How to Learn Spanish

Hola,

When learning a language, people often hit a barrier at a certain point. I think it usually happens at a pretty advanced point and it has been happening to my friends and me here. There's a point were you say to yourself "I've been trying hard for so long, why am I not better at this?"

If you consider two people who both want to become "fluent" in a language, but one is starting from scratch and one has been studying the language for 9 years, I think person starting from scratch is going to feel more "successful" at learning the language. Consider a single day of studying, where a beginner reads 5 pages of a book and learns 30 new words. The person who has been studying the language for 9 years might read 50 pages of a book and learn 10 new words. The beginner feels great, like he or she is making lots of progress. The later feels like, "great, I know 10 new words, why am I still not fluent? Even if I did this everyday for a year, would I still not be fluent? probably."

What I'm noting here is that once you have learned the grammar, some basic vocab etc. you have to change your strategy for learning the language otherwise you slow down your progress and feel frusterated. I've been feeling this way lately. I learned the beginning material (hola, como estás etc.) I learned the grammar (even complicated subjunctive, pluscuamperfecto etc.) I even know how to say fancy words like meticulous (minucioso) or obscure words like mud flap (guardabarros). If I want to be fluent now, I need to change my focus (not leave altogether, but shift focus) from vocabulary and grammar, to conversation and practice. I need to actively listen to the words that natives use (the equivalents to "like." "um," "ok") and start using them myself. I need to listen to the letters in the words that they pronounce here and imitate that. I need to listen to the inflection of their voices while speaking certain phrases or sentences. I need to see what is uniform accross the board in terms of how they speak, and what changes as a result of personal style o emphasis. I don't know what else, but these are the things I'm thinking about these days. I'm trying to figure out what I can focus my efforts towards so that I can keep making process towards beginning "fluent." PS I don't like that word, I think its vague and means different things all the time, but what I'm refering to is the point where people listen to me with ease and maybe, just maybe, might mistake me for a hispanohablante from ANY country. :) Veremos si logro eso.

Hasta luego,
Katie