Spanish Learning

I've been writing a lot at Squidoo recently which seems to be a great community of writers who like to share information. It doesn't suffer from spammers as articles have to be high quality to be featured. I wrote my newest article, Spanish listening practice, earlier today and it got some good feedback. I'm going to summarize the article a little here for those who are interested in improving their Spanish listening.

If you are a beginner, it is difficult to get a alot out of real Spanish (the television, radio etc.) It's a much better idea to focus on listening exercises that are adapted to your Spanish level. I found a couple of great resources a little while ago:

• Spanish Listening 1
• Spanish Listening 2

These are two fantastic and free websites that have different listening audio related to either your level or the topic you're interested in. The article that I wrote was targeted towards those who don't live in a Spanish speaking country, but I feel that you can still get a lot out of it. When I first moved to Spain we didn't have a television, so I had to rely on streaming television programs online. When I finally got one my evenings took a different shape. I was also at a level where I could understand what was going on and took a lot of enjoyment out of watching my favorite shows. My favorite show is Españoles en el mundo.

Before I started learning and teaching languages, I was under the impression that things are just soaked up. That you can just listen to people speak Spanish and you will just pick it up. Unless you put yourself through true immersion, this doesn't happen and you have to find time to study and practice your Spanish listening and Spanish in general.

Let me know your thoughts on how you improve your Spanish listening, especially if you are a beginner.

As an English teacher I found it very difficult to practice Spanish. For one, my Spanish was at a basic level when I first moved there. Whenever I communicated with anyone who had a basic level of English they saw an opportunity to practice their English. A few of the friends that we made saw us as practice time, and I didn't help myself as I would offer advice (the teacher inside of came out).

The first year I was there I was doing lots of studying, but the silent kind that involved reading, grammar exercises and watching television. It wasn't until the second year that I really started to improve. I landed a role in an academy and I had lessons with children as young as ten. I was told that I had to be able to communicate well with them in Spanish, as unlike the business lessons I taught in the first year, I obviously couldn't just rely on English.

I started to gain confidence and my group of friends soon started to talk to me in Spanish rather than English. This gave me more practice and I was soon talking in Spanish very often. Looking back at my first year I should have done more to put myself out there and part of the reason why people spoke to me in English was because I was afraid of making mistakes, and therefore I sometimes reverted to English. This can really stop you from talking and it is difficult to get out of this mind frame.

It took a group of ten year old children to make me more confident and not afraid to make mistakes; making a mistake in front of your friends is much less embarrassing than in front of a group of unforgiving ten year olds!