My Experience Teaching Myself Spanish and German When I was in College

When I got to FIDM, my dream up until then was to learn French, go to fashion school, move to Paris, and become a big designer. As a senior in high school, I put in a lot of effort to master French. I studied it at the AP level and regularly attended French club, French movie night, and French book club after school. When I got to college, I didn’t want to lose this language skill I had worked so hard to achieve, and kept all of my personal devices in French upon graduation. It wasn’t until after I finished my associate’s degree that I would be encouraged to learn a third and fourth language (and now tenth).

Learning Spanish in Los Angeles

During the first quarter of my bachelor’s program, my church hosted a Spanish worship night to connect with the Hispanic community in Los Angeles. I had so many friends who spoke Spanish, so I went to see how much I remembered from Dora the Explorer…turns out I understood nothing! I understood a few words here and there, but I had difficulty understanding complete thoughts. I remember the pastor and many people around me getting emotional and being frustrated because I didn’t understand why. After the service, I went to Chipotle with some friends, who were going in and out of Spanish, and French wasn’t helping me out, which inspired me to start learning Spanish the next day.

This was the first time I taught myself a foreign language, and was trying to figure out how to make it work with my schedule and formulate it in a way that allowed me to be consistent. I first searched for YouTube videos that taught Spanish and even bought a special notebook. I was in college, so I thought to start with an academic approach to building a foundation through verb conjugation, vocabulary, and grammar. In maintaining my French, I used Duolingo, but the French-Spanish version. Eventually, I got to a point where I had a good grip on the language, knowing where my weaknesses were, and I wanted to get my hands on some listening materials such as watching kid shows, Youtubers, and listening to podcasts and music to stimulate me. I progressed with my Spanish quite nicely before adjusting my strategy after I picked up German.

The German Challenge

When I was in church later that year, I met my good friend, Marvin, from Germany. We were both volunteering with the creative production team and talked about how I was trying to pick up Spanish for the next Spanish service. During that same conversation, he told me it was great that I was trying to learn a third language, but he was from Germany, and his language was really hard. I took this as a challenge because I was curious about what made German a difficult language to learn. Anyone who truly knows me will tell you how my curiosity gets the best of me, and I also appreciate a good challenge. German was also a language that fascinated me because it was hard and felt almost like a test of my true intelligence if I managed to master it. Living in Los Angeles at the time, Spanish was of use to me, and I didn’t want to drop Spanish just so I could pick up German, so I had to devise a strategy to learn both simultaneously.

Spanish & German Simultaneously

When I first started learning German and Spanish, I paid for a premium subscription to Spanishpod101.com and Germanpod101.com (both owned by Innovative Languages), which I discovered through their YouTube channels. My initial strategy was to alternate languages every other day with my online subscriptions and YouTube videos. I even wrote in my day planner which days I would devote to each language. However, I realized that by the time I got a handle on one concept, I had to turn around and completely switch gears the next day, so I started switching every week to give myself more time to process each language. Codeswitching happened a lot, especially since the Spanish language is similar to French while German pronunciation is similar to French.

The main challenge with learning both languages was doing so on top of my student workload. As a solution, my strategy was to find time early in the morning, since I was already used to getting up between 4 and 5 am, to watch instructional videos during my morning routine; as a way to learn something new while enjoying breakfast in peace. After a while, I did fall out of the pattern because I got bored with instructional content and started looking for ways to apply the language rather than just having the language in my head. I started finding films and series on Netflix through recommendations from friends who happened to be native speakers of both languages and actively seeking out music I enjoyed to enrich my experience. Eventually, I had the confidence to test out my German with my friend from church and speak Spanish whenever I heard someone speaking it. I would change my phone’s language settings every week depending on what I was studying!

Over time, I discovered what worked best for my lifestyle and found a rhythm. Marvin told me he learned English by always having it in the background. I took his advice because I was busy! I was in the studio working for hours a day, so I found portable learning material that I could passively listen to, like podcasts or music, to keep myself exposed to the language. As I was working, I started worrying less about whether I understood and stopped translating in my head. If I had any free time to relax, I would use LyricsTraining as a fun way to practice listening comprehension, and day by day, I got better.

Lessons Learned

In the end, there’s no excuse not to learn a new language if it’s something you really desire! It takes time to learn any new skill, but you must actively make the time! I found ways to merge it with my schedule, so I didn’t feel like I was making an extra effort, and made it fun. It’s also important to find what works best for you because my strategies and resources may not work the same way they did for me so that it will be a trial and error process in the beginning, and it’s so worth it. I’ll never forget the day I was in a Lyft carpool and understood the whole conversation between the Guatemalan driver and the Puerto Rican passenger, conducting casual conversations when I was in Mexico and later on becoming an Au Pair in Germany four years later. There was a time after college when I used to drive for Lyft and met someone who spoke German on the phone. When I spoke back to him in German, he gave me his business card and told me to reach out if I wanted to work for a German company because they’re always looking for German speakers. Stop putting it off! You never know what opportunities can pop up!