Today's The Day

So I finally had the guts to go ahead and make public my YouTube channel.  My hopes are to better my Spanish speaking abilities, inspire others to improve their own spoken abilities in foreign languages, and to go forward in learning other languages, as deep down I have always wanted to speak more than just Spanish and English.

I'm hoping to find more people interested in reading my blog here and hopefully interested in offering their own stories and advice here, or on Facebook, or wherever we can find a forum to express ourselves.

I've been nervous abut posting videos of myself for some time.  It's quite a bit scarier than posting a blog.  Suddenly my face is out there for everyone to see and all my mistakes are a lot more obvious.  I still have to record and post my first official video, as what I posted today was only an introduction.  I would like to post weekly and focus on topics that pertain to how language learning benefits us.  I'm not so interested in learning grammar or focusing on vocabulary, there are plenty of sites for that.  Here, I want to just talk about how languages effect us all and hopefully I can build a following based on that premise.  My videos, at least right now, are very basic as I really don't know much about editing, but hopefully that too ill improve over time.

I'd love to hear your thoughts here on how I can best offer an entertaining channel while at the same time improving my own speaking ability.  (Of course I will be speaking in both English and Spanish.  I want everyone to be able to follow along.)

OK, that's it here for now, but hopefully the comments will start rolling in soon.  Hasta luego!

Going Forward

It's been sometime since I've posted on this blog, but I wanted to take an opportunity today to discuss a project I have in mind and hopefully will bring to fruition over the next few weeks.  As always, my goal here has been to share my own personal stories about language learning in the hopes I can inspire others in their quest to expand their language capabilities.

I have been studying the Spanish language for several years and I am lucky enough to now be living in Spain where I can speak the language everyday.  Unfortunately, sometimes simply living in the country isn't enough.  In order to really develop fluency in the language it takes more than a simple stroll through the neighborhood to gain that fluency.  One has to interact and really immerse themselves in all aspects of the language; reading writing, speaking, and listening.  That being said I have decided I really need to do more if I want to truly speak with the confidence it takes to be fluent.

For many months I have been trying to develop a plan that would not only help me to increase my level of fluency in Spanish, but a plan that would also allow me to assist others and potentially gain new friends and acquaintances.  I'm not a professor nor do I plan on giving lessons on Spanish or any other language for that matter.  There are literally hundreds of websites available out there for those who are interested in learning a second or third or fourth language and I'm sure those sites would do a better job teaching them than me.  What I want to do is simply start a dialogue.  It can be in English, it can be in Spanish, and once I start working on other languages, (Italian, French, Portuguese, German, and Mandarin are just a few I have in mind) it can be in those languages in well.  I would like to start a multi-faceted community if you will where I can go to share my thoughts and hopefully receive feedback from those of you out there in situations similar to my own.

The first part of my plan is obviously this blog.  I plan on continuing writing here when I have the opportunity on topics involving languages and how they have impacted my life.  The second part of my plan, and this is the more difficult aspect, is that I would like to develop a YouTube channel where I can periodically upload videos of myself speaking in well, whatever language I feel like babbling on in.  The idea is not to offer lessons, because as I said, I am no teacher, however I would like to use the videos as a way to practice my own speaking abilities as well as receive feedback from viewers.  What they like, what they don't like, how they go about learning, and maybe even challenges to me on how I can further improve and expand my language abilities.

In addition to the blog and YouTube, I am hoping to use social media like Facebook and Google + to get the word out and grow my audience.  I'd love to have groups set up where we can discuss our thoughts and ideas in whatever language we feel comfortable with.

I would like to turn Learning To Live Through Language into more than just a simple blog.  I would like to expand to a wider audience and hopefully help myself to become a better language learner as well as help others to achieve their language goals.  My hopes are to get my first videos uploaded by the end of the month and hopefully start to grow a following.  I should point out that I know very little when it comes to creating YouTube videos and my little experience will certainly show through initially, but my hope is to improve as I go and make better videos just as I improve on my language skills.

All right that's all for now, but hopefully this will inspire some readers to come forward with their own language learning stories.  As always, talk to you soon!

Powerless

I really wish I had come across this video two or three months ago.  It would have made me feel much better about my situation.  Living in Spain has been a challenge since day 1. Don't get me wrong, I have no regrets about coming here.  It's a beautiful country and I see something new everyday, however it can be a bit overwhelming trying to keep up with the native Spanish speakers.  Back home in the U.S., while I was surrounded by plenty of Spanish speakers, I could always fall back on English if I ran into trouble.  Here, that just isn't the case.  I have to challenge myself each and every day to express myself as clearly as possible in Spanish.  While I practiced speaking the language for many years before moving here to Madrid, nothing could have prepared me entirely for what I would face.  Sure, I had learned how to ask for a table at a restaurant, but as far as being able to identify all of the items listed on the menu?  Not a chance.  The best I could do was seek out "pollo," and hope for the best.

Like Gordon, in the video above, I had always been the protagonist of my life.  I paid the bills, I drove, I knew where places were, and I knew how to find my way around.  Here in Spain, after living here for four months, I am just now gaining the confidence to drive around on my own.  I know how to get to a few places, but I fear if I take a wrong turn, all my accumulated Spanish knowledge will be useless if I can't ask for directions home.  And when the phone rings at home?  Forget it.  I know I can do it, but the thought of trying to maintain a phone conversation just give me a headache.  I know I shouldn't be avoiding these situations, I should be diving in head first at this point, but it can be very difficult to be confident when you feel so powerless.  It's amazing just how important language is in our lives each and every day.

I wonder how many out there face these struggles when it comes to learning a second language?  It's one thing to learn it as a hobby, but something entirely different to learn it as a matter of survival.  Thoughts?

What Voice Do We Listen To?

One of the biggest boosts in confidence I have had when it comes to speaking Spanish is social media.  Ever since I started dedicating my time to improving my Spanish, I have tried to use social media as a way to boost my confidence and give me the kick I needed to keep going when the going got tough.  I have discovered websites, such as The Mixxer that offer free search engines to reach out to other language learners and in turn we are able to use tools such as Skype to set up intercambios where we can take turns practicing our second or even third languages.

I have found Facebook groups who love to discuss learning Spanish, and countless YouTube videos that offer lessons and advice on how to improve your language skills.  All in all, I have found that reaching out to others is a great way to find the inspiration, motivation, and confidence to push on when I find myself in a rut.  Unfortunately, there are also negative aspects of social media.  There are those who find pleasure in bringing others down.  Instead of inspiring, they discourage, ridicule, and belittle those that are seeking positive reinforcement.  Fortunately for me, I have not come across all that many of these individuals, although I have heard plenty of stories from others.  I do my best to ignore those who thrive on negative energy, and when I do stumble across someone who wants to bring me down, I find ways to ignore and avoid that person.

All that being said, there is one voice I have found that is nearly impossible to ignore.  Despite my very best efforts, there seems to always be a way for this one voice to get to me.  That voice is the voice inside my head, and I have discovered recently that I am not the only one affected by my own worst thoughts.  My point in mentioning social media before introducing this topic was that it was on Facebook that I discovered just how overpowering ones inner voice can be, even when surrounded by positive energy.  While I have found encouragement from others to be a great motivator, sometimes all the encouragement in the world won't help if you allow your inner thoughts to bring you down.  I have seen posts from individuals who have nothing but negative things to say about themselves.  Despite all the encouragement the other members of the group try to offer, there seems to be no hope in changing their negative self outlook.  It bothers me greatly to see this, as the only person standing in their way from excelling is themselves.  I have learned from my own experience, we are our own worst critic.  If we allow ourselves to accept our own criticisms, we will never be able to advance.  Yes, it takes confidence to go out there and speak in a foreign language, but we have to overcome our own insecurities, our own self doubt, and take a very scary leap forward.  Yes, it's frightening, but we can all do it.  This was something I had to teach myself, but I also owe a lot of thanks to those who encouraged me along the way.

So, in the end, don't be afraid to reach out to those on social media for encouragement, but more importantly, don't be afraid to be your own positive motivator.  Don't let your inner voice scare you.  Challenge yourself and be positive.  Negative thoughts will get you nowhere.  Who's with me?

Back For More

It's been one year since my last entry here, and while I haven't exactly had heavy traffic, I thought I would get back to writing just a bit in the hopes of inspiring myself and others to live their lives more adventurously while learning a new language.  If you've read any of my previous entries here, my goal with this blog has always been to push myself and others to have confidence in speaking a foreign language and to use that language to better their lives.  My last entry here was written in Madrid, Spain, just a few days before I returned to the United States after spending the month of May in an apartment in the Lavapies neighborhood of Madrid.  The year that followed was not at all what I expected it to be, and here I am today, once again writing from Madrid, yes, Madrid, about how learning a second language has changed my life.

When I came back to the United States, initially I was thrilled to be home, but I quickly found myself wanting to return to Spain. The experience had opened my eyes to new things and my life in the United States would never be the same, nor could it compare to a life in Spain.  I met a very special woman while I was in Spain the first time, and for the next year, we stayed in contact, talking to each other each and every day, and in October, she came to spend a week with me in the United States.  After that week, we made plans for me to come back to Spain, this time permanently, as we were going to live together.  I am now proud to say we are to be married (a rather arduous task to take on in Spain for an American such as myself) and we are expecting our first child in November.  All of this because I took the risk of traveling to Spain all by myself as a way of discovering who I was and who I could be.  Had I never decided to speak Spanish, who knows where I would be today.

I'm not suggesting learning a second language is going to find you the love of your life, but I certainly never would have met my wife if I did not speak Spanish.  Speaking Spanish has opened doors for me, not only at home, but worldwide.  I can speak confidently to people from 21 different countries that I would not have been able to if I did not speak Spanish.  I have no plans on traveling the world, at least not right now, but speaking two languages has made my life infinitely more exciting.  After spending just one month in Spain, I was able to say good-bye to the parts of my life I no longer wanted and I was able to become the person I feel I had always been meant to be.

We may move back to the United States in the coming years, we may not, but what's important is that I have found a life here that is certainly more interesting than the one I left behind.  I'd love to hear the stories of those who have done similar things, of those who have used Spanish, or any other language for that matter, to change their lives for the better.  I know I haven't been around here much, but I plan on spending some more time here from now on.  I hope to hear from you.

Check out my Google + community here.

Why It's Harder To Learn Spanish In Spain

So I have been in Madrid for two weeks now, and I finally feel as if I'm settling in.  Nice to know I am finally comfortable, halfway through my trip.  That being said, one thing I think I have learned in my time here is that, for me at least, practicing Spanish has actually been harder and even less productive than when I am home in the U.S.  "How can that be?" you ask.  Well, let me try to explain.

First of all, I arrived in Spain on a Friday morning and I hit the ground running.  I was excited, terrified, and exhausted all at once.  I had never been to a foreign country, and to be honest, even my experiences in big cities in the U.S. were limited, so to find myself on a subway, chugging away under the streets of Madrid all by myself was exhilarating and terrifying all at once.  I found my way to my host's apartment, unpacked, and hit the streets, hoping every stranger on the street would stop to chat.  Well, that wasn't the case.  In fact, I was nervous to be walking around all alone.  I didn't know anything or anyone and I wasn't even sure I could find my way back to the apartment if I strayed too far.  My first few days here were a blur and once my vision cleared, I realized not only had I not spoken very much Spanish, I hadn't spoken much at all.

After getting myself quite lost one afternoon, I decided I had better head home, regroup, and plan things out a little better.  I realized I had locked myself into a defensive mindset.  I was constantly on edge, worried I would get lost or say or do the wrong thing.  Instinctively, my brain locked me into English.  I wasn't consciously aware of it, but I wasn't allowing myself to think in Spanish.  I think I have said it before, but for me, speaking in Spanish is like flipping a switch in my brain.  Sometimes it is very easy to switch between languages, and other times, it takes quite a bit of effort.  Since I realized the trouble I was having, the switch has been easier to flip, but I am still reverting to English too quickly.

I have two more weeks here and I am hoping I can be more diligent in thinking and then speaking in Spanish.  I know I can do it, but it has to be done consciously.  I know being out of my comfort zone has had an impact on my abilities and I am hopeful when I return to the U.S. I'll be more comfortable using the language.  We'll see. Do you think stress plays a significant role in our language learning?  I think I would have to say yes to that.  Thoughts or comments?

Use It Or Lose It?

Sometimes I worry that if I don't spend every waking moment of my life thinking in Spanish instead of my native English, I will quickly lose the ability to speak even the most basic phrases and my upcoming trip to Spain will not only be a huge failure, but also extremely frustrating.  Then, I stop and tell myself to be rational and I ease my own fears.

I have been studying Spanish since 2008 and that doesn't count what I learned in school between 1996 and 2004.  Sure, if I were to stop speaking Spanish entirely I would most certainly lose the ability to speak it as well as I do now, but it's silly to think that counting to five in English instead of in Spanish is detrimental to my progress.  I suppose I have been this way with all of my hobbies throughout my life, but I think the important thing for me to realize here is that Spanish is becoming a way of life for me, not just a hobby.  Sure, there are days when I feel like I can't even recall how to say cat and dog in Spanish, but then there are the days where I feel almost more comfortable using Spanish than I do using English.  By practicing just a little bit every day, I retain the information without burning out my brain.  I am getting used to the idea that I can switch between the two languages fairly easily and my hopes are that after spending four weeks in Madrid I will come home much more comfortable speaking in Spanish conversationally.  I don't expect to come home necessarily knowing any more of the language than I already do, rather I simply seek the confidence to speak more freely and without as much hesitation.

Of course I fear that once I return, life will slowly go back to the way it was and I will not use Spanish nearly as much as I would like.  My hopes are that by gaining the confidence to speak more openly, it will open new doors for me and present me with new chances to use the language on a day to day basis.  Once you've found yourself comfortable with your new language, what do you do to maintain it?  If you're not 100% immersed in the language, what ways do you study to keep it sharp in your mind?  I'd love to her thoughts on this.  Let me know!

The Great Classroom Debate

Over and over again, I read about students who are immensely frustrated with the language learning classes in their schools.  Why is it that classrooms seem to deaden the desire to learn among young people?  Schools are meant to be the places we send our children to learn and grow into adults but often I find the reviews to be abysmal.  Students are uninspired by the curriculum and become reticent, especially when it comes to learning a foreign language, leading to failure to learn more than some basic vocabulary and the very simplest ways to communicate.  I find it hard to blame the students in this case, as I too as a student found my Spanish classes to be either boring or at times overwhelming with the various grammatical topics we covered.  I was a good student, however if I was not inspired to learn, it was very easy to shut myself off and stubbornly refuse to learn.  I couldn't find the right place for accent marks or often I conjugated the verbs incorrectly, making me feel foolish which pushed me further down into my shell.  The more confused I became, the more I shut myself off from learning.  So how is it that now, fifteen years later I am not only enamored with the language, but I find it easy to learn?  It all has to do with inspiration, motivation, and the desire to learn.

I love learning, but that does not mean I loved my time in school.  As I said, often school can be boring, methodical, and entirely uninspiring.  My whole attitude towards learning Spanish changed when I found myself surrounded by native Spanish speakers who I desperately wanted or needed to communicate with.  I learned how to talk, which goes well beyond memorizing vocabulary lists or learning how to conjugate verbs.  Yes, those things are critical when it comes to learning a language, even in your own native tongue, but there has to be more to it than that if you want a student to retain the information.  When I started learning why we said things in Spanish the way we did, it all started to click.  When I heard native speakers talking, I started to understand where to place the accents.

Tell me something and I'll forget it.  Show me something and I'll understand it.  Practice it with me, and I'll be able to do it.  Classrooms simply do not offer enough practical usage of the language to teach a student how to speak effectively with another person.  Sure, after a few months, anyone can ask the basic survival questions we all learn when first taking on a new language, but how many students can actually talk to another person in that language?  I'm not suggesting we can teach complete fluency in a matter of four or five school years, but if we start emphasizing communicating over rote memorization, I think we'll start to see a tremendous change, not only in the success rates of the students, but in the overall satisfaction the students get out of gaining a skill such as speaking a second language.  Being able to conjugate verbs is boring, but being able to use a skill in my everyday life is fun, and when it becomes fun, it is not a chore to learn.  Clearly not every student is going to fall in love with foreign languages, as I was never one to fall in love with, say, chemistry.  We can, however, make learning more fun and find ways to encourage those who will fall in love with language learning.  I wish I could find a way to work with public schools to improve foreign language classes.  Should anyone have any suggestions, send them my way!

A New Twist

Just this afternoon, I was reading something which got me thinking about ways in which I can further push myself to speak more, and speak more comfortably in Spanish.  With less than eight months to go before my trip to Spain, I've been feeling a little lax in my progress and despite doing a lot of reading, I have not been writing, or more importantly, speaking, nearly as much as I should.  I constantly tell myself that I should be speaking more, yet I rarely do it as much as I could and while I use writing as a source of practice, that too has suffered a little lately.  One idea that had never really occurred to me was to actually use English as a way to stress my Spanish.  I always thought using English was a crutch to fall back upon rather than something I could use to push me forward, however the suggestions I came across today have inspired me to at least give it a shot and see where it gets me.  Ideally, I'm going to write this post in English and then link it to my Spanish blog and see how well I do translating it all over.  Normally, when I write in Spanish, I do my best to simply write without thinking too much about the English equivalent.  I've written quite a bit in Spanish, but I fear it is often too oversimplified to get my true point across.  I wrote a little about finding your personality in a foreign language and perhaps this will be a way to start on that path.  I'm going to write, in English, on a variety of topics that may come up in everyday conversation when meeting someone who speaks a foreign language and then I am going to try to translate it all into Spanish without dumbing it down too much.  Let's see if this helps or hurts me.  Feel free to comment with your thoughts.

My job:  OK, to most, my job in not all that interesting, but here it is.  I am a manger of a well known fast food restaurant.  I have worked there since I was 16 years old and it's the only real job I have ever known.  My responsibilities include running shifts of 10-15 people, handling hiring and training of new crew members, and making the weekly schedule for the employees.  Of course there are plenty of other tasks I take on every day, but those are the basics.  I enjoy the fast paced environment as well as the variety of people I come across everyday.  I hope to someday be the owner of the franchise, but if I can't do that, there are quite a few of other positions for me outside of working in the restaurant day to day.

My interest in Spanish and Spain:  I started learning Spanish on my own over the summer of 2008.  I had learned a bit in school as a student but it wasn't until I spent my days with many Spanish speaking employees at my job that my desire to really speak the language came out.  After years of being able to hold simplified, broken conversations with my employees, I decided I wanted to truly push myself forward to speak the language as fluently as I could.  I decided to visit Spain for a number of reasons, but mainly because it is the birthplace of the language.  I have never traveled abroad and felt that if I were going to go to a Spanish speaking country, it might as well be the farthest away.  Although I have spoken to a few people through the internet from Spain, I don't actually know anyone there and this trip is definitely going to be a social challenge for me just as much as an educational one.

Hobbies:  I don't have any specific hobbies, per say, except for the things I do to improve my Spanish.  This includes reading books in Spanish, whether they are originally written in Spanish or were translated from another language, writing in Spanish, which can be found here, and watching movies and TV in Spanish.

My home:  I live in Connecticut, a small state northeast of New York.  I live in a small town sort of near the center of the state.  I grew up in Connecticut and have never lived anywhere else.  I like it here but lately have been thinking about trying to see more of the United States.  This country has quite a bit to see and it would be a shame to spend my life only ever seeing this small part of it.

Travel:  I have never traveled much in my life, which is why this trip to Spain is so important to me.  It is my first chance to really see more of the world.  I am hoping to have a great time and if I like it, maybe I will make plans to see more of the world after I get back.

Social issues:  I don't have any one topic that stands out in my mind that I would want to discuss, but there are certainly plenty of things going on in the world that hold my interest and I am sure I could discuss with anyone I meet abroad.

OK, so that´s all I have for now.  After reading this, head over to my Spanish blog and see if it all checks out.  I´m not sure if this will be the secret to my success or not, but it´s worth a shot.

Finding My Voice

Just the other night I tried, somewhat in vain, to explain through my Spanish blog my desire to develop a voice in my Spanish writing.  No, I don't mean I want to sound like Cervantes, per say, rather I want to have a distinctive voice in my writing.  I wouldn't go so far as to call myself a "true" writer, as I have never had anything published, but I would say that I enjoy writing quite a bit and I find I have a rather distinctive sound when I babble on in English.  The question is, can I ever develop an equally distinctive voice when I write in Spanish or am I destined to always sound generic and flat?

I've held this debate with myself several times, both when it comes to writing as well as speaking.  We all have personalities, both on paper and in person when we speak in our native tongue, but what happens when we try to converse in a foreign language, one where perhaps we are unfamiliar with the colloquialisms and subtle nuances of the language we are practicing?  On occasion I have managed to raise a few eyebrows when I do in fact use some sort of common phrase only heard in, say, Mexico, but for the most part, despite my familiarity with Spanish, I still find myself only scratching the surface when it comes to expressing myself in more vivid detail, a must for any novice writer.

One of my goals in my Spanish endeavors has always been to write a short story in Spanish, or at the very least, translate one of my English language stories over to Spanish.  I have struggled with this only because I find myself constantly searching for a way to say something in Spanish that sounds equivalent to me in English.  I find that in order for me to be able to write a short story in Spanish, I first need to be able to express myself freely in the language without constantly falling back on a sloppy English translation.

So my question is this.  Have you manged to insert your personality into your foreign language learning, and if so, how did it come about?  Or perhaps you've managed to create an entirely unique personality that only suits your second language.  How is it different from your native personality?  Even after several years of studying Spanish, I still find myself seeking my true voice.  I'd be curious to hear anyone else's thoughts on this.  Let me know and we'll talk again soon.

What's There To Be Afraid Of?

I went to dinner with two of my best friends the other night and was introduced for the first time to one of their girlfriends.  Normally, this isn't much of a big deal to me, but it just so happened that this young woman was originally from Ecuador, recently spent two months in Madrid, and obviously spoke fluent Spanish in a way that would have made me sound like a four year old boy trying to form complete sentences.

Initially, I saw this as an opportunity to really practice my Spanish conversational skills, but with each passing minute in which I spoke English, the idea of switching to Spanish drifted farther and farther from my mind.  When we all parted ways that evening I offered to spend the next time we got together speaking in Spanish, but once I got home I realized how much of an opportunity I had just wasted.  Why was I so shy about speaking to a native Spanish speaker?  Was it because I was surrounded by two English speaking friends?  Did I think she would laugh at me or was I worried that I would say something completely ridiculous, or worse, offensive?  Honestly, I think it was all of the above.  I have always had a difficult time using Spanish with someone I know speaks English as well.  In addition, since none of my friends speak anything but English, I feel silly offering to say things in Spanish when they won't understand anyway.  Sure, it might have made for a good laugh to carry on a faux conversation with her for a few moments while my friends listened in, but would it have served me well or just been a silly party trick?  I guess I can't really answer that as I didn't even take the shot.

So what's the solution?  I am leaving for Madrid in 250 days with the intention of spending every waking moment using Spanish, or at the very least, avoiding English at all costs.  Will being surrounded by only Spanish speaking people finally push me to the point that I am not afraid to speak?  More importantly, even if all goes well in Spain, will I have the confidence to continue using it when I return home?  I would hate to spend a month in a foreign country only to lose my skills upon returning home.

I know I really should just get over it.  No one is going to laugh at me, and honestly, they should be impressed, even if they don't know what I'm saying.  Going to Spain surely is a way to force myself to use the language but perhaps it's time to find other ways to force myself into using it.  I think the most important part in speaking successfully in a foreign language is simply having the confidence to do it.  For me, confidence comes and goes in waves.  Hopefully I can find a solution that brings me to the crest of one of those waves and keeps me there for at least a little while.

Thoughts and suggestions are always appreciated!  Good luck!

Buying The Ticket

I have officially purchased all of the major items I need in order to take my trip to Spain.  I have my passport, I rented a room, and just this week, I bought my ticket.  Now I just have to wait the eight months before I can fly out.

Just like learning Spanish, planning for this trip was a step by step process, and I think without the experience I have had with learning Spanish, I may have never made it this far.  I think we all have dreams and fantasies of the life experiences we want to have, but few of us manage to fulfill all of these dreams simply because we lack planning.  Now, to be fair, I have always been keen on making lists and setting dates for when I want to accomplish my goals, but one thing I have learned is that a list alone won't do it.  Sure, it's helpful to have a guide, but it's only as effective as the person who carries out the steps.  All too often I have become impatient and wanted to move forward too quickly and I think this was the cause of many of my early failures.  I have found that there needs to be a balance between giving yourself adequate time to progress versus simply waiting too long and letting opportunities pass you by.  Planning out my trip to Spain has been a learning process, and thankfully I have had help along the way in planning it all out.  Without some assistance, I think it would have fallen apart just like many of my other ideas.

I had set a goal of purchasing the plane ticket in October.  I was hoping by then the prices would be low and I would have saved ample cash to go ahead and buy it.  Of course, October was still months away when I set that goal and I watched as the prices fluctuated up and down.  Sure, I was hoping to find a great deal, but from the very beginning of planning this trip I had an idea in mind of what the ticket was going to cost me.  Well, just this week the prices went up and down like crazy and I finally decided I had to jump at the opportunity.  The price was actually a bit lower than I had planned on spending, but slightly higher than I had seen it previously.  Well, I couldn't make any more excuses.  Waiting until October was just another chance to fail in my trip.  Buying the ticket this week would solidify my trip and finally make this dream of mine  reality.  And a reality it now is.

Originally, the trip was planned for May of 2016, not 2015.  In my mind, I needed two years to prepare myself both psychologically and financially to go across the sea, when in truth, two years simply gave me enough time to find excuses not to take the trip.  A lot can happen in two years and it would have been very easy to use any little event to discourage me from going.  A year of planning is a safe goal.  It makes saving enough money a realistic possibility while at the same time keeping the idea fresh in your mind so you don't lose your motivation to go.  Now that it's official, I am aching to set sail!  Buying the ticket was another part of the process that took careful planning and making the right choice as to when to buy.

Balancing our steps isn't always easy, but it's necessary in order to succeed.  I think I found the right balance of being patient and still moving forward and thanks to my discovery, my dream of traveling to Spain is now going to be a reality!

Jumping In The Deep End

Officially, I've been studying Spanish since the Summer of 2008, but I have been surrounded by the language nearly my whole life.  I took classes in high school and even before that I always had access to Spanish television on cable.  I worked with Spanish speakers in my very first job and it was here that my passion for the language developed but when I look back on my early days of working, I see how many opportunities I really missed because I was too timid to talk.

Even to this day, confidence plays a huge role in being able to speak Spanish.  I often realize, sometimes too late, that I actually know more than I give myself credit for and will many times shy away from speaking not because I don't know how to say something, but because there is that lingering doubt that maybe, just maybe, I'm not going to say the right thing.  Fear in language learning is a silly thing and I attribute a great deal of the fear we feel to the way we are taught languages in school.  Like every other subject we face, our language classes are based on a pass/fail grading system.  I may very well have been able to carry on a conversation with ease even as far back as my days in high school, but because I was constantly being graded on using the correct verb tense or placing the accent mark over the proper vowel, my overall score wasn't nearly as high as I would have liked and it made me feel as if I wasn't successful in learning.  This "failure" at learning left me feeling like I didn't really know the language and for that I didn't want to sound silly attempting to talk to native speakers.  Although I may not know the solution to how we can improve our language learning classes, I will say that the way it is done now is simply not effective.

If I had the chance to go back and talk to my teenage self, I would tell myself to just talk.  Jump right in and speak.  Don't be afraid to use the present tense instead of the preterit, and don't worry if you use the "tu" form instead of the "usted" form.  Sure, foreign language can be intimidating, but we can't just dip our toes in the water and hope for the best.  If we're going to be successful, we need to jump in the deep end right from the start and learn to swim as we go.  I've read countless forum posts debating the value of studying grammar first or memorizing hundreds of vocabulary words before ever uttering your first phrase.  Now, I suppose if you're learning a foreign language for academic reasons, then by all means, study that grammar, but if you're like me, trying to simply learn how to talk to other people, who cares if you know why you say it that way as long as you know it's right, or even close enough.

Look, I am a perfectionist when it comes to my hobbies.  When I first started out, I bought every book, studied every vocabulary word, hammered home every verb tense in an effort to be a Spanish speaking machine.  I didn't just want to speak Spanish, I wanted to be a walking Spanish dictionary.  Then it hit me.  What's the point?  Most of the Spanish speakers I come across will be just like me when it comes to English.  Sure, I'm fluent in English, but that doesn't mean I am a walking dictionary or thesaurus.  In fact, when it comes to English grammar, I struggle mightily, but that doesn't stop me from writing these endless blog posts!

We have to get over our fear and realize in the real world, outside academia, no one is judging us on how we speak.  OK, no one wants to sound ignorant, which is why we ask for help along the way, but I would much rather learn as I go by talking with live people than sit at home with a grammar book all day long, never interacting with anyone.  So do it.  Jump in the deep end and start talking.  Make mistakes. Sound silly.  Ignore all those people who tell you you'll never get it.  I think you'll find great satisfaction in the conversations you have.

Changing How You See Yourself

Anyone who has known me for more than say a day or so would probably describe me as a fairly quiet, rather tame individual who leans towards the more serious side than playful side on most occasions.  While I am not always proud of it, I tend to be rather shy in social settings and gravitate away from the center of attention.  It's not that I don't like to have fun or that I don't enjoy being around people, it's just that I am not always comfortable in the limelight.  It's something I have been working on changing about who I am, but it's not always easy to simply change the person you have been since birth.  Then again, what if you give birth to a new you?

OK, that sounds a little silly, and maybe even a little contradictory, but hear me out.  I've noticed that as my level of fluency in Spanish has grown, so has my so-called Spanish personality.  No, I don't jump out of a phone booth wearing a Mariachi hat nor do I suddenly start dancing the tango when I attempt to speak Spanish with a native speaker, however I do find that some of my actions and even the phrases I use are slightly uncharacteristic of the me who only speaks English.  I didn't notice it immediately, but I found I felt much more daring or even risque when joking with some of my Spanish speaking employees.  When I finally did see how my Spanish personality acted, I decided to sit down and figure out why it was I could suddenly liven up the room when using Spanish but I still hid in the shadows when speaking English.

First, and foremost, without a doubt, confidence plays a huge role in all of this.  I may only know 25% of the Spanish language, compared to what I may know in English, so when I attempt to converse with a native speaker and all goes well, my confidence shoots through the roof.  I get an adrenaline rush from my success and feel like I'm on top of the world.  Suddenly, my jokes are funny, the ladies find me attractive, and I can order my burritos with extra hot sauce.  I wish it were this simple when it came to speaking English, but unfortunately, I'm not breaking any new ground when I speak in my native language.

Getting that surge of confidence allows me to take a chance to try to say things in Spanish that maybe I'm not 100% sure about.  Sure, I still make a lot of mistakes, but when I see that I am being understood, I just want to keep talking.  I suppose the opposite is true if I really start stumbling along but usually once I get going, it's hard to stop.  Of course that leads me to my other discovery.  Sometimes, knowing less is actually more helpful.  In English, I always want to say the perfect thing and often that leads me to hesitate when I speak or simply not speak at all.  Any native English speaker knows there are a million different ways to say so many things.  Well, since my vocabulary in Spanish is quite condensed, I only know how to say a lot of things in one way.  To a native speaker I may sound silly, but to me, I'm getting my point across.  I may not sound quite like my eloquent English speaking self when I am speaking Spanish, which I've decided just adds a little to my Spanish speaking personality.

Instead of worrying that I don't know enough or that I won't be understood, I have allowed myself to be comfortable using what I do know and that has really freed up my personality to come out and express itself a bit.  As I said, it's a shame I can't do the same in English, but I'm working on it.  In the meantime, I'll continue exploring the Spanish side of me and maybe someday it will teach the original me how to have some fun!

I'd love to know more about anyone else's foreign language personalities and if they have helped you come along as a second language speaker or even if it has helped your native speaking self!  Keep me posted and I'll add more soon.

To Vlog or Not To Vlog

One way I have been told is an excellent way to improve your speaking skills in a foreign language when you don't have a language partner to practice with is to make a video blog of yourself speaking in your target language.  When I first came across this idea, I was so excited to give it a try, I ran out and bought a handheld video camera and started outlying all the various themes I was going to discuss.  I was so inspired to get going, I forgot one small detail.  I charged the camera, set up a spot in my kitchen to practice, and pressed record.  Then came the silence.  I had never been comfortable in the spotlight and suddenly I was facing a camera, recording my every move.  I froze and had absolutely nothing to say.  I quickly paused the recording and went back to the drawing board.  My original plan had been to speak "off the cuff" with only a few notes to keep me on track, but I found myself stumbling over my words, forgetting what I wanted to say, or conjugating things entirely wrong.  My next plan was to script it all out in advance and read it like a speech.  The problem with this was that it took me so long to write out the script, by the time I was ready to record, I was tired and had lost the desire to go through with it.  Needless to say, I have a nice camcorder here in my kitchen that has only been used a handful of times since purchasing it last fall.

I did manage to make a few short video clips on the days I was really feeling ambitious, however I feel so awkward watching recordings of myself, I hid them away and never really critiqued them as is the purpose.  I'd really like to try again, especially before I leave for Spain.  I want to make a documentary style video of my trip, recording myself having conversations with people I come across in Madrid and Valencia.  In addition, I wanted to have a collection of "before and after" style videos to chronicle my progress, but as the days creep by, I fear it will soon be time to depart and I won't have much more than a few short clips of me reading my blog entries.

Facing a camera is one of the hardest things I have ever had to do.  In fact, despite my shyness, I am more comfortable talking to a total stranger than I am in talking on my own to a camera.  Something about being able to go back and see the mistakes I make is unnerving.  Certainly, we've all had moments like this when it comes to using the language we are studying or simply putting ourselves in a position of awkwardness that we have to overcome.  If anyone has any suggestions as to how I can get over my timidness towards my camera, I'd love to hear them.  I'm certainly not looking to go pro, but it would be nice to have a video to show my friends and family when I come home.  Feel free to share your ideas here with me and perhaps we can work this out together!

Moving Beyond Beginner

When it comes to learning Spanish, or basically any other language known to man, the internet has become a treasure trove of information.  I would say anyone with a strong desire to learn could get themselves well past the "beginner stage" of language learning without spending a dime thanks to all the great free sites out there.  When I first dove into Spanish, I spent hours Googling every resource I could find, and I must say, I was fairly successful.  Sure, I like to possess my learning materials, so while I probably did spend more money than I should have I can still say that doesn't have to be your road to success.  That is, if you are only looking to get past the beginner stage.  Unfortunately, one road block I have found in my journey is one I am sure many of you have come across as well.  What do you do when asking "Where is the bathroom?" may be the only phrase you can readily pull from your repertoire?  You can order your meal at the local restaurant, but what about having a conversation with the waiter that goes beyond asking for more napkins?  I can tell you again and again how many brothers and sisters I have, but what if I want to talk about their personalities?  I have read time and time again about the plateaus we reach but I have yet to discover a truly successful learning path to take once we are past the basics in order to keep climbing.  I mean, I guess we can always force feed ourselves more vocabulary and try our hand at more verb conjugations, but let's face it.  That's just boring.  If you're like me, you want to TALK, not just memorize boring vocabulary.

When I was first learning all the various ways to conjugate Spanish verbs I kept myself busy by playing games that challenged me to conjugate verbs and phrases as fast as I could.  It was fun and now I have a pretty solid grasp on all the various Spanish verb forms, and I even go back and review every now and then, but the only comparison I can make is that I feel like a high school student being forced to go back to elementary school.  Sure, I am reviewing the basics and if I only want to have very remedial conversations it's a great thing to do, but I want to talk about sports, politics, that cute girl sitting at the end of the bar.  I'm not learning how to do any of that if I can only say, "Hi, my name is James.  I live in an apartment and have blonde hair."  I mean, really is this how we introduce ourselves?

So what do we do to get past the basics?  How do we transform a set of rote phrases into the ability to really converse in the language we want to converse in?  I know many people are going to start shouting Skype, Skype, Skype, and I agree, I think Skype is a great tool, BUT Skype alone isn't going to teach you how to converse.  It will certainly allow you to practice the skills you have, and surely you'll improve those skills, but even a true language teacher isn't going to be able to offer you a complete package like that.  You'd basically be asking them to teach you how to be fluent.  That's a tall order to fill.

For me, my solution has been my Spanish blog, which I have been working on since 2010.  Unfortunately, it doesn't directly improve my speaking ability, although I do on occasion read my entries aloud to myself as  means of practicing.  This helps my pronunciation a bit, but in a real life situation, you aren't likely to have a script to hold in front of you as you go.  In fact, one of my biggest challenges has been being able to respond to someone in Spanish when they catch me off guard with a topic I may not be too familiar with and I'm not ready to respond.  One advantage of the blog however is that it gives me time to think of phrases I may actually use in everyday conversation and then I go look them up and add it to my vocabulary.  It's been slow going, but I do feel having the blog is better than nothing, but I would really like to find resources out there that address moving past the intermediate stages and into the more advanced stuff.  If anyone knows of any great advanced learning sites, I'd love to hear about them.  I'm planning on compiling a list of my favorite sites and I'll be sure to take any suggestions I receive into consideration.

So really, what ways have you found to move past the beginner stage?  I've got a few ideas floating around my head but I'd like to hear from some other folks first.  Let me know and we can start progressing together.

New Friends In New Places

Before I truly dedicated myself to learning Spanish, the program Skype held little appeal to me.  I had grown up in the land of chat rooms and instant messaging way back in the 90's and felt they had run their course.  When I started looking for ways to improve my communication skills, however, I quickly discovered how useful a program like Skype can be.  I can't say exactly how long I have been using the program, but I can say that every one of my Skype friends are native Spanish speakers and none of them live in The United States.  Were it not for Skype or other similar chat based programs, I don't know that I ever would have made the progress I have made in speaking Spanish.

This realization brought about another interesting thought to my mind.  A monolingual person would likely only have friends who speak the same language as them.  That seems logical, right?  Well, being at the very least bilingual opens the doors to make many new friends.  According to Wikipedia, there are roughly 21 countries in the world in which Spanish is the dominant language.  Thanks to Skype, and thanks to my efforts in speaking Spanish, I can potentially make friends in 21 countries in which that wouldn't have been possible were I to only speak English.  That's literally MILLIONS of potential friends I would never have had the chance to make were I monolingual.

OK, maybe this is a bit of an exaggeration, but the fact is, speaking multiple languages allows you to meet so many new and interesting people.  While I once dabbled in learning additional languages (Italian, French, and Portuguese) I backed off after a few months of studying and made my focus Spanish only, at least until I felt totally comfortable speaking in Spanish without having to fall back on English.  I'm not quite there, but the thought has once again popped into my brain, and I can only imagine how my friend list would explode were I to start chatting in Italian, French, and Portuguese.  I find it incredible how easy it is to meet new people simply by saying I am an English speaker who is learning Spanish.  So many people are eager to talk with me, I honestly can't always respond to them all at once.

My upcoming trip to Spain has inspired me to start thinking about other potential adventures and I started thinking about how great it would be not only to visit each of those 21 different Spanish speaking countries, but to have a Skype friend in each one to potentially meet in person.  Sure, 21 countries is a lot of travelling, but to meet at least 21 new friends all over the world would be quite a feat.  Right now, I just need to focus on meeting my friends in Spain.

So how has language learning changed your friendship status?  Have you found people near and far to help you practice?  Does having friends help keep you on pace with your learning?  I like to offer challenges to some of my Spanish speaking friends, such as to write 50 words or more in English for me to read next time we chat.  Do you think language competitions will help you buckle down and study a little harder?  Let me know your thoughts and experiences!

The Trip To Spain

The idea came to me mostly as a lark last November.  I had often said in passing that I would like to see another country but I had never made any real attempts at actually going through with it.  The "old" me was very good at talking the talk but never walking the walk.  I would say all kinds of things to my friends only to back out at the last minute.  One day I let it slip out that I would like to see Spain someday, not with the intention of going on vacation, but rather to spend time there totally immersed in the language.  I had become frustrated with my progress in speaking the language despite becoming rather good at reading and writing.  If you don't believe me, check out my blog written entirely in Spanish!  My one struggle was still with speaking confidently.  While I do not subscribe to the notion that one must live in a foreign country in order to learn the language, I did feel dropping myself in the middle of Spain would force me to speak the language and therefore increase my proficiency.  That being said, there was a lot more going on in my head besides simply going to Spain.

I'm 33 years old and I have never left the country.  In fact, I have never done much of anything daring.  I allowed myself to become content with a life that was fairly plain and uninteresting.  I made excuses not to do things and found myself often hidden inside a shell, afraid to face the world around me.  Around the same time the idea of travelling to Spain bubbled up inside my thoughts, I had reached a low point in my life.  I was unhappy with who I was and who I had allowed myself to become.  Those around me saw me as a grumpy, rigid, unhappy person.  Instead of countering those notions, I let it define who I was and it brought me into a deep depression.  Thankfully, I saw what was happening and through a series of events, I climbed my way out.  Part of my resurrection came when I decided to make the trip to Spain a reality instead of a fantasy.  Going to Spain became more about challenging who I was and who I wanted to be.  It was about more than taking a vacation.  It was about putting myself in the most uncomfortable position I have ever been in and telling myself that I can do this.  Originally, I planned on making the trip immediately after my 35th birthday in 2016, but thanks to some wonderful inspiration I have decided to go in May of 2015.  I will spend the entire month in Spain, dividing my time between Madrid and Valencia and my goal is not to speak Spanish, rather it is to NOT speak English.  You see, speaking Spanish is easy enough, but I can always fall back on English.  If I make the goal to not use a single word of English, it forces me to find other means of communication.

There are so many other factors that are going to play into this trip.  I used to say I was afraid to fly.  Well, there aren't too many ways to reach Spain from The United States without a plane.  I am quiet in social crowds.  If I am going to improve my speaking skills, I'm going to have to talk, and I imagine it will be uncomfortable for me to start conversations with total strangers, especially those who don't speak English.  Despite living alone, I have never been comfortable going places on my own where I don't know people.  I am fairly certain I do not know a single person in Spain.  This trip is about so much more than seeing a foreign country.  This trip is about challenging myself and every aspect of who I am.

So what I want to know is how those of you out there have used a new language to overcome any fears or reservations about life you may have?  Has speaking a new language offered you the confidence to do things you wouldn't have otherwise done?  I still have months to prepare for my trip and it has given me a new reason to wake up with a smile on my face every morning.  How about you?  Let me know and I'll be sure to add more here soon.

It Has To Start Somewhere

My name is James, and as you may already know, I have a small obsession with speaking Spanish.  I've been hanging about Google+ since its inception, but never really found my calling when it came to involving myself in the Google community; that is, until now.  While there are truckloads of pages devoted to language learning and just as many devoted to self-improvement, I am not so sure there are all that many associated with using foreign language acquisition as a means of self-improvement.  Well, OK, maybe they exist, but I haven't found them, and this was an idea I had the other night, so I decided to run with it.

I thought it best in my first entry to offer a little background of who I am and what brought me here today.  Also, I thought it might be nice to give you an idea of how I would like to run this blog so you know what to expect.  First of all, a little about me.

Like many students throughout the world, years ago I was forced to learn a foreign language in high school.  It was dull, it was confusing, and it was in no way helpful in learning how to communicate with other people.  I learned the most basic phrases and spent most of my time trying to learn the most common Spanish swear words.  Once I graduated, I mostly forgot what little I had learned.  That was until I was confronted with a reason to actually speak the language.  You see, I work with a lot of Spanish speaking people and I found it a little uncomfortable to see such a divide among the English speaking employees and the Spanish speaking employees.  Some time around 2008, I decided to refresh my memory and start talking with the Spanish speaking members of the staff.  I made a promise to them that June that in three months I would be able to communicate with them conversationally.  Today, nearly six years later, I am still learning, but I am proud to say I have really impressed them with my progress and have reached a point where I can discuss almost any topic in Spanish without feeling totally lost in the conversation.  I'm not perfect and I still have a lot of progress to be made, but it has opened up a new world for me.

That brings me to the second part of this blog.  Speaking Spanish has not only made it easier for me to speak to my employees, but it has given me new found confidence in myself.  I have always been a shy person and often times avoided talking for fear of embarrassment.  I'm not entirely sure what it is about Spanish, but I get a tremendous high anytime I can talk with another Spanish speaker and feel like we understand one another perfectly.  I watch my favorite movies in Spanish and I read some of the best novels in Spanish.  Learning a second language has truly enriched my life, and I decided I wanted to start this blog as a way to share my experiences as well as learn from others who have found such pleasure in a new language.  I'm going to attempt to write it both in English and in Spanish, but I have also included the Google Translate button for anyone who wants to read along in any language.  I welcome comments and stories of both success and failure when it comes to learning a foreign language, because anyone who has attempted to learn a new language knows all too well the struggles that come with it.  I'm creating this blog in the hopes of inspiring others to fulfill some of their life's dreams and it doesn't necessarily have to be through a new language.  It just so happens that's how it worked out for me.

My plan is simple, but to be honest, I haven't looked all that far down the road.  I am hoping to structure these entries around the responses I get from others, but I will of course use this page as a way to share my experiences and offer my thoughts.  I hope to make some new friends along the way, so if you're interested, jump on board, because away we go.