Curlnology: Spanish

Living in Spain is one of the most amazing things I have ever done in my life. Apart from having dreams to study and live abroad, Spain is the country that I am so interested to since I was a child. For example, I had followed a radio program that tought Spanish when I was in elementary school. My favorite international football team is Spain (and also Germany, ahem), plus I adore their best goalkeeper, Iker Casillas.

Years had passed, I tried to learn Spanish again when I was in college, but sadly I couldn't continue until I was trying to apply for a scholarship in Spain, which was happened in 2017. Without thinking that I would get the scholarship, I started to learn Spanish more serious. I bought Spanish exercise books and enrolled to a Spanish course for 3 months. A month later, after finishing the course, I got the big news; bam, I got the scholarship!

All those small traces apparently had led me to achieve one of my dreams; studying and living abroad, especially in Spain.

*sound of vinyl scratching*

Anyway, I have been living in Jaén for almost 2 years and 9 months in Mallorca. I live in Jaén for studying (obviously) since 2017, meanwhile I was doing au pair in Mallorca meanwhile finishing my TFM (final project of my study) this year. During my stay in both places, apparently I have adapted some habits that I have never done before when I was in Indonesia, my home country.

Inspired by this video, it really intrigues me that I can totally relate to his situation. He clearly has been living in Spain much longer than me, but there are two points that make me say, "That's exactly what happened to me!" So, what are those two points? In this post, I would tell you the first point.

1. Spanish is slipping into my English

I rarely speak in English when I live in Jaén. Sometimes I speak with my friends from Colombia and Kazakhstan, or anyone who only speaks English. Meanwhile in Mallorca, I speak in English more because I teach English to a kid. Therefore, since I speak in Spanish more often here, I notice something interesting... I often slip Spanish words into my speech when I speak in English! Also, I have lost count of times when I accidentally respond something in Spanish when I am in situation that I should have spoken in English or even in Bahasa Indonesia.

When I realized that I started to mix them more than once, at first I thought my head was screwed up, hahaha. Well, there were a bunch of funny moments when I did that. As a starter, there were moments where my mind thought in one of the language, but when I spoke, I said it in other language!

When my friend asked me what to do when we were cooking Indonesian foods, I told her, "Only mezcla!" (mezclar means to mix, so I tried to say "Only mix it!")
When I told my age to a family, "Este año, tengo veinti six años!"
When I spoke in English with a friend from Brazil, I accidentally said, "this night" instead of "tonight", because in Spanish I'd have said "esta noche".
When I was in an ice cream shop in Regensburg (Germany) with my friends, the shopkeeper asked me in English if I wanted a cone or not, I answered, "Sí! Eh, I mean, yes!" We immediately laughed, and surprisingly the shopkeeper was an Italian!

Next is the moments where I mix my speech in English with Spanish words. I spontaneously do it because it already becomes a habit for me, looking how many times I say those words...

Whenever I respond someone in English, I ALWAYS begin it with, "Bueno, ..." (In English, it is equivalent to "Well, ...")
Whenever I respond someone in English as an affirmative, I ALWAYS say, "Vale, ..." (In English, it is equivalent to "Okay, ...")
Whenever I ask to make sure about something, I end the sentence by saying, "..., no?" (In Spanish, sometimes the interrogative sentence ends with "no?" or "verdad?", which is equivalent to "..., right?", "..., isn't it?", "aren't you/they?". When you end the interrogative sentence in English by saying, "no?", it doesn't make any sense, right?)

Not only that, this learning process also makes me adapting some manners of speaking that I have learnt from the environment where I live and people I interact with. What does it mean? Well, based on my observation and daily interaction with people here, Spaniards often do these things when they respond to something that are confusing or difficult, and unwittingly, I also do them on a daily basis!

Saying "Uff..."
Saying "Buah!"

Nowadays, when I am surprised or responding to a complex question, I say those words more often. As much as I can remember my whole life, I could say that I start saying those words only when I am in Spain. Of course, in Bahasa Indonesia, usually I would respond with, "Wah!" or "Waduh!" and it's very common to say there.

Another obvious example that has huge influence when you live in a certain region is the accent or dialect, which I already talk about it on this post (it's in Bahasa Indonesia, I think I will write the English version!). Andalucía region is famous for its distinctive accent and dialect. Meanwhile, Jaén is part of the comunidad autónoma Andalucía. By living and talking to local people here, their accent and dialect clearly have affected mine. Then, when I live in Mallorca, I can notice the differences. (We're gonna talk about this later, okay?)

No matter how funny or silly the outcomes are when I start slipping Spanish into my English, it's such a fascinating experience when I learn a new language then adjust it with the other languages that I've understood. So far I fluently speak Bahasa Indonesia (native language), English, and Spanish. I use three of them on a daily basis, which is an interesting process when I have to switch them when I speak to certain persons. It is undeniable that I would mix all of them by accident, but it doesn't matter! I really enjoy this process and I wouldn't stop learning more Spanish (and also English!).

So, what is the second point?
I'll give a clue: it's about swearing!

Hasta luego!

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I want to share a little bit about how I learn Spanish from the beginning until now; the moment I continue my study in Spain. And for sure, the lectures are fully in Spanish. All of my professors and classmates are Spanish native speakers. I can say that it's a very interesting journey to learn Spanish during my stay here, since every one has their own accent and dialect.

So I started to learn Spanish more seriously on February 2017. I already have huge interest in learning Spanish since I was studying in my first university. One day I bought a Spanish book for beginner, and it all began from there.

Actually, I don't learn Spanish only from one source. I used some additional tools which helped me so much during my process to learn Spanish. For instance, I installed some language applications and watched videos on Youtube.

I should remind you that learning new language in such old age (above twenty years old) is not easy. Once I learnt Japanese when I was in high school (because it was one of my subjects in school) for three years, but now all I can do is writing in hiragana and katakana, also reading some of them without recognizing the meaning. I didn't practice Japanese more after I graduated high school. What a loss, right?

At this moment I learn Spanish, to be honest I am still struggling to remember the tenses because they have 14 tenses (7 simple tenses and 7 compound tenses) that have different terms and use based on the time.

Books

I have several books to work on besides the books that I used during my Spanish course. I try to do the exercises everyday so I could understand better.

Colorín Colorado is the first Spanish book that I bought years ago. It was written full in Spanish because the writer is from Spain. Fun fact: she was the one who translated my documents into Spanish when I proceed my visa application. It was a huge coincidence, because when I got her contact to translate my document, it reminded me about the book I had. When I asked her, she confirmed that she was the writer!
Spanish Vocabulary also helps me A LOT to learn new vocabularies. The exercises are great, I have to translate from English to Spanish, then I have to write sentences in Spanish, also I have to read many passages that included in every chapter.
501 Spanish Verbs is a book that I use to enrich my knowledge of verbs in Spanish because learning verbs are extremely important. In summary, there are 3 main types of verbs in Spanish: -ar, -ir, -er, then depends on what tenses I use, the ending will be changed. I haven't mentioned the regular and irregular verbs, tho.
Espanol Nivel Basicos helps me to learn tenses, new vocabulary, and to do listening comprehension because it included CD to listen to the narrator speaking in Spanish.
Spanish Grammar. As it said on the cover, mainly it's about grammar but it also has brief explanation about tenses and verbs.
Etapas 1. This is the nook that I got from my Spanish course in LBI UI for level A1.1. It has basic lessons for beginner (mainly it contains basic vocabularies), but trust me, it was the "foundation" for me to understand the basic Spanish.
Aula 3: Book that I bought for my Spanish course in the CEALM, a language institute in my university. This book is for those who are already in the level B1.1.
Collins Spanish-English Dictionary. This dictionary helps me find some words in Spanish-English and English-Spanish.

Video

I subscribe to a Youtube channel, the name is Butterfly Spanish. I'd say that I rarely subscribe to any Youtube channel. This one is the exception because it does help me to learn Spanish because she explains about nouns, tenses, verb, and vocabularies very well and very simple.

Applications

Learning language
Who doesn't know Duolingo? This famous application really helped me during my first time learning Spanish, especially to help me introducing to a lot of new vocabularies. Then I also used Memrise; the learning method on this application is kinda unique for me. They also input some videos of native speakers talking some sentences, so you can learn how they spell it.

Online Dictionary

I use spanishdict.com A LOT. Even when I am in class, I frequently use it because I really need to translate the words I never heard of before. I like this one better than Google Translate because they can recognize the words with different meaning based on the context. But I won't deny that Google translate helps me to translate some of larger sentences. I use both of them because sometimes one of them does right, sometimes not.

Listen to Podcasts

To be honest, I didn't do this one that much because I was concentrating more to add new vocabularies and tenses as many as I can into my brain. I kinda regret not to do this often because listening skill is undoubtedly important.

Speak with native speakers

This is actually one of the crucial things to improve your language skills; talking with native speakers. It will help you to practice your speaking and listening skills, also enrich your vocabularies! Well, I can meet native speakers everyday here, but how to handle this issue if you can't meet any Spanish native speakers?

Thanks to technology, you can use an application. I installed Tandem and I could find some native speakers there to talk to, so you can get used to speak/read/listen in Spanish better.

Take a Spanish course

I don't think this part is very crucial for some of you, but for me, this is actually influences my skills significantly, especially my first teacher was from Madrid; she's a native speaker and people from Madrid are known for their clarity on pronunciation. I can tell you that the people from northern Spain and southern Spain (especially Andalucía) have distinctive accent and dialect. You can read my previous post about how people in Andalucía mostly "eat the letter".

If you are really serious to learn Spanish, I think by taking a course, it will help you to improve your skill (also if you think that learning only by yourself is not enough).

I took a Spanish course in LBI UI Salemba from April to June 2017. That time I took level A1.1, the basic course because I want to learn from the beginning. Remember, this part is not obligatory; you can take it if you really consider that taking a course is going to help you better to learn new language.

Then since my course ended on June, I started to learn Spanish by myself because I already had the basic; I did the exercises everyday from the books and applications. On September, I moved to Spain, I talked more in Spanish, and few days I just stayed in Jaén, I had to take a placement test for my Spanish course. I was extremely nervous because I only spent few times learning Spanish, plus I will have all my class in Spanish. Thankfully, after days talking in Spanish with my flatmates, I got placement in level B1.1. I think I wouldn't have made it if I didn't practice a lot before.

Now I am still in the process of learning Spanish, my class is extremely challenging because you know, language barrier is real and I have to keep up with the progress because my study here is only one year and I have to start working on my thesis this month.

You can learn new language from any devices or tools; now technology is your savior to learn new language; use them wisely and it will give you a lot of advantages. Happy learning!

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1. Spanish is slipping into my English

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