I haven’t been to my Spanish class for over a month, but I’ve got a good excuse. I’ve moved to France for a sabbatical to improve my French and (hopefully) to write a grammar book! Surrounded by ‘le French’, I haven’t even opened my Spanish folder since I last wrote. Well I promised to share my language learning adventure, warts and all, so there you have it – I have done nada, nothing, not a sausage – apart from annoying people with my favourite new word ¡Caramba! whenever I can slip it in to the conversation. But tonight I’ve looked on my web site and seen that my blog is getting quite a few hits so I feel incredibly guilty and I’ve decided I better make an effort. Would I have gone back to my studies if your virtual eyes weren’t on me? Possibly not. I miss the motivation that my class gave me and if I’m honest I’d probably have put off any kind of attempt to reopen my dictionary until I started booking my next flight to Spain. So thank you for reading.
I pick out 30 of the 60 words that I learned in class and I get 25 out of 30 correct. Two mistakes are because my brain wants to put French words instead (La gendarmeria instead of la comisaría (police station), l’hopital instead of el hospital (the hospital). Not bad! Filled with confidence I read the lessons that I did in class out loud and I’m fairly pleased with my accent – a little rusty but intact. I finally attack the two lessons that I missed this term and I’m delighted to say that I understand everything. The lessons are to do with eating out and eating in. I decide to do an internet search on the topic to see what I can find and I spend the next hour or so gliding through interesting videos and word exercises on the Internet. ¡Caramba! I’m back on form and raring to go. So what shall I do next? I won’t be able to rejoin a class until the summer, so I set myself the challenge of learning the 20 words from my 2 outstanding lessons and promise to report back at the same time next week with my score!
If you don’t have your own language learning blog, do you have your own ‘stick’ or ‘carrot’ to keep you going? How do you motivate yourself? Do share any tips or ideas.