Do not worry about making mistakes , relax and learn . Plus Video.
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8 Answers
Excellent points, all. Obviously we are all here in order to maximize our ability to speak Spanish correctly. Improving my Spanish will not doubt be a lifelong process. But the really great news is that you do not have to be perfect, or anywhere near perfect, in order to have useful Spanish. I am at the Intermediate level on the average, but have virtually no problems understanding or making myself understood in Costa Rica.. I have made friends in Costa Rica who speak absolutely no English at all. I have been "adopted" by a family that doesn't speak a word of English...nevertheless I attend all of their numerous family functions and we have a wonderful time. Despite my obvious limitiations we manage to discuss every subject under the sun. I attend a church in Costa Rica where nobody speaks English. I can understand 90% of the sermon and can fully participate in the worship and social times of the church. By adding Spanish to my skillset I am now able to communicate with 90% of the people in my hemisphere....that's absolutely wonderful!
Robert T. Kiyosaki
“In school we learn that mistakes are bad, and we are punished for making them.
Yet, if you look at the way humans are designed to learn, we learn by making mistakes.
We learn to walk by falling down. If we never fell down, we would never walk.”
? Robert T. Kiyosaki, Rich Dad, Poor Dad
When speaking or writing to friends or family, we speak or write informally--and make mistakes. Many of them. However when in an English class, where the teacher is doing his/her best to convey to us the legacy of that language and hopefully pass on a desire for the continuity and preservation of that language, we do our best in our attempt to adhere to that standard.
Language changes so much that is it difficult to enjoy the literature of previous ages. If we could just try for a little more continuity it would be a lot easier to preserve that which is good. To appreciate how much change has taken place one only has to attempt to read something by Shakespeare. A little bit easier is the King James Bible. The majority of Americans at the present time can not peruse the pages of this document with any great degree of understanding. Most of the preaching in our pulpits today is done from much more modern texts.
Most modern Latins have a hard time with Cervantes, and that's even in spite of the fact that Peninsular Spanish hasn't changed as much as English has in the same amount of time.
I am not totally against change taking place within a language, especially with all the technological developments taking place, we need new words to describe the frame and the functions of these new technologies. However we should hold the line against the slang and the perversions of the language that take place from time to time.
As this is a language learning site, I wish to join with others who hold to the strict standards in practice here. It's a little like music. I'm a jazz musician. In order to produce a good jazz performance of a song, it is necessary to be able to play it perfectly as it was written by the composer. However, once you have the melody and the chord patterns well established , then you can begin to play many variations on that theme and come up with a beautiful or exciting creation of your own. Remember almost all of the greatest Jazz musicians, past and present have had precise classical training. And I also believe that people when learning a language should be precise in learning the basics, then, when that has been accomplished, they can take some liberties and have a little fun. I do this a lot, and so do most of you.
I have no problem with making mistakes, I just don't like it when I meet people who judge me for getting things wrong! After all, we all make mistakes when we are learning something new, don't we?! I am not talking about anyone on this forum judging me but people I have met in my life!
The majority of native speakers that I have met from other countries have been kind to me and tolerant of my many mistakes when learning their native language!. I for my part have tried to be as gentle, understanding and patient as possible when foreigners have tried to learn to speak English! I appreciate that English can be a very difficult language for foreigners to learn! Not surprising really,when you consider how many languages have influenced our anglo saxon roots: Latin, Greek, German, French as well as Nordic influences, each with their different culture and way of thinking, not to mention grammatical rules ...no wonder foreigners find it hard, it is like they are learning not just one but several languages at once! 
I am certain that it is through the process of learning a new language as a an adult that you really start to learn to appreciate how difficult it is /can be for a foreigner to make sense of learning your own native language. ...it can seem bewildering at times! It can be both an exciting new advanture and a daunting challenge! We all need to receive encouragement along the way both in terms of positive feedback and success in understanding others and making ourselves understood when speaking a new language! When we encounter setbacks we have (need) to persevere in spite of them if we want to experience a real breakthrough in making progress!
I have made both funny mistakes that I can share and laugh about such as saying in Spanish: Estoy embarazado = I am pregnant, when I really wanted to say that I felt embarrassed, (Tengo vergüenza, o me da pena) which as a guy is embarrassing in itself! Hahaha I can laugh about it now but when I said it I felt stupid for getting it wrong! I have also tried to say in French that it was good to be so high up because the view is great (or words along those lines) I was standing on a walkway close to the highest tower of Notre Dames when I said it. The problem was that I used the wrong verb for high, not the literal one meaning high altitude but being high on drugs! lol Still, (however) we were able to have a good laugh at my expense!
I will share with you one of my struggles I experienced over ten years ago when I felt stupid and discouraged and close to giving up learning Spanish. I had just entered a train station at Pineda de Mar (the next town to the east of Calella and about 1 1/2 's ride from Barcelona in the Cataluña region) One of my two remaining 'out of my comfort zone' iexperiences in learning languages was speaking to people through the glass barriers that they have at ticket offices, because the officials behind them sometimes don't speak loudly or clearly enough, or too fast when they speak their native language!
I had started to speak in Spanish and asked for a return ticket to Barcelona and the man understood me and then asked how many zones I wanted: ¿Cuántas zonas? I was thrown by this, either having forgotten or not realizing that you had to choose between 5 or 10 zones. I did not know which would be better so, wanting to cover myself said, "Diez zonas, por favor. The man replied ¿Estás seguro? I was not sure but because a large queue had started to form behind me by this time, I felt under pressure to move on so I just reacted ''Sí, gracias'' and moved on. When sitting on the platform immediately after, while waiting for the train, it occurred to me that I had spent much more money than was necessary (more than 15 euros more) for the te zone ticket so when it was quieter I returned to the man at the ticket office, explained my genuine mistake and asked him in Spanish if he would please exchange my ticket for the 5 zone one which he did with some relunctance.
It is true that many French people, especially Parisians, can be very rude about foreigners attempts to speak their language and intolerant of other non-natives who don't speak their language with as much accuracy and fluency as they would like. but there are many others who do try to help you! To be fair to the French, I have sometimes heard some British people massacre (slaughter) their language by trying to use English pronounciation when speaking French words eg Parlez-vous Français? and they pronounce the z like a hard English Z, and pronounce the s which should be silent and pronounce the word for French like a girl's name (Frances)
Spanish-speaking natives, are from my experience, some of the most gracious, loving and tolerant people when helping us gringos learn their language!
It is important to listen very carefully (pay very careful attention) when receiving directions in a foreign language. Many years ago in France I once muddled up the words les feux (de signalisation) = traffic lights with les fleurs = flowers and thought that the speaker had told me to turn right at the flowers (meaning, at the flower shop) lol Well, the two words feux and fleur do sound quite similar if you are hearng them spoken fast in a sentence, but the context should have told me that it was more likely to be les feu.
I think that It can be helpful to view our own mistakes as 'stepping stones' to success provided that we are willing to learn from these mistakes! Making mistakes is like a runner in a race that falls, he doesn't lose the race because he falls, but he loses if he doesn't get back up and keep trying! We usually need others to help us on our journey of learning by encouarging us to persevere when we get things wrong! .
As a team we are stronger together!
There was a Hungarian lady Kató Lomb, an interpreter on 16 languages and according to her opinion the languages are the only things, which are worth to know even erroneously. l am her follower. Sorrowfuly not in the knowledge of 16 idioms, but in errors.
In the English speaking world there are hundreds of dialects but thankfully
they no longer insist on one being better than another they embrace them all.
I feel that there is a danger in being hung up on perfection in a language
unless your reason for learning it is for a university degree , but if it is merely
to travel around and your need is to just be understood and converse with
the locals then a more relaxed approach would be the way to go. My Spanish
is woeful and yet I was able to travel around Spain by train and bus and stayed
in a small town for 6 weeks and had no difficulty whatsoever . So decide
what the reasons are that you are learning this language , relax and enjoy it.
I couldn't agree more with this. When you speak, there is no dictionary or text book to check, you just have to throw it out there and hope it gets over the line. Chatting is what I like to do most in Spanish. Not having the luxury of a dictionary, or time to go over what you have written and spot the silly mistakes means that this can often be very challenging and nerve wracking for some people - but.... don't let it be!!! In my experience Spanish speakers are wonderfully accommodating and really helpful. When in conversation I usually ask to be corrected - even then they only tend to correct if I've made a real mess of something lol.
It's the same the other way round too. I try to speak Spanish at every opportunity - even in England. If it's clear that somebody is a Spanish speaker I try and at least have part of the conversation in Spanish. A couple of weeks ago I was staying in a hotel in London. At check in I noticed the Receptionist had a Spanish type accent and looking at her name tag a very Spanish sounding name. I just said .... "eres española?" when she replied with a smile... "sí!" that's it the next 20 minutes was just chatting in general in a mix of the 2 languages. I asked her to correct any big obvious errors and she was happy to do so. I corrected a couple of the very small (foreigner type - if you know what I mean) errors that she made. She was really happy that I was doing this. She told me that she had lived in England for 3 years and that nobody ever corrected her English, but she really wanted to continue improving. That was it then, whenever I passed reception, and it was convenient for her, we passed a few general comments in Spanish/English. I got allocated a great room too hahaha!
Seriously, never ever be afraid to make mistakes. In my experience no Spanish speaker expects us to be perfect. Mistakes are natural and perfectly fine - that's how we learn!
In the English speaking world there are hundreds of dialects but thankfully they no longer insist on one being better than another they embrace them all. I feel that there is a danger in being hung up on perfection in a language unless your reason for learning it is for a university degree , but if it is merely to travel around and your need is to just be understood and converse with the locals then a more relaxed approach would be the way to go. My Spanish is woeful and yet I was able to travel around Spain by train and bus and stayed in a small town for 6 weeks and had no difficulty whatsoever . So decide what the reasons are that you are learning this language , relax and enjoy it.
Este tema es muy interesante y estoy 100% de acuerdo con lo que dice Ray.
Algunos sabemos usar la licuadora, algunos la han desarmado y saben cómo funciona, otros entienden tan bien su funcionamiento que pueden crear cosas como esta bicilicuadora.
Con el lenguaje me parece que sucede algo parecido. Algunos lo utilizan, es decir, se comunican, otros lo desarman y lo analizan para entender su funcionamiento (los académicos) y otros deciden dedicarse a explorar otras posibilidades que exceden la función comunicativa (los escritores).
En general, el purismo lingüístico me parece innecesario y peligroso. Esto de que es importante hablar correctamente, de que hay que "conservar" la lengua, me parece una idea complicada, fundamentalmente por clasista (el acceso a la educación tiene que ver con un cierto capital económico y cultural, sobre todo en América Latina) y colonial.
La RAE, con sede en España, es la reina en las citas de autoridad. "La RAE no lo acepta" suele saldar las discusiones. Pero la RAE es una academia con sede en Madrid que es parte de la Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española, donde hay otras academias de las que no se suele hablar. España cuenta con 46 millones de habitantes mientras que Hispanoamérica tiene 400 mil millones.
Al día de hoy se sigue hablando de "slangs", "regionalismos", pero las jergas (slangs) son manifestaciones de aquellos que no se sienten representados por la lengua hegemónica e irrumpen con sus propias construcciones, adaptadas a su cosmovisión del mundo. Estas manifestaciones pueden surgir en diferentes grupos, determinados por edad, por clase social, por origen étnico, etc. Es una manifestación de la identidad. Asumir que la jerga es un uso incorrecto del español me parece un espasmo conservador. La lengua no puede pensarse en términos de bien y mal, el uso del lenguaje es un problema político.
Lamentar que Cervantes ya no sea comprensible por el hablante común es consecuencia de esta misma lógica. El español de hace 400 años se enfrentaba a otros sujetos. ¿Es interesante leer Don Quijote de la Mancha? Por supuesto. ¿Es importante? Depende de tus intereses. ¿Es preocupante no entenderlo? Tan preocupante como no entender Martín Fierro por sus matices gauchescos o Yaguar Fiesta por su hibridación quechua. En mi opinión, ninguna de las tres cosas es preocupante, pero me gusta tener esto en cuenta cuando me doy cuenta que caigo en lugares puristas.
Entiendo que estamos en un foro de idiomas, y no estoy en contra de corregir el uso de la lengua, pero no me gusta perder de vista qué estamos defendiendo cuando nos concentramos excesivamente en la norma.
