Spanish Tipping Point

Posted on April 10, 2005
Filed Under life |

I never realized when this point happened, but I’ve crossed a major threshold with Spanish. I’m not particularly more fluent than I was a year ago when I was actively taking classes (since I do so little speaking of it) although I’m doing a lot more reading of it. My vocabulary is definitely increasing all the time by dribs and drabs as I read weblogs but that’s not the big thing.

At some point I stopped punting whenever I ran across Spanish, written or spoken. If I see something that pops up in Feedster in French or Russian, I immediately skip it because there is no point. If a post arrives in Spanish, I always read it. Depending on how much vocabulary I have in common with the post, I may not understand very much of it but I give it the shot. Spanish has stopped being a “skip this, you won’t understand it” cognitive experience for me. This doesn’t make me comprehend any more of it or speak it any better, but it seems like a major milestone from my perspective of the language. I don’t automatically give up when I encounter it but instead make a stab at extracting as much meaning as I can. Progress continues.

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    • Comments

    One Response to “Spanish Tipping Point”

    1. Nicole Simon on April 11th, 2005 4:05 am

      yeah, I made this kind of reference in my last podcast because I passed this point with english - it is like switching channels on tv now. Click - english stream in - click - german - click english again. (except I don’t have english TV, but there are podcasts …).

      It helps to pass this level because you are then easier off.

      Podcasting in this matter has did quite a bit for this, and I am better off, because english is not my native language - there are so many english out there.

      The reason I am still doing my german one (and even started of another with sushiradio.de) is at least 25% because I have responses from non native speakers who like listening to a german one.

      And it helps, when the presenter has a nice, clear voice like you have ;)

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