I took three years of Spanish and got an A every semester. Even when it was still fresh in my mind, I was nowhere near able to hold even a very simple conversation. And now just a few years later it's all totally gone from my brain.

My mother's native language is Spanish and she never taught me, which I resent her for. But I still find it incredible how shitty my public school education in Spanish was. We really should be teaching kids a second language from kindergarten up.

  • gueybana [any]
    ·
    4 months ago

    I think you should be angrier at your mother dude. There’s only so much classes can do to help you learn a language, no matter how good they are.

    • cosecantphi [he/him]
      hexagon
      ·
      edit-2
      4 months ago

      I'd have appreciated if those classes had emphasized this point that they are only supplementary, but they didn't. I really thought I was going to be fluent by the end of the third year.

      The result is I wasted 45 minutes a day for three years of my life learning something that I'd never have enough mastery in to serve any sort of function in my adult life.

    • electricaltape [none/use name]
      ·
      4 months ago

      I think you should be angrier at your mother dude.

      That's kinda fucked up. You can still learn, just use Comprehensible Input resources (like Dreaming Spanish) instead of the "blue-pill" crap like classes.