Thursday, August 23, 2007

Es blood hard Para Mi

I am learning Spanish on my ipod and it’s not going particularly well.

That’s not entirely true. I mean it’s fair to say that it’s not going particularly well in that I’m not exactly learning any Spanish but, much to my surprise, I am having fun. The reason for this is that, purely by chance, the Spanish language lessons course I downloaded is a fantastically naff one presented by a dude called Michael Thomas.

Not only does Michael Thomas have a voice that makes him sound like he’s having a stroke after every third of fourth word he also gives the impression of making it all up as he goes along. Lessons trail off into “and if I remember anything else I’ll mention it later” or long, weird anecdotes that end as abruptly as though he was just killing time while waiting for a bus, which has since arrived.

More importantly he has an awesome learning technique that, he assures me, will mean I can have a practical use of Spanish in 10 to 12 hours.

Hmm. Quite.

Anyway, this technique involves tips such as “never review anything you have learned” and “don’t try to remember anything” and he is dead-set against any kind of practice or homework.

The idea – from what I can gather – is that instead of treating the language as something you have to grapple with you just sort of immerse yourself in it (or something). In theory it makes great sense and appeals to my sense of laziness. In practice, however, I keep drifting off and/or replaying the bit where he talks about the different ways to pronounce the word “calzone” (which is surely Italian anyway, no?)

God I suck at learning languages. For all I can tell poor old Michael probaly had an actual stroke three minutes into Lesson One and has been calling for help in Spanish ever since.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mis pantalones es en fuego. May help? I suggest, my little bookworm, that you get a book. I'm prepared to trade a few Spanish lessons in exchange for you never, ever mentioning that you are going on a fabulous holiday. Es una buena idea, no? Or that may be un bueno idea - hence the book.

L x

my name is kate said...

I'd like to apologise in advance for the nest 7 weeks and my surely gratuitous use of the phrases "when I'm in Argentina..." or "I think when I'm in New York..."

Jessica said...

Shouldn't Spanish be taught by a hot Latin type named something like Jose or Carlos? Of course he also should be blessed with a sexy voice akin to cinnamon swirling with melted buttah...but hey that's just me. (My high school Spanish teacher's name was Mrs. Butt Fedder--y mi espanol is muy mal!
Adios!

my name is kate said...

Well yeah that's the dream - Michael Thomas sounds like he's about 170 and about as sexy as a pair of high-waisted pants.

Dave said...

Non mi piace parlare altri lingui.

Unknown said...

Yes, calzone is definitely an Italian word, and if you really want to know it is ¨español es muy difícil para mi.¨ Keep practicing but I promise to bail you out if I overhear you saying anything that may get to into more trouble than you can handle. Hasta pronto chica, Kate.
PS - Especially practice saying your name in a Spanish accent, because everyone here seems to struggle with it when I introduce myself normally.