Language immersion

The Native-speaker’s Ear

/ R. Newell Searle / 2 Comments

So, you’ve learned a lot of Spanish and Spanish speakers understand you. Some have even complimented you. The affirmation is gratifying and you want more. (We always want more!) And you want to sound a more like a native-speaker. Maybe blend in. Who doesn’t? But is it possible?

Speaking like a native requires mucho más— much, much more—than correct conjugation of the pluperfect  subjunctive or rolling the double ‘rr’ and or elided ‘yh’ sound of the double ‘ll’. Sometimes, speaking a little too perfectly marks you as an outsider, a talking text-book, someone who knows the words but not the language as it is spoken. Listen to yourself speaking English. How many deviations from the grammar books do you hear? Developing your capacity to speak Spanish as natives do requires developing an ‘ear’ to hear the language as they hear it. This is a tall order. Think of it as a journey and not a destination. It’s worth it—vale la pena.

How we speak our tongue is part of our individual and cultural  identity. Our verbal fingerprint is there in our accent, rhythm and phrasing. It tells some people we are a part of their group and tell others we are strangers,  ‘not from around these parts.’

Novels and short stories.

Accents, rhythms and phrasing. As children, we learned to speak mimicking our parents and peers. Their sound patterns trained our ‘ear’ to recognize and mimic the language as they spoke it. I don’t mean only the grammar but the accents, rhythm and phrasing of sentences. I grew up in rural Minnesota but my urban New Jersey-born parents taught me to speak and my English still has strains of the East Coast. Minnesotans pronounce ‘orange’ as  orj but I grew up hearing it is ahranj.

New sounds are often challenging for adults and adult language learners. As we age, a part of our brain gradually tunes out sounds that don’t conform to our native tongue. Adult language learners can master grammar and vocabulary with relative ease but struggle to understand what they hear. Developing the ‘ear’ requires developing the mental circuitry to handle it.

The American South and New England have distinctive accents. Among southerners, the vowels often glide so a word like ‘ride’ is pronounced rod or rad. And you may hear ‘done’  used as an auxiliary as in ‘I done told you.’ New Englanders have a distinct speech with a broad ‘ah’ instead of ‘ar,’ as in ‘don’t pahk yoah cah in Havahd Yahd.’ In Minnesota, our accent is flatter and we are apt to pronounce ‘police’ and ‘insurance’ as ‘p’lice’ and ‘inshurns.’ In the south, the accent falls heavier on first syllables and the words you hear are ‘po-lice’ and ‘in-shurance.’ These dynamics are at work in other countries and languages. In Mexico, for example, I hear subtle (to me) differences in the Spanish of multi-national Mexico City, multi-ethnic Oaxaca and indigenous Cuetzalán of the Sierra Norte.

Idiomatic phrasing is often as telling as an accent. In Minnesota and the upper Midwest, it is common to end phrases and sentences with a preposition or an adverb. You may be asked: ‘Do you want to come with?’ Or to confirm your café order: ‘So, you want cream, then?’ Many sentences begin with ‘you know’ or an agreement ends with ‘that’s for sure’ or ‘you bet.’

Find books on areas you plan to visit.

Acquiring an ‘ear’ for the language means hearing (and thinking) the way a native hears it. This takes time and patience. Becoming a native speaker by intent is a tall order for an adult learner but who doesn’t want to do a little better? So, how can we up our game, as it were? How can we move our already competent grasp of Spanish a notch closer to speaking and comprehending native speech?

Try this: Get some books written in Spanish—not translations from English! Choose children’s or young adult novels or short stories you can easily understand. That way, you can focus on the phrasing and rhythm of the language. Especially, look for books with dialogue between characters. Then read the stories aloud (a whisper is sufficient) and pay attention to the sound. Before long, you’ll feel the rhythm of the language, the rise and fall of the speech. With this practice, you will sharpen your ‘ear’.

If you have a strong interest in a particular Spanish-speaking country, look for novels and short-stories by its authors as idioms differ from one nation to another. As you read these books, make note of how common phrases are put together. Many phrases in English have counterparts in Spanish. You may also notice they don’t translate literally but only figuratively. As you read, you may notice the distinct ‘voices’ of the characters by the words they use and the kinds of phrases they speak. Take notes. Before long, you will ‘hear’ the rhythm and acquire useful phrases inherit to a nation or a region.

Feeling the Language

/ R. Newell Searle / Leave a comment

 

Language takes many forms of expression. Glyph. Oaxaca, Mexico

Can you “feel” the language when you speak Spanish as an unconscious action like riding a bike? That is, the skill comes unconsciously, without fear or thought. Regardless of fluency, you need pluck to meet whatever conversational circumstance you face. Don’t worry about how many words you know or how well you conjugate them. Your fluency will improve the more you forget yourself and concentrate on connecting with the other person. Then you’re too focused to worry about yourself and errors of conjugation or pronunciation.

 

How you feel when you speak–confident, nervous, fearful–will influence how well you speak spanish. Self-awareness is a key to overcoming the barriers to fluency. As a beginning Spanish speaker, I felt anxious about conversations, like a boy on a first date with a girl I liked. Fear of mistakes made me insecure, socially awkward and afraid of looking foolish. The first date was the hardest and I survived it to overcome the fear of self-inflicted rejection or humiliation. Try it. Who knows? You may soon “go steady.”

‘All government is an assassin.’ Graffiti in Oaxaca

Language immersion, formal and informal, gives you the saturation necessary to “feel” the language. By that I mean an intuitive trust the words and phrases will come when you need them. Nik Wallenda, who walked the cable between Chicago sky-scrapers, succeeded because he wasn’t preoccupied with falling. Like walking a tightrope, language confidence rests on going forward and looking ahead rather than looking down, afraid of falling over your mistakes.

I’‘felt’ the language in Guadalajara several years ago as a consultant to a food bank. A food bank official took me to a distribution center and  introduced me to local leaders with lavish praise. When she finished, she turned and looked directly at me. Only then did I realize she expected a response. It had to be more than “Gracias.” And I wasn’t prepared! Or so I thought. Swallowing momentary panic, I thanked her for the kind words and concentrated on what  I wanted them to know. Words poured out unconsciously without hemming or hawing. It all came out spontaneously. I didn’t quite believe it at first.

Every form of communication builds fluency

Try this: Enter into a Spanish conversation that involves topics more complex than you are accustomed to. Asking someone about their profession is a safe approach. People will be flattered and let yourself enter the vocabulary thicket without  a map, guided by trusting intuition to give you the words. Chances are good your conversation partner will help you with new words and phrases as she answers your questions. You may also develop a way to “work around” the unknown by describing the idea, object or action for which you lack the exact word. Even a work-around provides a good conversational exercise

Look for these  signs of progress toward fluency:

Dreaming. Our minds work even while our body rests. Early in the first immersion, I woke, stunned to realize I was dreaming in Spanish! It happens to a lot of students. If it happens to you, trust it. It doesn’t mean you’re fluent but it’s a sign your mind is absorbing the language subconsciously and that’s where you want it.

Social events are the greatest classrooms

Oblivious to language. At some point you will speak Spanish without conscious intention. Another big step. It happened to me when I agreed to an interview with a Mexican youth taking English classes.  Lacking confidence, she asked questions in halting English. I answered three questions in detail until her companion stopped me. “Ingles, habla en ingles! Hablas en espanol.” Speak English, she said, you are speaking Spanish. I was? Flabbergasted, I realized Spanish was now a “default” language. Even a meal in a Mexican restaurant in the U.S. triggers an unconscious response in Spanish.

 Catching mistakes. Another sign is when you catch a mistake just before or after you make it  We all do it so, relax. Your brain moves faster than the tongue, your mind edits as you speak and sometimes you change our mind while the tongue still  conjugating  a verb you’ve just rejected. You do it in English, too. Don’t criticize your small mistakes. Perfectionism is a disease. Of course, you speak fluent English, don’t you? Then listen to how you speak English and notice your mistakes and imperfections. Conversations aren’t oral exams with a grade. Being understood is the passing grade.  Not trying is failure.

Energy at day’s end. Acquiring a language takes lots of energy at first. Then, as Spanish sinks into the subconscious, check your mental energy at day’s end. The more you feel or trust the language, the less energy you will use in conversation. Much of the ease comes from focusing on what you want to say without worrying about how you say it.

Language, like art, is an intimate human capacity of body and soul

Body language. Every culture has body language to go with the words. Check out your gestures and facial expressions as you gain proficiency. The changes may be subtle or obvious. You may find yourself talking with your hands in ways you never did before  or with more emphatic  gestures. In Mexico, I “talk” with my hands  far more than I do in Minnesota.

Above all, pay attention to your emotional state as you grow in fluency. Language doesn’t exist outside you, and it isn’t knowledge like mathematics or history. Acquiring a language is an intimate process, like art. The teacher can give you vocabulary and grammar as raw materials  but only you can make it a part of your being.

 

Unfinished Fluency

/ R. Newell Searle / 5 Comments

Unfinished Fluency

 “Are you fluent in Spanish?” my friends ask.

“Almost,” I reply. 

When I first enrolled in Spanish immersion, I thought of ‘fluency’ as the capacity to speak and understand without errors. Early in the course of my studies, I saw a banner marked ‘fluency’ at a finish line just ahead of me. The more I studied and learned, the more the finish line moved farther on, always a little ahead of me. Of course, I didn’t want to leave fluency unfinished. I wanted to cross a line that marked the boundary between fluent and not fluent. One day, I woke up realizing the ‘finish line’ didn’t exist; it was a figment of my cultural imagination.

Our American way of life seems preoccupied with the idea of completion, conclusion or the finished product. We don’t like things left unfinished—college degrees 10 credits short of graduation, questions left unanswered, arguments lacking conclusions, mysteries left uninvestigated. No. We are culturally inclined to want things neatly tied up, without loose ends. In death as well as life, we want resolution—closure. That’s the virtue we see in a ‘dead line.’ When we see something unfinished, a house, a project, an education, we tend to view it moralistically. Subtly, we think it a wasteful, slothful, shiftless, no-account. Culturally, we have little tolerance for anything unfinished.   

I suspect we can chalk up some of our abhorrence of unfinished things to the cultural effects of the Industrial Revolution and mass production. American life is tightly bound up in a layers of integrated processes. Every step along the way is measured to the last nano-second. Each one must be finished on time, nothing must be left unfinished, incomplete or behind schedule. If it is, the whole system stops. It’s unfinished. Horrible!

Learning a language, even our tongue, is a process. No one is born fluent in his native language. Nor is it possible to wake up some day speaking another idiom. From infancy on, we learn through a series of steps and processes that become a part of ourselves. Unlike the manufacture of standardized widgets, language learning takes its own time and is never truly finished. Unfortunately, too much language instruction follows an industrial model. The lessons are often a series of uniform steps meshed into larger units and designed to be completed within a specified period of time, as if the students were of identical capacity.

Am I fluent? No. I’m not finished yet. ‘Almost fluent’ is about as much as I can accomplish in any language, even in my native English. Something is always incomplete because English and Spanish evolve constantly. Each year brings new phrases, shades of meaning, and slang. These variants come and go rapidly. As I learn and unlearn  them, they change how I think and speak and act.

With the passing of time and circumstances, I add to my vocabulary and I find new and interesting ways to say and write my thoughts. It’s all part of on-going literacy. The American English I hear in old radio broadcasts from the 1930s and 1940s isn’t the American English of today. Today’s voices are more diverse, the vocabulary, accents,  intonation, and word order have changed. Language evolves with our lives. Learning a language is like buying unfinished desk. It possesses the virtue of creating opportunities to continue its completion to suit me with my taste in varnish or paint.

Am I fluent ? Not yet. Like you, the reader, I’m still unfinished.  I’m a work in progress, still learning Spanish ever more deeply, and evolving as I learn. Each lesson, each experience, adds to the sum of what is already there. It deepens and broadens my sense and use of the language. Fluency is a journey and not a destination. It is never finished.  

 

Staying Connected

/ R. Newell Searle / 2 Comments

Staying Connected

On Saturday I attended the wedding of very good friends—well, family—who came from Mexico 25 years ago. Although married in a civil ceremony, they waited a quarter century until their parents obtained resident visas to have a religious service. Then, with their daughters, parents, extended family and close friends around them, they held the nuptial mass at their cabin in western Wisconsin.

They did it the Mexican way, reciting their vows with the traditional lazo or cord around their necks. Afterward, the bride’s father, a retired mariachi in full costume, sang romantic songs. During the feast, over plates of mole rojo con pollo, rice and enchiladas, we visited in Spanish and English. Being connected to this family and a larger Hispanic community is how I keep my Spanish in ‘shape.’ I exercise it in the same way I work my muscles.

Stay Connected—We visit another country, we learn its language, and maybe we make friends there. But, after we return home to the U.S., we face the challenge of staying sufficiently connected to keep up the Spanish we have worked so hard to learn through immersion, classes or travel. Being connected or in contact with other Spanish speakers is the key. The question is, how to do it.

How I ended up at the wedding is part of a longer story. Suffice it to say, I was at the wedding because I looked for ways to connect and use my Spanish (see below). I met my friends at church and, because they lacked immigration documents, I used my social contacts to help a daughter enter college and the husband avoid deportation. For me, it was a matter of using my professional contacts and applying my professional skills to aid them. To them, I was a life-saver. After my friend no longer faced deportation, he said, “You’re now a member of the family. A ‘primo’ (cousin). Since then, they have include in family events. I’m connected.

Finding your particular connections takes experimentation. This can be as extensive as you want and it can lead in unexpected directions and relationships, as it did in my case.

Conversation Groups—I attended several types of conversation groups in Minnesota between my short and intermittent immersion courses in Mexico. Language groups are easy to find over the internet. Simply enter ‘Meet-ups’ in your web browser and then indicate the kind of ‘meet up’ you want in the search box. During the early years of Spanish lessons, I attended groups that met at a Barnes and Noble bookstore, a library, a coffee shop and a bar.

Each group had its own personality, depending on the language skills of the leaders and the participants. As I discovered, most groups didn’t involve native speakers as regular members as they had other opportunities to keep their language alive. The groups I attended included lots of eager beginner and intermediate speakers whose ability ranged from elementary level to bi-lingual fluency. Some knew no Spanish but came with the hope of learning it by ‘osmosis.’ This rarely happened.

You may have to try several groups before finding your ‘groove.’ Some may be too elementary and participants will look to you for leadership. Or they may be too large for establishing any personal relationships in which to have on-going conversations. Or they may be too advanced for you to feel comfortable. Keep looking. The groups exist and you will find one to fit you.

Cultural Centers—Many if not most larger cities have Hispanic cultural centers that offer classes in Spanish and the cultures of Mexico and other countries of Latin America. Minneapolis has one where I completed my beginning level classes with native speaker instructors before taking immersion in Mexico. Later, after I became fluent, I took two 10-week literature classes for the pleasure of reading Latin American writers and discussing the works with others.

If your city doesn’t have a cultural center, look for a community education program, or perhaps audit a class at a local college. One of my friends whose spoken Spanish isn’t as fluent as she wants it to be, audited a college course in Latin American literature. And if your city doesn’t have a college, then read aloud.

Volunteer—If your city or community has a Hispanic population, chances are good there are non-profit social and educational programs that serve them. Most organizations depend on volunteers to interact with clients and do much of the work. Volunteering may be a double opportunity for you. You will have the opportunity to use your language, meeting others, and serve them by helping them with your useful ‘connections’ to corporate hiring managers, college admissions staff, government officials and the like.

Most of us who are U.S. citizens know how the ‘system’ works and we usually know someone (or someone who knows someone) who can help a Latin American immigrant navigate to the services or officials they need. Aiding an immigrant to a job, an official, a service—even if your Spanish is still elementary—is a ‘big deal’ for them. It is through gestures like this that good friendships form. I’m still amazed at the difference I’ve made in some lives with a few phone calls, a few letters of recommendation, character references, visits to an official’s office, or accompanying an immigrant to court. As a citizen, these look like small favors; for my friends they are life-changing.

Churches—The church and its ceremonies play large roles in the lives of many immigrants. Not all are Roman Catholics, but also Episcopalian, Lutheran, Baptist and other denominations. Regardless of denomination, the church is still the community nexus where many Latin American immigrants come together to find community. I belong to a largely Mexican congregation in Minnesota where the liturgies and sermon are in Spanish, as are the after-church conversations over coffee and tamales. For six years, I served on the parish council and as its co-chair because I was also the bridge or connection to the majority culture.

These are some of the ways you can connect with fellow Spanish speakers. And, if you are so fortunate as to find a congregation, a nonprofit or a cultural organization that fits your abilities and meets your needs, you most certainly will make friends. Who knows, you may one day find yourself at a wedding as one of the family or at least in the smaller circle of close and trusted friends who will nurture your Spanish and deepen your sense of the culture.

 

Learning Spanish as a tongue-tied imposter

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Nearly every language learner I’ve met – whether an English-speaker learning Spanish, or a Spanish-speaker learning English – feels the same anxiety. Have you had that experience – the reluctance if not fear of using our second language in front of people who are bilingual? At its best , our hesitation may be a decent form of modesty to prevent a presumption of appearing to be more than we are. Or so we tell ourselves. Or, it may be our fear is more primal than that.

The ‘imposter syndrome’, as it’s called, hits me most noticeably when I encounter Spanish speakers whose English is at least as good as my Spanish. My first instinct is to stick with English. Yet, I’m not afraid to speak Spanish with Mexicans who don’t speak English. It’s utterly irrational but somewhere, in the back of my mind, a little voice tells me bilingual Spanish speakers will ask themselves: ‘Who does this naco (idiot) think he is?’

When I was a schoolboy, I sometimes had nightmares of standing naked in front of my classmates while they pointed, giggled and taunted as I imploded before them. Over the years, as I matured and gained self-confidence, the dreams went away – or so I thought.

Why not? I passed into adulthood and then middle age as a highly competent if not accomplished adult. I overcame a lackluster high school education to earn a PhD, write a book and receive a book award, then hold a professional slot in a multinational corporation followed by a stint in state government. In short, when I put my mind and will into it, I did everything I thought possible to do and even things I thought no possible to do. Experience showed me that my professional effectiveness rested on my integrity because people knew me to be who I claimed to be.

When I took up Spanish in my 60s, and stepped outside my customary social and professional world, the fear of standing naked on a stage returned, and I again feared exposure as a fraud. I know the ‘imposter syndrome’ is a common occurrence to various degrees but it’s not one we talk about. We cover it up behind a bluff front, or we dismiss these dire visions as irrational fantasies outside reality. As a middle-aged language student, the fear of exposure often dogged me by day as well as by night.

Learning Spanish in Mexico wasn’t simply a matter of memorizing grammar and vocabulary, as I thought. No. Language immersion entailed learning and living within a cultural mentality that was different from my own. The anxiety didn’t arise when I began the language because I knew so little. Anxiety increased as I learned to move into the culture and became acute toward the end of immersion, as I became bilingual. Mexico isn’t Minnesota and our inner ways of life differ. Unfiltered expressions of opinion and emotion are marks of authenticity in Mexico but we Minnesotans mask these things with opaque friendliness. As I internalized this aspect of the Mexican cultural mentality, I started to think, speak and act in Mexico in ways at odds with how I thought, spoke and acted in Minnesota. Before long, I felt as if I had two personalities and wondered which was the authentic one.

Near the end of my language study, I was riding high, full of myself, floating on the affirmations of teachers and friends who said how much I had changed during immersions. To them, I had become ‘something of a Mexican’ in thought and habit as well as speech. When I took a bus to visit a friend in a distant town, I shared the four-hour journey with a campesino. When he discovered I grew up on a farm, we talked about agriculture in great detail, questioning each each other about the practices in Mexico and Minnesota. If I can do that, I thought afterward, then I must be truly ‘something of a Mexican’.

After a day of walking around in the tropical heat, and feeling ill, I passed a wretched night with my inner critic, trapped between slumber and consciousness. Like a prosecuting attorney, this dark voice reviewed every error I ever made during Spanish immersion, it doubted my affinity for Mexican culture, and questioned the authenticity of my identity as ‘something of a Mexican’. Who was I to think I could be bilingual and culturally competent? I was a fraud, a pretender, un pendejo (a jerk).

I rose early in the morning, physically and mentally exhausted, convinced I didn’t speak much Spanish, that the affirmations of my fluency were lies, and my affinity for Mexico was illusory. At that moment, I wanted to return to Minnesota immediately. Feeling hungry, I went to the posada’s deserted dining room for breakfast. The waiter greeted me cheerfully and asked for my order. I answered automatically in fluent Spanish, adding the details of how I wanted my eggs cooked, and could he bring me coffee right now. Hearing me speak in rapid-fire Spanish, he asked more questions, we chatted for a moment and then he took my order to the kitchen. As he walked away, I wondered: What happened last night?

That is the crux of the ‘imposter syndrome’. It’s not necessarily a bad thing. At its core, the ‘imposter syndrome’ identifies our insecurities and poses questions that test if not challenge what we believe about ourselves. Sometimes it’s a gentle nudge toward self-examination and self-definition. At other times, as in my case, it acts like the Spanish Inquisition or the Salem witch trials demanding proof that its negative accusations aren’t false. Looking back on it, I realize my subconscious was warning me not to confuse my high aspirations and expectations with my current reality. Yes, I’m bilingual, and yes, I’m culturally competent, but that night the syndrome taught me the importance of humble self-acceptance as the heart of authenticity.

Two tongues, Two Minds – Writing Bilingually

/ R. Newell Searle / 2 Comments

Have you ever tried writing from scratch in your second language? A letter, a post-card, an essay? What was your result? Too hard to think of the words? Frustration with the grammar? You wrote it in English and then tried to translate it to Spanish? Writing in a second language is challenging but so rewarding if you want to learn.

I treat all writing – in English or Spanish – as thinking on paper. It’s thought in a visual form. When I lay down the words where I can see them, it’s easier to watch what they do in the company with other words. Writing in Spanish, however imperfectly, also sharpens me for writing in English.

Good writers are also good readers and reading is a good place to start. Try reading a familiar English passage in another language. Chances are it will illuminate something you didn’t notice in English. For example, St. John’s Gospel starts with, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God …” I always took this as a poetic but abstract statement about the Divinity. I understood the passage differently when I heard it in Spanish. “En el principio existía el Verbo y el Verbo estaba con Dios y el Verbo era Dios…” Verbo means verb, it denotes a word to express action. The English ‘word’ denotes a part of speech and can be a noun, adjective, preposition as well as a verb. In other words, ‘Word’ is rather generic, even passive.  God as verbo is a different image than God as ‘word; a God of actions rather than categories.

Try this:

Read in Spanish (or your second language) a book you already know well in English. Preferably, choose one with familiar passages as in the Bible, Winnie the Pooh, Goodnight Moon, or others. As you read, look for shades of meaning in Spanish language you missed in English. What new insights or meanings do you take from this?

I began writing in Spanish during immersion. The teacher asked only for random sentences to practice verb tenses, prepositional phrases, etc. As an inveterate writer, however, I turned the requisite sentences into a short, coherent story I might tell socially. I was tempted to write it in English and then translate it but I’m glad I didn’t. The point of immersion is learning to think the language. Writing Spanish from scratch wasn’t easy at first, but became easier with each essay and oh so satisfying!

Writing forced me to think the language, and my tutor identified the habitual mistakes. That became an agenda for practice and improvement. In short, writing Spanish showed me where to focus my efforts. Writing helped me acquire the rhythm of Spanish. I wrote about things that interested me, thereby building a useable, personal vocabulary connected to my life and interests. Ultimately, I developed a writing and speaking style natural to me.

I habitually wrote English in an emotionally restrained style sometimes bordered on terseness. When I wrote in Spanish, however, I was surprised to discover my natural style was more emotional and affective than in English. Part of this I ascribe to the transforming effects of languages and cultures. Second languages and cultures tend to draw on aspects of personality that may be subordinate or invisible in your native culture.

When I started writing Spanish, I focused on words and phrases I wanted to learn to use well. I began by writing them across the top of a page. Then I studied them for their possibilities until I had a story line. It was a process like arranging and rearranging the magnetic words and phrases on the refrigerator door until a sentence or paragraph emerged. In time, reading and writing moved me closer to thinking and speaking with the economy of a native speaker. You will find, as I did,  writing can embed in your memory useful words and phrases that will easily roll off your tongue when you need them.

After the immersions, I continued to write short stories for my own amusement and to practice Spanish. I created stories with dialogues between the characters because this is a good way (in my opinion) to learn the kinds of phrases most likely to come up in conversation. It is especially useful in learning the slang or modismos.

In the fragment below, I created an author with a case of writer’s block the night before a crucial deadline. He hears a voice in his garret and is confronted by a tiny man standing on his typewriter. It is the writer’s inner voice but he doesn’t yet recognize it as his own:

“¿Quién? ¿Quién eres,” le pregunté, frotando los ojos con mis puños con incredulidad.

“¿Tú no sabes?”

“No. No idea. No conozco a cualquier hombrecitos. ¿Eres tú una invención? ¿Alguien que me imaginaba?“

“Sabes ya mi nombre. Es el mismo de tuyo.”

“¡Ay-yi-yi! ¿De dónde vienes?”

“Aquí. Siempre aquí. Vivo dentro de ti.”

¡Aquí! ¡Siempre! ¡Dentro de yo mismo! Me sentí más y más confundido. Cuando traté poner un dedo en el hombrecito, mi dedo pasó por su cuerpo como sí él estaba el aire. ¡Carrumba! ¿Por qué estoy platicar con un hombrecito imaginario? Él es una alucinación. ¡Ay, estoy fatigado!

Now try writing a story on your own. Keep it simple, on the level of a story you would tell a child. Keep it short and manageable. Play with it. If you write on your computer with Microsoft Word, you can go to the “Review” tab on the menu bar and set the proofing language. When you right click on a word, there is a link to synonyms. It’s a great way to sharpen your writing and expand your vocabulary.

Try this:

Choose a dozen words – verbs, prepositions, phrases – and write them across the top of your page. Next, look at the words and phrases and note the words, thoughts, actions, or events they suggest. Use them as the basis for a story. Use them naturally, in your particular way of speaking. Watch what happens.

Try this:

Create several characters and put them into a conversation in your second language. Try to inhabit each character, and give each one a distinct way of speaking. You may find yourself writing short, punchy phrases – the kind we say all the time. The dialogue will suggest the vocabulary.

If you have a native-speaker friend, or one who is highly fluent in your second language, engage them as a critical reader to give you constructive criticism. Two things will happen: 1) Your use of the language will improve, and 2) you may detect a subtle but distinct aspect of your mind you hadn’t noticed before.

Buena suerte!

 

 

Rainy day Spanish – when you’re all alone

/ R. Newell Searle / Leave a comment

OAXACA, Mexico.

As a farm boy, a rainy day meant staying indoors, freed from chores, with “nothing” to do but read books.  I fell in love with reading and rainy days.  If  you live in a desert, you can declare for yourself a ‘rainy day” and take up reading – in Spanish!  Here’s how it works:

Julita, a Mexican friend, arrived in Minnesota twenty-five years ago with two small children.  She didn’t speak English and neither did they.  Being an intelligent and determined woman, she supported her family by cleaning, and set about learning English on her own.   Her children are now adults and native speakers in both languages, and she talks as readily in one tongue as the other.  How did she do it?

She read to her children.  Not the simplest children’s books, but books with characters and plots.  Her favorite was the “Amerlia Bedelia” series.  These books revolve around literalness, figures of speech, and the humorous mishaps of Amelia.  But she told me – with a smile –  she read mostly for herself.

Like Julita, I stumbled upon the same strategy early in my Spanish studies.  Without forethought, I bought a memoir about growing up as an undocumented immigrant in the late 1940s.  The author is my contemporary in age and a university professor in California.  He wrote a simple narrative at a 9th grade level.  I caught the drift of the story, but not the color and details.  Those I looked up.  Unfamiliar words on the page revealed themselves when I sounded them out (as we did as grade-school children).  Soon, I read aloud, just under my breath, and the story took on greater depth and meaning.  Somehow, hearing the word as I read it increased my comprehension.

Although I’m fluent now, and sight-read Spanish, I continue to read aloud, particularly when I’m not in Mexico.  Reading aloud is a good strategy and I believe sharpens several language skills at the same time.

Imprinting the language:

1) I learn the words as I speak them.  This seems to imprint the words in my memory for pronunciation and meaning.  (There is research that combining learning with a physical act strengthens retention.)

2) Besides receiving the word visually, I hear it as well in my own voice.  Letters and sounds go together as a single action.  This makes it easier to recognize the word when I hear someone say it.

Physical training:

3) By reading aloud I practice the physical act of making the sounds.  Some sounds are not as easy to make as others, such as the rolled R – as in “perro,” or the sound of double L as in “llamar.”   Unlike English, Spanish articulates every vowel separately, and this isn’t always easy to do.  Reading aloud helps to train the muscles of my tongue to make the sounds it’s not accustomed to making.  Think of reading aloud as a “work-out” for your tongue muscles.

Linkages:

4) Reading aloud creates linkages between sight and sound with words commonly used phrases, such as “asi como” “antes de que,” and others that stitch together nouns and verbs.  When reading, we tend to see one word of phrase at a time.  But speaking is an almost unbroken flow of sounds.  Native speakers often fuse the sounds of words to the point non-native speakers can’t distinguish them.  (We do this in English, too:  “seeya later,” “doncha know”, etc.)  If we’re not attuned to the sounds as they link and fuse, we may quickly lose the thread of the conversation.  Reading aloud can help create and reinforce these links.

Rhythm:

5) There is rhythm to the spoken word.  We all have a distinctive, individual rhythm speech that identifies us as surely as a photo.  We instantly recognize friend or family by their voice over the phone.  Reading aloud – but particularly if the book has dialogues – may help develop your particular rhythm, one that is natural to you.  Speaking naturally will improve your confidence as well as your fluency.

Try this:

If you already know even a little Spanish, buy a Spanish language book (children’s or young adult) that fits your level of fluency.  Then read aloud to yourself and listen to your voice.  You may not understand all the words the first time through.  In fact, I can almost guarantee you won’t, unless you bought a book below your level of experience.  But read slightly above your level, underline words you don’t understand, and continue reading.  You will likely re-read a paragraph or sentence; and when you do, check to see if the context tells you something about the underlined words.  If you have to look them up, do it later rather than break your rhythm and concentration.

I still do this as an exercise.  A friend recently gave me a book of Mexican short stories; the writing is literary, the plots are subtle, and some of the words escape me.   I often reread paragraphs, even whole pages, before I get it.  But it strengthens my vocabulary.  I carry this or other books with me and read while waiting to meet a friend.  I also have some bi-lingual anthologies of short stories, but I’m not convinced they’re as helpful.  To me, at least.   But that’s a personal preference.

Yesterday, I spent several hours in the Centro Cultural de Santo Domingo, Oaxaca, in the galleries of artifacts from the early period of Zapotec culture.  Besides the cards identifying the fetishes and funeral objects, there were panels explaining the background and details of the culture.  I read them aloud, just under my breath, my whispers floating down the empty hallways.  I read aloud as fast as my eyes could sweep over the words, and the comprehension was complete.  When I stopped reading aloud (because someone was close to me), my rate of comprehension slowed noticeably.  Why?  For all the reasons I’ve outlined above, I suppose.

To repeat something I’ve said before: language is more than words.  It is also a physical activity that engages our brain, our emotions, and the muscles of our mouths.  All must work together if we are communicate and understand the words of others, whether written or spoken.  I believe effective language learning requires careful attention to and training of these distinct parts of our being: mind, body, and soul.

To sum up:  Reading aloud is an easy but effective way to boost your language capacity.  It’s cheap.  You can do it anywhere, at any time, when you’re alone.  And who knows, you may look forward to rainy days.

Immersion: Intensity, density, propensity

/ R. Newell Searle / Leave a comment

CUETZALAN, Puebla

A few days ago I shared a cafe table with an American couple.  We’d come in out of the rain to eat an early breakfast.  Middle-aged, they live in Mexico City and teach in an American school.   We chatted in English because it was easier for them.  Although they have an apartment in Mexico City, and lived there a year and a half, they have only enough Spanish to get by meeting basic needs.  They said they hoped someday to learn more Spanish to better experience Mexico.

So, is getting by enough?  Will getting by give us the level of travel or living satisfaction we want?

I started learning Spanish with a goal of “getting by” to meet basic needs as a traveler.  That was before I ever spent time in Mexico.  But after I two weeks in Mexico, I realized “getting by” wasn’t enough.

Well, don’t we want it all, want it now, and want it to come easily?  And the next logical questions is: What’s the fastest way to embed Spanish?  It’s a good question.  I’ve asked it often.  But in hindsight, do we want to learn Spanish the fastest way or learn with the deepest penetration?

I believe the fastest way won’t embed it in a way we can call on it after an absence of use.  It will be rest in our short-term memory, and soon forgotten, like the items on last week’s grocery list.  And when we go to use quickie Spanish after a lapse, it won’t be there.  Language penetration is essential.

Immersion experiences work with three critical and related aspects: Intensity, density, and propensity.  The question you and I are asking is how to reach the point at which Spanish becomes almost if not entirely automatic; we don’t have to think about it to speak it.

As my mother (a French-speaker) used to say, “Anything worth doing, is worth doing well.”  So our first question must be this: Is learning Spanish worth doing?  If our answer is “Yes,” then it’s worth doing well.

Intensity:  Classroom lessons – particularly in an individual class or tutorial – can provide intense experiences.  It’s just us and the teacher.  There is time to form a sympathetic friendship that furthers mastery of the subjunctive, the conditional, and the other grammar forms essential to speaking the language correctly.  There is time to ask questions whenever we want, and ask why Spanish works the way it does; to grasp the cultural mentality of the tongue, and better understand how to use Spanish effectively.

At the same time, we can help our “profesora” work with the  learning methods that are most effective for us.  Writing stories worked well for me.  I wrote the kind of short stories I might tell at a party as a vehicle to practice thinking in Spanish, and putting the vocabulary and grammar into something of a realistic context.

If writing is useful for you, consider writing stories using the parts of grammar or vocabulary you find most difficult.  Writing is thinking on paper, and from our stories, the teacher can map the waay we think in Spanish.  My teacher pointed out I couldn’t just substitute Spanish words for English without also considering the differences in syntax or structure of thinking.  Ah!  La mentalidad!  Besides seeing the structure of our thoughts, our writing reveals  persist weak spots or recurrent errors that need attention.

Four hours of class a day, five days a week, for two weeks, is more class time than in a college semester.  And it’s better.  We aren’t sharing the teacher’s attention with 15 other students.  We can establish close, personal rapport that is at the heart of intensity.  And if we fall temporarily in love with our teacher, so much the better, because the teacher’s affirmation, not correction, is an act of love essential to effective learning.

An intense, one-on-one learning course may well compress a semester of college learning into a week.  This will accelerate our learning.  It’s an opportunity to harness our passion to learn, unleash our pent-up energy, and sharpen our focus so there’s nothing else in our life at the moment.  Intensity is a form of power; like sex, it’s vital energy.

Density refers to the number or frequency of encounters in our new language within a given time.  Think of the density of experiences as something nourishing, enduring in our memory as raw material for other experiences.  Many immersion programs send us into the city with a conversation guide to practice using the language we are learning in everyday circumstances.  We are learning to use the language with people who may not speak grammatically, articulate clearly, and use slang or jargon not found in classes.

These lessons happen in a less controlled environment than a classroom.  We may (and maybe should) encounter situations spontaneously, unscripted and unforeseen.  This is a potentially frightening thought.  But in these moments, we may learn the most about the language we are pursuing.  We may surprise ourselves – as I did above with the English interview – and take from it a sense of confidence we didn’t have before.  It is true we learn more from our failures than our successes.  Spontaneous conversations are where we test our mettle and gain confidence.

What are we made of?  What lessons will we learn from strangers?  What will they think of us?  We don’t want to look stupid so it’s tempting to say nothing, or pretend we don’t understand than risk putting our foot into it.  How can we overcome our fear of making mistakes in front of others?

The only way I know of overcoming my mistakes is by making mistakes and learning from them.   The density of immersion experiences will get us over our fears faster than any classroom.  Our out of class experience will make the difference between plants able to live only in a greenhouse (the classroom), and those that endure wind, rain, and light frost.

Propensity is a natural inclination or proclivity of our own.  It’s part of who we are, and immersion helps us acquire a language in a way that best fits our style of learning and manner of expression.  Think of it as having your suit tailed to fit and complement you.  It comes through interaction with others.

If we’re already inclined to learn Spanish at mid-life, what kind of investment of time (if not money) are we willing to make?  How much satisfaction do we want from travel, volunteering, or simply learning for its own sake?   If we can define what satisfaction looks like, I’m willing to bet we won’t settle for simply “getting by.”  Go ahead, make the investment of time, if not money, to do it right.