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!

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.

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!