One of the many advantages that a Progressio volunteer position affords us is the opportunity to learn a language. Working in Latin America and Africa at first seems a daunting prospect; the food, the climate (so unlike that of permanently cold Britain) and, most of all, the language. The worry was evident on the faces of the volunteers at the training weekend: How were they going to learn the language? Luckily for me, I had a significant advantage already, as I am a Spanish secondary school teacher. Part of the reason that I applied for Progressio, and specifically the Latin American countries, was the opportunity to practice Spanish, which I had felt had become rusty and dull in the classroom.
At this point of my life, that Spanish was yet another daily chore worried me. It had been my degree subject, and the skills that I had gained with speaking the language had been a huge advantage in both my life and the workplace. Spanish had always drawn me in at school, as an exciting gateway to some other world. Coming from a small town with a small town mentality, I desperately wanted to get away and explore. These thoughts had probably started when I was young, when my parents had taken me on holiday; the places we saw were amazing, but I couldn’t communicate with the people at all. Studying Spanish gave me the chance to live in Spain, meet wonderful people from all over the world and discover new forms of media, such as the fantastic Spanish and Latin cinema scene (very under-rated, and not at all like the typical Hollywood fare).
One of the reasons I entered the teaching profession was to give young people the same opportunities that I had. I knew certain things about the British attitude towards learning languages before, but even that didn’t prepare me for the general apathy with which languages were treated in education. Coming from a world where my language skills were valued greatly, and offered me many job opportunities, to see the lack of enthusiasm that many of my students had when learning Spanish worried me. That some of their views (occasionally xenophobic and racist) came from the parents, told to me with great gusto, worried me even further.
In truth, we as Brits are incredibly lacking in relation to our language skills. While this has been advantageous for me (it being rare that a white, British male speaks another language) it is disheartening to see the reluctance of many of my peers to even master some of the basics; downright embarrassing to see their pride in only being able to speak English, and obligating others to do the same. This has had an effect both on our economy and our national psyche. It has been estimated that the United Kingdom loses £50 billion every year, because of our lack of language skills. This could be having to outsource the work, or employing translators and extra personnel to do this. On the level of our national psyche, our apparent disdain manifests itself in the xenophobic viewpoints of some, and perhaps in the fear of speaking to foreigners, that if they don’t understand everything we say, we are automatically failures.
What the Progressio volunteers have here is a brilliant chance to rectify this. To see the progress that many of my peers have made with Spanish is encouraging, and some can hold basic conversations in a variety of tenses already. But the advancement of the language skills seems almost concurrent with our present project, to construct vegetable patches; without nourishment and hard work, it will die very quickly. With the right type of encouragement though, it can flourish and grow into something beautiful, an opportunity to know new people, access new fields of work and travel to new parts of the world.
Half of the challenge of learning a language is learning how to learn a language. You can learn all of the vocabulary under the sun, but without the verbs and different tenses to give meaning, your sentences will be lacking in quality and, quite frankly, nonsense. Example: you know the words ‘blue’, ‘umbrella’ and ‘rain’, but without knowledge of verbs and connectives, you cannot form the sentence ‘I am going to bring the blue umbrella because it is going to rain’. With this in mind, here are 5 suggestions that could help any basic learner advance to intermediate and beyond.
1. Memrise.com
This brilliant website is also available via Android, iPhone and Kindle tablets, making it very useful for on the go learning. It has a significant advantage over DuoLingo, because users can add their own courses and publish them. Currently with over 40 languages to learn, the basic winning formula is as follows: Memrise presents you with a word. You have to choose the correct meaning from multiple choice questions, then type it out fully 3 times before Memrise considers it ‘learned’. Afterwards, the website forces you to revise the word in ever-expanding timeframes (4 hours after first learning the word, then 12 hours, then 1 day and so forth). Get it wrong, the website resets the timeframe back to 4 hours. This method is my favourite, as it greatly expanded my Spanish vocabulary within 3 months with a host of words that I had not known.
2. Night Courses
One of the numerous ways to learn a language and not get racked with a great debt from a university is to attend a night course. Often held at a local college or secondary school, these courses are geared towards older learners, with the result that many learners grasp grammar from an earlier point and thus can converse more freely and with greater ease. Also with the addition of a teacher, your language learning suddenly has much more structure than before, as it can be hard to create your own scheme of work when you have no experience of learning a language. The major disadvantage from school has disappeared; you’re paying for this course and are probably over the age 21, so how embarrassing would it be to be sent out of this classroom? An oft-cited New Year’s resolution (but hardly ever acted upon), why not check out your local college website today?
3. Travel the world
So now you’re reasonably comfortable with Spanish and looking for a new challenge. What better way to see a massive part of the world than go on a tour of Spanish-speaking countries? Highlights include Mexico, Peru, Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Cuba to name a few. Boasting of such majestic settings as Machu Picchu, Easter Island, Angel Falls and the salt plains of Bolivia, it would be difficult to find more picturesque and magnificent scenes than in the Spanish-speaking areas of the Caribbean, Central America and South America. Delightfully for you, quite a few of these countries have very distinct accents, intonations and words from old colonial master Spain. Watch out for ch instead of ll in Argentina, the use of vos and sos in Nicaragua, and the change between l and r in the Dominican Republic amongst others.
4. Watch Netflix (seriously)
When I was preparing to come to Nicaragua, I knew I had to improve my Spanish. However, Netflix decided to bring out a new season of Orange Is The New Black. A massive dilemma ensued; what should I do? The solution: watch it with Spanish subtitles. I estimate that I learned more language (mostly informal ways to swear, but still very useful) in the second half of that season than my entire secondary school career. I subsequently found out that Netflix has a whole section of English language programmes with Spanish subtitles, meaning that I could both learn and procrastinate at the same time, a lifelong dream of mine.
5. Books, books and more books
Just as Spain and Latin America has a rich and ever-growing cinematic history, there is a long established tapestry of literature. Starting with the obra maestra of Spanish literature, Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes, the tapestry extends to revolutionary poems written in support of overthrowing imperialist regimes to short plays penned for the amusement of theatregoers. You can find something to fit every taste and level of Spanish, and if you want to keep up with your hipster Spanish friends in the most fashionable Barcelona café, learning a few Lorca and Dario quotes will instantly astound them (and infuriate them with your superior intellect).
Learning a language is incredibly difficult, and there is no reason to try and disguise this. It takes a lot of effort and dedication. You are going to make a huge amount of mistakes and feel disheartened when you hit a plateau of learning. Keep pushing. Learning a language is worthwhile; it can open up new opportunities for travel, work, friends and your love life!
íAdios amigos!
Written by ICS volunteer Matthew Maloney
