Hi there, how are you doing?
Today I would like to write about the last 4 months and my journey learning English. I was never good at learning languages and I'm still bad at it.
I have studied English in school since I was a kid. But I was not able to speak, listen to native speakers, or write more than one sentence. I still don't know how I passed the exams.
When I finished my obligatory studies, one year later I started reading blog posts in English, because in Spanish there is not a lot of useful content. That's why I love English so much because I love to learn some things and read great content.
At the start, I used Google Translate a lot to read, but over time I relied on it less and less. And then one day I found a Youtube video of 10 minutes in English and decided to watch it. I understood almost everything and I was like "I´m a professional" so I decided to install Duolingo :V (bad idea). I lost 2 weeks doing all the levels.
One month later I read about the "comprehensible input method" to acquire languages easily and naturally. That´s the moment when I decided to create a second youtube account only for listening English. It´s well known that if you want to learn a language you should travel to the country it´s spoken. I don´t have the money to do that so instead, I started to read and listen all in English, anything in Spanish.
In the last four months I have been watching a lot of YouTubers, overall gameplays and some vlogs. I watched a lot of TV series and movies as well. That helped me a lot. At first, I had to translate in my mind what I was listening to. Now I understand all I hear without translating when I´m watching vlogs or the YouTubers I usually watch. I´m still struggling with tv series but I can understand what they are saying and what is happening almost all the time.
I know I get to practice my Lowercase skills because I feel I´m making a lot of mistakes all the time, but then I think about the progress I have made only with listening and reading and I´m very proud of myself. I hope at the end of 2021 I will be able to pass the B1 exam. If so, maybe I will move to an English country because I love the language and the people who speak it.
Hi, SrErwan. You've written such an interesting post and your way of learning English is looks like my own but I 'm not able to write as good as you do. Good luck with your English Journey and your exams.
I am an English speaker learning Spanish. You are doing well. Keep writing. 😊
Thank you all for correcting me I´m very glad for it. And I hope you are doing well with your language learning journey!
¡Animo! I also follow the "comprehensible input method" when I learn Spanish. I agree with you 100% our current school systems in general, really suck at teaching languages. I saw a lot people had similar experience as you did. I think YouTube is a much better alternative for learning language.
Way to go, Señor Erwan! I feel like you have taken the right steps to success! I am a firm believer in comprehensible input, and I have used that to help me acquire Spanish (and now I am trying Catalan).
Acquiring a language starts with listening. That is how we learned our first language. We had lots of comprehensible input. Once I applied that to my personal study of Spanish, I found that I learned more.
Congratulations on your success and good luck as you continue on your journey.