In my opinion language is king.
A lot of of times in my life where i was needing advanced literature on various topics my English helped me tremendously or simply when i wanted to solicit anyone to do something in my native language i had the oral abilities to do so.
I first started being interested in Colombia after my trip to South America. I came back to Israel, having missed Colombia because of lack of knowledge, only to realize that i missed one of the best countries the continent has to offer. I already had a positive experience with an American woman that was working for a 6 months internship in Israel. We met through a mutual friend and instantly hit it off pretty well. When i asked her after being 3 months with her what was the most attractive thing about me, she said that i talk in a very refreshing, cute funny way that you never hear in America. Since then i had set a goal of learning the Spanish language in order to be ready for a trip to Colombia. I figured that my conversational abilities would be my edge compared to other gringos and the like.
I feel now after 1 year of learning Spanish that i am much more mature and sober about my short term language abilities and goals.
I was lucky to have started with what considered by many one of the best Spanish programs out there. Before i was acquainted with the program, i read through a lot of threads in a forum called: Howtolearnanylanguage.com
I was so impressed with the in depth discussions of how to approach Spanish that i continued to read and investigate what program would work best for me.
I decided to try FSI Programatic which is a program made in the 60's by the Foreign Service Institute (hence the abbreviation FSI) in order to send ambassadors to South America in a rather hurry. the program was published in 1967 and remember this is 5 years after the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. So a lot of emphasis was put on making sure the participants of the program would be able to learn the Spanish language in an intense immersion environment for 6 months 10 hours a day.
Living and learning the local language for 2-4 years in any part of the world is still to my belief the best bet of really becoming fluent in your desired language. Maybe one day i would do this also and live in Spanish speaking country but for now i had needed to play my cards the best way i was dealt them. And so when i first started working with FSI i soon realized that this is the closest i'm gonna get anytime soon to full immersion environment.
Since then I added weekly sessions of a local tv show in Colombia que se llama El Séptimo día and Skype calls with native South Americans speakers.
So again as i was mentioning in the beginning, after all the hours i had spent with my Spanish endeavor i have come to a position where i can say: Fluency is relative.
Let's say that the different levels of Spanish or any other language for that matter are scaled as follows:
0-A1 (Passive Knowledge) -A2-B1 (Basic Fluency) -B2-C1 (Advanced Fluency) -C2-Native
A gringo that has never touched any kind of Spanish is in the level of 0, where comparably I am somewhere in the A2 upper area with glimpses of B1 when i feel energized.
From my online experience thus far i feel very good about my Spanish. I have been able to use dichos (sayings) and local colombian slang that caught them by surprise![[Image: smile.gif]](https://rooshvforum.network/images/smilies/smile.gif)
I even made a girl cry out of happiness and emotion solely with my Spanish.
I feel the time has come to book a flight. I am going to book in advance my ticket which will commit myself to 7-8 more months of learning before i fly off.
Since i have not been to Colombia i really don't know how will my Spanish be received in a face to face conversation. I will be happy if it will be a success, but i wont be disappointed anyhow because i am interested to see in real life the subject of my study.
I am interested to hear your share of things when it comes to Spanish in Colombia.
How did Spanish help you?
What anecdotes do you have with learning Spanish and using it in a native environment?
Feel free to share anything
A lot of of times in my life where i was needing advanced literature on various topics my English helped me tremendously or simply when i wanted to solicit anyone to do something in my native language i had the oral abilities to do so.
I first started being interested in Colombia after my trip to South America. I came back to Israel, having missed Colombia because of lack of knowledge, only to realize that i missed one of the best countries the continent has to offer. I already had a positive experience with an American woman that was working for a 6 months internship in Israel. We met through a mutual friend and instantly hit it off pretty well. When i asked her after being 3 months with her what was the most attractive thing about me, she said that i talk in a very refreshing, cute funny way that you never hear in America. Since then i had set a goal of learning the Spanish language in order to be ready for a trip to Colombia. I figured that my conversational abilities would be my edge compared to other gringos and the like.
I feel now after 1 year of learning Spanish that i am much more mature and sober about my short term language abilities and goals.
I was lucky to have started with what considered by many one of the best Spanish programs out there. Before i was acquainted with the program, i read through a lot of threads in a forum called: Howtolearnanylanguage.com
I was so impressed with the in depth discussions of how to approach Spanish that i continued to read and investigate what program would work best for me.
I decided to try FSI Programatic which is a program made in the 60's by the Foreign Service Institute (hence the abbreviation FSI) in order to send ambassadors to South America in a rather hurry. the program was published in 1967 and remember this is 5 years after the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. So a lot of emphasis was put on making sure the participants of the program would be able to learn the Spanish language in an intense immersion environment for 6 months 10 hours a day.
Living and learning the local language for 2-4 years in any part of the world is still to my belief the best bet of really becoming fluent in your desired language. Maybe one day i would do this also and live in Spanish speaking country but for now i had needed to play my cards the best way i was dealt them. And so when i first started working with FSI i soon realized that this is the closest i'm gonna get anytime soon to full immersion environment.
Since then I added weekly sessions of a local tv show in Colombia que se llama El Séptimo día and Skype calls with native South Americans speakers.
So again as i was mentioning in the beginning, after all the hours i had spent with my Spanish endeavor i have come to a position where i can say: Fluency is relative.
Let's say that the different levels of Spanish or any other language for that matter are scaled as follows:
0-A1 (Passive Knowledge) -A2-B1 (Basic Fluency) -B2-C1 (Advanced Fluency) -C2-Native
A gringo that has never touched any kind of Spanish is in the level of 0, where comparably I am somewhere in the A2 upper area with glimpses of B1 when i feel energized.
From my online experience thus far i feel very good about my Spanish. I have been able to use dichos (sayings) and local colombian slang that caught them by surprise
I even made a girl cry out of happiness and emotion solely with my Spanish.
I feel the time has come to book a flight. I am going to book in advance my ticket which will commit myself to 7-8 more months of learning before i fly off.
Since i have not been to Colombia i really don't know how will my Spanish be received in a face to face conversation. I will be happy if it will be a success, but i wont be disappointed anyhow because i am interested to see in real life the subject of my study.
I am interested to hear your share of things when it comes to Spanish in Colombia.
How did Spanish help you?
What anecdotes do you have with learning Spanish and using it in a native environment?
Feel free to share anything