Spanish Help Needed

[redfiona99]

Help me f-listies - while I was in Chicago, I foolishly made a promise to speak to the LatAm team in Spanish if I'm at the same conference next year.

Problem - I vigorously no hablo Espanyol. I have tried, twice, and I start with happy Spanish thoughts, and by the end of the sentence, it's French.

Any helps, tips and suggestions are gratefully received.

Comments

[greenwoodside]

Serial dilettante language learner here. Currently strongest in Welsh, next best is German. I have noticed that while I can still understand German as well as -- if not better -- than Welsh, when I try and speak it I start off in German and end in Welsh. And I reckon that's because I haven't actively tried to produce German for years and years, whereas I sat an exam in Welsh this summer, regularly go to language class, and deal with Welsh every day in my job.

I suspect the main thing is to keep trying to formulate things in Spanish, either to yourself or to anyone who stands still long enough to have Spanish spoken at them. That could be supported by other ways to use the language actively: writing fic in Spanish, translating a poem into Spanish, etc.

Plus backing that up with some passive immersion. Changing the TV audio settings to Spanish, singing Spanish songs in the shower, reading, changing your computer/laptop operating system to Spanish and whatever sounds good to you.

One of the most helpful things I found to prepare for the Welsh exam was to book four one-to-one sessions with a private tutor. We talked through the types of topics that might come up, which resulted in holes in my vocab being exposed then patched up. I ended up with a Word doc full of really useful stuff that I reread regularly prior to the exam.

[redfiona99]

I think your Welsh/German thing is something similar to my French/Spanish thing.

I shall endeavour to immerse via DVD, some of them have to have a Spanish track!