Verbling! First Spanish Class online - and I took no prisoners!!!

Okay, it has been two months since I have posted to this blog. In that time I have done so much with my Spanish training that I am getting tired just thinking about it. Yet, that will have to wait for future posts and I will just start with my present adventures.


Yesterday, I had my first online Spanish lesson. After months of looking at the Verbling website, which offers language classes and tutors 24-7, I finally decided to try it out. They have two major plans. You can choose 10 classes a month for $19 monthly or you can pick the unlimited plan for $49 a month. I chose the $19 plan. As I have to carefully carve out time for something like this due to work, a wife and a two year old, 10 classes a month is more than enough for me.

I signed up for a class at 7AM and the theme would be Jeopardy. In Verbling you can have up to 9 students in a class and they use Google hangout to run them. In the classes that I watched on Youtube before signing up there were usually four or five people in each class and mine ended up being no different. There were four of us that showed up at the beginning and another guy popped in 20 minutes later.

The instructor seemed easy going and had an air of experience about him. Since it was a beginner class, he used both English and Spanish. After the intros he explained the rules of the game and the categories. Some of the categories were - tener - saber vs. conocer - ir...

To be brief, I ended up winning the game. Now, I didn't go in with the intention of winning, but when it became apparent that I could win I did everything in my power to do so. I also learned a few things such as I need to brush up on saber and conocer. Overall, it was a good experience. I was able to speak a little Spanish, hear it spoken live and interact with a native speaker. Even though in the past two months I have had quite a few conversations in Spanish (I will tell you how I managed that in future posts.), each time it feels as if I am new to the battlefield. I have to remember to relax more when first engaging with native speakers.

Verbling seems like a great tool and they offer many classes throughout the day so I will be able to use it to my advantage. I was wary of doing the Google Hangout thing, but it felt natural and I was comfortable. I already have my next class picked out so I am looking forward to it.

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Ha sido un tiempo, pero todo es bueno. No noticias es bueno noticias!

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Bakari Akil is a Professor of Communication, blogs for Psychology Today and has authored many books on Communication and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. This is his experience learning Spanish.

Spanish Workshop! - "You've Gotten Much Better!"

Okay, I attended my third Spanish workshop this weekend. It is the third one in two months. Nothing says dedication like attending a workshop. Two hours of working on a foreign language is hardcore!

The regulars were in attendance (15 in total) and they seem to be a serious group of characters all motivated to learn, maintain or share their knowledge. People seem to come from all backgrounds and I have seen people from 10 to 70 years old.

We started off by introducing ourselves and sharing why we were learning Spanish (en espanol). Then we had readings followed by questions (all in Spanish). Following that, we all had to answer a question about how we celebrated holidays and what countries we have traveled to.

Highlights: I engaged the instructor in a conversation and didn't bail when I felt a little nervous. I asked him about his job and he asked me about mine. He was drawn away, first, by someone who came up to him.

That's what I'm talking about!

When I read out loud, today, it was was much smoother than last time. (I have a new issue though. I have to reconstruct my voice to sound natural. Since I mimic the instructors on audio, my voice sounds like a radio announcer when I read.)

Also, a guy who I saw a month ago told me three times how much I had improved.

Three times!

I shared with him that I had been reading children's books and studying an audio course since I last saw him. I didn't share that I had probably completed two semesters of college level work in the past 30 days. It is a wonderful thing to be able to study as much as I have and have the passion to continue (even when frustrated).

Low points: When we introduced ourselves and on one of the questions, instead of just talking and using the language as I know how, I focused too much on not making any mistakes. I felt like a newbie both times.


Overall, it was a very solid day.

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Hoy, fue un dia de buen desarollo. Estoy agradecido!

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Bakari Akil is a Professor of Communication, blogs for Psychology Today and has authored many books on Communication and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. This is his experience learning Spanish.

Dealing with Insults (Que hacer con los insultos)

The title of this post is also the name of one of the books I just finished. It is one of a series of books for kids aged 8-12 that deals with issues many kids face, but may have never received advice on how to deal with them.

I must admit that I didn't agree with all of the advice. I learned early that to respond to an insult with a clever comeback usually kept people at bay and some rivalries developed into friendships. Of course, that approach is not suitable for all occasions, but it saved me a lot of grief when I finally learned how to deliver a proper comeback.

However, placing my personal feelings aside, I loved the structure of the book and the writing. The book was 22 pages long and it had English on the top and Spanish at the bottom. The paragraphs averaged 7 lines of text per page. I read most of the book without having to refer to the English portion, however, there were a good number of words that were new, such as:

herir - to hurt
autoestima - self-esteem
lidiar - deal (Una buena forma de lidiar...)
lastimar - to hurt
fastidiarse - annoy
bravucon - bully

One thing is bothering me though. Increasingly, reading is becoming easier. The messages are becoming clearer. Yet, I know that a lot of it is due to context (pictures - clues from the entire sentence, etc.) and not necessarily my knowledge of words, grammar or syntax. It is eating me up, a little, that my ability to understand may encourage me to think I know more than I think I know.

I am reading increasingly difficult texts, however, I often  wonder if someone who has never studied Spanish (and is native to English) could read the same material with no problems. I know better, but sometimes it is amazing how fast I am picking up the ability to decipher, read and understand text.

Agradezco que hacer tiempo a leer este. Hasta proximo tiempo!
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Bakari Akil is a Professor of Communication, blogs for Psychology Today and has authored many books on Communication and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. This is his experience learning Spanish.

A commute is good for one thing...

Man, I hate my commute!

It is 45 minutes at best and usually, it is 1 hr and 15 minutes w/traffic at its worst. There is only one thing that I can hang on to in order to stay sane and it is listening to my Spanish CDs. I practically seared the Berlitz Passport Spanish into my brain by listening to all 12 tracks every day for three weeks. I play Vocabulearn CDs until I can barely think in English. I keep my Assimil tracks on repeat.

It is that serious!

I am a professor, so I look at everything in four month increments. I expect my Spanish to be vastly improved by the end of the fall semester due to my commute listening habits. Further, I will admit that my listening habit decreases when the weekend starts. It's hard to stick to audio media when I can watch TV or read a book.

I know I would not have listened to the Berlitz Passport CD as much in my house. So thanks to my commute I can now rattle off phrases such as:

Hola. Quisiera pedir desayuno por favor. Quisiera cafe con leche y azucar, huevo rancheros, sin picante, pan dulce con mantequilla y jugo de naranjo por favor.

I have most of those phrases from that CD locked and loaded.

I will not let my commutes be in vain!


La tortuga gana porque el sigue caminando.

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Bakari Akil is a Professor of Communication, blogs for Psychology Today and has authored many books on Communication and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. This is his experience learning Spanish.

Weekend of Espanol - A Tally!

A perk of my job is that I do not have to work on Fridays. So my weekend begins Friday (or Thursday afternoon). That means I have plenty of time to work on my Spanish. Of course, that is when I am not watching our two year old, taking care of our lawn/house, running errands...

That aside, here is what I accomplished this weekend:

5 lessons in Spanish text and audio (Spanish)
2 children's books (read)
2 comics strips in Spanish (read)
3 episodes of a novella* (watched)
Watched an episode of UFC Latin America (en Espanol)
Viewed 3 episodes of a Spanish podcast (4 minutes each)
*Started a new blog about my Spanish journey - Habermelo Dicho!

I was a little bummed out about my progress this weekend until I realized that I accomplished quite a bit.

Y que tenga un buen dia!
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Bakari Akil is a Professor of Communication, blogs for Psychology Today and has authored many books on Communication and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. This is his experience learning Spanish.

E-bay Spanish

My wife is going to be irritated with me!

Since I re-started my Spanish journey, I have always checked out children's books from the library. I didn't feel like paying $3.99 to $8.00 for books that I would probably finish in 10 to 30 minutes. Plus, with my goal of reading 100 children's books in Spanish, that would easily mean hundreds of dollars.

However, this past weekend, I decided to look for some Spanish products on e-bay and lo and behold, I bumped into cartloads of children's books. Let me get to the point, I bought 85 Spanish books for kids for $35 and $6 shipping and handling. The books are for kids aged 8 to 12 and are perfect for me. They cover a range of subjects, ranging from Henry Ford, Ghandi, astronauts, The Trail of Tears, etc., etc.

So not only will I be able to read, I will also learn or refresh my memories on a few things as well.

Now, I have to find out where I am going to put 85 books.


Yo soy feliz que tengo la capacidad de comprar libros y utilizar el Internet.

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Bakari Akil is a Professor of Communication, blogs for Psychology Today and has authored many books on Communication and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. This is his experience learning Spanish.

31st Book - Cuenta Ratones (First Post!)

I just finished reading my 31st children's book in Spanish! The book is titled, Cuenta Ratones. It is about a snake, mice, a glass jar and incomprehensible greed.There were about 1.5 long sentences per page and I didn't have to look up too many words to complete the book. I read it twice because it was relatively short. The new words I picked up this time are:

frasco - glass jar
hallar - to find
volcaron - (they) overturned - from volcar - to tip over

I want to become a MONSTER when it comes to reading Spanish books for kids and I am well on my way.

My goal is to read 100 books (50 before the Dec 24th).

Why? Well, sometimes the best way to start is from the beginning. I realized that after studying Spanish at the university (FSU), and off and on for years, that I never read a proper book in Spanish. I just studied textbooks and books solely about Spanish. Furthermore, I never, ever completed any of them. (More about that later).

Therefore, I had a lot of holes in my game when it came to reading Spanish. I used to get really frustrated whenever I came across a piece of Spanish literature and would be easily stumped. It didn't matter if it was a Jehovah's witness magazine left on a park bench in Spanish or the back of a cereal box, I had a lot of problems when it came to reading the language. Reading children's books has helped me turn that problem around and on its head. (I also do a lot of other things.)

Also, this weekend I did something that is going to take my Spanish training to the next level. My wife is going to be seriously irritated! I will talk about that in my next blog.

Gracias a todos para visitando mi blog!


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Bakari Akil is a Professor of Communication, blogs for Psychology Today and has authored many books on Communication and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. This is his experience learning Spanish.