Provided below are the most important tips and belief systems you need to acquire to fastrack your journey to fluency in Spanish.
Experience the World from a Different Set of Eyes: Each one of us was born and raised within our own culture, demographic, and environment. These factors play a significant role in the belief systems that we develop as we are raised. Our individual belief systems that we acquire shape our view of the world. It’s important to remember that our view of the world and the way we do things in our culture is completely different from how other cultures do things. What you or I think is right or wrong, common or strange, or culturally appropriate may be entirely different in other countries. Allow me to illustrate this point with an example.
My second day living abroad in El Salvador, I needed to take the bus to go buy groceries. We managed to wave-down a “pick-up” where you could pay 25 cents to ride standing up in the bed of a small pick- up truck. I remember this particular truck being extremely crowded and counting more than 25 people standing up in the back of the bed. As we got in, I will never forget the new and uncomfortable feeling of having a complete stranger pressed up against my frontside, while another stood against my back grazing my behind. As we started our 45-minute journey (which felt like 8 hours) to the nearest supermarket, I remember looking around and seeing a few men hanging off the side of this truck just feet away from the pavement below as we traveled at 50 mph towards the city.
The next thing I noticed as I looked around was the number of women that were breast-feeding while standing up during this turbulent truck ride. They held their feeding children in one arm and their bags and belongings in the other. I couldn’t believe they were feeding their children and carrying their belongings all while keeping their balance on the stop-and-go pick-up route to the city.
Finally, we reached our destination. As we exited the truck and walked towards the supermarket, I immediately noticed three men armed and openly carrying automatic weapons strapped with bulletproof vests at the entrance. My heart began pounding and I stood frozen in fear trying not to move a muscle. I asked my friend Luke why these men were here. What could have happened at this supermarket to warrant having soldiers yielding automatic weapons? He told me guards such as these patrol the storefronts all over the city, and that it was nothing to worry about.
The message I want to share is that never before in my life had I questioned the transportation or security systems that I knew growing up. I didn’t realize that in some countries it is rare for an individual to own their own car. Similarly, I didn’t understand that it is perfectly normal to see openly armed men strolling around the grocery store. I simply accepted what I knew because it was the only way of doing things that I had ever experienced. This was an excellent opportunity for me to open my eyes and expand my limiting views from what I had always known.
We Live in a W.E.I.R.D. Culture: The acronym W.E.I.R.D. stands for western, educated, industrialized, rich and democratic. If you were born and raised in the United States, regardless of socioeconomic status, this is the culture that you and I have been raised to understand. It’s important to remember that not all countries have W.E.I.R.D. cultures like ours. Education, urbanization, and government are completely different in other countries, which means that the individuals living there won’t always understand your way of thinking. They probably will not understand your cultural references. To understand a foreign Spanish speaker, not only do you need to learn the language, but you also need to learn the culture. Doing this will allow you to connect with people on a deeper level. It will provide you with cultural references to be able to talk about in conversation, and help native speakers open up to you more as you engage in conversation. This is also one of the most beautiful parts about learning a new language: the opportunity to expand your views and learn another culture!
Change the Way You Think: As you begin learning Spanish, you will soon realize that you need to change the way you think. One example of this is the altered sentence structure in Spanish. Unlike English, Spanish adjectives almost always follow the noun they describe. So, if you say the phrase, “A beautiful day,” it is translated “Un día hermoso.” This altered form of adjective placement can seem strange, especially as you begin to construct sentences. You will also learn how to conjugate verbs in the correct positions within your sentence, all while simultaneously trying to remember the correct word translations and have a comprehendible accent. All these modifications to your current language system will challenge your brain in ways that it never has before. When you learn a new language, you are actively creating new neural pathways (brain pathways) which allow you to begin thinking in a different manner. You will start to use your right brain hemisphere more than your left which is responsible for creativity and imagination. It truly is an amazing experience of invaluable worth for your future development!
Another way your views will be challenged is in the field of cultural norms, morals, and ethics. If you travel abroad, you will notice that different cultures have different ways of living, different housing, different economies, different styles of interpersonal communication, and different standards of life! I invite you to be open and willing to understanding a new culture’s views. Most of all I invite you to develop a sense of inter-cultural empathy.
Empathy in SLA: Empathy is defined as the ability to understand or feel what another person is experiencing from their point of view. The following quote is advice from President Barack Obama as he gave counsel to a group of Northwestern graduates: “My third piece of advice is to cultivate a sense of empathy – to put yourself in other people’s shoes – to see the world from their eyes. Empathy is a quality of character that can change the world.” Developing empathy for individuals of different cultures will play a huge role in helping you learn the language. Expand your sense of inter-cultural empathy and watch how it opens up doors for you in more ways than just language.
Forget Your English: Last but not least, to fully learn a language, you must replace the language habits you currently have with those of Spanish. It doesn’t matter how many words in the dictionary you know, you must learn the “Spanish way” of articulating things before you can achieve fluency. One of the most difficult but rewarding parts of learning another language is coming to understand an idea or expression that doesn’t exist in your native language. In Spanish, you will learn words, expressions, and ideas that are new and completely unique. Ideas that simply can’t be translated into any other language. You will learn verbs and adjectives that you never knew existed, and that is the beauty of learning a new language. You learn new ways to express yourself and communicate with others. I encourage you not to think in English when speaking or listening to someone speak Spanish. The language becomes easier as you stop translating in your head and solely focus on the conversation’s context and meaning.
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