Today I moved in with my host family, a single mother and her son, both of who are just so kind I could melt. As someone who is trying desperately to appear friendly and approachable while also being permanently tongue-tied I found that the best gift in the world is a chatty Chilean. Never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, I decided to try and let her talk as much as humanly possible so that I could pick up as much vocab as possible.
When learning a language the acquisition process looks like this, from first to last:
Listening
Reading
Writing
Speaking
Even though I could speak well enough to confirm my understanding and encourage her on slightly, I decided to return to ground zero. Ergo I spent most of the past 11 hours intently listening. And I have no doubts it was the right decision. Listening leaves you feeling like you worked hard on improving your Spanish without the exhausting residue left by having to think (and conjugate verbs correctly... [can anyone use the subjunctive mode with confidence?!]) on your feet.
Lesson 2.01: Part of listening is waiting out the long silences. Wait patiently for a response before you assume the person didn't hear or understand you. I'm no guru, but I did make this mistake multiple times today, so the wounds of experience are fresh.
yay yay yay i love that you are blogging! turns out you can write a-ok, kid. i have a blog (sydneyadalen.blogspot.com) which one of these days i will start writing in regularly so that is a good thing for you to check occasionally as well.
ReplyDeleteso proud and excited of you!!
xoxo
gossip girl
I'm so glad you are blogging too. I've been checking Sydney's blog faithfully. I keep reading her only entry over and over...boo!
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