manamama

I live in northern spain with my husband who works here and our children.

Now the children have settled, speak the language well and have friends with other Spanish children, but for me its a struggle. It's a struggle because I am not fluent yet although its only been 8 months.

I love living up here but I feel that I will never be fluent and have a real "friend" to talk to. It can be lonely day to day.

Does it take long to get to the fluent stage? What are other people's experience? How can I speed up learning?

Thanks.

Casa Santo Estevo

Welcome to this forum.
It does depend on your skills. One of us took longer than the other.
There are a few posters from Galicia but there are none from over the border!

Veleta

It's a piece of string question.

To be honest, if you all speak English with each other at home then it will take you many, many, many years to become fluent. If you have Sky TV, add another few more years to that too.

On the other hand, if you are studying the grammar, and practice speaking only Spanish for several hours a day then you'll feel confident within a fairly short period of time. And by short a mean a year or two (assuming you started from zero).

Tell us what practice you are putting in....how many hours a day do you speak Spanish v English? How much studying are you doing? How many hours Spanish tv do you watch daily?

Xabiero

Totally agree. If someone wants to be a fluent in the language then they could do no worse than to watch local television, in particular quiz shows with their repetitive phrases. Stick on the subtitles on Teletext, have a dictionary within reach and things should improve markedly in a few weeks. Not watching English-language TV like Sky would be beneficial as well. It can be difficult at first but we've not had English TV for over seven years and our own language fluency improved rapidly. Also handy is to have little Post-It notes around the house with the Spanish translations for everyday items. Speak Spanish to each other, even if it might be wrong, to encourage confidence in using the language. Best of all, frequenct a local bar, get to know the owners and the regulars and then your fluency will shoot through the roof ...

John C

cricketman

agree 100% with the others. With full immersion it will be maybe 2 years. If your house is completely English with English TV, books and newspapers, maybe you'll never be fluent

whitelinen

John am I correct in thinking you live in Javea?

Xabiero

Indeed I do.

John C

spain

its depends in you lifestyle as alreayd has been said

my oh put in many hours daily studying books ( he had only a couple of lessons) but was immersed in Spanish daily because of work so had no choice but to learn

I on the other hand had lots of lessons but lacked self confidence

I believe you have to throw yourself in at the deep end. We did have more Spanish friends than English and socialised with the parents from our sons football team for example....a downside to that was that on many occasions they spoke to each other in Valenciano and assumed we could understand at timesw e could but other times we were totally lost !! ...ont know if you would have that issue where you are ?

hang in there, its a big step moving to another country and learning a new language, give yourself time

Chiclanagir

I personally don´t think it is the language issue. It is the friendship issue. Okay you can become fluent - after five years I am not but can hold a conversation with my neighbours, have a Spanish friend etc but real friendship goes much deeper and it takes time and common interests. My daughter lived in Sydney for nearly two years and then out of the blue she phoned up and said she was coming home because she wanted to be with people who really knew her. We can all have a lot of aquaintances but it is the real friends who are important. It is all very well to learn the language and very important but you need to make friends quickly. Are there any groups there that you could join? An exercise class or a Spanish language group? Anything really to get out and meet people. One of my best friends here I met at the hairdressers four years ago just by striking up a conversation about going to Spanish lessons. I now don´t know what I would do without her. I also think it is far more important for women to have friends than for men especially in the low times.

manamama

Thanks for the replies.

I have spanish tv on most of the time - but don't get to sit and watch much. Maybe half an hour a day if I'm lucky plus the kids like their cartoons on Clan.

I used to be quite good at studying - mainly when the kids were at school and I was in a good routine. However the past month they have been off and so has my studying. I am just so tired. Perhaps I just need to get myself motivated again. I did do some yesterday for about an hour.

We do speak together as a family in English at home - I might try the idea of speaking just spanish together.

I do have opportunity to practice my spanish. My kid's have a great social life and when I meet up with the other mum's, I can't make much conversation because I don't know all the words to express myself. So frustrating!

Also, I have tried to find a tutor but none in my town. There is one 8 km away down the motorway but until the kids are back at school, I can't get to.

If it takes 2 years or so to become fluent that would be encouraging. It seems at the moment it's never going to happen.

jdr

You only need to learn enough to be comfortable, I would say it is very hard for a foreigner to be fluent.
Keep speaking with the other mums, I am sure they will help out if you mention it to them, the more conversations you have the easier it will get. ;-)

twistedmelon

Can't add more to the language issue,however, what is a "real friend"?
I could never replace the pals in UK so comparing is pointless, so you settle for good acquaintances.
It's a trade off when you move.

All the best

cricketman

I think it's a bit different in Asturias than on the coast. If you dont speak good/fluent Spanish in Astrurias you literally have noone to talk to. There are no English communities there.

Not only that, the Spanish people there arent used to speaking to foreigners, so your Spanish has to better in order for them to understand you.

So there is no hiding place, but the positive side is you have to improve your langauge to make it work... so you will make the effort

manamama

Spot on!

I need to get to a certain level of Spanish to be understood and to understand!

Before we came, I hoped to find a tutor or find some English speakers - it is so unlike the costas - I am literally on my own and there is no hiding place.

Thanks for your replies.

bil

It all depends on what you describe as fluent. My experience has always been that the more seriously you take the language, the more fluency evades you, because it always seems to be out of reach. There will always be people you can't understand, words you don't know and grammar that you haven't grasped.

Don't let that put you off. Back when I was learning German, when I used to struggle and get disheartened, my tutor used to stop the lesson and go back 5 lessns or so. After that he would point out that a month or so ago I found that hard.

I learnt an important lesson from that, and I hope you do to. Don't mark your progress by what you can't do. Look back and be amazed at how far you have come.

If it is any help, look for patterns in grammar that make learning easy and memorable.

I was wrestling with the preterit a while back, and spotted something that I never spotted before. There's a bunch of verbs that are very irregular in the preterit, and I could not get a handle on them until I spotted that they were all in pairs and trios.

Anadar, estar and tener > anduve, estuve and tuve
Conducir, decir and traer > conduje, dije and traje
caber & saber > cupe & supe
haber & poder > hube & pude
Poner and Querer > puse& quise
Hacer & venir > hice & vine
Dar and ver > di & vi

Patterns like that make learning a lot easier.