Feliz cumpleaños to my Duolingo Spanish Streak: Language Learning
In honor of my 1 year streak on Duolingo I wanted to share some of my favorite ways to engage with foreign languages!
I am by no means an expert. I took French in high school and one year of college and I have studied it casually over the following years. I’ve been to Paris twice and knew enough to get around and have waiters shamelessly overflatter me, but my vocabulary is far better than my grammar for one glaring reason: not enough practice. All my studying was in workbooks, Duolingo, or Rosetta Stone. I never actually spoke in French to French people, and my confidence and fluency suffer for it.
About a year ago I was on a flight sharing a row with my then-partner and a man who spoke only Spanish. Through a series of events, the plane’s landing got delayed and we were forced to touch down at another airport for refueling before we could make our actual destination in Texas. My partner and the man were both sleeping during the flight, but upon landing the man woke up and began preparing to deplane. I tried to communicate something about the plane and gasolina but I clearly sounded crazy and the man had no idea what I was trying to say. I had only been on a foreign flight once before and although the flight attendant chattered away in French, I was able to at least pick up on his jokes even if I laughed about ten seconds after everyone else. This man had no idea what was happening and I was over-empathetically distressed on his behalf.
I woke up my friend, who spoke Spanish very well, and explained the situation. Watching him communicate to the man and seeing the confusion and worry disappear from his face was amazing to me. I spent the rest of the flight to Texas really impressed with my partner’s polyglot abilities and chagrined that I had been signed up for French so early in life when Spanish was such a better traveling language. We had a quick layover and by the time we landed back home in Florida I had made up my mind that I too was capable of speaking multiple languages. And thus a Duolingo streak was born.
But I didn’t just stick to Duolingo this time! I used the streak to keep me motivated about practicing for at least a few minutes every single day, but here are some of my favorite ways to interact with foreign languages.
Language Learning With Netflix. It’s a browser extension for Netflix that gives you translations in both your native language and your target language. I absolutely adore this. I know some people can just listen to shows in their target language with English subtitles, but that does very little for me because I spend all my time reading the English rather than listening! And my Spanish isn’t fast enough to comprehend everything with just Spanish subtitles. With this amazing extension I can focus on the Spanish without being afraid I’ll miss anything. You can even set it up to pause after every line of dialogue and to highlight common words. It’s definitely worth playing around with and they have several languages.
Duolingo Podcasts. I love the little Duolingo stories but Duolingo podcasts are next level. They’re made by the same producers as NPR so they have the same feel and I love the crisp audio and the voice of the host. My personal strategy is to listen to the podcast, pausing after each Spanish paragraph to check my comprehension, then compare it to the transcripts online. I do this for one entire run-through and then listen to the whole podcast again now that I know what it’s about and have a basic grasp of the words used. It’s an exhausting exercise but it’s really improving my listening skills and I can’t recommend it highly enough.
Memrise App. There are probably a million apps like this with the same flash card premise, but this is one that was recommended to me a year ago and I immediately fell in love with. I love how so many of the words are modern and relevant rather than some of the stuffy phrases you get from textbooks or audio lessons.
Reading Bilingual Stories. Especially out loud. Especially with a friend. That partner from the plane and I would take turns reading each other stories and poems in elementary and basic Spanish (suited to my skill level). When I read he would correct my pronunciation and when he read I would try to translate or paraphrase what had happened in English. It was honestly one of the best things I’ve ever done with a friend and I need more people like that in my life. I strongly recommend getting editions that have both your target and native language side by side. I understood more about translating than I ever have before through that method.
Throughout the past year I’ve also used workbooks, audio programs, and I strongly considered italki (my ex-partner actually teaches on there) but decided to stick to what I could do for free for the time being. Obviously the absolute best practice is real practice– talking to other people. I am fortunate enough as a teacher in Florida that my school has many Spanish students and I have a little group of 6 year old girls who I practice with for 5 minutes or so a day in the hallways between classes and I love being able to make them laugh and honor their home language. I even had a really magical moment at the beginning of the school year with a parent who couldn’t speak English at Meet the Teacher and I was able to (badly, I’m sure) introduce myself as her child’s teacher and tell her I was excited for the new school year in a way she could understand. I can’t wait to have an opportunity for full immersion and to see where else language learning can take me!
What are your favorite ways to study foreign languages? Any tips?
