Just wanted to add my dos centavos (OK, maybe un poquito más) to Jim Anderson's comments about immersion. He's exactly right! Like him, I studied Spanish in high school, did very well but never used it for anything. Six years ago I decided to start taking classes, figuring that a second language wouldn't exactly hurt my job prospects.
Some of my immersion techniques:
- During my daily three hours of commuting, I listen to Spanish radio, listen to música Latina (a good two-thirds of my CDs are Latin), listen to Spanish books-on-tape, and any other audio material I can get my hands on. I'd watch Spanish-language TV except that what passes for a cable company around here doesn't offer any Spanish channels.
- If there's a book I want to read, I try to find it in Spanish. This task has become considerably easier in the last couple of years, as publishers and booksellers in the U.S. have finally awakened to the potential of the Spanish-speaking market.
- I think in Spanish as much as I can, and when I talk to myself, it's in Spanish. (The latter is usually advisable only while alone. One more item for the commute.)
- I translate, both for work and for fun.
- I participate with some like-minded people in a series of "group tutoring" sessions conducted by a Chilean lady several times a year, for six weeks at a time, with the sessions being held at a group member's home. She brings some study material and assigns some homework, but it's mainly an opportunity to get together and practice our Spanish in a guided way. Much more fun than formal classes, especially since you seldom get to study with a margarita in your hand in a class!
- I've downloaded and installed the Spanish-language interface for Internet Explorer and for any other program I use that has it available. At home and at work. Good practice, and remarkably effective in discouraging the monolinguals from "borrowing" my computer ;ɚ)
Bottom line: in perhaps no other field of study is the axiom "What you get out of it depends on what you put into it" as true as it is in learning a foreign language. To anyone hesitant to invest the effort, I say "¡Ándale!"
Regards,
Mike Moran
