| I recently read an email by Matt Archer (from Matt vs Japan). It was about how our native language gets in the way of our second language, especially when consuming content such as video, social media, etc. Here’s the YouTube version of it.
His point was that language learners tend to avoid using native fun content in their target language, because there’s more interesting content to watch in their first language. This also applies to Spanish learners. Instead of watching something in Spanish, you watch something in English (or your native language). The key is to find compelling, interesting content in Spanish. This is such an important topic that I created an entire course around it. It’s called “Tus dos pódcast en español” (the same principle applies to podcast, books, etc). What if instead of forcing yourself to watch Spanish content you don’t like so much you spent more time in finding compelling content in the language? If you’re watching something on Netflix in your first language and you don’t like it, you’re not making yourself watch it until the end just because you started it. You find something else. Same with books. Even Jorge Luis Borges encouraged readers to abandon and stop reading books they found boring, regardless of how classic, how famous or important they were. You have permission from Borges to drop them! This also applies to the Spanish Novels. If you happen to dislike them, try a new one. That’s one of the reasons I used different Spanish dialects (Rioplatense, Neutral, European) and wrote in a variety of genres. If you wanna check them out, here are the bundle packages (from A1 to C2): |
Are you addicted to English content?
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About the Author: Walter Freiberg
Author of the Spanish Novels Series (aka. Paco Ardit). I help Spanish learners increase their reading and listening skills through graded readers, audiobooks, and digital products. My personal website: www.walterfreiberg.com.