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.
A year ago, I didn’t know Spanish. Now, I can watch TV shows for natives in Spanish and have conversations in Spanish (despite making some mistakes obviously). Dreaming Spanish and CI is just a really easy way to learn a language. You don’t need to study. You just watch videos and listen to podcasts that are easy enough for you to understand. Overtime, “easy enough for you to understand” will increase in difficulty. (If you know nothing when you start, then the only way you can understand the videos is by drawings and gestures. That’s fine though, because your brain will still figure things out.)
https://www.dreamingspanish.com/
I know is bad, but the unofficial Dreaming Spanish subreddit is a great community. It’s very positive and people share their progress.
http://old.reddit.com/r/dreamingspanish
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