MONTHS OF WORK AND STILL NOT SPEAKING
I had spent almost 6 months in Spain (in Valencia); I loved the people, the fiestas, and life in general there. I wanted to stay longer, and I really wanted to speak Spanish.
I was trying so hard! I was studying every day, I even tried expensive courses for a short time, and I was speaking it every chance I got; in the supermarket, at parties with strangers I met, after giving an English class to a child I tried conversing with the parents, etc.
But I still couldn’t actually speak Spanish.
I was just struggling with repeating the same words and phrases over and over. I didn’t get it! I really wanted it; I was motivated! I was working hard. Surely after 6 months I should have been speaking much better than I already was?
I would go to my English speaking friends, and my Spanish friends with good English, because I could properly express myself with them and let off some steam. I would say how maybe Spanish is just too hard for me. Other foreigners were also having the same problem, and yet a few others were so easily picking up the language with apparently little work. [Sigh] Maybe we’re just not the kind of people who will ever pick up languages quickly…
Then I realized something! In a great Eureka moment, I saw both the problem, and the solution. It’s so obvious and yet people still don’t actually get it…