(Re)Learning a New Language

Yo hablo some Spanish. I used to speak quite a bit, actually. I was never fluent, but if you had dropped me in the middle of Mexico to fend for myself, I would have been fine. I took Spanish all through elementary, junior high, and high school. Minored in it in college. And in the middle somewhere I lived in El Paso, which is where I learned the “real” Spanish and how to use it.

But time passed, I moved away from the border, and Mike and I spent less and less time in Spanish-speaking countries. After a while, my ability to speak it waned, and then it practically turned into a phobia. I could still read it and understand much of it when I heard it. I could even write in it fairly well, because I had time to think it through. But anytime in the last several years when I’ve had the opportunity to speak it, I’ve frozen like a deer in headlights.

I hate that this happened. I loved being able to communicate with Spanish speakers, and I’ve always been excited about learning new words in any language.

So I set a small goal for myself earlier this year. Starting June 1st, I vowed to do a little bit of Duolingo every day. I didn’t set an end date, but I’m guessing I won’t be doing this when I’m 90. In the meantime, I’m on day 65 and still going strong.

The surprising thing that shouldn’t be surprising is how much it’s working. I’m not sure exactly when it kicked in, but sometime around week three or four of this practice, I realized that the sleeping part of my brain was beginning to wake up. Small things. Tiny things. But I randomly started throwing in a sentence or two in Spanish to Mike, just here and there, as I would realize I knew how to say something. A few dreams have had some Spanish in them, which used to happen to me often. Palabras are coming back to me, and I don’t feel frozen in fear at the idea of speaking.

I’m far from ready for a conversation with a native speaker, but I’m encouraged to keep getting it back. The funny thing is that the words are still there in my brain, but they hide from my tongue. Duolingo is helping me coax them back out.

Duolingo is a free app/website. You can do a paid version, but I don’t find the ads annoying at all. (Don’t tell Duolingo, but I don’t even really notice them.) You can link to friends, compete with them, and earn these things called “lingots.” You can make it a game as much or as little as you want. I personally find myself most motivated by finishing off a circle, which takes something like 10-12 lessons per level. (The OCD part of my brain is also being coaxed awake by Duolingo, it seems.)

I don’t know that Duolingo is the best or only app that works this well, but I do know I’ve tried and failed with other products like Rosetta Stone (expensive and wasted on me), flash cards, books, etc. Sagan is the one who introduced me to Duolingo and, after watching him learn quite a bit in a few weeks, our whole family got in on the action for a while. I’m just the one who’s currently using it the most (check my scoreboard, suckers!) so I’m vouching for it here.

Whatever system you find, I highly encourage you to wake up your brain. Maybe it’s to revisit the German you learned in two years of high school, or maybe you can try out something completely new before you visit another country. Or hell, just learn a new language for no other reason than getting smarter. You never know when it might come in handy.