Need advice on learning Spanish by writing
Hi everyone,
I'm new to the forums, but I've read through some posts and many here seem to be very knowledgeable, so I was hoping for some guidance. I took two years of Spanish several years back in high school, and I'm trying to learn it again. I've jumped around from apps and workbooks but nothing seems to keep my attention as they all share the same faults of drilling vocab I don't need and spending the first several chapters covering grammar that isn't immediately relevant.
I was thinking about how to address this, and I thought being able to write in my journal in Spanish would be a great way to keep me motivated and it would make whatever vocab and grammar I learned relevant. The problem, however, is that I rarely think or write in simple sentences. Even saying, "I have been thinking about what I want to major in", contains at least a dozen grammar lessons if not more.
Is there a way to take this approach without overwhelming myself with 20 grammar lessons to say one sentence? Or perhaps there is an alternative method that might be better?
1 Answer
When I was learning Karate, I found the constant practicing of "forms" or "kata" somewhat boring and a lot of drudgery, but my sensei told me that the constant drilling or practice strengthens the neural pathways and brings about so called "muscle memory" so that one doesn't have to think about the next move, when your opponent makes his/her move you just automatically adjust and make the counter move, then attack.
I also had the same experience in mastering the guitar. Countless hours of scales, chord practice, and exercises. Pure drudgery. But I can play the guitar quite well.
I started learning English at nine years of age. I made vocabulary sheets and cards and memorized vocabulary like crazy. I absorbed the extremely difficult grammar. That's a lot of drudgery for one so young. But now when I speak English, no one has a clue that I am Spanish as I am very light, and speak flawless idiomatic California style English.
Does any of this give you a hint as what you must do if you really want to learn Spanish?
You don't learn it all in a day. It takes day after day after day constant practice, learning just a little bit each time. You make mistakes, get corrected and move on.
Remember you don't get a Black Belt in Karate by watching Bruce Lee movies.
It takes practice!
I looked something like this while dealing with English irregular verbs and idiomatic phrases.
