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!

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.

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.

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!

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.