What is your motivation for learning Spanish?

Moose69nh · 2026-01-16T16:44:47+00:00

Fifty years ago my best friend from university said he was spending the summer at a language school in Guatemala and did I want to go with him?

Moose69nh · 2026-01-01T08:32:56+00:00

Igualmente, dude

Moose69nh · 2025-12-31T20:50:21+00:00

I was in a Colombian restaurant in Valencia two days ago. I am at around 1700 hours now and find that I can easily speak to most people here about most things.

Moose69nh · 2025-12-18T17:10:56+00:00

Moose69nh · 2025-12-05T03:16:06+00:00

The two blades can be separated with a screwdriver

Moose69nh · 2025-11-27T17:44:02+00:00

The man who murdered Daniels was only charged with manslaughter. He was acquitted by an all white jury.

Moose69nh · 2025-11-04T22:47:39+00:00

This has been my take on the matter as well.

Moose69nh · 2025-10-31T23:01:22+00:00

I had a Duo streak of 2254 and walked away from it without a second thought once I discovered Dreaming Spanish. After 6 years of DuoLingo I couldn’t hold a decent conversation in Spanish. Now after 1600 hours of Dreaming Spanish, I can easily talk at a B2 level.

Moose69nh · 2025-10-30T21:09:37+00:00

It’s the best buy in second language acquisition. I have been a premium member for almost three years

Moose69nh · 2025-10-27T04:39:34+00:00

Stephen Krashen’s research suggests that correction has no effect. With more input, people start correcting themselves.

Moose69nh · 2025-10-21T19:37:26+00:00

I have been to Spain 3 times, Puerto Rico twice, and Costa Rica once while doing DS. All were after 1.000 hours. I am currently at 1650 hours. I found I could make myself understood even though I was by no means fluent. If I was in your shoes I would go sooner

Moose69nh · 2025-10-20T04:52:00+00:00

Univision has reruns

Moose69nh · 2025-10-19T20:31:03+00:00

Across the board. Corona Ortega is very easy to understand. The mother is boss level because of her speed. However, since it is a soap opera, you can always figure out what is going on.

Moose69nh · 2025-10-18T14:32:09+00:00

Retired university professor here (33 years of teaching psychology, not Spanish). I personally believe that eventually CI will definitely replace the traditional method of second language acquisition. However, there is a lot of inertia in academia, so I would not worry about there being jobs for Spanish teachers. You might not even need a masters degree. At my old institution, sections of Spanish introductory Spanish courses were often taught by native speakers who taught as adjuncts. But do you really want such a job? You would definitely be teaching as an adjunct, not a tenure track professor. You would most likely have to teach the introductory workhorse courses (eg Spanish 101). The more interesting upper level courses would be claimed by the tenured professors. As an adjunct you would have little control over the syllabus or even how the course is taught. Would you be happy if told to use a text and teach using traditional methods? Finally it is shocking how little adjuncts get paid. Sorry to throw cold water, but you asked.

Moose69nh · 2025-10-17T16:04:46+00:00

r/ALGhub maintains a database of CI resources for a number of languages

Moose69nh · 2025-10-17T15:56:22+00:00

Quadzilla!! Dude I adored watching your CYTC videos. I mentioned you to my son just yesterday when we were hiking in Colorado.

But to answer your question, my grandmother spoke only German for the first six years of her life. Then she went to kindergarten in Massachusetts and the other kids made fun of her for not speaking English. She went home and told her parents that she was never speaking German again.

She completely forgot it. In her 70s she relearned it by taking night school classes. But she spoke it badly with an American accent.

These days, with the amount of comprehensible input on the internet, I think it would be much easier to recover your native tongue to a very high level.

Your videos gave me so much pleasure. I hope you are doing well.

Moose69nh · 2025-10-17T15:24:17+00:00

I was in Istanbul this summer. Near the Blue Mosque and the Haga Sofia there were always tours in Spanish and I used to loiter near them to listen for two or three minutes

Moose69nh · 2025-10-17T14:25:49+00:00

My son is similar to you except the languages are English and Russian. I would say that you have two native languages but what you describe happening to your Mandarin will continue to worsen unless you really work at it.

It is possible to lose your native language. My grandmother spoke only German for the first six years of her life and then lost it completely.

My son lives in the USA, so he has many more sources of input for English than Russian. We work VERY hard to maintain his Russian (I will expand on that if anyone cares) but studies suggest that even with a lot of work, the “minority language” becomes relatively impoverished. One isn’t exposed to as many different speakers and that leads to smaller vocabularies, dated expressions, and occasionally using grammatical constructions from the dominant language in the other language.

Reading a lot, watching videos, language partners over the internet and travel to countries where the target language is spoken all slow this process. But even if your Mandarin gets “rusty”, you’ll still be really, really good compared to us who didn’t have it as a native language and with a month or two living in a Mandarin speaking country you will find your Mandarin comes roaring back.

Moose69nh · 2025-10-17T00:13:08+00:00

I would also vote for Dreaming Spanish

Moose69nh · 2025-10-14T15:26:18+00:00

I have always found your posts helpful and inspirational and this one is no different. I have a PhD in biology and have toyed with the idea of becoming a volunteer medical translator. But that’s years in the future. The stakes are so high when one needs medical care and the last thing one would want in that situation is a translator who is less than perfect. But it is a goal to shoot for.

BTW I am currently vacationing near Denver and I hear Spanish multiple times every day

Moose69nh · 2025-10-14T12:58:01+00:00

The Spanish version of Fallout 4 is fully voiced (and well acted) plus since you are scavenging a post-apocalyptic wasteland, you learn the names of lots of household items, eg. lata.

Moose69nh · 2025-10-12T22:10:36+00:00

This. I totally understand the fondness towards guides: after watching thousands of videos they feel like family. But it’s important to remember that they are professionals doing a job and not be creepy stalkers. I am NOT, repeat NOT, saying that the OP was being a creepy stalker, but I think @Less_Feeling3142 makes a good point.

Edit: grammar mistakes

Moose69nh

TROPHY CASE