Spanish Week 3
Tuesday, November 25th, 2025I’m about to start week 3 of my Spanish course. My subjective impressions is that I’m learning a lot faster than when I learned (for a loose definition of “learned”) French a number of years ago. Even accounting for spending a lot more hours per week on the course, I still seem to be developing some comfort with the language more quickly. Some of that might be that Spanish is simply easier than French for an Anglophone to pick up. It might also help that learning is a lot more concentrated and there’s less time to forget between lessons. And it most definitely helps than I’m in the middle of a city where few people speak English, and even those who do are generally happy to put up with my pidgin Spanish.
One thing I have noticed is that it’s really helpful to start with speaking and listening, and completely omit reading and writing. This is something my first French course did that my Spanish course is not doing, and it shows. Reading text, even in a very predictably pronounced language like Spanish, tends to distract from the actual sounds of the language. Using pictures and sounds, but no letters, really helps to associate the words in my brain. Reading and writing is the easy part. I can almost do that on my own. Speaking and especially comprehending spoken language is much more difficult. In French I eventually achieved a comfortable B2 level of reading and writing, but in spoken communication I’m more like an A1, if I’m generous. So with Spanish I’m trying to prioritize real audio comprehension and natural fluency.
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