Fundamentals of Thinking in Spanish

Posted by Alex Murray on Sep 7th, 2009 | no comments home title

In my last post I talked about the importance of teaching yourself to think in Spanish as you look to advance your knowledge, understanding and proficiency of the Spanish language. Now I would like to look take a more in depth look into why you would even want to think in Spanish, what advantages are there? and how you don’t need to wait until your advanced with Spanish to start thinking with it.

It’s interesting to think that not many of us consider how they learnt to speak English, or whatever your mother tongue may be, after all we don’t need to know how we learnt out own language we just “picked it up” along the way.

It’s always been said that to learn a language from the ground up, as you do when you are a child, is the most effective way to absorb and more importantly remember that language. All too often we jump in at the deep end memorize the most important words and phrases and then a little as a few months later wonder why we can’t recall what we learnt.

Of course there’s no substitute for enjoyment and enthusiasm when learning Spanish. Staying motivated and having fun at the same time is surely a recipe for success. However I also believe that continuous repetition of the most important words and phrases of the Spanish language as a way to embed and continue to build upon your own vocabulary is far too often overlooked.

It is clear that as a child or an active speaker of Spanish the same most fundamental words and phrases within the language are repeated over and over again, solidify themselves as the bedrock on which a fluent speakers vocabulary is built. It’s for this same reason that I encourage the use of children’s books as a way to build those basics and constantly reaffirm them, as you will no doubt become aware when you start to read children’s books that the same most fundamental words are used over and over again.

While it is common place to learn phrases, verbs and their conjugations one after the other ticking them off your list as you go this lack of repetition will surely lead to a reduction in retention. Curiously when in Spain or Latin America how often do you expect to see these standalone phrases in the same form provided to you in text books?

I do not say this to challenge you personally I speak to the collectivity of people who learn from phrase books and text books. The only real way to master a language as it were is to learn as you did your own language and start from the ground up. The result of this ground up philosophy is that through a constant reading (or alternative Spanish mediums) you will ingrain the fundamentals and thought processes of a truly wonderful language deep within you, from where it can be called upon for years to come.

Thinking in Spanish

Posted by Alex Murray on Sep 3rd, 2009 | one comment home title

This may sound like quite a challenge but to become completely fluent in Spanish you will eventually want to start thinking in Spanish. As with most people the tendency is to translate the words they read into their native language. Also when speaking Spanish the general habit is to think of a sentence in English and then translate it step-by-step into the equivalent Spanish sentence.

I personally promote these instinctive habits as a fast way to learn a new language and trying to think in Spanish right from the start I personally believe would be somewhat of a challenge. However to gain complete mastery of the Spanish language your end goal should be to think the way a native Spanish speaker would.

Thinking in another language as you can imagine is not a skill that is easy to explain or put into words. I mean it’s hard to imagine a world where your internal thoughts were not formed with the words of the English language let alone being able to switch between Spanish and English in your mind as and when you please.

Trying to teach someone how to think in Spanish is like trying to explain how to drive a car or ride a bike. No matter how much you told someone what the pedals in a car did and how you are supposed to use them they still wouldn’t instinctively know how to drive without actually getting in the car and giving it a go.

This is exactly the same thing when you want to teach yourself how to think in Spanish. You just have to start doing it. OK well I will give you one piece of advice. When your just out doing your daily activities; talking to friends, at work on the phone or looking at a sign try translating what you see, hear, say into Spanish. The same way every time you translate Spanish back to English for comprehension try doing the opposite and you will soon find yourself starting to build the habit of thinking in Spanish.

Image courtesy of arvindgrover

Fundamentals of Thinking in Spanish

Thinking in Spanish

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