Over Learning Beginning Spanish
Beginning the study of a new language is either difficult or boring. Beginning Spanish can be difficult and boring, too. Spanish can be a struggle or a joy, and the learning strategies that you employ during the first days of your language study are most important.
The first step you take in wading into the language are the most important because you need to build a rock-steady foundation.
You need to build a foundation for further language study in the same way as you would build a house.
This means over learning.
Over learning means several things:
- Moving the learned material from short-term memory to long term memory
- Moving the long term memory material to automatic (below conscious) habit and performance
First, learning to take a test on the material found in textbook chapters is counter productive, although urgent, since the tests come in sorties…like waves upon the beach.
But, study for a test by cramming and you use the wrong method of language learning. The cramming process and the focus on rapid recall relies on your short-term memory. This is the kind of memory that fades so that you loose between 30% and 60% of the information in a few days.
This short-term strategy is fine when used to pass a class; such as art history or music appreciation, (when your major is unrelated); but inadequate for the study of a modern language like Spanish.
The reason that this language learning strategy is inadequate is that you will use the concepts and skills that this information is based upon every day thereafter. You simply cannot afford to cram and forget since you will need to re-cram prior to each test, and the amount of requisite information will expand at an exponential level. (That’s a math term for “Super Fast.”)
Instead, you must “over learn” the basic material.
You must get the building blocks, the foundation 100% in line with subsequent learning.
More importantly, the building blocks must be reinforced.
Beginning language study strategies for learning a new language must be clean and solid.
If you extend a line even a short distance, you find that the slightest off target angle expands with the distance. This is exactly what occurs with any misalignment of your language learning foundation. This is why missiles are guided, i.e., the missiles recalculate their course and make in-flight corrections. You have to make these kinds of corrections to your language learning, too. And you have to make these corrections early and often.
Correct errors as soon as you discover them, and reprogram yourself so that these errors are eliminated from your thinking and from your speaking. Ensure that you embark on the language learning adventure like the space agency prepares for an orbital blastoff. Cross-check everything, ensure that there will be no mistakes or accidents.
Because language learning involves speaking, reading and writing; you cannot be content with paper and pencil performance.
You need real-world communication practice.
Take steps to learn the basic sight words for your target language. And, practice speaking…to yourself, to a mirror, into a tape recorder or voice recorder, to the echo-producing mountain, to native speakers of the target language…everywhere.
Over correct any error in the basic language skills that catch yourself making.
Do this self-correcting now, and you can avoid having to make thousands of corrections to the same error during your new language career.
Remember Ben Franklin’s “Stitch in time” proverb. With basic language mistakes, correcting problems early saves incredibly more than nine future errors. And, clearing up errors early leads to long term satisfaction and enjoyment that you will obtain from the use of the language when you can communicate using it.
Correcting errors early and over learning basic skills is the process that moves from translating as you speak to thinking in the target language.
You cannot be fluent in the target language if you translate as you go.
Unless you over learn the basic building blocks of a modern language so that you can “think in the new language,” you are subjected to the “translate every word” strategy that drags your speed and fluency down. Drag speed and fluency down, and you drag the fun and joy of speaking the language down too.
Instead of words dancing, whirling, jumping, bobbing, twisting and skipping from your lips and tongue; translation (instead of thinking in the target language) drags onerous, heavy sacks of drudge and burden across your palate. Worse, the weight of this deadening mass of this intermediary translation slowdown falls with a un royal thud between you and the person that you would communicate with.
So, over learn language basics so that you can automatically produce communication. Do this by acquiring the basics of the target language so solidly and accurately that you can think in the target language.
Head off errors before they take root. Prevent mistakes from flourishing in your communication the way that weeds flourish in a garden.
Correcting your learning now saves a mighty lot of mistakes in the future. In a way, you can say that the key to the enjoyment of your future performance in the target language is over learning now.
Related Links:
