I've Achieved a Language Learning Milestone

I hit a positive milestone in my language learning journey today. For background, I am studying both Spanish and French. I started in Spanish a few years before French and I am further along in that language journey.

First, I’ve learned that you must count the hours of direct work versus the linear time you’ve been studying. I’ve calculated that over 5 years of Spanish study I can claim roughly 480 hours of face-to-face practice time. It seemed so little when I first tabulated the total, it forced me to consider my journey and to redouble my study efforts. I have learned the truth of language learning. There are no short cuts, no tricks. You need to put in the time – this is the way. So, I take a class of French or Spanish Daily and I back it up when possible, by other study methods (reading, writing, repetitive study, videos, songs).

The US military Language school uses 600-650 Hours of intensive compressed training to instill fluency in romance languages like French or Spanish. This is with highly-motivated students. My 480 hours do not feel close. There are measurement standards like TEFL and I would genuinely guess I am mostly B2 with B1 challenges in verb tense recall. I don’t feel that 650 will be my number. I am guessing that 1,000 hours will bring me reasonable fluency and a genuine ability to claim to be Bilingual. I think for native level idiomatic and humor fluency, it will be more like 1500 to 2000 hours total time. Sigh. I will keep plugging along.

The milestone? For the first time I selected a Spanish-only instructor on my chosen app (Baselang), where they have instructors in mostly South American countries work directly with you. It was a great session as I introduced myself and we shared mutual stories. What is great about any language instructor is that they are wired to understand what you are saying, no matter how poorly crafted. This was a fairly fluid exchange with only some word questions.

Learning a language is one of the hardest intellectual things I’ve done. I am an older learner at 6 and ½ decades. Absent a fleeting Spanish class in High-school (taken by an inattentive student), I’ve not done this before. Recall is more difficult at my age, I seriously suspect that I lose a childhood memory for every verb I learn to conjugate (hmm, estar in the pasado Imperfecto; what were the names of my brothers?). It is like making a watercolor painting – with tea. It takes layering and drying – and layering again, the color gradually builds – the mind gradually bends – and remembers. Mind you, one remembers words reasonably quickly; it is not that. It is the almost instant recall of the parts of speech that is required, that is what takes the time. My only blessing is some facility in accents, as I am a good mimic. I’ve put extra time into the quality of what I say and of how I sound. I would argue that the effort is paying off, I hear comments from native Spanish speakers that my accent is excellent (for a Gringo).

With brutal repetition I gradually assemble my Spanish into the beginnings of a means of engagement and a speaking tool. A tool that for now -- rather than a sharp knife of well-shaped honed steel, is instead a chunk of flint that I’ve hammered caveman-style until it has at least one sharp edge to use. Like a caveman, I speak more simply – usually in the present tense, as I am not yet great at most of the verb tenses. This ‘living in the now’ brings a ‘being in the present’ philosophy to my Spanish (wow! I am a stoic!). I continue the journey.

And then there is French…