Hi everyone I’ve been learning Spanish on and off since 2021 and I’m up to 5000 known words in Spanish I’m actually moving to the Dominican Republic in just a couple months and I’m concerned that I’m not even ready to speak Spanish but I’m cramming on this website as much as I can with content that is of interest to me. I think I just recently found out that I don’t always have to select a word that I know to have it saved as a known word just as long as I hit the next button to move forward to the next page.
As someone that has so much free time I’m constantly exposing myself to the language but I feel that I’m familiar with some words but at the same time it just doesn’t flow in my mind the way I think it should. I know that I need to put in the effort so I’m putting that much more effort into this but I think some advice would be really helpful.
I’m partially blind so I have to magnify my screen substantially to go through with reading and links which works fine for me but I’m concerned that I’m not progressing as fast as I should.
Any advice you have would be greatly appreciated. I do follow the lingQ YouTube channel so I’m familiar with a lot of what’s available there but I don’t know maybe I’m missing something.
I think you have to go through the unknown words more time.
Use the “sentence view” and the “review sentence” functions when going through lessons.
Listen more.
I know texts can be boring after a short time so pick about 3-4 topics interests you so you can rotate the topics. Bringing new texts from these topics will ensure you will meet familiar words you already met, but in a new text so it won’t be boring. Picking more topics could lead to too much new words you won’t re-visit, so I don’t recommend that.
For example I love my profession, I’m an accountant. So I read texts about accounting, finance, money. I also like novels so I read a crime novel parallel. And I usually have a news article in my active lessons, this time I read about Nestlé’s mineral water scandal. And I like video games so I watch play throughs in YT without importing it to LingQ, just to relax and have fun.
All these texts/videos I go through not because I desperately want to learn the language but because I like their content. Watching, reading them in a language I learn is just a practical decision to learn a new language.
I know less French words than Spanish you do so I’m not sure my advices are useful, hopefully they are.
I echo Zolka’s idea on using sentence view a lot more (if you aren’t already). Read the sentence, LingQ any words you don’t know. Read the sentence again after seeing what the missing words mean. Note that in certain contexts the words might mean something entirely different.
Also, if you want to be able to speak you willl have to practice that. Try outputting. Describe your day and the things you are doing throughout the day in Spanish. Pretend you are going to tell a friend EVERYTHING you did for the day.
Create Language Islands. Think of everything you might want to be able to say or talk about. Or that typically get asked of you. Or think about the questions that someone might ask you if you start talking about things you like to talk about. Use Deepl, google translate or chat gpt to see how you would say these things in Spanish. This won’t be perfect, and you won’t get super far in just two months, but think of the essentials first (day to day things you may really need to use - you could also get a phrasebook to help with this). Then think about what you would say about yourself (hobbies, where you grew up, etc) and the corresponding questions to these statements that you could ask others or they might ask you. Then beyond that just start thinking of other topics of interest or that would be useful. Also, when you get to the Dominican Republic they may use certain phrases or ways of saying things that don’t quite match what you expected so you will probably learn these pretty quick once you are there for a little bit of time.
You can drop all this stuff in LingQ and use the audio there, or use another service to create the voice so you can hear these language islands.
I’d try to focuse the other material on dialogue heavy material. Podcasts, conversations of any sort on youtube, etc.
Oh…and don’t overtax yourself. There’s only so much you can do in 2 months. You will have gaps for sure. Just keep plugging away. Being there, you will learn a lot quicker as long as you keep trying to use the language.
/… but I feel that I’m familiar with some words but at the same time it just doesn’t flow in my mind the way I think it should
Well, it’s not your mind that is flawed, it’s your conception on how the process works. It takes a gazillion passes before a word or phrase are imprinted deeply. There might be some people, much smarter than you and me, who can do it quickly; but for the rest of us: feeling like retarded laggards is just another day at the office.
If I were in your shoes, and given your seeing impairment, I would focus on listening. A podcast that invites guests, and therefore prone to common dialogue patterns, could be a good source. And you don’t need to understand everything, just plug away.
I struggle with German, my second L2, and a few months ago I started outputting alongside sentence view. So what that means is that I play with the sentence:
Look at the English sentence, and try and translate it back to the L2. This forces you to notice all components of the phrase. Don’t worry if there are mistakes, or you completely screw up. The act of doing this helps you improve. I screw up big time all the while, but gradually I start to improve.
Identify a key element, such as a verb + preposition + object, and create sentences using that element on a different person and/or tense. Check the output using an online translator.
When you come across something that makes no sense e.g. a combination of words that does not mean what you thought it would, do some study. Use Google, find out what it means. I often do this with German, and I gradually learn more.
This is the sort of thing that I used to do during French evening classes 35 years ago. Output is important, input is not enough. Children constantly play with language, and make mistakes.
I know that LingQ has little exercises in sentence view, I used them for six months or more, but I found them to be of little use maybe because they are far too passive, and simple.
And as said above, during the day when you do something mundane, such as water the vegetable bed, or fill your car up with petrol, ask yourself how you’d say that in your L2.
I definitely agree with all the advice above, and while this will be similar, here’s my take.
Honestly, I think you seem to be on the right track, and constant exposure is the way to go in my opinion. However (and I know I’m parroting what so many other people keep saying) there is no set timeframe for language learning, and ultimately some people will learn faster or slower than others. Lots of exposure and more time spent with the language certainly speed up progress, but it’s not something that can be rushed.
You mentioned that the language ‘just doesn’t flow in your mind’ the way you think it should - I can honestly relate to that. It’s a long road but over time the words will begin to flow through your mind with less friction or resistance, and without having to translate in your head as much, whether that’s reading or listening. It might seem like you aren’t progressing as fast as you’d like, but your brain is constantly improving all the time, and it will become easier as time goes by.
One thing that helped me massively with getting the words to flow more naturally was lots of listening. This doesn’t necessarily have to be material aimed at native speakers if it’s too advanced (though I personally find listening even if you can’t understand very beneficial for learning native rhythm and intonation), but a lot of listening to material at a fairly natural speed has, in my experience, been very useful.
Hopefully some of this was helpful. Keep up your learning and keep having fun with it!
I can tell you from my recent experiences that 5000 words are way too little to get even close to fluency (not meant to sound disrespectful, I also used to think it was much)! I can only tell you to read and listen more (and I mean by a lot, truthfully it depends on your level but it is, especially the more far you are the more you need to read and listen), if you don’t have any audio but text I swear to you Google Translate will work, too, just open it in a new tab and read along, I mean, yes, natural voices are always the best but I promise you Google Translate is the best out there. In terms of text material, if you don’t have anything interesting in your library just ask ChatGPT, I swear to you it’s good and gives you correct texts/dialogues/stories/articles/sources for texts. Might be that the content is very similar to what you asked before if you ask it for multiple texts many times with trhe same command or that it makes mistakes in terms of content but I promise you it will work! The only thing I can tell you is to keep on going, you might also need to ask for easier content if you use AI but yeah, generally speaking that’s all. In terms of speaking btw, I can tell you that no matter how many speaking trainings one does, if you don’t have enough exposure to common phrases, sentences, word blocks and words you won’t be able to use that. And btw you shouldn’t care about any word count, how many new words there are and how many of them you ‘really learned’ because this is not about numbers but about repetition in different contexts, therefore it is important to just keep going, keep trying to understand and do it a lot and with consistency. It is more important to do sth easy that you can keep up with that to just do one hard ‘lesson’ and never again. Trust me, it reall is that way! btw if you want to know (guideline )numbers (what you should aim for in terms of words/coins (even though yopu shouldn’t care for that) I can tell you, just ask me but for now this answer should be enough.
