Mastering What You Learn

I think the biggest mistake people make when learning a foreign language is that they want to move too quickly - in other words, they want to move to lesson 2 before they've mastered lesson 1. I learned Arabic as a second language and remember all too well the frustration of not being able to say something I was supposed to know from an earlier lesson. The same had started happening with Spanish, so I stopped and went back and focused on MASTERING the lessons I had already done. By "mastering" - I mean you're comfortable enough with the material that you don't have to think about it. Listen to the audio courses so many times, that you don't have to translate, you just understand - you hear every word and know what they mean without having to think, "estoy means 'I am', feliz means 'happy' - oh, he said 'I am happy.'" By that time, the other person is well into the conversation and you're lost. Rocket Spanish is EXCELLENT. If your focus is communication, I also suggest Synergy Spanish Between these two, I think you'll have more than enough to learn very quickly - depending on your level of dedication that is. After one month of taking one lesson of Rocket Spanish a day, and one lesson of Synergy Spanish - my Puerto Rican friends were AMAZED at how much I understood, and even at more at how much I could say. Two lessons from two different courses only SOUNDS difficult. We're talking maybe 40-45 minutes a day of time. People like to convince themselves that they don't have time, that 45 minutes is just too much, but that attitude just shows one's level of desire to learn.

Good post Taalibeen It's so good to read that someone else has felt the frustration of not being able to say something you should know from an earlier lesson. I too discovered you need to realy *MASTER* each lesson one by one. I can't emphasise enough that you really, really need to be comfortable with each lesson before you move on. I used to sail through each lesson thinking "yeah I know that" but when I got a couple of lessons down the track I was finding myself having to think what they were saying for the things I was *supposed* to know from earlier lessons and getting lost on the things I was supposed to be learning in this lesson. Take heed all people learning another language :). Talibeen's advice is spot on. Nick

Hello guys, This is great, you are right on the money. I don't know how many times I've said this *"you don't have to translate, you just understand "*. I've been on situations were on one side I have a person speaking English to me and another, on the other side, speaking Spanish. I can actually understand both of them simply because I do not make a difference between the languages I simply understand what they are saying to me!... It does make it a bit confusing when I have to answer though as I tend to forget who was speaking what... lol. Anyway, it's fantastic to hear that people out there are thinking along the same lines. Keep at it Mauricio.

Hello people Mauricio is right ... you have to stop translating but simply have to understand what is being said! The language you think in is the important one! We need to start thinking in Spanish! That's the only way to become fluent in a language! I fluently can switch between Dutch, French and English. It is just as if there is a knob in my brain which switches in which language I think in because that defines the language I will speak in... if I think in Dutch I will speak in Dutch ...if I think in English I will speak in English ... I hope that one day I can add Spanish to this list!

I was wondering if anyone else has tried Synergy Spanish. I have been studying Rocket Spanish for about two weeks and I think that it is a good course, but find it hard to review the lessons because they are a little drug out. With each lesson I learn a little more, but would find it helpful if there was a little more 'to the point' review for each lesson. I thought it sounded like a good idea to study two courses at the same time, but was hoping for an honest review before purchasing a second course.

I've never used Synergy Spanish, but I would trust taalibeen's recommendation. He and I have been studying Spanish for similar amounts of time, and he's way better than I am!