For those of you who successfully maintain and improve a non-English language while living in the US: how do you do it? My spouse doesn't speak Spanish, and perpetual weekly classes is $$. Looking for ideas!
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I got really discouraged after traveling in October and discovering I couldn't understand much. I stopped classes and can tell I'm losing words.
But I felt better when my mom told me she didn't understand anything in some places either despite Spanish being her native tongue.19 replies 0 retweets 36 likesShow this thread -
Replying to @__apf__
I am in this boat too, and the thing that helps me more than anything is reading literature. The trick for my brain is to exericise odd corners of the vocabulary and more broad features of the language, so reading news/nonfiction is not enough. But it was a godsend in my teens.
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There is so much stress and emotion with feeling like you're losing a native tongue, but it's all in there somewhere, and just a question of bringing it back out of cold mental storage! I'm reading fancy books right now to try to overcome six years without any immersion.
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I haven't tried YouTube, but it's probably equally helpful and I should add it in. My theory (perhaps a fantasy, but one I cling to) is that if a native speaker can keep listening/reading fluency, the writing and speaking will come back with practice when that's available.
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I wrote that assuming you're a native speaker from other stuff you've said; I think the strategy is different for proficiency in languages you aren't native in, but in either case you can't go wrong with a boatload of carefully chosen reading. And now to follow my own advice...
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