Fundamentals were always difficult for me, not because the concepts themselves were tough but rather I found most resources very boring. Years of taking Spanish as a second language in school produced nothing more than a kid who could ask ¿Cómo estás? or ¿Cómo te llamas?. Textbooks and workbooks have, so far, proven to not be for me. That might change in the future, I don't know but when it came to Spanish it wasn't happening. One day I stumbled across these free courses under the name Language Transfer.
What is Language Transfer?
As a concept in linguistics, language transfer is when linguistic features of one language are applied to another. With respect to the free courses I'm writing about in this article, the creator uses this idea to his advantage and tries to teach Spanish to English speakers by relating it to their native language in some way. An example would be that one can take many -al ending words in English and simply pronounce them phonetically and they are left with their Spanish equivalent like metal, normal, literal, or formal to name a few. I believe in this case I'm talking about cogantes but that's not always the case in the this course. He also explains many concepts in Spanish grammar in layman terms with practical examples. I find it nice to not have found myself drowned in grammatical jargon. An interesting thing about these lessons is that the listener is observing the creator as he teaches these concepts to a student, giving her explanations of concepts with examples, and then giving her challenges in accordance with what was taught. The idea is you can pause and come up with the correct response on your own before the student and see if you are correct. I found it fun and effective. In total there about 90 audio tracks with the longest being shy of 15 minutes long but the majority being less than 10 minutes long. I did them over the course of a few months and practiced identifying the concepts in what I read and listened to, and when I spoke I tried to apply what I thought was appropriate. Sometimes I was correct, other times I wasn't but that's how you learn.
Did Language Transfer Help Me?
This is not hyperbole: I believe Language Transfer was the best tool I had to get started learning Spanish fundamentals. I think without it, it would've taken much longer and I would've gone through perhaps more boring/ less engaging resources until the information finally stuck. If you're interested in learning Spanish I highly recommend this resource, or at least giving it a try. It is free after all. I'm going to dedicate time in the future to really learn another language beyond the basics and I'll likely use Language Transfer again to build my fundamentals. There's an app out there I believe, but I never used it. On the site, which I linked above and I'll link again below, there are 9 free language courses and an Intro to Music course. I'll have to check that last one out. If the quality of those courses is half as good as the intro to Spanish course, they're worth my time. Having 9 language fundamentals for free at your fingertips is like massive amounts of life DLC waiting to be unlocked. All you gotta do is start the mission.
freddydrew
commented
11 months ago
Fundamentals were always difficult for me, not because the concepts themselves were tough but rather I found most resources very boring. Years of taking Spanish as a second language in school produced nothing more than a kid who could ask ¿Cómo estás? or ¿Cómo te llamas?. Textbooks and workbooks have, so far, proven to not be for me. That might change in the future, I don't know but when it came to Spanish it wasn't happening. One day I stumbled across these free courses under the name Language Transfer.
What is Language Transfer?
As a concept in linguistics, language transfer is when linguistic features of one language are applied to another. With respect to the free courses I'm writing about in this article, the creator uses this idea to his advantage and tries to teach Spanish to English speakers by relating it to their native language in some way. An example would be that one can take many -al ending words in English and simply pronounce them phonetically and they are left with their Spanish equivalent like metal, normal, literal, or formal to name a few. I believe in this case I'm talking about cogantes but that's not always the case in the this course. He also explains many concepts in Spanish grammar in layman terms with practical examples. I find it nice to not have found myself drowned in grammatical jargon. An interesting thing about these lessons is that the listener is observing the creator as he teaches these concepts to a student, giving her explanations of concepts with examples, and then giving her challenges in accordance with what was taught. The idea is you can pause and come up with the correct response on your own before the student and see if you are correct. I found it fun and effective. In total there about 90 audio tracks with the longest being shy of 15 minutes long but the majority being less than 10 minutes long. I did them over the course of a few months and practiced identifying the concepts in what I read and listened to, and when I spoke I tried to apply what I thought was appropriate. Sometimes I was correct, other times I wasn't but that's how you learn.
Did Language Transfer Help Me?
This is not hyperbole: I believe Language Transfer was the best tool I had to get started learning Spanish fundamentals. I think without it, it would've taken much longer and I would've gone through perhaps more boring/ less engaging resources until the information finally stuck. If you're interested in learning Spanish I highly recommend this resource, or at least giving it a try. It is free after all. I'm going to dedicate time in the future to really learn another language beyond the basics and I'll likely use Language Transfer again to build my fundamentals. There's an app out there I believe, but I never used it. On the site, which I linked above and I'll link again below, there are 9 free language courses and an Intro to Music course. I'll have to check that last one out. If the quality of those courses is half as good as the intro to Spanish course, they're worth my time. Having 9 language fundamentals for free at your fingertips is like massive amounts of life DLC waiting to be unlocked. All you gotta do is start the mission.
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