This is Jack from tofluency.com and this is the To Fluency
podcast, episode 8, where you can learn English with me.
Now today I'm going to talk about my experience learning
Spanish at university. Now I took Spanish at university
as a side course, like an extra course.
My main course was economics and I also studied a little bit of
sociology as well. But I decided in my last year to
take Spanish and I'll explain why I did that in a moment.
But first, if you are new to the podcast, welcome.
My name is Jack. I teach English through this
podcast and also on YouTube, on Instagram and on my website,
tofluency.com. Now if you go to my website,
there is a link in the description.
You'll be able to download a book for free.
It's called the five Step plan for English fluency.
Like I said, it is free to download.
So again, today we're going to talk about my journey learning
Spanish and really focusing on my time at university.
And I'm doing this because I want to show you how things have
changed when it comes to learning a language.
Now, if you are somebody who is younger, then this might seem
quite strange to you. If you are around my age, 30s
let's say, then you will know. In the past, learning a language
was very different. So to highlight this, I'm going
to be using tenses in the past tense, in the present tense and
also in the present perfect, talking about how things have
changed, how things have changed.
Let's start with the reason why I started learning Spanish.
Now this is a very specific reason which is very different
to why most people Start learning a language.
And I started doing Spanish in my last year because I spoke to
a friend who said, look, if you want to get a high grade, a good
degree, then do a language because the way that they mark
the tests with languages is different to other parts of the
university. So studying economics, if I took
an economics course, the highest grade you can get really is 70%
or 72%. It's very difficult to get
higher than that, but if you study Spanish, there's a
possibility if you study hard, that you can get 100%.
And what that does is it brings up a phrasal verb, it brings up
your total score at university so that you can get a higher
grade. So after hearing this, I've
thought what a good idea. If I dedicate my time to
Spanish, then I'll guarantee that I get a really good grade
at university. Now, I also wanted to learn
Spanish because I wanted to go travelling to South America.
I knew when I was at university that I was going to work for a
couple of years after graduating university and then go
travelling to South America and that is what I did.
But again, the main reason I took Spanish was because I
thought I was going to get a good grade.
Now I had learned French at school, so I had some experience
learning a language. But Spanish, it was completely
new to me. I didn't know any words at all.
I didn't know anything about Spanish.
So I took the beginners course and the lessons were quite good.
Actually they were OK. At times I was a little bit
confused because they were talking about verb conjugations
and grammar, a lot of grammar and it just confused me because
I wanted to learn phrases. And I'm going to talk about soon
how or the importance of learning phrases and we'll go
into the method later on in this episode.
But in that class, it was mainly grammar.
And I remember conjugating verbs like tener carere, the the basic
Spanish verbs. When I was at university, I
didn't have a computer and we didn't have Internet in the
place where we lived. I didn't have a phone.
There weren't smartphones back then.
There weren't iPhones or the Google phones.
So we didn't really have access to learning materials or
anything for at home. In order to get online, we had
to go to the computer lab at university, sign on, and then we
could go online from there. And this is relevant because
these days as an English learner listening to this, you have
access to this free podcast and other free podcasts and lots of
other things, which again, we'll we'll discuss later.
But the way that I did extra learning at university was four
different ways mainly. So there was the class and then
meeting up with people in our class to go through study notes
and to practice. There's also a language room or
a language library that I remember where you could take
out a book and ACD and listen to the language, do some writing
exercises like your typical workbook that you get when you
go to a language school. And then I also bought
newspapers in Spanish. El Pais it was.
So it was a newspaper from Spain that I could get at the Student
Union newspaper store. It was very expensive, but I
bought it. I tried to read it and I
couldn't understand it. And that was one of my first
mistakes, was that I tried to read something that was way
above my level, too high for me. A newspaper in Spanish for
somebody who has just started learning the language is not
going to be good study materials.
And apart from that, apart from buying more workbooks or CDs or
books, there weren't any of the resources available for me.
Again, in being able to go online and listen to audio,
watch videos, etcetera for free is such a massive thing these
days. But when I was at university, I
didn't have access to any of that.
Now you're probably wondering how I did with my Spanish class
if I passed, if I got 100% like I was hoping.
Well the quick answer is no, I did OK.
I actually think the Spanish score brought my entire score
down, brought my marks down. So instead of bringing
everything up, my Spanish score actually brought everything
down. So it didn't work out for me,
but if I knew what I know now about learning a language, I'm
sure I would have done so much better because I remember being
in my test, it was the oral speaking test.
And my teacher asked me questions.
I had no idea what she was asking me.
I think it was something basic like what did you have for
breakfast today or what do you like to eat?
And I just couldn't say anything.
I didn't understand what she was saying.
But again, if I knew what I know now about language learning, I
would have done so much better. This is a great sentence.
If I knew what I know now about language learning, I would have
done so much better. So, as a beginner, what would I
have done? What would I have done better?
Well, first, because the test was important, I would have
learned what was going to be on the test.
I would have done more research about what they were going to
test me. And this is relevant if you're
taking something like IELTS or the TOEFL test, something that
is going to test your level of English so that you can get into
a university, so you can go and live in another country or so
you can get a job somewhere else or a job with an English
speaking company. Because knowing how they're
going to test you really can help you dictate what you need
to study. So for me, I should have
learned, should have, I should have learned what questions they
were going to ask me on the exam and really practice those
questions. And you can do this if you're
taking a test, go through past tests and look at what they're
going to test you on. Understand the test the best you
can understand it. Now, this is also true if you're
just learning English for fun. And what I mean by that is think
about ways in which you can focus on the language that
you're going to use. So if you're going to use a
language to speak with people in a friendly way, to make
conversations for a trip to London or to New York, then
learn the types of phrases that you're going to need and focus
on that. The whole idea here is to focus
on what is going to help you with your situation.
A lot of people will say I want to improve my general English,
but if that's the case, focus on commonly used words and phrases,
things that you're going to use on a daily basis.
Now, after learning what I was going to be asked on the test,
this is what I would have done next.
I would have written down answers, send them to somebody,
and ask for feedback. So write down answers, send them
to somebody, and ask for feedback.
And then I would practice saying these phrases because in the
oral test, the speaking test you're tested on, the way you
say it, it's not just about if the sentence is correct, but if
you say it correctly. So that's what I would have
done, and then I would have used my favorite method, the LRRC
method where I get somebody to say these phrases for me, listen
to them, repeat them, record them and compare them.
Listen, repeat, record, compare. Now if you want to learn more
about that method, get my book, The Five Step Plan for English
fluencytofluency.com. And then as a way to improve my
Spanish in general and just to feel more comfortable with the
language, I would have learned commonly used phrases so that I
could say the basics. Things like I like to do this.
I have my breakfast in the morning, I like to take a
shower, I love football, etcetera.
The stuff that you you need to know as a beginner.
And then I would have got graded readers, graded readers for A1
level. Now, these are books that have
been written especially or modified specific to a level of
English or a level of Spanish in my case.
So I talk about A1A2B1B2C1C2 as a level and you can think of A1
as a beginner, A2 as a beginner but a higher level, B1 and B2
intermediate, and then C1 advanced C2.
You sound like an English speaker or native English
speaker. So I would have found books,
graded readers with audio that are specific to an A1 level of
Spanish because that is the level that I was at.
Reading a newspaper, which is AC2 level, was just far too
difficult and I wasn't learning the phrases that I needed to
learn in order to pass the test. Because again, my main reason
for taking Spanish was to try and get a higher grade.
But at the same time, I wanted to learn Spanish and I was
interested in the language. So I wanted to get the higher
grade as my main focus, but then also just learn Spanish as well
to learn the language. So having a graded reader for a
one would have helped me learn the patterns and learn
everything I needed to know. And then I would have taken a
little bit of grammar just to understand the language and to
understand it in a more logical way.
Now, the graded readers, the repetition of phrases I would
have, I would have picked up the grammar and understood it.
But just learning a little bit of grammar here and there,
learning the grammar rules and when to use them would have also
helped. Especially for my exam and
everything I've talked about here.
The things that I would have done, it would have been so much
easier if I had access to the different resources available.
Now, that's not an excuse for not doing as well as I had hoped
in my Spanish exam, but it's something that I think is
important and it's something to feel grateful for that if you're
listening to this podcast, it means that you can access any
type of resource online. You can watch videos on YouTube,
you can listen to other podcasts, you can read books,
you can read magazines, you can read websites, you can interact
with people on social media. It goes on and on.
So having this is a fantastic thing.
What I think is also important is being specific and and
thinking about what you need to focus on for what you're doing
right now. So again, if you're taking a
test, think about how you can pass that test.
If you need English for your job, be specific about the
English you're learning for the job.
If you want English to travel, then learn key phrases and just
learn as much conversational English as possible.
And then because there are so many resources out there, it can
be difficult deciding on which ones to use.
So think about what resources, what podcasts, what videos are
going to help me right now and be specific about the level you
have and find resources specific to that level.
So what should you do now? Well, firstly, if you have
enjoyed this podcast and I really appreciate a review if
you're listening to this on a podcast app and also share the
podcast with your friend and then head over to to fluency com
to download your book, the five step plan for English fluency.
And if you haven't listened to all of my episodes yet, then
have a little look through my podcast and see which episode
appeals to you. I recommend episode 2 to listen
to after this one because it talks about why you need to do
the hard things but still have fun.
So it talks about the mentality of getting dedicated practice,
which will help you focus on doing the things you need to do.
All right, thank you so much for listening and I will speak to
you soon. Bye bye.