Charlius' Spanish Learning Manifesto
I was writing this in wordpad over the span of several days. I had several other ideas/things I wanted to put in..but I never finished it, haha. Whatever, all the important stuff I wanted to mention is here.
As a select few may know, about a year ago, I set off on a great adventure to the exotic lands of Spain (I even posted my blog/diary here on the forum). This was through a program made possible by their education ministry. The idea - have a native english speaker presence for the entire school year in both primary and secondary education level schools (along with the official language schools) throughout Spain. I jumped at the idea of this not because of my love to teach english (which was non-existent at the time), but for the opportunity to live abroad (in Spain!) for 8 months and be able to do what many here on SpanishDict dream of.
That was a quite a while ago. Now, here I am again, smack dab in the middle of my second school year. During my first tenure, I experienced a lot about what many of you may be interested in - the language acquisition process - what is it like for a fellow American learning the language in this particular environment?. More specifically, I am talking about the language acquisition process of a young adult with a fully developed brain (I mention that only to differentiate between babies and toddlers who supposedly with their still developing brains, possess this enormous potential for language acquisition, something that a grown-up could never have), who had studied the spanish language for 2.5 years, and suddenly found himself immersed in the language he had shed so much academic sweat on. Now, I wish to help fellow lovers of the language who may find themselves (hopefully) in a similar situation in the future, by sharing some thoughts and strategies that I employed towards learning in an immersion environment. While in Spain, it would have been extremely easy to just think " Hey, I'm in Spain, I will learn Spanish automatically." While granted, with that mindset, I surely WOULD have improved, but nothing compared to what I was able to achieve through actively thinking of ways and specific strategies in tems of how I wanted my learning to be.
And since (at least I believe) the specific profile of the learner does influence his particular experience, let me share mine (at the time).
-Young, college student who just graduated with his bachelor's degree (double major in Criminal Justice and Spanish). -Monolingual his whole life (can understand a bit of Chinese due to growing up around it, but have zero speaking ability). -Lived in one state his whole life, never left the U.S.A. to another country. -Always among the upper percentile in all school levels. -Had many hispanic friends in high school. -Musically inclined. -Much more into the arts than the sciences.
Well, that's about all I can think of profile-wise that might have influenced my particular learning experience - on to the main course.
LISTENING VS SPEAKING
If there's only one thing you can take away from reading this 'essay', it's this right here. How much listening should I be doing versus actual speaking?? Well first, let me cover this first. What's more important? Listening and being able to orally comprehend, or the ability to express oneself and respond? I came up with the answer quite quickly - it's listening hands down. Before we start thinking 'Charlius, that's just your opinion, it could go either way', check this out first. You have 2 people talking in Spanish. You don't understand really what's going on (oral comprehension). In spite of how well your own ability to express yourself may be, you won't even be in the position to use it because you have nothing to add in the exchange through your lack of understanding. Secondly, if you ever get to the point where you understand, and catch everything that is said and understand the structure, the grammar, the why of what they said..you'd be able to express yourself and say the same things without having had to practice speaking much. Sure, you may be slower and not as fluid than if you had focused more on speaking, but you'd be able to get a native speaker to understand exactly what you mean. There's many more real-life examples I could illustrate, but hopefully, you can now see why listening is a more important skill to have than speaking. Without listening, there is no speaking (unless you're giving a speech!).
While it may be tempting to just start babbling on, talking and putting into use all the stuff you've studied in a linguistic frenzy, take a step back, take a deep breath, inhale, and listen. Have you ever met someone who just talks, talks, and talks and you don't really get to get a word in?? As someone trying to learn the language, you do not want to be this person. Shoot, if you can, you'd almost want to be spending more time around these kind of people. I've seen this from first-hand experience.
One of my responsibilites as 'auxiliar de conversación' that first year, was to have conversation sessions with the teachers there that wanted to improve their english. I came across quite a few different kind of people, each with their own approach. Anyways, there was always someone there (low level proficiency or high) that would be one of those who just talks, talks, talks, and never really listens. These people talk AT you, not with you. Whenever I said something, I could always tell that they really didn't understand and would just pretend to understand and continue on. With the higher proficiency speakers that did this, it was even more puzzling in terms of their oral comprehension. Here, there's a person who can express basically whatever they want and I understand, but when it comes to listening to me, they can't really make heads or tails. How can this be?? Well, the only explanation I could think of was they must have, during their learning of English, focused more on the speaking aspect and not so much on the listening. I wasn't making crazy theories, I mean, I saw the evidence right there! They would talk, talk and talk, and I could hardly get a word in, and the times I could get one in, they didn't understand it. And this must not only be happening with me. The times they do get the opportunities for conversation with other english speakers, they surely must follow the same pattern and talk much more than listen.
Anyways, so what can we take from this?? Listen! Some might vie for a 50/50 approach. That sounds like a nice and balanced approach, not just for the language acquistion process, but for life in general which is why it seems like such a good idea. I think 50/50 might indeed be OK, but I believe so much in the powers and benefits of simply listening, that I would promote even as much as an 80/20, 85/15 approach, at least in the beginning. This was basically my listening/speaking partition ratio, and it served me well. My speaking, I would almost say, in terms of the speed of the words and phrases popping into my head and consecuently, the fluidity of what I would say, improved automatically. What I did have to be consciously aware of though, was that listening was more important than speaking. So whenever conversations would arise with someone, I would always make sure to listen more than speak. When I spoke, it would be to continue the flow of the conversation only, illicit more information from the person I was speaking with. I would never be speaking AT the person. Speaking AT people can be so much easier because when you're speaking, the other person is not talking and you can be spared from the 'embarassment' of having to say "I didn't understand you", which I believe lies at the bottom of the reasoning behind a lot of these peoples' cases who spoke AT me, and not WITH me. Remember that we want to listen. So much of my personal progress I can trace just from the times I would listen to the people in line ahead of me at the butchers, or from listening to the conversations of the 'country folk' going to Cártama in the bus, listening to the various conversations being held on the basketball court before we'd start the pickup game, or from listening to the teachers complain about their students in the teachers lounge (yes, teachers do this!). You might also be thinking, hey, if listening is so important, then I don't even need to go to another country. I can just stay home and listen to podcasts, or watch movies and listen to music (shoot, I did ALL of that). However, there's something about listening and hearing something live that just can not be reproduced through mechanical means (ask a concert goer). It's just different! I've even seen people on this forum say that they find understanding things on TV to be harder than understanding people in real life.
ORGANIC APPROACH VS ANALYTICAL/TECHNICAL APPROACH
This is another big one. Many people feel that grammar is not so necessary to learn a language. The thought is that once in an immersion environment, the best way to go is to just be there and soak everything up, listen (this IS important) and through you mimicing what you see and hear, you can therefore reproduce in a fashion what newborns go through in learning their first words/language.
If we vie for this approach, this precludes the utilization of all that grammar and conjugation charts we've memorized. I mean..in theory it sounds very nice and ideal..however, I too quickly shot this down as a viable approach. I had already chosen my path 2.5 years earlier when I learned my first conjugation table, the one for 'ser/estar'. Once you get your first exposure to Spanish in this manner through a technical, analytical, grammatical one, you can never go back as your mind now works in this fashion towards Spanish. I chose not to throw away all those grammar and conjugation charts I had filed in my brain. I was already way invested in them, so for better or worse, I was going to use them.
Well, what happened?? Exactly what a lot of smart people here on Spanishdict say would happen. Trying to communicate by navigating through grammar and conjugation charts to find the right form of a verb along with other issues such as adjective, noun agreement - really is a cumbersome method to go about talking. I knew this, but I continued on with it. A tad cumbersome in the beginning, but more and more, as I talked more and more (keeping the 80/20 ratio in mind - 20 may seem like very little, but in an immersion environment, you're still talking in Spanish WAY more than you ever were, trust me on that), I found I needed to visualize those grammar and conjugation tables less and less until I didn't really need them at all (this won't happen overnight).
The lesson here?? If you've already invested a ton of time into learning those things (which is like, what..99% of us here??). Don't worry. They actually are the key to speaking well..although it'll feel like a cumbersome burden, something that drags you down at first. Later, you'll get to a point where you break free from them, but to be able to break free from them, you MUST use them in the beginning..I mean, that's why we learned them in the first place, right??
This won't just apply to conjugation tables, but other things as well. I remember I would analyze a conversation in a technical fashion a few minutes after having had it, and I would realize 'Grrr, I messed that adjective agreement up with the noun!!!' or I'd say '!#@$%%, I can't believe I forgot to use the subjunctive there!!!' I mean, I was making obvious mistakes I would never make if I were writing an essay..but talking in real life just necessitates you into saying stuff right there on the spot without being able to analyze what you're going to say. I realized this and just said, ok, I'll be bound to make mistakes. I will NOT kick myself for it and just realize I made the mistake and try not to make it the next time. If in the moment the person I'm talking to corrects me, even better! I can troubleshoot right there on the spot. But a lot of time, many people won't correct you as long you can get the main point across which is what I was able to do even in the beginning, so these after the fact, conversation analyzations that went on in my head were quite critical into me cleaning up my own speech.
Moral of the story? Thinking analytically is totally OK in an immersion environment. There were times when I questioned my approach and said 'this can't be what one is supposed be doing in a situation like this'. I mean, has anyone seen the episode where Bart Simpson gets stuck in France working for a wine-maker who makes Bart into a slave?? He ran away after a few months and tried to get help from a policeman, but couldn't get him to understand what he was saying in English. He had a emotional breakdown on the spot, and BOOM, French started pouring out of his mouth. I mean, that's kind of what I had going on in my head as to what I was supposed to be doing, just not in French. Might sound kind of stupid, but hey, TV is a powerful influence!
FLOW OF THE CONVERSATION VS HALTING IT
We should all know how important the flow of a conversation is, even in our own native languages. Say one thing out of the blue, out of context, and it's like throwing a wrench into the cogs of a delicate and complicated machine. That's pretty much the perfect analogy for what happens when you ask someone what they just said, or ask them to explain a phrase you didn't understand. This is of course quite a minimal impact in a conversation with just one person. I am referring more to group conversations when there are 3 or more.
I see two kinds of people here. One is going to never ask the meaning of things or have people repeat stuff (the ones that pretend all the time to understand and thus, never ask for fear of saying 'I didn't understand') and there'll be the ones that will be asking ALL the time. The first group will have it good in terms of never being that monkey wrench thrown into the cogs in group conversations..but they'll almost always miss opportunities to learn new things that necessitate an explanation from a native speaker. Sometimes, context just isn't enough! The other group will be that monkey wrench, but they WILL be learning a lot more new things than the previous group by being willing to say 'I don't know, I don't understand' and being able to swallow your pride and ask. We should remember that the first step towards wisdom is first recognizing the things of which we are ignorant first. These 2 groups of people are on opposite sides of the spectrum. They're extremes.
This is one of those issues where it is hard to say how much I should keep the flow of the conversation going (brushing by expressions and segments of speech that you don't understand) as opposed to breaking it and asking. I've tried both extremes by the way, and I must say, going all the way in either direction is not a good idea. It's not a 50/50 thing either. I think for this, we can use the 80/20 ratio yet again being as important as keeping the flow of conversations is. We want to keep the flow going around 80% of the time, 20% asking. You really want to pick and choose these moments..and over the course of a few months, those chosen moments where you've asked things, really add up. Start asking ALL the time, you'll start feeling like an annoying presence among people.
-Charlius-
16 Answers
With the higher proficiency speakers that did this, it was even more puzzling in terms of their oral comprehension. Here, there's a person who can express basically whatever they want and I understand, but when it comes to listening to me, they can't really make heads or tails. How can this be??
Yeah, tell me about it..
This is difficult to discover even...once I had this fairly advanced student and I only discovered he did not understand me, when I once said, hey, I am not going to come next week, and he gave me a call, why are you not here???
Very confusing, and veeeeeeeery difficult to amend, ladies and gentlemen, do pay attention to what charlie is saying, it is very important to be able to understand first....the speaking will come next.
As a matter of fact, I have spoken with Charlie on skippi, and his Spanish is native level
Nicole! I am soooo happy for you and the experiences that you are going to be able to have.
One thing I want to clarify a bit. I don't want to make you into a purse-lipped person either. Yes, listening is certainly of paramount importance, but definitely do not become inhibited to speaking. That would transform into a different kind of problem - being one of those people who are always silent in a conversation, silent for any number of reasons (afraid to talk, not confident in their own abilities, following Charlius' manifesto advice to an extreme for example, haha). I think as long as you keep in mind that when one talks, one cannot listen, you will find a happy medium and balance of how much talking you 'should' be doing.
For example..let's say some spanish native speaker is telling you about what happened to them on a recent camping trip. What would a 'talking-at' person say next in this example?? Probably talk about a similar experience they had on a camping trip, right?? What we want to do instead is be more of a listener, but still talk. What can we do? Well, instead of going for the route that the 'talking-at' person takes, you can instead say (in spanish of course) 'Oh really, so then what happened next? How'd you wind up doing that?' etc etc. You see, these are open ended inquiries that illicit additional information (more listening opportunities for you!). For the 'talking-at' person, they're just talking about their own personal experiences, probably something long-winded too, haha. Then when they finish their own story, the person they were 'talking-with' has nothing to add to that (because they just got done listening to a speech).
This also can be seen in our own native languages. You have those people that talk about themselves more. When you mention something bad that happened to you, they shift that to themselves to something similarly bad that happened to them. Let's instead be that empathetic person that asks you more about what happened to you and how we felt, etc etc, beig the good listener and ultimately, the person that's more fun to be around and makes us feel better, which is always a good thing to be/have, not even talking about language-acquisition here, but which does serve to our advantage in this sense and in many more.
Izanoni, great minds think alike man, haha.
Patch, thanks for the positive feedback, helps keep me writing.
Yup, see? Heidi knows how it is! Haha, well actually, she already knew how it is way before I even knew how it is.
-Charlius-
This kind of post is one of the reasons I'm always on SD. This is a seriously good read mate, thanks a lot.
Charlius, as always, it is great to hear from you! Thanks for sharing your "manifesto". I really enjoyed your blog in the past and find this latest thread to be very helpful.
This is great info as I will be spending a lot of time in Spanish speaking countries this summer. I am now in my final "cramming" moments, so I think I will just listen, listen and listen some more. I will be teaching music, so I will also be putting the final touches on learning all of my musical terminology. It is not like you can walk up to anyone on the street in Latin America and ask them how to say "sharp", "tetrachord", or "circle of fifths" in Spanish. Only Spanish speaking musicians know these answers.
I do agree with this statement:
I chose not to throw away all those grammar and conjugation charts I had filed in my brain. I was already way invested in them, so for better or worse, I was going to use them.
A friend from Puerto Rico has been helping me with a speech I am preparing. I was expressing my frustration to him about over-thinking everything and constantly going back to those grammar rules in my head. Much to my surprise, he asked me to help coach him (the fluent native speaker) in Spanish grammar. In order to graduate he is trying to bypass the twelve additional credits needed by taking a Spanish proficiency exam at NYU. The problem is, he doesn't know a preterit from a subjunctive. The fact that he now needs my help just let me know that both are very important. Yes, it is more important to be able to listen and communicate. But then again, grammar in the proper proportions never hurt anyone. 
Very well done,and a good reference for all of us learning. Quite an adventure!
Wow, Charlius. I didn't know about your adventure. What an experience!
Actually, I would once again invite to join people on the skype chats, which still take place.
IN this case , as we say here, buenos pagan por pecadores...as I got quite fed up with people saying they were sure going to be there, signing in all the time, and who didn't even have the decency to say before or after they couldn't come, they simply didn't show up, period.
anyway, I would like to invite anybody who would like to join , only as listeners, you can just listen in and see how much you understand
There are lots of people on the chat now who didn't say a single word the first times, Jenny is probably one of the best examples, so is chris, gary.....well, Jenny is a proficient speaker and understands almost everything now, she is actually correcting her own thread now!! Chris is getting there Gary can't speak that much, but he is certainly proficient in understanding...way to go, and I am only mentioning three of them.
Thanks for this, Charlius. It's very reassuring for me, because I've focussed a lot on listening, although it has been mainly from tv programs, films and podcasts.
I'd agree that it definitely helps with talking, because when you do enough listening certain common phrases at least become easier to bring to mind. also of course it helps with getting a better accent.
I still need a lot of practice in all aspects, especially talking, but still I'm pleased with how far I've got in a year and a half and it's mostly down to SD, and my listening practice.
What a great experience for you!
Thank you. I know that making the effort to learn verb conjugation as well as other grammatical exercises are well worth the effort. But I must admit I wanted to cop out. 
So away I go!
Charlie!!!! I am so glad to hear from you and your adventures. I remember when you left and the blog/SD writings that you were so kindly able to do. I'm glad you are writing again and look forward in hearing from you again.
It's good to see you post on the forum again, Charlius! I can definitely appreciate your experiences and certainly fall into the camp that believes heavily in the value of listening over speaking (especially early on) for better overall language acquisition. Thanks again for sharing your experiences!
Wow! That is really long, Charlius!!!
2,743 words!!!!! Hehehe 
Thanks for your valuable and fascinating insights.
Thanks for sharing, Charlius! It was one of those essays where I was nodding away at every point and recognizing the experiences. Good stuff!
Thanks I enjoyed your post!
I agree with this a lot:
but talking in real life just necessitates you into saying stuff right there on the spot without being able to analyze what you're going to say. I realized this and just said, ok, I'll be bound to make mistakes. I will NOT kick myself for it and just realize I made the mistake and try not to make it the next time. If in the moment the person I'm talking to corrects me, even better! I can troubleshoot right there on the spot. But a lot of time, many people won't correct you
99.9% of the time I've found people will Not correct me even when I tell them to :(
