Tips to becoming more fluent
Hello again! I have a question for you all. I feel like I am getting to know Spanish pretty well. I spend about a hour a day 5 days a week on this website learning new words. I am wondering if you guys have any suggestion about when I hear people speak in Spanish, not translating what they say word by word. I want to know it as a language not a series of words. Does it just take practice? For example, if I hear the word codo, I would "match" it to the word elbow. Though if I heard elbow in English I would automatically know what it was. I hope this question makes sense, it is a little bit hard to explain.
7 Answers
It takes time to learn.
If at all possible, listen to Spanish music, read books in Spanish daily, and study grammar as much as possible. That's what I've been doing for the past two and a half years.
Basically, it's a matter of immersing yourself as much as possible in the language.
There are two good "immersion" systems out there. One is the "Pimsleur Approach" which has been used successfully by several members on this site.
The other is "Rosetta Stone." I personally have never used it as it is rather expensive. I use Pimsleur to keep my Hebrew going.
Both can be checked into at Amazon. com.
Buena suerte.
By the way, "translation" is nothing bad. You just have to realize that the word order is different and things are said differently. One humorous example I use with my class has to do with washing one's hands.
In English it's "I wash/am washing my hands. In Spanish it's "I wash myself the hands." (Yo) me lavo las manos."
To ask someone's name you say " How yourself call you?" ¿Cómo te llamas (tú)?
So If you can realize that the structure going from one language to another changes, It's OK to have translation in mind.
There is no easy way and there is no 'one size fits all'. Just keep plugging
away until you find the middle ground that suits you . One of my methods is
while walking around shopping centres I make up conversations in Spanish
a question and answer thing saying it aloud , but be prepared to be sometimes
followed by security , luckily for me one day the uniformed armed guard
was a sweet lady from Mexico who threatened to arrest me for my bad Mexican
accent. Keep watching movies and listen to the radio , it will happen one day
Buena suerte para lel futuro , y bien hecho.
As Cody says: immersion. I've learnt Spanish online and can read it fairly well and write it OK, but my speech is poor and my ability to comprehend it when spoken is nearly non-existent. That ability to speak and hear a language just comes from speaking and hearing it. If you can find people to converse with either via some web platform or in person that interaction will benefit you more than anything.
As an aside, most online lessons teach in a form of translation. It's unavoidable. Unfortunately learning this way creates a process in the student's brain where we read / hear a word then translate it into English in order to understand it. In the written form this is fine because we can read at our own pace. When hearing words spoken, however, this process is just too slow. By the time the last word is translated the speaker is two words on. In order to understand a spoken language most of us will need to comprehend the words without translating them. And this will just come down to immersion.
It takes a lot of practice and the same happens with any language you want to master.
For example, when I began learning English, I'd translate as much as I could so as to have a fully understanding of the things coming through my mind, then I realised I didn't need to translate because I already knew the word and I started to think in English.
The exercise is the same, you need to think as a Spanish speaker. If you have a penchant for learning Spanish, practice a lot and you'll see what the results are. Keep it up always, because if you don't use, you lose it. (It applies to any language you want to master.)
Work till you drop!
I don't know what level you have reached nor if Spanish is the first language you have learned (ie as a second language) You need to be able to listen, write, read and speak.
When you learned your first language, you did lots of listening before you spoke. You then said simple sentences and most of the time were gently corrected til you got it correct.
Obviously spending time where everyone speaks Spanish will help as you will be forced to speak. I don't know if you are self studying or have a teacher. Whatever you enjoy doing try to do in Spanish eg if you want to read, read something in Spanish, listen to music in Spanish, radio and TV in Spanish. Find someone who wants to improve their English and chat online or if possible face to face. I find you need to do some things unconsciously eg music/ radio in the background then concentrate on other things. One of our teachers used to use exercises in Ver Taal. He chose ones that were on a subject we were already discussing. He used ones that used news items from rtve. The first few times we just listened, then he would give us some questions then we would relisten. The site has questions, answers and a transcript. There are many programmes like audacity where you can slow recordings down if you need extra help. There are lots of sites usually including ELE which have lessons with answers. I have often posted links here. I recommend signing up for the (free) electronic magazine Veintemundos. It has interesting articles with related grammar and videos. The pieces are graded (A1 to C2) The reason they are graded is you want material that stretches you but not overwhelms you.
Finally I am a huge fan of music, if you find a song you like or better still an artist ( Juanes is popular) you will soon find you are absorbing the rhythm of the language and meaning. I like Mercedes Sosa and have phrases running in my head. I also like Gaby Moreno.
Look back at some of my posts about music podcasts etc - in many cases other members have also posted good suggestions on those threads. Many good links are gathered together on Spanish dict. Beuna suerte
