Inspiring Spanish Learners - No. 1

While learning Spanish, many have inspired me to continue when I have felt my worst. When I need motivation, I often look for videos of people who have succeeded or that teach in a way that makes me want to believe my goals are possible. This will be one of a series of posts that highlight these individuals as they deserve much attention for their work.

1. Nathan Heightz

Nathan is a passionate learner of languages and when he focuses on a language it has nowhere to hide but in his brain. Watching this guy's growth in languages was amazing and he offers many good tips on how to process languages. Here are a few of his other videos that are inspiring or helpful to language learners.

My Spanish speaking progress: 6 months
How To Learn Spanish Fast (In 6 months or Less!)
My Spanish speaking progress: 7 months
My Spanish speaking progress: 8 months
Me speaking after 1 year of intense study

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Bakari Akil II, Ph.D. is a Professor of Communication and also writes for his blog at Psychology Today. He is also the author of Spanish Conversations: Realistic Conversations to Improve your Spanish and Conversaciones en Inglés: ¡Conversaciones realistas para mejorar tu inglés!

Luego! Luego!

Okay, a cute story. As I have been learning Spanish I have been teaching my daughter as well. She was close to 2 years old when I began and is now 2 1/2. I began by learning commands or small phrases I said in English and then started saying them to her in Spanish.

For instance:

Put that in the trash.  -  Punlo en la basura.
It is time to change your diaper. - Es tiempo de cambiar su pañal.
Let's go upstairs - Vamos a subir las escaleras.

Now, granted, this was the blind leading the blind in language learning and I am sure at times (if not all the time) I was probably not saying things the way that native Spanish speakers say them, but those phrases came up when I used my translating apps.

My daughter, started following my commands and seemed to begin to understand some of the things I would say to her from the beginning, but she never answered or would say things back to me in Spanish. For example, if I said, "zapato," she would often reply with, "shoe." I began to get frustrated as this had been going on for months.

However, a couple of weeks ago, when she was leaving our bedroom to go find her mother in one of the other rooms, she said bye to me like the dozens of times she does throughout the day. I had been saying adios to her for months with no luck. So this time, I said, "Hasta luego!" -- A slight pause occurred then I heard, "Luego." She then turned her head back to me and waved.

I was stunned and excited at the same time!

When she coupled the wave with the word, luego, it seemed she grasped the concept immediately. But I said it again to make sure. "Hasta Luego."

"Luego," was her response.

That was her first word in Spanish and I could not stop grinning. That night, my wife told me that she was proud of me. She said she had been noticing how much I had been trying to work with her and she was glad that I stuck it out. That made me feel good.

So for the past couple of weeks, my daughter and I have traded goodbyes and luegos. She even said it to both of her grandmothers (with a little urging from me, of course).

I can see now that her learning Spanish is going to happen.

Why?

Porque because! - (Shout out to Bill Santiago!)

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Hay que tratar, para ganar. - Me

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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.

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.