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Learning words that I won't need:
The very first thing I did when I decided I was going to start learning Spanish was open up Google Translate on my phone and begin to type in some words and phrases. “Hello”, “Goodbye”, “Thanks”, “My name is Matt”, “Where is the supermarket?” etc. I don’t think this was such a terrible idea, as it gave me a few key phrases. One could call this 'survival language' – words and phrases that can communicate some sort of meaning and serve a purpose. However, I then decided it would be useful to learn all the days of the week, months of the year, animals, and household items. I spent weeks trying to memorise all of these by writing and rewriting them with pen and paper over and over again. I was writing things like “el elefante gris = the grey elephant”, “la serpiente verde = the green snake”, “el perro blanco = the white dog” etc. I was starting to remember all of them, which unfortunately I saw as some sort of progress, so I continued doing it. Guess how many times I've had to use these words in three years of Spanish? This is actually the first time I’ve ever had to use them (ironically, when writing in a blog post about mistakes I made!). This highlights how completely pointless these words were. If you ever reach a point where you're trying to memorise a word, think long and hard about how frequently you use this word. You may be surprised.
Trying to study grammar too much at the start:
This is a common mistake that a lot of people make. In my
other post, where
I talk about my method for learning a language, you’ll see that the first stage is
creating a base knowledge of grammar and vocabulary. For this, I allow myself
to study a little bit of the grammar. I started off with Spanish by looking at
some general rules e.g. verb conjugations etc, which are perfect. It's enough
to start creating a base. However, I kept going and tried to go too far. I
bought myself a grammar textbook and tried to work my way through the majority
of it. At this stage, these rules are basically pointless because you have no experience
with the language and therefore no point of reference. None of these more
complicated grammar rules were staying in my mind. I was doing exercises and
getting things wrong, which frustrated me a lot, and it was also very boring!
Using Duolingo for too long:
After making my way through an unacceptable number of pens
and notebooks full of black horses, red fish, yellow butterflies, and grammar
rules, a friend of mine suggested I use Duolingo. Duolingo is a language
learning app that I discuss more here. It's very good for building
vocabulary and getting a general understanding of the language, and I was using it every day and having success with it. You can create a very strong
base of knowledge using Duolingo; however, you'll never achieve fluency if this
is the only method you use. I was using it for months and creating a good base,
but I eventually reached a point where I wasn’t actually improving much more. I
knew I had to do something different, but because it was something I was
comfortable with, I refused to do anything else. It felt much safer than trying
to do anything more challenging.
Not reading or listening earlier:
My friend who suggested I use Duolingo also said I needed to
start reading and listening at some point, as this is what he was doing and he
was improving exponentially from it. Despite his advice, I was worried
that if I started to read and listen, I'd realise how little I knew about
Spanish. So I ignored him and continued to use Duolingo. I continued to learn
a few words here and there, and this felt much less scary than trying to read
and listen. I refused to read or listen to anything for a long time, and as a
result, my progress suffered massively. One of the reasons I decided
to start learning Spanish was because of listening. At the time, I was watching a
Netflix series (Narcos) that is in Spanish, and I was obviously watching with
English subtitles. I was starting to pick up some Spanish words through
pure repetition of hearing them (mostly swear words, to be honest). It was this process
of listening that started the entire journey of learning Spanish. And yet, I still
refused to do so!
Being scared to use the language:
This partly relates to the previous point, where I was scared to try and understand the language in other ways (reading, listening, writing, speaking). I didn’t want to say a single word in the language because I was scared of saying it wrong and not knowing what to say next. This is a natural fear that most new language learners have (even experienced language learners). When I was learning pointless words, I was scared to advance to Duolingo because it was a step up. When I was using Duolingo, I was scared to advance to reading and listening because it was a step up. When I eventually started reading and listening, I was scared to start speaking because it was a step up. This fear holds you back in your language learning.
Summary:
You may have noticed that of these four mistakes, one relates to an actual method (studying grammar), and the other three relate to fear. For me, getting over the fear is one of the most important steps in learning a language. If you're scared, you'll never want to do things that'll make you advance quicker. Once I got over the fear of using the language in different ways (when I downloaded a conversation exchange app and started to read and listen), this is when I really started to progress.
I hope that those of you reading this will be able to stop yourselves from repeating these mistakes I made. Like I mentioned earlier, I'm glad I made these because they helped me learn about language learning in general, even if they did slow down my progress in Spanish. They're also not easy to overcome. Even though I'm more experienced in language learning now, I'm still scared from time to time when it comes to advancing to the next stage. This is perfectly natural. However, I have enough evidence to know that what I do works for me and that I need to continue it without fear.
Key vocabulary:
Refined – developed or improved to be more precise
Key – an object to unlock a door however in some situations
like this, it is used to describe something important
Exponentially – constantly changing at a very fast rate
Pick up – become aware of something
Fear – being scared of something
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