This weekend, my wife and I went to the movies to see the Wedding Ringer at the local mall. We had some time on our hands before the movie, so we stopped by the Books-A-Million. My behavior was noticeably different this time. Usually, I make a beeline to the Language section and start searching for Spanish books to study. This time I looked for the Libros in Espanol.
I skipped over the children's books and instead started to look at the novels. One of the first ones I picked up was a John Grisham novel. Lo and behold, I could understand most of it without any problems. I would venture 80 percent. I want a smooth read so I will not start reading books like this yet, however, I was more than happy that I could read a book like that. I predict that at my current rate of learning I should be able to read books like this in about 4 months. I am also close to being able to read regular news articles without out having to constantly look up words and terms. I figure I will be able to have no problems with that by August.
This is a major breakthrough for me as I having been working non-stop on learning to read Spanish (and in other aspects to).
After learning that I was almost novel ready I went to the Spanish section. I ended up buying Ingles para Conversar. Why would I buy a book written in Spanish that teaches English? Well, this book is amazing! It uses Spanish to explain American terminologies, sayings and expressions. It also tells you how to say something in many different ways. I find that most Spanish instruction books in English only teaches you one way at a time. I love the fact that this book tells you five different ways to say something and I learn the natural way of saying it in Spanish as well. It is also full of pictures, conversations and doesn't use the standard word lists that bore me to tears. Also, there are no, "Where is the bathroom?" type stuff. It is realistic.
Anyway, I am ripping my way through the book.
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Gracias para visitando mi blog. Hasta pronto!
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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.
