a stupidly-simple example, but the principle is clear, I think.
Don’t get me wrong, I highly recommend the phrase method as a great way to expand your Spanish vocabulary on the side, but it should not be your primary method of study. Your primary method should ideally be a structured program such as FSI, Pimsleur, or Rosetta Stone that guides you all the way from a beginner to the advanced stages. After all, you aren’t the first person to want to learn Spanish. It’s been done before, and there are certain techniques that have been shown to be more effective than others. Basing your studies around a good, well-researched, structured program will save you both time and money over the long run. Contrast this with the haphazard nature of the phrase method. Sure, you’ll learn a little bit and may even be impressed by your progress at first. But there is nothing at the core of this method to help you put it all together. How do you relate one phrase to another and form new, abstract thoughts if all you’ve ever done is rote memorization? You probably can’t.
That said, I do recommend getting yourself a good, inexpensive phrase book as a way to expand your vocabulary. You might also want to try vocabulary cards, which have advantages of their own.
There are no shortage of products out there claiming to help you “learn Spanish in 3 weeks” or “memorize 1000 words in your sleep”. Needless to say, these claims are totally without merit. Nothing in life worth having comes without effort, and that includes learning a language.
In fact, the quality of a Spanish learning program is probably inversely proportional to the ridiculousness of its claims. Quality programs like Rosetta Stone and Pimsleur confidently state what they think their respective programs can do for you, but avoid making any outlandish claims. Other programs, which shall remain nameless to avoid giving them publicity, make such ridiculous marketing claims you’d think their products could cure cancer.
There Are No Shortcuts
Unfortunately, there are no shortcuts to learning Spanish. Intensive drilling is still the most effective way to learn any language. Fancy audio and computer programs make the drilling seem less like work, but in the end that’s exactly what you’re doing: drills. Vocabulary drills, grammar drills, listening drills, speaking drills…they are all essential to solidify the language in your mind. FSI Spanish may be boring, but it is also amazingly effective and represents probably the best value for the money of any Spanish learning program out there. Why? It’s composed almost entirely of drills. By the time you’re finished with it, you WILL speak Spanish.
The moral of the story is to be wary of outlandish claims. It will take months of hard study (an hour per day at least) to get to an advanced level and many months after that to reach something approaching fluency. Sure, watching Spanish movies and reading Spanish news online are great ways to practice what you’ve learned, but in the end it’s the drills that will make or break you.
Part of writing a blog is doing keyword research, which often gives you surprising insight into what internet users actually search for. While doing a bit of research the other day, I noticed that “learn mexican” received approximately 4,400 searches last month. That’s right, 4,400 people are searching for information on how to learn Mexican.
As it turns out, this isn’t nearly as silly as it sounds. “Don’t they know they speak Spanish in Mexico,” you might ask? Well, I’d be willing to be most of those 4,400 people probably know that. In reality, “mexican” is actually a perfectly-correct name for the dialect of Spanish spoken in Mexico. It’s true the vast majority of Mexicans and other Spanish speakers will refer to it as “mexican Spanish” or some such variant, but it’s not difficult to imagine a situation where the term “mexican” might be used. Mexican Spanish is quite a distinct dialect, after all, full of all kinds of special slang and expressions not used elsewhere. Perhaps differentiating between Mexican Spanish and Chilean Spanish by calling it “mexican” isn’t such a bad idea after all.
So remember, next time you hear somebody say “they speak mexican in Mexico,” he’s technically right. Of course, that doesn’t mean he’s not also an idiot.
Rosetta Stone Spanish (read my Rosetta Stone Spanish Review) is one of the most popular programs going these days, probably even more-so than the Pimsleur approach, an old standby. Unfortunately, price is an issue when it comes to Rosetta Stone. While the price is cheap when you consider the cost of classes or even worse, a private tutor, people are understandably interested in where to buy Rosetta Stone cheap.
Where To Buy Rosetta Stone Cheap?
The unfortunate answer to this question is that it doesn’t seem like you can, at least not where I can find. It’s certainly possible to find good prices on used Rosetta Stone Spanish software on the internet, but their supply seems to be very limited. One option you might want to try is looking for Rosetta Stone at your local library, many of which carry copies for patron use. Unfortunately, the software is usually considered reference material and can’t be checked out, which limits its effectiveness somewhat. Still, free restricted use is better than none at all!
If you’re one of the lucky few who manage to find a deal on a good used copy, good for you! The rest of us will probably have to resort to buying new, which can cost up to $500 for all three levels (totally worth the price, by the way). Amazon carries the full three levels at $494 new (and usually less used), which is better than the $549 price Rosetta Stone itself charges. Retail stores like Best Buy and Borders usually charge even more, so Amazon is probably your best bet to buy Rosetta Stone cheap (well, cheaper at least).
Not convinced Rosetta Stone is worth the price? Check out my Rosetta Stone Spanish Review or Amazon user reviews
Paul Pimsleur, the man behind the popular Pimsleur language learning program (read my full Pimsleur Spanish review), spent his entire professional life studying how humans learn languages. His major breakthrough is the graduated interval recall theory, published in 1967, which forms the basis of the Pimsleur approach.
Graduated Interval Recall
Graduated interval recall is merely the spaced repetition of a word of phrase in such a way to maximize future recall. When a new word, phrase, or grammar concept is first introduced, it is repeated more often. Over time, the interval between repetitions becomes further and further apart as the learning becomes more familiar with its use. Pimsleur’s published intervals are 5 seconds, 25 seconds, 2 minutes, 10 minutes, 1 hour, 5 hours, 1 day, 5 days, 25 days, 4 months, and 2 years. That is, after initially learning a new phrase in the Pimsleur program, it will be repeated after 5 seconds, 25 seconds, 2 minutes, 10 minutes, etc so on and so forth until you finish the entire 90 day course (obviously, intervals beyond that 90 day period are pretty much impossible to implement in real life).
The Pimsleur Approach
The pimsleur approach is merely a real-world application of this theory. If you were to time the Pimsleur program with a stop watch, you would find the interval between repetitions to more-or-less (although not exactly, obviously) match the above intervals. Since each lesson is only 30 minutes long, some liberty must be taken with how the longer intervals are managed in order to get an actual product out the door, but the basic theory is followed quite closely and hasn’t changed for many years. In fact, competing products like Rosetta Stone Spanish use similar concepts in their products. Although Rosetta Stone focuses more on images than audio, the basic concept of the Pimsleur interval remains.
Read my full Pimsleur Spanish Review or buy Pimsleur Spanish
Yesterday I wrote about finding used Rosetta Stone Spanish software (read my full Rosetta Stone review here). However, if you aren’t able to find a good deal or simply can’t fit it in your budget, there’s another option: the public library. Many public libraries carry at least Level I of the Rosetta Stone software for a variety of languages, including Spanish, and some of them carry all three languages. There are a few pitfalls to relying on the library for your Spanish-learning needs, however.
Advantages
- It’s Free – An obvious advantage, but that’s about it
Caveats
- You Can’t Listen And Repeat – Repeating after a native speaker is a great way to perfect your pronunciation. Unfortunately, libraries usually prefer if you keep silent.
- You Can’t Use The Voice Recognition Feature - Rosetta Stone’s best feature, the voice recognition module, is rendered useless in a public library.
- Time Limit – It would be difficult to get much quality study-time in with somebody always waiting impatiently in the background.
All in all, this obviously isn’t an ideal solution. Sure it’s free, but there are plenty of other ways to learn Spanish for very little money. At most, I’d consider combining this with those other methods.
