Slow and Steady Progress
Some weeks go better than others. This week, I have been listening to the soundtrack for "Notre Dame de Paris," which has my French coming back a bit. And I've been listening to Spanish and Italian regularly enough that they are coming more easily, or at least feel more natural when I use them.
Lately, my interest in Spanish has picked up a bit, thanks to the Borges. I say this because even though - or perhaps because - I can use Spanish just about any day that I choose to, the appeal just isn't there. Spanish as a daily medium of communication allows me to speak poorly in the process of doing things I would anyway. There's no adventure. Reading bizarre tales about distant lands, while deciphering Borges' more varied vocabulary, is another matter. I won't say I'm going quickly; I'm getting around to reading two or three times a week for half an hour at a stretch. But I've been using some of this time for re-reading, which makes me feel, till I get to where I left off, like my Spanish is good enough to read Borges without a dictionary! This is motivational. And it's getting me used to the past tenses, which I never get to use in real life. Because I also do French and Italian, where you usually just use a compound tense, the preterit has always mystified me. But some of it is starting to come as a tense I naturally produce, not just recognize.
One thing I've noticed in all my studies is that there has to be an element of challenge. If something comes too easily, I just glide over it until I look up and realize I've been tuned out for twenty minutes. If I have to stop and think, that makes me start to think. This is one problem I run into with readers, whether they be at a simpler level or with a facing translation: it's too easy to just keep moving without actually learning. Whereas if you're reading something you can work through, but with five or six words a page that you might not know, you have to decide whether you're going to take the trouble to look the words up or take the trouble to make sure you're guessing right in the context. Either way, you have to force yourself to figure out meanings, which means approaching the language head on, not just skating over it.
One other recommendation: if you can, you should really be using a standard dictionary for speakers of your language, not a translation dictionary. In this way, you will find words that you are pretty sure you understand, then find definitions that confirm it, all without lapsing out of the language you're learning and, in the process, finding other ways of expressing those words and ideas that give you trouble.
Lately, my interest in Spanish has picked up a bit, thanks to the Borges. I say this because even though - or perhaps because - I can use Spanish just about any day that I choose to, the appeal just isn't there. Spanish as a daily medium of communication allows me to speak poorly in the process of doing things I would anyway. There's no adventure. Reading bizarre tales about distant lands, while deciphering Borges' more varied vocabulary, is another matter. I won't say I'm going quickly; I'm getting around to reading two or three times a week for half an hour at a stretch. But I've been using some of this time for re-reading, which makes me feel, till I get to where I left off, like my Spanish is good enough to read Borges without a dictionary! This is motivational. And it's getting me used to the past tenses, which I never get to use in real life. Because I also do French and Italian, where you usually just use a compound tense, the preterit has always mystified me. But some of it is starting to come as a tense I naturally produce, not just recognize.
One thing I've noticed in all my studies is that there has to be an element of challenge. If something comes too easily, I just glide over it until I look up and realize I've been tuned out for twenty minutes. If I have to stop and think, that makes me start to think. This is one problem I run into with readers, whether they be at a simpler level or with a facing translation: it's too easy to just keep moving without actually learning. Whereas if you're reading something you can work through, but with five or six words a page that you might not know, you have to decide whether you're going to take the trouble to look the words up or take the trouble to make sure you're guessing right in the context. Either way, you have to force yourself to figure out meanings, which means approaching the language head on, not just skating over it.
One other recommendation: if you can, you should really be using a standard dictionary for speakers of your language, not a translation dictionary. In this way, you will find words that you are pretty sure you understand, then find definitions that confirm it, all without lapsing out of the language you're learning and, in the process, finding other ways of expressing those words and ideas that give you trouble.
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