Hitting A Brick Wall
Has anyone else ever experienced the feeling they have a hit a brick wall whilst studying Spanish? During my studies ive found I can be going along quite happily learning new grammar, vocabulary, and improving my listening/speaking skills, then all of a sudden nothing seems to sink in, its as if ive regressed in the learning process and gone backwards. Its pretty soul destroying and the more I continue with my studies I feel im getting nowhere. I had this at the very start of my studies when moving from one level to the next level then all of a sudden the understanding seemed to return, but at the level im at now and with a more understanding of the language I would have thought it would start to become easier and these periods would become less. Would a few weeks break from study help for example? I would be interested to hear if anyone else has gone through this it does sap your enthusiasm a bit.
9 Answers
Yes, I gather it's a common phenomenon and you just have to work through it. Foreign language acquisition is a slow process at the best of times. However, you probably feel a greater, more immediate sense of achievement in the very early days.
For me it's important to take a few days off now and again, and to review my progress by looking at what I was doing a few months prior in order to gain a better and more rewarding insight into my progress.
I had a lesson with my Spanish tutor this week after a break of five or six weeks (i.e. no lessons with her for that period). As I went in I suddenly felt like I wouldn't be able to speak Spanish with her at all, but after a minute of describing what I'd been doing since I last saw her, I realised this was rubbish, and my Spanish was probably better than the last time, having improved without my even realising it... 
Absolutely. It happens to me all the time. I think taking a break is the worst thing you could do. It is so hard to re-start something as so much of what we do is based upon routine, and the time you now have for studying Spanish could get taken up by something else and then it is so hard to restart.
The progress is gradual. I was thinking that I'm not really advancing, but then it dawned on me, that generally speaking I can read the majority of BBC Mundo now a days with a bit of help from the dictionary, but 2 years ago, I couldn't manage one full sentence. It's gradual after a certain stage. The law of diminishing returns. The better you get, the more you have to do to improve.
How long have you studied and what level do you think you are at ?
It is frustrating for sure, sometimes the more you know the more you realize you don't know. What I say time and time again is just to keep on moving forward. Never stop, and try to learn in as many different ways as possible.
You'll hit walls, and then you'll break down walls, and then you'll hit... more walls. Time will eventually break all the walls... as long as you use the time well; listening, practicing, learning, studying, speaking, watching movies, listening to music... do it all.
It sounds like it has been a struggle for you so I think an option is to just give up. But I would take my advice with a big grain of salt because I'm depressed from living a life of failure and my role model is Homer Simpson. 
.
Bellevue, this is totally normal. Best thing is to buy a good helmet because for some reason, whilst studying Spanish we just keep running into this brick-wall. Therefore, as the wall seems to be unavoidable, protection is the way to go! You can order my small read helmet, as seen below over the internet, it costs 500 badges.
Good point, im going to start looking back to when I started that gives you an idea of how far you have come, I always feel I should be much further on than I am for the time ive been studying perhaps im being unrealistic in terms of perfecting the language?
3 months ! I've seen courses promising fluency in 5 days. I think these courses are for really smart people not Mancunians like us.
Before you ask; Radcliffe.
Im going to be spending some time in Spain shortly and its there that the language really kicks in, it helps being surrounded by native speakers 24/7. If I let the hitting a brick wall moments stop me studying in 12 months time I know I would be thinking how much further on I could be so its back to the reading/listening/grammar, etc. It always makes me laugh when you see language courses advertising become fluent in 3 months, yeah right 
Or the gullable easily parted with their cash, unlike mancunians
