If you recall, when I laid my plans out initially, my goal was, at a minimum:
Using a strict interpretation of my goal... I fell short. However, I managed to improve tremendously compared to where I was before I started. Here is a before & after comparison on where I stand on the four aspects of a language: 1. Listening Before:
After:
Overall, there was a dramatic improvement in my listening comprehension. The only times I may still trip up are when there is a combination of one or more of the following:
2. Speaking Before:
After:
I barely did any speaking during my 2,000 hours, yet my speaking managed to improved nonetheless. Most of this was due to vocabulary acquisition. Also, I thought my pronunciation and accent were good to begin with, but the 2,000 hours of listening I did pointed out a few flaws to me that I was able to improve upon. If I need to say basic things, I have the ability to sound really good and natural. However anything more than a few words and I will trip up on grammar and spend time going ... "uh ... uh ... uh" before I find the word I need to use. It's one thing to listen and understand, or to point the right answer out in a multiple choice test, but things become a lot harder when you have to perform in real time. This was the main reason why I fell short of my goal. I cannot honestly say that I can be understood (that is, speak) without effort. One interesting thing about the accent thing though. It changes depending on how nervous I am. If I'm perfectly calm and I premeditate what I need to say, I can sound almost native like (at least I think so). On the other hand, if I'm caught off guard, then my accent deteriorates and I know it. An interesting anecdote I have to back this up is one time when I was watching an NFL game with the Spanish dub on. One of the announcers had an American sounding name, but you wouldn't otherwise have a clue when things were calm and he was just shooting the breeze with the other announcer. However, when the pace of the game picked up and he had to explain something complicated on the fly, the "American accent" came out. Another thing is that sometimes my accent deteriorates subconsciously, yet on purpose... if that makes sense. It's almost like I would feel stupid if I were to speak with a good accent, but make the many grammatical mistakes I know I would make. I can now kind of understand why some immigrants don't try as hard to fix their accent. 3. ReadingBefore:
After:
I didn't do much reading, but strangely enough, I improved here a lot. 4. Writing Before:
After:
I didn't study grammar too much other than an occasional quick read of what to look out for when I was doing my listening. However, this area improved regardless... just not to the point where I would be comfortable writing this post in Spanish. Final notes The one thing that I will pat myself on the back for is actually finishing the 2,000 hours. My motivation was very low at the end. Returns on my effort had diminished quite a bit. I made much more progress in the first 500 hours than the last. With the diminishing returns, I was really upset because of the opportunity cost of my time. Every day, I had to squeeze in an hour or more for Spanish no matter how busy I was or how many social obligations I had. Especially when it started to become clear that I wasn't going to be fully fluent upon completion. I also have no clue what happened in American pop culture/music over the last year and a half... not that that's necessarily a bad thing. The only thing that kept me going was being able to come back here and say I finished. 2,000 hours has a much better ring to it than 1,876. Going forward, I plan to watch Spanish TV every once in a while so that I don't lose what I learned. I also found out that I like Mexican banda music. So there you have it... Either I'm an idiot, or all of the online blogs that tell you how easy it is to learn a language and how fast you can become fluent are full of it (I notice that many of those blogs also have something to sell you, so ... hmm). Image credits
2 Comments
Ivana
4/20/2021 04:42:07 pm
Hi! Thanks for sharing your experience. I can relate to it a lot (although I am trying to master English). After decades of studying it (although not on a regular basis) I am still making mistakes when I write! So don't feel discouraged (although I sometimes am :grin:) . Once again, thanks for sharing your valuable experience! Now I know there are more people out there who are struggling just as I am!
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Ivana Bakic
5/3/2021 05:01:15 am
By the way, maybe you should find someone to practice your Spanish with. I think that part was lacking in your plan. Having a language partner helps a lot and makes learning more fun. That way you would practice your speaking efficiently. Only, good partners are rare finds.
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