Back At It
¡Hola!
I know it’s been a while, but as you can see from the map, I’ve been quite busy. I got a once in a lifetime opportunity to travel around the country. My trip consisted of 26 states and took two months to complete. The first month of traveling was for work and was spent in Northern California (specifically Silicon Valley). The second month was spent traveling from San Diego, CA (my hometown) to Niagra Falls, NY (and everywhere in between) while working for a touring band. On the way back to California, we traveled through the south. The trip did take me away from my goal of being conversational in 6 months, but all in all, it was an incredible experience and totally worth the adventure.
Now, this isn’t a travel blog so I won’t get into too many details about my trip, but I do have an interesting story about how Spanish once again entered my life while traveling in a non-Spanish-speaking country.
There were four of us in the crew driving from city to city on the tour. One of the members and I hit it off right away. A light-skinned, short, slinky dude with long brown hair and a goatee wearing dark Ray Ban sunglasses and a heavy metal t-shirt. Now, I’m not really a heavy metal fan, but this was one cool dude. We proceeded to load the van with all the suitcases and head out to the first city, Tucson, AZ. After a long 6 hour drive, the crew and I began to unload the van to stay the night at a hotel. One suitcase, two suitcases, three suitcases… “Alright guys that’s it,” one of the crew members shouted. Then it hit me, I had forgotten my suitcase in the trunk of my car back in San Diego! “How could we have come all this way, and I’m just realizing this now,” I thought to myself. We all had a good laugh about it and agreed that it would be a good idea to have one of my family members send the suitcase to me. “Don’t worry dude,” the slinky dude said. “You can borrow a couple shirts until your suitcase arrives.”
The next day, I went to put on one of the shirts I borrowed and noticed it was a shirt for a Mexican heavy metal band. When I asked about the story behind the shirt, I found out that my new friend spoke fluent Spanish. “How did you learn,” I asked. “My mother is from Mexico and I got tired of not being able to talk to my family,” he replied. It was out of this strong desire to communicate wit his family that drove him to fluency. Inspired by his story, we began to exchange thoughts and ideas about Spanish learning. One of the books he shared with me is called “The Four Hour Chef” by Timothy Ferriss. Now, I’m not really interested in becoming a chef, but this book isn’t just about cooking. This book is really about how to learn, and has a whole section about language learning. I listened carefully to his suggestions, and for the remainder of the trip we exchanged some Spanish conversation here and there. It came in handy in certain parts of the country as you can imagine.
I’m glad to be home and am ready to get back into my Spanish learning full force. Now that I’m back, I have set my sights on being conversational by my wedding day.
Luchador
Luchador – Elijah Emanuel
Lucho por el día.
Lucho por la noche.
Lucho por mi madre.
Lucho por mi arte.
Lucho por mi tío y mi abuelita.
Lucho por familia.
Lucho cuando duermo.
Lucho con mis sueños.
Lucho para ganar el dinero.
Luché ayer y lucho hoy.
¿Quién es luchador?
Yo soy luchador.
Nací de una familia de luchadores.
Una familia con fuertes raíces.
Mi bisabuelo luchó toda su vida.
Mi abuelito luchó toda su vida.
Mi mamacita luchó toda su vida
y mi tío luchó toda su vida.
Por eso yo, yo lucho hoy.
¿Quién es luchador
Yo soy luchador.
Visión Persistente
Visión Persistente – Elijah Emanuel
Muchos años escribiendo.
Muchos años cantando.
Muchos años ensayando.
Muchos años preparándome.
Muchas montañas hay que subir.
Muchas visiones ya en mí.
Muchos caminos para viajar.
Muchos misterios para revelar.
Paciencia corazón paciencia.
Paciencia mi mente paciencia.
Paciencia mi espíritu paciencia.
Paciencia mi alma.
Visión persistente
Yo lo tengo
Visión persistente
Para compartir
Visión persistente
Está en tu
Visión persistente
Actitud
Muchos años he llorado.
Muchos años he tratado
De cantar mis canciones seguidos.
Calumniadores han venido.
Muchos vendrán con sus guitarras.
Muchos vendrán con sus tambores.
Muchos los que son llamados
y poco son los aceptados.
Si lo puedes percibir
lo puedes lograr.
Immersion Bubble
¿Qué pasa mi gente?
Today I want to write about how I am creating a Spanish environment for myself in a country that primarily speaks English. I refer to this as an “immersion bubble”.
1. Don’t speak English when you don’t have to.
I notice the most improvement in my Spanish is when I stop speaking English. Every second of my life that I can speak or practice Spanish, I am doing so. I just start speaking whenever I can with whomever I can wherever I am. Friends, co-workers, family, new acquaintances, whomever. At the grocery, at the mall, at home, wherever. In my experience, most all of the people I speak with are 100% happy with the fact that I am learning their language, are supportive of my language mission, are patient enough to talk to me, and most importantly correct me when I’m wrong. The only time I allow myself to speak English is with my non-spanish speaking family and at work (unless it’s on my break or the person I’m talking to is comfortable speaking spanish at my level).
There has also been some cases where the person I was helping at work only spoke Spanish and was grateful that I was able to communicate with them. This situation threw me right in to the fire (so to speak) and forced me to use the language. The ability to speak with natives is invaluable when learning and there are plenty of native Spanish speakers here in the United States, like Kim’s family, who are very supportive. I also have plenty of Spanish-speaking co-workers that speak with me at appropriate times during the work day. This has been helping me a lot, and I always remember to kindly thank them.
2. When you do things you enjoy, do them in Spanish.
Every second I’m in my car, I have the radio set to my favorite Spanish station. Here in San Diego it’s Pulsar 107.3. When I watch TV, I watch TV in Spanish. I’m currently hooked on the novela El Clon with Sandra Echeverría. When I watch movies, I watch them in Spanish. There is a great movie on Netflix right now called Innocent Voices that is entirely in Spanish. I also switched the language on my iMac and my iPhone to Spanish. You get the idea. If you can’t be in the country, immerse yourself at home.
3. Music
Music is key for me because it has always been a big part of my life. Being a musician and a lover of music, it is important to me to immerse myself in music in Spanish. One of my all time favorite artists is Carlos Vives from Colombia. Learning the words to his songs and what they mean simply reinforce why I love his music. I also enjoy the music of Fonseca and Juanes, also from Colombia. I have a passion for Reggae music and enjoy the artist Elijah Emanuel who is from Panama but lives in my hometown of San Diego. While sharing his music with some friends, I was also turned on to the band Los Cafres from Argentina. Sharing my passion of music with others is part of who I am, and learning music in Spanish takes me one step further in my mission.
I will now leave you with two of my favorite Elijah Emanuel songs. I could not find the lyrics online, so I have transcribed them in the links below.
Refining My Resources
Hola. ¿Cómo te va?
I just got back from San Ysidro with mi prometida (Kim) and her mother. San Ysidro is a town right next to the border between San Diego and Tijuana. This was a great experience because a large majority of the people there speak Spanish. English is outnumbered, which is exactly what you want when learning a new language. I was completely surrounded by the language, and I didn’t have to leave San Diego. We spent the day at Las Americas which is an outlet mall a stone’s throw away from the border. Kim’s mother is a native Spanish speaker so it was great to be around her speaking with other natives. I was actually surprised at how much I understood. I still caught myself being afraid to speak (I’m still working on my goal of breaking my shyness). I wasn’t too hard on myself though, I just decided to make it a day of listening. If I wasn’t sure what something meant, I just asked.
I have been practicing speaking with other natives in my hometown since my last post, and one thing I noticed is that I generally begin my conversations in English unless I really know the other person I’m speaking to. I’m not sure if this is the best way to approach speaking with native Spanish speakers, but the last thing I want to do is to make it seem as if I’m assuming the other person speaks Spanish because of their appearance. Our national language is English, and many expats do a great job of immersing themselves our language. So for now, until they tell me they are from a Spanish speaking country, or I hear them speaking Spanish, I will begin my conversations in English. I mention this because in the past I have begun a few conversations with people I didn’t know in Spanish and they immediately switched to English making things really uncomfortable. This could be because of my horrible accent and they were just being nice by speaking English, but speaking English doesn’t help me learn. I’d rather avoid offending people in the states by politely asking where they are from first.
So, what am I doing to work on the goals that I have set out for myself?
First, I have to say that spreading the word about my Spanish learning is the best thing that I have done so far. I have received amazing feedback from Spanish speakers all over the world who are willing to help me and appreciate that I am learning their language. I have family, friends, and co-workers who now speak to me in Spanish whenever I see them and encourage me to practice and improve. This is a great feeling, and I would definitely tell anyone looking to learn another language to start by spreading the word about their journey.
Second, I have narrowed down the resources that I’m using to a select few that seem to help me the most. The main resources I am using are:
italki.com – A place where you can chat with native speakers and find a language tutor. I plan on starting with a Spanish tutor this week. My tutor will help me get to a level where I can get over my shyness start having some real conversations.
ankiweb.net – An online resource for creating flashcards which utilizes the Spaced Repetition System.
Livemocha – An online based learning system where you learn your target language while helping others learn your native language.
LingQ – Free podcasts in your target language that allow you to tag words you don’t know and save them as flashcards.
Notes in Spanish – A podcast targeted for Spanish learners of all levels.
Study Spanish – A website I primarily use to answer any grammar questions I have.
The utilization of these resources, along with the creation an “immersion bubble” in my home city, is the approach I will be taking en mi misión.
What is this “immersion bubble” you may ask? We’ll explore this in the next blog post.
Challenges and Resources
¡Hola mi gente!
Today I woke up with a cold (estoy enfermo) and decided to get blogging.
I wanted to start by sharing with you the first three challenges I plan to tackle on my mission.
1. Immersion
I have to say, THE hardest part of this mission is going to be immersion. I am immersed in the English language. There’s no way around it. I’m at work for eight hours a day speaking English and all of my Spanish speaking friends have to speak English at work because we work with the public. So this will be my first obstacle.
2. Shyness
Getting over my insecurity of speaking is going to be another challenge. I sometimes find myself afraid to speak because I’m afraid I will say the wrong words or people will laugh at my bad accent. I really have to get my confidence level up to achieve my goal.
3. Lack of vocabulary
What holds be back the most from speaking is my long pauses to think about how to conjugate a verb or how to translate something from English to Spanish. I am definitely going to have to study vocabulary and use it in the real world.
Now that I’ve mentioned my first three challenges, let me tell you about some really cool resources I have found so far.
1. Fluent in 3 Months
An Irish polyglot named Benny Lewis has an amazing website to check out called www.fluentin3months.com. This guy speaks over ten languages and pushes himself to learn a new language in three months (often while in the wrong country). His website has amazing resources such as a forum where you can reach out to others learning a language to set up an exchange. I currently have a post up for a native Spanish speaker that would like to help me in exchange for English lessons. Many of these blog posts will be inspired by Benny’s work.
2. LingQ and Notes in Spanish
LingQ and Notes in Spanish are websites where you can listen to free podcasts in Spanish and keep track of new vocabulary words you learn while listening and reading.
3. Easy Language Exchange and Conversation Exchange
Easy Language Exchangeand Conversation Exchange are websites where you can meet other people learning the language you speak to set up an exchange. I created an account yesterday and I already have a few friends willing to speak Spanish with me in exchange for English lessons.
4. Facebook and Craigslist
Don’t forget about good ol’ Facebook and Craigslist. I already have a few friends on Facebook willing to help me out. I also have an ad up on Craigslist for a language exchange. The nearby university also has a language exchange Facebook page. I posted an ad there as well.
5. Skype
Remember, you don’t have to meet up with people to speak the language (although I prefer to do so). Download Skype and start meeting some friends using the above resources.
There are many other resources, such as Meetup.com and Verbling.com, that I haven’t even explored yet. So hope is out there! I plan on meeting some friends and tackling my first three challenges as soon as possible. I will have to create an “immersion bubble” here in the U.S. using these and other tools. I plan on committing as much time as possible throughout my day in this “bubble”.
¡Bienvenidos a mi blog!
Hola. Bienvenidos a mi blog. Me llamo Joshua Cummings. Tengo 24 años. Are you impressed with my Spanish yet? I didn’t think so. Living in San Diego, CA (just minutes away from Mexico), most people aren’t. Spanish is somewhat engrained in our culture considering it is spoken by over 12 million people in the state of California alone. Not to mention that the land was taken from Mexico, but I’m going to try my best not to get into any politics in this blog.
So, why am I pushing myself to speak conversational Spanish in 6 months you might ask? Well, there are two reasons.
1. A strong desire is nothing without a specific attainable goal.
I have always wanted to learn Spanish, but I have always had an “I’ll get around to it” attitude. I would hear close friends and family members speak it and and dream that one day I would speak it too. I would go to the market and hear this beautiful language and really only understand one or two words out of a conversation. I’m tired of dreaming and I want to start living. I am creating this blog to show you that my “desire” to learn Spanish is now a “need” to learn Spanish, and that without this need, my dream will never come true.
2. If 12 million people speak it my home state, why don’t I?
There is not a day that goes by where I don’t hear Spanish used in conversation. In fact, my fiancée’s (or “mi prometida” as I have recently learned to call her) entire family speaks it! If I can’t truly communicate with my own family in their native language, I cannot fully understand their rich culture. In this country we are taught that English is the best way and English is the right way, but I choose not to believe this. English is ONE way, like a one way street that prevents us from exploring the thousands of incredibly interesting crossroads and boulevards in life. I dream of having a bilingual family so that my children don’t get stuck with this “one way street” mentality. Besides, how many of us get out into the real world and say, “Man, I wish I was bilingual like so and so.”
In summary, this blog will explore the social aspects of learning to speak conversational Spanish in the United States (which is the opposite of what most people do when moving to this country). I will share my stories, my struggles and successes, as well as any and all best practices I learn along the way.
Mi Misión 