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Lopsided proficiency | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Advice Center |  | |
| reineke Senior Member United States https://learnalangua Joined 6258 days ago 851 posts - 1008 votes  Studies: German | Message 9 of 21 18 November 2012 at 12:28am | IP Logged | ||
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Go order a taco.
3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| tibbles Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5002 days ago 245 posts - 421 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Korean | Message 10 of 21 19 November 2012 at 7:48am | IP Logged | ||
Exactly. You need to keep putting yourself out there and try ordering those tacos until you get it right. Seriously, no amount of additional courses or telenovelas or tutoring sessions is going to get you there, especially given the stage you are at already. I think too many people spend too much time doing language course after language course when they would benefit more from taking their language out for a spin. You just need to keep on talking. Don't be afraid of leaving your pride at home and jumping into the unknown. That's the stuff that will accelerate your active language ability. When I went to Mexico City about a year ago and had a chance to put my then 10-months worth of Spanish to the test, one of the fun things was to go up to street vendors and order a bit of food, say a taco or a papaya milkshake or hand-squeezed OJ. I would always ask questions, like what kind of meats they had, what kind of toppings and salsas, what flavors of drinks they had, etc. These situations always worked out fine for me, and besides, what's the worst that could happen other than not being understood and looking like a fool? 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Gala Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4361 days ago 229 posts - 421 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Italian | Message 11 of 21 19 November 2012 at 4:07pm | IP Logged | ||
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I totally agree that anyone at the stage of the OP needs to use their L2 in as many
real-life everyday situations as they can get into, but I don't understand why so many posters always treat this issue as an either/or proposition with regards to courses. Ordering tacos and having small-talk in Spanish doesn't take that much time (especially for someone that is in Guatemala) and I don't see any reason to think that someone at the advanced stage who is nevertheless having a particular difficulty with the spoken language (or also anyone who simply wants to improve automaticity/fluidity) would not also benefit from FSI-type audio drills. I began using my Spanish in everyday situations (with co-workers, dates, in restaurants, wherever I got the chance) within months of beginning to study it, and the same goes for native materials. I've kept this up since (although I've been unable to spend time in a country with a Spanish-speaking majority, or otherwise get as much real-life practice as I'd like) but can nevertheless say with certainty that I still find FSI very useful and effective. The fact that I also order tacos in Spanish on a regular basis hasn't eliminated its utility:) Edited by Gala on 19 November 2012 at 4:10pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5577 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 12 of 21 19 November 2012 at 4:28pm | IP Logged | ||
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Your proficiency rapidly deteriorating in such situations is completely normal when anxiety is involved, because anxiety tends to block half-automatic routines. So you can only do those things that have already become second nature, or you have to use conscious effort for every single bit. It's like going through grammar drills etc. when you've first learnt a new grammar point - you need the same level of concentration. Obviously there won't be many ressources left for dealing with unfamiliar situations, and when you shift your attention to the situation at hand, your language ability suffers.
I know some ways of dealing with that problem: -overlearning -relaxation -baby steps Overlearning would include response drills like FSI, memorizing interaction patterns until, as we'd say in German, they come out of your ears. Goal: Access to the learnt material even under duress. Assimil probably won't do the trick, Michael Thomas surely won't. Pimsleur may or may not, depending on whether you redo the lessons until you get the responses right in time. Relaxation is a good idea for people who have performance anxiety/avoidance that vanishes once they're actually in the situation. Goal: Down-regulation of the anxiety. What helps me best is to use baby steps. For example, finding possible interactions that don't take a long time and that you can repeat every single day until you don't even notice you've been using Spanish for that part of your life. Goal: Building up familiarity with easy tasks until you can use your skills in more demanding situations. Edited by Bao on 19 November 2012 at 4:29pm 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Majka Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic kofoholici.wordpress Joined 4468 days ago 307 posts - 755 votes Speaks: Czech*, German, English Studies: French Studies: Russian | Message 13 of 21 19 November 2012 at 4:59pm | IP Logged | ||
If the reason is true anxiety and not basic lack of knowledge, no amount of usual courses will help you. Most of them are trying to make learning as stress free as possible. What we need is just the opposite - to learn to function under pressure. Perhaps finding a military drill instructor would help :) Let me tell you - I had to learn to function in my native language. I had problem talking with people I didn't know, meaning I had procrastinated as often as I could even when I had to make a phone call. I went for the shock method and did put myself in position where I had to interact with people and survive being "on stage" or loose my job. And somehow, this was easier for me than doing the same in private. Combine such situation it with interacting in foreign language, albeit one you know well, and it is almost guarantied that you freeze as soon as you see the natives nearing :) 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Gala Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4361 days ago 229 posts - 421 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Italian | Message 14 of 21 19 November 2012 at 7:15pm | IP Logged | ||
The audio for FSI is not in any way, shape or form designed to make learning stress-free. I'd say it actually does have something in common with a military drill instructor:) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| jtmc18 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7056 days ago 119 posts - 140 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish | Message 15 of 21 20 November 2012 at 2:08am | IP Logged | ||
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Thanks for the replies everyone. I guess the problem is figuring what the problem is.
Sometimes I think I'm dyslexic or something... I mean, my sentences just come out bungled and completely disordered sometimes. Why do I say things like "Se hacen de la gorda vista" or "son estas toallas manos para humedas". Then I realize that I DON'T do this in English. Then sometimes in Spanish I just stutter... I overpronounce a vowel or skip a consonant... I still can't pronounce the word "computadora" well, no matter how many times I try. It's true I get nervous... sometimes I say things like "llagame mas tarde" instead of "llamame mas tarde". I get frustrated with myself because I shouldn't be making these ridiculous mistakes at this point. I know when I make a mistake... most of the time I'm fully aware of how things should be said. I also compare myself with other non-native speakers of Spanish... it drives me crazy when I hear them speaking without these quirks. Of course, most gringos I hear around here aren't proficient, but it only takes one... I'm in that stage in which I'm not comfortably fluent.. although I have moments of great fluency... but neither am I a novice or intermediate speaker. I'm the twilight zone of language proficiency... I speak all the time but I can't get out of this hole!!! I'm definitely going to try FSI... I used it years ago when I was a beginner with great success but never made it to the last levels. I think I'll give it another go. Perhaps I'll give my copy of Assimil to someone else... I received it last month and brought it with me, but agree that it is very Peninsular... in fact, some of it seems incorrect to me, such as "he ido a coger setas esta manana"... if I said that here I'd get laughed out of the building, not to mention corrected for the use of the present perfect. Maybe that's said in Spain, but it's not the Spanish I've been hearing all these years. So I guess FSI it is. I have a feeling that getting out of the twilight zone might take a while... there seems be a gulf between knowledge and application and I'm now probing how wide it is. I guess for some it's narrower than for others, but my mouth simply does not want to cooperate. After I get back I might post a non-rehearsed video somewhere just to get feedback on my Spanish. People here tell me it's good but I don't believe them. It might be good to get some feedback from the greater language-learning community. Well, thanks for the tips and if you have any more feel free to post... I'll be checking from time to time. Saludos de Guatemala... P.S. I managed to order a taco. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Serpent Octoglot Senior Member Russian Federation serpent-849.livejour Joined 6408 days ago 9753 posts - 15779 votes 4 sounds Speaks: Russian*, English, FinnishC1, Latin, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Danish, Romanian, Polish, Belarusian, Ukrainian, Croatian, Slovenian, Catalan, Czech, Galician, Dutch, Swedish | Message 16 of 21 20 November 2012 at 12:46pm | IP Logged | ||
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