Deconstructing A Language

On the outset, Ferriss asks himself three simple questions to determine whether or not the language is learn-able in a short period of time. Some won’t be and it seems to depend mostly on your native language and past language learning experience (your first foreign language is always the most difficult).

1. Are there any grammatical structures likely to cause particular trouble? For Spanish, the answer to this question will pretty much always be no.
2. Are there vowel sounds that will cause trouble for the learner? Again, the answer for Spanish is no. Spanish vowels are very simple to pronounce for most English speakers.
3. How similar is it to languages I already speak? For those of you who already speak another romance language, Spanish will be cinch. If English is your only language, you will have some difficulty with concepts like the subjunctive. That said, Spanish isn’t so terribly different from English that you will have serious troubles.

After determining it’s worth the effort, you simply follow Ferriss’s ideas for deconstructing the language and reconstructing the basic grammatical structure with the help of a native speaker. Will you be fluent after a few hours of this? Of course not, but you’d be extremely surprised how well you could do. Tim’s post is well worth a read for any language learner (and his book is well worth a read for anybody).

“Hay un auto.”

and

“Hay does autos.”

are both correct.

The same form is also used when asking questions.  In the case of a question, the question ¿Hay? means both “Is there?” and “Are there?”  Just as above, the sentences

“¿Hay un auto?”

and

“¿Hay dos autos?”

are both correct, translated as “Is there a car?” and “Are there two cars?” respectively.

1. Anything is better than nothing – Even if you can only spare five minutes for a quick vocabulary, it’s worthwhile to do it.  Language learning is a gradual, cumulative process.  Every little bit of exposure to the Spanish language adds a tiny bit to your knowledge.  Eventually, all these bits and pieces will come together to form an avalanche of knowledge.
2. You must study EVERY DAY- No exceptions, not even for holidays or special occasions.  As I said above, even five minutes of study time is better than nothing.  If you absolutely must skip a day for whatever reason, go back and repeat the previous day’s lesson again to make sure you’ve mastered the material before moving forward.
3. An hour per day is best- In general, you should shoot for an hour per day of good, uninterrupted study.  Some of you with busy schedules may have difficulty with this.  If that’s the case, shoot for 30 minutes or whatever you can manage.  The key is consistency.  For the average student, it will require between 250-300 hours of core Spanish study (not including conversation practice, watching Spanish tv, etc) to attain a reasonably-advanced competency with the language.  The more you study per day, the quicker you will progress.

For more on learning Spanish, check out my beginners Spanish, intermediate Spanish, and advanced Spanish study guides.

Significant Differences

• Othography: Many similarly-pronounced words are spelled differently e.x. Spanish mayor and Portuguese maior.
• Foreign Influences: The Portuguese language was more influenced by French and African languages than was Spanish, which was more insular. Thus, many Portuguese words borrowed from non-romance languages will sound completely foreign to speakers of Spanish.
• Arabic Substratum: Spanish has been strongly influenced by Arabic due to centuries of Moorish rule and has largely retained most of the medieval Mozarabic vocabulary. Portugal, on the other hand, was never under Moorish rule to the extent that Spain was and thus retains few Mozarabic influences today.