Wow, this course is amazing! Before starting this course I considered myself an intermediate Spanish speaker (by Gringo standards of course). I’ve now finished challenge 21 of level 1 and have come to the conclusion… an intermediate Spanish speaker I was not (read in your best Yoda voice)!
I’ve been able to speak a little bit of conversational Spanish for about 10 years now but I’ve felt like I’ve been stuck on a plateau. It got much better when I spent about 6 months in Colombia (5 years ago) but not as good as I expected. I think part of the reason was I wasn’t using many words correctly so, in turn, I wasn’t hearing what I was expecting to hear when people would answer my questions or when they would ask me something I wasn’t ready for.
I feel part of the reason I was facing this problem was due to the manner in which I had learned the language. I had taken three years of college Spanish, where I feel you are drilled with how to conjugate verbs and memorizing flash cards. So instead of listening to what is being said and responding in a natural manner, I’d been drilling myself with flashcards and worrying about how to correctly conjugate a word that I might not even be using correctly (which I now have learned that I wasn’t).
After just two weeks of using the SSI method, I am so much more confident in engaging people in Spanish. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a fluent speaker…yet, but I’ve fooled some waiters and waitresses into thinking I am Just last weekend I was in Southwest Florida for a business trip and I ventured into a Colombian restaurant for lunch. I was able to speak with the hostess, the waiter, and even the owner all in Spanish, without them switching over to English (which usually happens when they realize I’m struggling to either understand or get out what I’m trying to say)! I even had two patrons of the restaurant come up and ask where I learned to speak Spanish so well. Man that felt good!
So if you’re someone who just started the course, or maybe just looking around the forum to see if it’s worth trying, take it from someone that has tried the conventional method (university courses) and even the Rosetta Stone method (didn’t work that well); this method REALLY REALLY works!!!
On Challenge 9 of level 2 Aran asks if we have done a challenge anywhere interesting. Well today I have, 600m into a 1200m climb up a mountain on a bike on a route used in the a Vuelta de España (I think, there’s writing on the ground). Challenge 12 made me forget the pain for a good half hour. Thank you @aran.
YES !! Just finished the last unit (25) of Level 2. I feel I’ve really accomplished something and it has really improved my confidence in speaking Spanish.
In the New Year I will probably do a refresher of part Level 1 and all of Level 2 but I’m going onto the important one - Say Something in Welsh.
Superb work - HUGE congratulations! The more time you can immerse yourself in Spanish now, the better you’ll get - but it’s great to hear we’ve got you coming over to Welsh as well…
Yo también. Just finished level 2 this morning. Feeling absolutely dead now but then that could have been the party in the Plaza last night. My head feels a bit like scrambled egg when I try to speak but I am definitely understanding a lot more. Hopefully with more practise it will all start coming together.
Former EFL teacher with asperger’s here! My current obsession is with learning Spanish and purchasing/hoarding all the Spanish materials I can get my hands on in an attempt to create as immersive an educational environment for myself as I can in isolation. I’ve also tried the formal classroom, private native speaker tutor, online native speaker tutor, language exchange with native speaker and investigated different pedagogies.
Stacks and stacks of CD’s, mp3’s, cassettes and online programs later and none of it was giving me what I felt a language learner needs: natural grammar acquisition in context, lots of opportunities for forming content and exercising one’s tongue, sentences formed in all manner of iteration for natural comparison, verbs in their most useful tense introduced from their most used perspective from the onset, and actions described in series.
Basically, I’ve taken issue with the entire complex of scaffolding and believe the way languages are being taught is unnatural and tedious. Listening and speaking should be from the onset. And a short intro with L1 for the adult learner as comprehensible input. I say this all surrounded by almost every Spanish material ever made stacked up around me in reject piles…
So I get in my car and play lesson 1 on the app and it was like a trabalengua! And it checked all those boxes! And it was fun! And I just started laughing because it made me so happy. Thank you so much for creating what I wished somebody would create! Wish I’d found you a thousand dollars earlier!
I can’t wait to digest this series and look forward with anticipation to Level 3’s release.
Just last weekend I was in Southwest Florida for a business trip and I ventured into a Colombian restaurant for lunch. I was able to speak with the hostess, the waiter, and even the owner all in Spanish, without them switching over to English (which usually happens when they realize I’m struggling to either understand or get out what I’m trying to say)! I even had two patrons of the restaurant come up and ask where I learned to speak Spanish so well. Man that felt good!
