Issue #22: Rumination on Learning Another Language
From Russian to English to Spanish
Author: Anton; Editor: Jeff Benson
We talk a bit here about the importance of integration and reducing the effects of gentrification. One important way we all can do that is by learning the language and interacting with locals. Today’s issue includes both a personal reflection on my language learning journey as well as some practical resources to help you on yours.
Personal History & Learning English
I was born in Russia, or USSR as it was called at the time, with Russian as my native language. At the age of 13, my family immigrated to the U.S. and I suddenly found myself in a new country with a new language. I didn’t know any English when we came, but, somehow, after about a year or two found myself mostly fluent. And then, after five years in the country, I was as fluent in English as I was in Russian. Today, after 30-some years, I still have a slight accent, but my English fluency in all forms is on par with any native speaker. I can think and express myself in either language without much effort.
When I was growing up, there was a large wave of immigration from Russia to America, with thousands of immigrants coming in and settling in various parts of the country, but mainly New York (mostly Brooklyn). Inside Brooklyn itself, there was a small neighborhood called Brighton Beach, which was by the ocean and had a nice beach and boardwalk. That attracted a lot of Russian-speaking immigrants from Russia and Ukraine, and at some point the neighborhood was referred to as “Little Odessa” (after the Ukrainian City on the Black Sea). There were (and still are) Russian food stores, restaurants, medical offices, etc. In fact, if you go there, it feels a lot like “Chinatown” — only it’s “Russian-town,” with signs in Russian everywhere and people on the streets mainly speaking in Russian or other USSR languages. My family didn’t live there, but we frequently visited.
I remember during the immigration period, a strong focus for many of my generation was on assimilation, which is the process of adopting the norms, culture, and language of a new country. Within a year or two, all of us immigrant kids spoke English to each other even though it wasn’t our mother tongue and we could have just as easily conversed in Russian. On Brighton Beach, on the other hand, that was not the case. In fact, the opposite was true; many of the older generation would find comfort living in America — but within the small bubble of “Little Odessa” where everyone still spoke their language and the culture was of the old country. You could easily find people living there who immigrated many years ago, sometimes as many as 20 years, and yet never really learned English beyond a few phrases. The ecosystem there supported it quite well, with all services available in Russian. On the rare occasion that you needed to visit a government office, there was a translator onsite.
I remember frequenting Brighton Beach in my 20s with friends and always wondering why all these people never bothered to learn the language of the country they live in, which seemed so natural and easy to me. I don’t think I ever studied English much. As I recall, learning English was something that sort of just happened to me as I went to school and watched TV. It’s amazing what the right environment can do.
Learning(and failing at) Spanish
Scroll forward 30 years and suddenly I find myself in my own “Little Odessa” story here in Costa Rica. I’ve been here three years, enough where it’s now quite embarrassing to find myself in basic situations where instead of expressing myself, I resort to my now-perfected theatrical game of charades or bust out a translator and have the other person stare at my phone instead of talking. While I can manage the basic food ordering and “Tienes leche de avena” type situations, anything beyond that is above my level of Spanish, which is somewhere between Level 0.1 and Level 0.2.
When we got here three years ago, it was a “two-month experiment” that got extended to six months and then to 12 months. So for the first year, I didn’t think we’d spend too much time here and never bothered to study Spanish. When the second year came around, it became apparent that I probably should learn some Spanish, and so I did the Duolingo thing, got some index cards, and wrote down basic vocabulary — I even started studying with a teacher over Zoom every week. Progress was slow and practice was minimal. I seemed to have organized my life in a way that most of my day-to-day interactions with other people were in English, and I surrounded myself with English speakers. At some point, I sort of “gave up” on the idea of learning Spanish and put it on hold. More and more, I noticed that what was happening was quite the opposite: the people who had no English were suddenly speaking more English, and my need for Spanish was going down. I became very proficient at “WhatsApp Spanish,” where with the help of Google Translate or DeepL, I sounded like a native speaker when texting.
My most Gringo-esque moment came when, at one point, I had local workers doing some things around the house. As my charade communication was failing, I resorted to Spanglish to communicate. I later complained to my wife: “You know these people don’t speak good Spanish — they’re mumbling words.” I even had dreams of hiring a Spanish teacher, to teach…you guessed it!…my workers on how to speak proper Spanish.
As year 3 came to a close, my wife has made quite a bit of progress on her Spanish. She is able to communicate effortlessly in most situations, and while she’s still a beginner, she’s definitely “conversing” and apparently has begun to learn some of the more obscure tenses. Can you guess how many tenses there are in Spanish? Three, right? Present/past/future. Nope! The right answer is 16.
Having my wife do something better than me is both flattering (I found a good one!) and a bit embarrassing. On our three-year anniversary of being in Costa Rica, I decided to re-start my efforts of gaining some fluency in Spanish.
Language Learning Research
Having tried Duolingo, Babbel, and 1-on-1 Zoom tutors without too much progress and certainly not enough motivation, I decided to do a bit of research on the subject. This is a clear red flag for me, as I often get very excited about "learning how to do something” and the process of research as opposed to the act of actually doing it. I remember I had a fantasy of running a marathon. So I watched way too many YouTube videos comparing the pros and cons of various running shoes before finally settling on the perfect pair, only to discover after a few runs that I don’t actually like running.
I knew I could acquire another language, having mastered English in the past. I also knew that there are currently 600 million Spanish speakers, with about 100 million of those second-language speakers. I’m not very special, but if there is something that 100 million people can do, I can certainly do it!
There are countless bloggers and YouTubers and Redditors discussing the pros and cons of Rosetta Stone vs DuoLingo vs Babbel, not to mention the niche domain of polyglots claiming to have mastered 18 languages at the young age of 7 with fun videos of “How to become fluent in Spanish in just 7 days!” But for us mere mortals, these are of little value; unless you’re a natural language learner, you’ll want something else.
The concept that stood out for me during my research is that there are two ways we can learn a new language. The first way is the one we’re mostly familiar with: “conceptual learning.” You sit down with a book or an app, and you learn the rules of the language and you memorize the vocabulary. Over time, you use that conceptual knowledge to actually speak by first translating what you want to say from your native language to Spanish in your head and then speaking it. The second method is what’s called “language acquisition.” It’s the way children learn their first language (or their second). Essentially: just being surrounded by Spanish speakers and listening to them speak all the time until it starts to make sense. In fact, that’s how we all learned our first language.
The key insight for me is that language acquisition happens on a subconscious level, while conceptual learning happens on a conscious level. To become truly fluent in Spanish or any other non-native language, you need it to be in the subconscious. Otherwise, you’re using too much mental capacity to communicate, constantly translating from your native language to Spanish.
Yes, but how?
There is an obvious answer here: surround yourself with Spanish speakers and ensure they only speak Spanish to you all day, and also ensure they refuse to speak or understand English. This is what’s commonly referred to as immersion and is the ideal way to quickly acquire a new language. However, for many of us, this is not possible, either because of family constraints or because of the environment we live in, where everyone in our village speaks English.
The second and perhaps more practical way is to maximize the amount of Comprehensible Input you’re exposed to every day. Comprehensible Input is a fancy way of saying “Spanish you can understand at least a little bit.” This is how you learned your first language and how all children learn. They are surrounded by others who make sounds that initially don’t make sense to them, but eventually, they start to pick up on patterns and recognize individual words, eventually sentences, until one day, they are able to speak their first words: “Mom! Did you drink wine last night? The milk tastes funny…”
In fact, proponents of the Comprehensible Input methodology suggest that all efforts at vocabulary memorization and learning grammar rules are not very helpful in the early stages or sometimes not at all! Instead, one should just focus on listening and reading as much Spanish as possible, at the level that you can understand it, at least a little bit. Research shows that after 300 hours of comprehensible input, you’ll be able to understand patient speakers and at 1,000 hours you’ll be able to converse normally.
Comprehensible Input: Where to Get It?
Now let’s get to the practical resources to surround yourself with as much comprehensible input as possible, especially in situations where actual immersion is not possible.
DreamingSpanish is a program that embraces this philosophy fully. They have thousands of videos at all levels — often entertaining and educational — that you can watch. Their methodology page explains this method quite well.
Watch TV! That’s right: Did you know you can watch a lot of your favorite shows dubbed in Spanish? For example, Netflix has Seinfeld dubbed in Spanish. And, of course, there are plenty of native Spanish shows to enjoy.
Lingopie is a site dedicated to Spanish shows for various levels and interests.Language Transfer. While not a comprehensible input method, it’s not a traditional learning method either. It shows you how much Spanish you already know by pointing out the similarities to English.
1-on-1 conversations. There are thousands of instructors on iTalki and Preply at very affordable prices, and you can find an instructor who understands this method and will practice it with you.
Have a home caretaker? Offer them coffee! I found my cleaning lady enjoys coffee with me, and we talk about this and that. Yes, the house may not get cleaned at that time, but I get to practice Spanish and find out the latest LEV gossip!
Podcasts. There are plenty of options. Here is one list. Just put one on during your drive and you’re learning Spanish.
Spanish Exchange Program at San Mateo Library every Thursday. Check the chats for the latest announcements.
Take a course with Lucia! We have a wonderful Spanish instructor right here in the valley. She even offers immersion programs in Guatemala. See MV Offerings chat for the latest schedules.
Final Thoughts
There are many obvious reasons to learn Spanish that I won’t bore you with, but the one additional reason to get excited about it is you get to choose a new personality (thank you, Bjoern, for that tip). Every language you learn, you also adopt a certain personality when you speak it. I’m definitely a different person when I speak Russian versus when I speak English, and I’m excited to see what other personality emerges as I learn (fingers crossed) Spanish!
Great insights Anton! I found in the early days when I was learning, reading news in Spanish was helpful. My Yahoo Home page was configured with Spanish News Feeds. Many news publications have Spanish language versions. I always fall asleep with a Spanish podcast playing in my ear. Some of my favourites are No Hay Tos, El Hilo, Españolistos, Advanced Spanish Podcast with César and Diana Uribe. I think often the biggest barrier is fear of saying something stupid. Many years back I went to a market looking for a baking pan and went to a stall with kitchen utensils and asked for a pan to piss in. Ornear (to bake) vs Orinar (to pee). You just gotta be willing to make a fool of yourself. 25 years later I still do - in both English and Spanish!
Excellent! This has increased my hopes and confidence in learning Spanish. Many thanks!