My Spanish is getting better very slowly, but it’s been somewhat at a plateau for quite a while. When I say it’s improving, I mean that I am learning more, but it’s mostly words. Those words are helping me put sentences together, and many times I can, albeit not error free, put my thoughts together to express many things. But my comprehension is still crap. I have a hard time understanding the sentences and short paragraphs that Duolingo throws out at me, much less a real conversation when native speakers are speaking.
The thing is, I’m not really working that hard at it. I do take a lesson every day with Duolingo, and many days I listen to the Language Transfer lessons, or an audio book, or listen to Spanish radio, etc. but I know I’m not putting the time in that is required for real results. My interest is really high. I am enjoying the lessons, and do try and put sentences together (in my head at least) every day. It’s not that I’m losing interest in any way, it’s just that having “interest” is not the same as doing the work.
But what is “the work”? What should I be doing more of? More lessons? More attempts at speaking? I think both of those things are needed, but here’s a typical scenario of my attempting to actually use Spanish in a meaningful way.
I probably order food once a week at either a restaurant or a market. My typical Spanish interaction is that I go to the counter, or the wait person comes up to the table and ask them if they speak Spanish. If I already heard them speaking Spanish I might skip that question, but even sometimes when I’m sure they do, I ask anyway.
¿Hablas español? (Do you speak Spanish?)
Usually the simple answer is “si”.
¿Puedo practicar mi español contigo? (Can I practice my Spanish with you?)
Usually the simple answer is “si”.
Sometimes I might say, “Estoy intentando aprender Espanol” (I’m trying to learn Spanish)
I’ll start with, “me das…… me puedes dar….. dame… (give me…can you give me..etc.)
This is all fine. I’m ordering things I know they have, so the chances of their response being anything other than “bueno…si…. Etc.) is low. Usually it’s followed by “algo mas? (anything more?).
But, like what happened today… I ordered a piece of chicharron.
Me puedes dar una pieza de chicharron salsanada por favor? (Can you give me one piece of seasoned chicharron please? )
The lady behind the counter said something that I didn’t understand. It was a short sentence, but I didn’t understand anything she said. She then said, “solo una pieza?”, which I know meant, “you only want one piece?”. I said “si” and we were pretty much done.
So that wasn’t bad, but how can I learn from that experience? I still don’t know what she said. Sure, I got my piece of chicharron, so it wasn’t a bad experience at all, but if I do that over and over again, I’m not learning anything.
This happens a lot. I order and use the words I know some of the simple things they might ask. But if they ask anything else, I’m lost.
To me, this is what I should be doing. These are real life conversations (sort of…. Interactions…not real conversations). That what I’m trying to learn….how to talk to people. But I am so far away from having a real meaningful conversation.
I took a few lessons from a real Spanish teacher, and those were really good. She made me listen and answer. But I didn’t feel that was leaps and bounds above what I was learning from Duolingo. It was more, just not a lot more.
I don’t put this on the teacher, Duolingo, or any one or anything else but myself. I need to step up my game, but I’m just not 100% sure how that looks besides doing a lot more of what I’m already doing.