The best way to learn Spanish is to open your ears and make some friends. When I was learning I remember I went to parties and tried to follow along conversations others were having. So I would try to contribute to the conversation but it would be a non-sequitur. This would lead my friends to realize which phrase or part of the conversation I had misunderstood if I thought my awkward sentence followed.
I remember my first few months in Chile people would always ask me ¿cuánto llevas aqui?
How much do I carry here? Sometimes I referred to the weight of my suitcase. Sometimes I referred to how many bags I had. Sometimes I said how far I wanted to go in the taxi. How much do I carry here? Finally, I realized they were asking about time and not weight.
It was also really humbling arriving in Chile. Hadn’t I mastered Spanish in Pamplona in 1999? Why am I not understanding a simple greeting?
The Spanish didn’t sound the same.
My perspective changed on language learning. Its about what’s the right phrase for the occasion not the right word in the sentence.
What is also astonishing is how much you can understand in a communicative situation with no understanding of the words used. Ask any construction worker if they speak Spanish and they are going to know some choice phrases. Mood, tone, body language. When you’re not distinguishing the words, you’re just assessing the whole communicative situation.
When there’s too many words too fast, you’re not going to be able to follow precisely, you can at least just listen to the music of language. You get the song even if you can’t repeat the lyrics.
I learned Spanish beginning in high school with a great teacher named Señora Kramer.
Then in college, my Spanish teacher was actually from Spain. Ohio U organized a study abroad in Pamplona University and I was there. 6 months going to university of Navarre and having classes with real Spanish professors.
One note: they allowed smoking in the U of Navarre library and the smell leftover in the stacks was so gross.
So, I had the great good fortune to have teachers and class to prepare me for my in country experience in Spain.
When I achieved fluency my brain broke open and I liked it. Thinking in a new way. With the pictures these phrases make. Its like all my paints and paint brushes were swapped out. I could have thoughts that wouldn’t have occurred to me before.
What would a person with no college classes and no study abroad do to learn and improve their Spanish? Those are the resources I want toshare.
On the Featured Poem–the meter is like singing to a toddler. The message resonates with old men. Before Marshall Mathers told us in one song all about himself specifically and what it means to jump into opportunity univerally, so the song hits as an expression of individuality to the extreme while at the same time it hits the pole of universality…. well before there was Lose Yourself there were Versos Sencillos.
Makes you wonder, is this about a man or men?
On the featured image
This is Las Meninas by Diego Velázquez which is to art history what The Prince is to political science.
Las Meninas is found at the Prado museum in Madrid.
Velázquez, Diego. Las Meninas. 1656. Oil on canvas, 318 x 276 cm. Madrid: Museo Nacional del Prado.
Steinberg, L. (1981). Velázquez’ “Las Meninas”. October, 19, 45–54.
Alpers, S. (1983). Interpretation without Representation, or, the Viewing of Las Meninas. Representations, 1(1), 30–42.
Brown, J. (1986). Velázquez: Painter and Courtier. Yale University Press.
Poetry the higher aim of talking or writing at all, in its musicality, can articulate the cries of the human heart like nothing else.
Learn Spanish, friends, if only to be able to hear the most poignant break up poem of all time.
