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!

FluentU - Powering up my Listening Skills (and my ability to read, write...)

               

¿Que estoy haciendo ahora?/What am I doing now?

Even though I am always all over the map in my Spanish adventure, there is always one thing I am focusing on for an extended period of time. For now, that is using FluentU for listening comprehension.

FluentU is probably one of the best services that can be used to learn Spanish. Sometimes, I wonder how long the service will last because it is so valuable. It covers listening, reading and writing. If you desire, you can add a an aspect of speaking by reading aloud. In short, they offer the learner short video clips of all types and they provide:

Advanced bi-lateral subtitles
Dialogue (line by line)
Definitions for words (that you place the arrow over)
Interactive questions for reinforcement
PDF transcripts

You see, hear, read and experience the learning process in a totally different way than you are used to. They also offer videos ranging from the sublime to the ridiculous. Pick your medicine.

They offer different tracts for the beginner, intermediate and advanced learners. It also predicts how much you will know of the vocabulary that is new in the video. It keeps track of what you learn so it can forecast what you will know as you advance and it allows you to master videos. Or if you just want to watch videos in another language then you can choose between ¨Learn¨ or ¨Watch¨

When I have free time I just go through the list of videos (Upper Intermediate for now). I watch it first and see how much I know. Then I go through the dialogue page. Next, I watch the video again and maybe once more. After that I go to the next video. When I want to be more thorough I will choose ¨Learn¨ and spend a few minutes going in depth.

There is no better feeling than watching a video after reviewing the dialogue and the person speaking Spanish seems like they are using English.

I pay $18 a month for there Premium version and I am grandfathered in (until they change the policy of course). They do have a free version which will provide many features that allows it to still be very useful. I like watching videos so it is a painless way of learning and no drudgery is involved.

¡Paz!
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Si tienes tiempo, visita el sitio. Me lo puedes agradecer después.


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!

Pato muy hambrienta - A very hungry duck - Kindle Unlimited

Okay, I read this book by using the Kindle Unlimited program (KU) through Amazon. For $9.99 a month I can read as many books as I want on my Kindle and devices that have Kindle apps. You can check out ten books at a time and can exchange them as often or as much as you would like. Also, Amazon has a general fund that they use to pay the authors or publishers so all parties profit.

For now, I only spend money on children's books in Spanish if they are classic fairy tales, such as Peter Pan or Jack and the Beanstalk. However, with the Kindle Unlimited program I can read as many books in Spanish that I can stand.

Pato Muy Hambrienta is a simple book that introduces or reinforces many simple words for pieces of furniture, fruit and animals. The easy sentences and structure will help to build sentence making ability and to learn easy phrases. The repetitive nature of the book will ensure that the reader will take away valuable skills for the future.

It is a cute book for beginning Spanish learners and can be shared with a child learning the language. It is not a bilingual book, but you can easily look up anything you don't know and will not be slowed down too much, as it is a short book. It is a good book for learning and will give beginners a sense of accomplishment for reading a book.

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Agradezco que la lectura de mi blog. Hasta la próxima vez.



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!

I Need to Talk! - ¡Yo Necessito Hablar!

Estoy muy frustrado. Necesito hablar con alguien. Estoy aprendiendo español, pero gran parte del lenguaje está en mi cabeza. Tuve un tutor en el año pasado y hablamos dos veces por semana. Sin embargo, no más. No es suficiente para hablar con el aire. Tal vez voy a encontrar un tutor de nuevo.

Excuse my Spanish.

I had to get that out. Spanish is swimming around in every direction in my brain. Input, input and more input. However, I am not doing enough in terms of output. I found that the online classes were great at first, however, there is too much sitting around and waiting to be chosen. I have quickly lost the urge to attend an hour session and get a chance to say something 3 to 5 times during that time.

In the meet ups that I attend (two different groups), the first 40 minutes is spent by the leaders trying to decide what to do. As a college professor, I have to resist the urge to take charge and get things started. I resist because I am a novice at Spanish and because I don't have the dedication they have to maintaining and running a group.

The last tutor I tried to get missed three appointments in a row and I just continued to study on my own after that. I should have looked for someone else, immediately, but I didn't.

Yeah, I am going to find another tutor.

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Gracias, por leer!
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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.