Want To Be Fluent In Spanish? Watch Cartoons!
I’ve enjoyed my return to Spanish class here in Guanajuato immensely. It’s been a little strange because basically one ends up taking classes mainly with other Americans with a few other nationalities thrown in for good measure. I haven’t been around my fellow Americans in so long that it’s taken a bit of getting used to. In the last five years, I have actually forgotten social cues and topics of conversation within polite company. But, it’s been fun, informative, and actually a confidence booster.
It’s been an encouragement to notice just how advanced I’ve become in my Spanish. While living in Mexico fulltime and in Mexican neighborhoods has had a linguistic impact on my Spanish, I have to stress the point that you still have to put in the hard work in the language to become fluent. I’ve had to answer this question more than once, “If you live in the city of Guanajuato why on earth are you in a classroom in a Spanish school?” I suppose my assumption has been a correct one when hypothesizing in my previous articles that most, if not all, of those coming from monolingual America make an assumption about second language acquisition that simply is not true. (more…)
