Oh Me Oh My
Oh dear. I've just realized that I have been taking Spanish lessons online now for over 6 years !!!!!!!!!!!!
I used to do 5 hours a week at first now I am do about 8, and my level...... hang my head in shame.... probably the middle of intermediate.
All that time, so little achieved.
9 Answers
Good point, I can probably read better than a 6 year old from Guatemala, I have little trouble with cnn.espanol, but they will understand the spoken word a lot better than I do. So you have found a positive for me. Thanks.
I live with a five-year old & a two-&-a-half-year old, so have some practical insight into how kids learn language (also, I was those ages myself, and six, back in the past, although perhaps that's a little too far back to remember).
Perhaps little children are familiar with a certain register of vocabulary that you, as an adult learner, feel you ought to know better, yet don't. A child's life revolves around routine as dictated by their parents or carers: waking up, dressing, washing, brushing teeth, eating breakfast, going to school, watching TV, playing, behaving, staying quiet, putting on pyjamas, going to bed, story time etc. In my experience so far of learning Spanish as a foreign language in my capacity as an adult learner, I haven't had much exposure to this register of vocabulary: la rutina diaria.However, as an adult it's perhaps not so necessary because one is self-sufficient in these quotidien activities.
Although I say I speak like a two-year old, this is really because I tend to murder grammar. However, I can discuss abstract concepts like politics, history and art, which a two-year old couldn't, and likely a six-year old would struggle to do.
Also, kids are extremely adept at catching the gist of language without understanding every word, whereas I suspect some adult learners worry about not understanding everything, particularly in a foreign language. I can read a story to my son, which he understands as a whole and enjoys, yet if I ask him what specific words mean, he doesn't know and I have to explain them. In English if I hear/read an unfamiliar word, I don't fret about it. I simply ask what it means or look it up in a dictionary. In Spanish, however, I find that an unfamiliar word sometimes acts like a kind of brick wall. My mind stops at that word and refuses to process anything else said after it, even though I might be able to understand the rest. This is particularly so when the Spanish is being delivered fast and with an accent, and particularly when I run into more than one unfamiliar word in the same sentence.
You also need to spend a lot of time listening to various grammar forms in order to become accustomed to them. Learning the basics of grammar is helpful to an extent, but it's not really how we understand grammar on a day-to-day functional level. On a day-to-day functional level, grammar operates much more like muscle-memory, i.e. like tying your shoe-laces or driving a car.
Take a native speaker of any language who has little formal education in any kind of grammar, and they can't tell you what a noun is or a verb or an adjective any more readily than one can explain how to tie shoe-laces or perform a parallel parking manoeuvre, yet they can intuitively differentiate between a bewildering array of different verb conjugations in their own language at lightning speed.
I reckon by now I have a pretty sound theoretical understanding of most Spanish verb tenses and moods, yet in practical terms I sometimes still struggle to catch whether a speaker is using the second or third person conjugation in the present indicative, which is theoretically extremely basic !! At the weekend I had the opportunity to speak with someone who had lived in Spain for a year and claims to be very conversational in Spanish, which I don't doubt. However, when I asked her about the subjunctive she didn't have a clue. Evidently she's never had any kind of Spanish lesson in her life, and has only learned street Spanish. I daresay I could probably read/write better, but she would be able to hold a conversation in a shop where I would founder hopelessly.
Ultimately, it's meaningless to say you've been learning Spanish for six years thus are equivalent to a six-year old. You'll be much better than a six-year old or even a twelve-year old or an eighteen-year old in some respects, and perhaps less able in others (to be honest, I sometimes struggle to understand teenagers in English nowadays).
However, if you've already committed so much time, don't lose heart now. I've heard that it takes three years of total immersion to become functionally fluent in Spanish (perhaps two if you're already at this level in another Romance language when you begin the process), but that's total immersion. And it can take up to ten years to attain near-native fluency, and even at that, they say if you start learning after the age of four, you might never obtain absolute native fluency (whatever that is), and those who start a foreign language in adult life almost never can master the accent of their target language perfectly. But, then, unless you want to be an undercover spy, you won't need a perfect Spanish accent 
Middle-intermediate is probably about the same as a 6-year old Spanish kid who gets total immersion 24/7, plus you have the maturity and worldly wisdom to use your ability much more intelligently, so for 5-8 hours a week as opposed to 168 (24x7), it seems to me that you've got yourself a bit of a bargain & have done rather well. Clap yourself on the back.
I've been learning for about 10 months & speak/understand like a 2-year old. I reckon that's not bad (after all, it takes a 2-year old two years to make such progress). I'm expecting progress to be slower as time goes on, although perhaps faster in certain respects. My comprehension has improved over the last two months since I started one-on-one lessons with a native tutor, yet bizarrely my formal spoken grammar has probably declined as I find my mind grappling with alternative means of communication like empathy, humour & body language, which grammar books never teach
Thank you for some very thoughtful answers.
Very insightful answers!
Unfortunately my IP got banned from the site, as I think someone else in the house may have been messing about with my account. However rules are rules, but I had to come in under a different IP to thank :-
Falda-Escocesa Jubilado FELIZ77 FELIZ77
for their answers as they clearly put time and thought into them.
Thank you and I will now slip out the back Jack, as Paul Simon sang.
If I ever make advanced, I will come back and let you know.
Some good things have happened to me whilst studying online, so I'm not giving up.
Please fill out your profile as rac1 suggests. There are many people here who want to turn "FailureFred" into "SuccessSam" !!
With those years and hours of study you should be able to help out here with beginners!
Here's a phrase I just looked up: "¡Alegra esa cara, hombre / mujer, que mañana será otro día!" = Buck up, old chap / girl! You'll have another chance tomorrow!
Welcome to SpanishDict. Please fill out your profile....your gender and level of Spanish and English. What is your question?
Hey there, "FailureFred," and welcome to SpanishDict! 
As you can see, everyone has their own set of struggles and achievements with learning a language. I still call myself a beginner, although I've been actively learning Spanish for over two years. I'm hard on myself to which some of the frustrated scribbles in my Spanish notebooks can attest! I feel like I want to be perfect, which is an unattainable goal, I know. Maybe you're just hard on yourself, like me. Yet, if I think back to February 2013 and recall that I didn't know any Spanish at all (aside from naming Mexican foods), I know I've achieved something.
One suggestion I'd like to make is that you change your user name from FailureFred to something a little bit more optimistic, or even just a nice combination of generic Spanish words - or anything else. I'd hate to think of that nombre staring you in the face and whispering in your ear every time you sit down to study.
All the best to you, amigo! You can do this!! 
Hello Fred,
Welcome to the SpanishDict forum 
You really shouldn't beat yourself up about this issue of your rate of progress and you certainly do not need to.../...have no reason to hang your head in shame or to feel embarrassed! You can probably speak and understand it better than you think you can!
Everyone progresses at a different rate whether thay have the oppportunity and privelege to learn in an immersion style environment by living in the country where the language is spoken all around them or simply the occasional opportunity to develop their language skills. ...however frequently or infrequently that may be! They key is to take advantage of every opportunity that comes your way and learn to be proactive in creating these opportunities
(You can read Gringo's and my recent posts in which we took the opportunities to practise what we already knew!)
We should also remember that people have varying lifestyles and levels of committment today and one person may not be free to devote as much time to learning languages as another person. ...we have to work, eat, sleep , look after our wives, husbands, children etc...and this inevitably puts pressure on people and affects their rate of progress!
My advice to you would be to forget setting a time target for yourself, just enjoy the journey and stop being is such a hurry to reach the destination, that you miss the learning opportunities along the way!
Learning a language is not a race to the finishing post ... developing fluency has more to do with accuracy and developing a flowing style of being able to express yourself naturally in a foreign (second, third etc..) language without translating directly from your own , than it has to do with speed of progress or speaking really fast in a language, which to be honest; is not the main purpose of communicating in any language!
I would say that my A. B. C .of learnng languages is
A = (develop) Accuracy Learn the correct ways that natives express their ideas, thoughts and feelings. You can learn this partcularly by reading good Spanish books, watching Spanish films and above all chatting with Spanish natives.
B = Boldness Don't be afraid to practise what you know and to make mistakes; just make sure you keep learning from them. Nobody fails in life just by making mistakes ... we only fail if we keep on making the same ones because we fail/refuse to learn from them!
C = Clarity Practise your pronounciation with natives, listen carefully to how they enunciate their words clearly, and correct your pronouciation according to what they tell you and imitiate their pronounciation! Admittedly, oon rare occasions I have come across some natives even in Spain who seem to mumble, (mostly older men, I might add) and their speech was less coherent than some students learning the language!
Please relax and forget setting a self imposed time liimit for your success in Spanish, for this will help you to enjoy learning a lot more! Remember the story of the Tortoise and the Hare?
I hope this helps you
Good point, I can probably read better than a 6 year old from Guatemala, I have little trouble with cnn.espanol, but they will understand the spoken word a lot better than I do. So you have found a positive for me. Thanks.
