Welcome back to my Gibberish to Spanish. Today I’m going to be honest and say I’ve been slacking a lot lately but I have good reasons! (not really) I was working on other assignments for other classes and didn’t feel like anyone around me would like to hear my broken Spanish probably because I feel they would look at me funny. Buttttt… I have been practicing in my head (don’t ask for proof) trying to say words or sentences in my head to remember them more and that helps when I do go back to Duolingo and try to keep a streak going, but it usually consists of weekdays not weekends probably because I’m still in the mindset of WEEKENDS are breaks like in high school but I need to step up my GAME and complete more lessons on Duolingo this week.
Photo of the Duolingo homepage that shows my streak
As you can see my streaks have been a lot on the ice side, (Ice means that If I don’t do any spanish that day it would “Freeze” My progress so I don’t lose a streak) and the colored ones are the ones in which I actually did some lessons.
Dont think Im not learning because I’m not doing it everyday, because I have been learning, In fact I’ve learnt somewhere between 186-200 words of Spanish so far and I wrote this words down in my notebook where I have the English word and than the Spanish beside it. Im not fluent yet but rolling my “R”s have been getting easier.
Hello, Dalin!
I can totally relate to your experience! When I began learning a new language, I used to feel the same way, maybe even worse. I often thought I was somewhat unintelligent. I used to grasp the grammar rules easily; it was almost like solving a math problem. I had so much fun with it. However, when it came to speaking, I felt inadequate and useless. Secretly, I take pride in all the hard work I’ve put into it, and I believe you will too.
Today, we’re fortunate to have numerous language-learning apps at our disposal. I believe you can likely find apps designed for Spanish language practice or even use AI assistance to support your speaking. I’m sure you’ll soon take pride in the progress you’ve made.
Best wishes,
Esin
Hiya,
I totally understand the worry of what others think of you, even though it robs you of freedom.
Working with language in your brain is important too! ‘Rewiring’ your brain to work in another language is a big part of becoming fluent! My dad would speak French around us growing up, and needing to work the language around in my head to figure out what he was talking about is a big part of why I understand the little French that I do: he got it into my head when I was young.
Do you find the ‘gamification’ of language learning that Duolingo provides is helpful to you wanting to stay on the app (to make The Owl proud or otherwise)?
Communicating telepathically is not something we can do though (yet),
Austin.