Language

I was looking at French and Portuguese tutorials online, trying to learn a little about each language and figure out which one I would like to study next. I want to study both, but I think I’ll have to choose Portuguese over French next year. I won’t be able to take both at the same time. Anyways, I found this information on language fluency:

“Survivor”
(Intermediate)
A survivor converses using basic vocabulary (time, date, weather, family, clothes); uses the present, past, and future tenses more or less correctly; and is aware of difficult grammar topics (e.g., subjunctive, relative pronouns), but either uses them incorrectly or awkwardly rearranges sentences in order to avoid them. Still needs to tote a dictionary and/or phrase book around, but can survive in an immersion situation: order food, give and receive directions, take a taxi, etc.

“Conversationalist”
(Advanced)
A conversationalist has the ability to converse about fairly abstract ideas, state opinions, read newspapers, understand the language when spoken normally (on TV, radio, film, etc.) with slight-to-moderate difficulty. Still has some trouble with specialized vocabulary and complicated grammar, but can reorganize sentences in order to communicate and figure out the majority of new vocabulary within the context.

“Debater”
(Fluent)
A fluent speaker can participate in extended conversations, understand the language when spoken normally (on TV, radio, film, etc.), figure out meaning of words within context, debate, and use/understand complicated grammatical structures with little or no difficulty. Has good accent and understands dialects with slight-to-moderate difficulty.

I was definitely somewhere in between “Survivor” and “Conversationalist” when I arrived in Spain about seven months ago. I was only at an intermediate-advanced level after studying Spanish for eight years. I am now definitely at the level of fluency. My listening skills became really sharp after just a few weeks in Spain. It’s a passive skill that you pick up quickly just by hearing Spanish all the time. My vocabulary and writing skills slowly expanded and developed over several months. Taking a phonetics and syntax class last semester was really worthwhile, it cleared up a lot of mistakes and doubts I had on accents, pronunciation, dialects and advanced grammar. Speaking Spanish with fluency and accuracy is the hardest part and takes the most work. I’m still working on improving my speaking and will never reach the level of “native speaker” (which requires learning a language at a very young age). It was only about a month ago when I felt like I had reached another level of speaking and now it is almost effortless and so much more fun to speak Spanish. It’s a great feeling to meet people in another country and talk with them, but it’s even better when you can meet them by speaking their language and they compliment you on your language skills. And I’ve learned a lot about English through learning Spanish words and teaching English. I’ve always been able to speak English well, but trying to explain why English is the way it is and teach grammar to other people requires you to relearn your own language.

Yesterday I interviewed a Senegalese musician who has lived in Spain for 12 years and works with cultural issues. And right now I am writing an article about him. Some Spanish students help us out with the Spanish article and then they translate it into English and we help them perfect the English version. There is also an independent student publication (a guide to Sevilla for foreign students) that I am writing for. I will probably write about food and contribute to other general things. And then I’m also writing a little something about Sevilla for my program, CIEE, which is publishing stuff for the annual CIEE conference that will be held in Sevilla this fall. With homework on top of all that and this blog as a side project I feel like a freelance writer. The blog is the only thing I write in English.

So Martha is coming tomorrow night, I can’t say much about what we’re going to do because she might read this and I don’t want to give her any hints at what the family and I are going to do with her. The Spanish siblings are going to take over Sevilla.