Learning Spanish: Myth One - Learn Spanish FAST!!

This may be one of the most popular showcases of "Learning Spanish" videos on the net. It has gathered about two million viewers. While Mike does not really know how to speak in Spanish, he certainly tries his best to remember the higlights of his first semester Spanish class. That is called "motivation", and it is one of the most important factors in learning a foreign language.



Well, how fast did Mike learn Spanish? Not as fast as he would have liked.

So if Mike, with all his eagerness, did not manage to "learn" Spanish, what are the hopes for the rest of us? Does he have a learning disability?

Actually, poor Mike is quite smart. He understands that the best thing to learn a language is to stretch the imagination and abilities to the limit, that is, to be creative, and to be unafraid of making mistakes. These are the golden rules. USE IT, whichever way you can. We all try to do our best, so it is assumed that when we hear a foreigner speaking our language, that person is doing an amazing job to try to communicate with us. And that effort is the very means by which s/he will learn. The mistakes are the learning tools, and all the speakers the exchange of communication, are his/her teachers.

So how fast can we really learn Spanish? In two weeks? In a month? In one semester? That all depends on what is considered "learning". It depends on our needs. If we just want to travel, and to have some basic skills to go to the police station, say our name, and address, and tell them we are lost, we can do that in an hour. If we also want to communicate at a restaurant, and tell them what we want (and most importantly, do NOT want) to eat, then it may take as much as a week. If also we want to be able to find directions, then that requires a bit longer. And in all this, our ability will be 100% based on some memorized vocabulary and sentences. Most of them we will be able to articulate, but barely understand if a native speaker says them to us.

Learning a foreign language is a complex process. How long did it take us to learn our native one? 3 years? How well did we speak it when we were five? And let's not forget that at that time of our lives, we are more capable of learning than we will ever be again.

So now our children need at least two years of a foreign language for college. That is in America. In Europe, a foreign language is required since kindergarten, and soon after a second foreign language is added to their educational curriculum.

As parents who are educators, what do we want our children to get out of learning a foreign language? It depends on our idea of the skills we want to teach them. Spanish is the most popular foreign language in the US. Actually it is almost a second language, and a first one in some States. So we certainly want our children to be able to successfully function in a world that values Spanish as a means of communication. Thus, we can say that the ability to communicate is the number one priority. Is that all? Well, there are different aspects of communication, there is oral, and there is written. Do we want our kids to also be able to use the language as an educated speaker, or as Mike, who just has his very specific interests with girls?

What do you think a college wants? They want grammar, they want spelling, they want cultural knowledge. How fast can our children acquire those? Well, I like to think of myself as a life long learner, so the sky is the limit for a personal approach. And if we are to aim for the higher educatin approach for our children, then a well paced and structured two-three year academic program with an emphasis in communication is the solution.

I think Mike didn't like college too much, though. I am a native Spanish speaker, and I do my best as well to understand what he may mean, and I believe that he is saying in the following interview that "La universidad muy mal" or something like that. Just watch for yourself and judge how fast he is learning the non-academic way:

Hasta la vista!!!!