review: On learning languages and failing

taken by me in progreso, yucatán, mexico

It's become a sort of personal tradition to try and fail at learning a new (but also the same) language every summer. Last year summer, it was Spanish, the summer before, Russian, and Spanish again the summer before that.

As inexplicably interested as I am with Russian, I don’t think it’s the most practical language for me to learn right now. I do think it’d open up a new career path of assassin-spy/double-agent which sounds fun, but I do think that with current political tensions, my learning Russian would leave a search history trail that might put me on a watchlist. I don’t know. I’m just playing it safe and attempting to learn Spanish (again). I'm using Madrigal's Magic Key to Spanish as a textbook of sorts. The first page of each chapter has illustrations from Andy Warhol. And my failure to learn Spanish twice now is no reflection on the book itself; I really like it.

One thing that’s always tripped me up with learning Spanish is I end up trying to say most words with a French pronunciation. I’ve been learning French for about seven years, which is both helpful and hurtful. There’s even more French cognates than English cognates in Spanish, so it helps with vocabulary. But I struggle with re-learning how to pronounce those similar words.

The most helpful part of studying French is the tips and strategies I've learned along the way; ones that I can reapply to any language—

For learning a new language:

• Starting a notebook or journal (these look so cool I've put them on my Amazon wishlist) to keep track of new words and phrases. (Flashcard apps are quick, easy ways to study, but writing helps me remember best.) 
• Finding a musician I love in the language I'm learning and listening to their music often. And eventually, learning the words and meanings so I can sing along. For Spanish, mine are Maluma, Selena (Dreaming of You was the first album I owned), and the entire Narcos soundtrack). 
• Language apps! There's Duolingo, of course but this time around I'm switching to Babbel. My favorite part of both apps is the speech recognition, so I can actually practice speaking. 
• Visualizing objects and concepts, not English translations. When learning new vocabulary, I try my hardest not to learn by remembering the English translation of the word, but by picturing an object or concept. This more closely imitates how speakers learn new words in their own languages. 

For continued learning:

• Following news outlets and newspapers/magazines on social media (every major fashion magazine has foreign-language counterparts, and Twitter has an auto-translate feature) so that even scrolling through your timeline feels like learning. 
• Streaming foreign-language movies and TV shows. Listening to the original audio and watching English subtitles helps with learning new vocabulary. Watching with foreign language captions helps with reading comprehension and spelling. 
• Reading a book I've already read in English and reading it in the new language (especially aloud). I've found a lot of cheap French books in used bookstores and library sales. It's really rewarding when you laugh or cry or a phrase hits home when reading a book in a second language. Most helpful is reading along with an audiobook. 
• Podcasts. I'm not as into podcasts for learning a new language because I tend to zone out, but I've found them really helpful once I can actually comprehend what they're saying. My favorite French podcast is One thing in a French day. Looking for simplified editions of daily news updates (Radio France has one) also helps. 
• Narrating your day in a new language. I only do this when I know I'm alone because it sounds freaky, but sometimes I'll narrate what I do while I go about a specific activity, like cleaning or cooking or putting on makeup, for example, just like a voiceover in a movie. It really helps me realize what words I don't know but need to learn. 

One of the hardest part of learning a new language is swallowing your pride and spitting it out, however terrible and toddler-like you sound. After seven years of studying French, I still get so self-conscious and nervous when speaking around native speakers, and I honestly avoid it. I can be, though not in all things, a major perfectionist. Today, I typed your instead of you’re in a text and got a little nauseous when I saw it. Just goes to show that I can’t even speak English perfectly, so there’s no reason to expect perfection in any other. I love language and learning new ones and I want to keep doing so for a long time. Five stars.


still reading: sense & sensibility
listening to: el perdedor by maluma