(Originally posted in early 2023)
This blog post isn’t canonically like the other posts on here, but I had been doing some stuff in my personal life that I wanted to share. That said, I am working on a blog post on a pet technical project, but I figured it couldn’t hurt to post something a little bit less dry on here for anybody who wants to read it 🙂
Around midway through last year, amongst a number of other major life changes, I started attending a MeetUp.com group in north Austin for conversational Spanish. I took Spanish throughout high school and college, having traveled to many Spanish speaking countries, but hadn’t really studied it since besides using it sporadically in Texas and trips, and occasionally reading novels in the language. I wanted to brush up on it and see how well I would do. The group is managed by a Brazilian gentleman who speaks Spanish, Portuguese, and English, and there are a number of expats in the group from all over the place and it’s a pretty lively crowd in general.
As it turns out, my Spanish was pretty rusty, but I got a Spanish tutor from an organization called Language Trainers, and started practicing on Duolingo while continuing to attend the conversational group. All this to say, Spanish is not the reason I decided to write this blog post. As the possibly more geographically aware people reading this know, the photo at the top is of Rio de Janeiro. As it happens, there was another group on alternating weeks for Portuguese, run by the same Brazilian guy, through MeetUp.com as well. Portuguese isn’t nearly as prominent as Spanish is in the US, so the group was not heavily attended.
However, I had discovered that, for myself, I found studying the languages really fun. It was something to do in the evenings and kind of a self development pastime that, at least for Spanish, was really rewarding in a social and cultural context. It was also invigorating to be really really bad at something, and make mistakes and learn from them. This capacity of remaining teachable is something I cherish and any opportunity to do so in my life is embraced.
So I decided I was going to give it a shot at learning Portuguese as well. This happened about the turn of the new year, and since then I have been studying both Spanish and Portuguese at the same time, but Portuguese from the ground up. The thesis of this blog post is what it was like to try and learn a new language as an adult, and to offer some guidance to people who might feel like they should take this step, but aren’t sure how to proceed.
What follows are some tips for how to get started learning and studying a new language, from someone who has recently begun the journey:
Language learning applications:
When I segued into practicing Spanish again Duolingo was the first place I went, so it was natural to begin learning Portuguese on there as well. Babel is also another popular app. The main advantage I saw with the apps is the gamification of language learning. It turned something which in school is normally a fairly monotonous task centered around erudite grammar rules into something fun and engaging. They also frequently have a social component to compete or team up with friends on various challenges.
This is also a good place to start studying a new language to see if you would like to go further in it; before investing so much time and energy. Duolingo is free with payment options to remove ads and include some other features. I used Duolingo to play around with both Catalan and Portuguese before deciding to ultimately settle on Portuguese. I currently alternate between Spanish and Portuguese on Duolingo depending on interest.
Television and YouTube:
Ok, so this is a big one. There is a guy at my Spanish group who is always saying he learned Spanish exclusively by watching telenovelas, and I believe him. The proliferation of media on the internet makes finding and accessing videos in the language you are interested in very easy, and if you can turn on English subtitles at first it helps pace it; eventually moving on to subtitles in the language if you prefer reading. This helps a lot with getting an ear for the language and hearing the subtle intonations involved.
Youtube is a different thing with classes and guides typically available. I use this YouTuber’s channel to practice Portuguese, and similarly this channel to practice my Spanish. The quality of the different language learning channels varies, but in my opinion if you can find one exclusive to the language you’re interested in that’s the best. The YouTube algorithm helped populate my suggestions with other similarly inclined channels and videos over time.
Language Practice Groups:
If you live in a major metropolitan area you will probably find people from a variety of backgrounds in your city. MeetUp.com is great for finding language conversational groups, and with the added advantage that if you can’t find one in the language you are interested in you can create your own. Attending the Portuguese and Spanish groups some of the members have mentioned groups in other parts of the city for French, Arabic, and additional Spanish and Portuguese groups.
Talking to people in real life in a group context in a foreign language was very foreign to me at first. Casual conversation about all types of things that weren’t refined down to a particular topic of study at the time. Another difficult part was getting used to making (sometimes glaring) mistakes in the social setting. Generally, though, I’ve found people really happy to just have a shared interest with somebody and be strongly supportive of someone taking it upon themselves to learn a shared language. An added bonus is that you will also meet some really interesting people! Some of the people in the Spanish group speak 4 languages, and many of them are highly traveled people. There are interesting stories and backgrounds all around the table, and it’s another aspect of language learning that I have found really fun.
Individual Tutors:
I put individual tutors here as distinct from formal classes because the training is individualized and you can get a course taught at your pace and needs. For example, at the beginning of my Portuguese lessons my teacher taught in English, but at the stage we are at now the courses are taught in Portuguese and I typically try and respond in Portuguese. This might not be possible if I was taking a class and had to finish a full course before moving on to the next level with my classmates.
As mentioned previously I used Language Trainers to find my tutors, but if you live in a college town you might be able to find a tutor in the language from a bilingual student for whom teaching languages part time is their college job. I live in Austin, and with the University of Texas here I’m sure I could find a Brazilian student who is keen to make some extra money; probably getting a session at a discounted rate over a formal teacher.
Language Exchanges:
As full disclosure, I haven’t done this myself, but I know some people who have and it comes highly recommended. A language exchange is a kind of international pen pal service where you get paired up with someone in the language you want to learn who also wants to learn your language. You alternate between sessions teaching each other your own languages and learning theirs. An example of an organization who sets these exchanges up would be Language Exchange, but I haven’t personally used this organization so it comes with a lot of hedging. Generally the advice I’ve gotten is that you want to get to an intermediate level of fluency in the language before engaging with a native speaker.
So there you have it, these are some of the ways I’ve been looking into becoming more linguistically diverse. As said previously, it’s become kind of a self development hobby for me and there’s still a lot I have to learn, but I hope if this is something you’re curious about that I was able to offer some resources that you might find useful. All that said, I think with anything as challenging as learning a language the main thing is motivation and practice, and not tiring yourself out. So if you just want to explore a bit on Duolingo or Babel that’s totally fine too, and there’s no right way to go about it.
Thanks for visiting and I hope you got something out of this (kind of different) blog post.
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