Are You Listening?

In the states, high school and college foreign language classes are beneficial for helping students learn things (for example - verbs, nouns & adjectives, and common expressions).

When I was preparing to leave undergrad, I was very aware of things my foreign language classes left me still needing to learn. Specifically, after four years of formal high school and college classes, I remained unable to actually communicate in Spanish!

With all the foreign language teachers and other tools I encountered while trying to learn Spanish stateside, it seems no one ever emphasize the importance of listening practice. That is, filling one's ears with sounds of native speakers using the phrases and words I had experienced only on textbook pages or verbally from the mouths of fellow Americans who don't come close to producing the sound of a native speaker's speech.

Without learning how to hear speech from native speakers, a person will never reach the goal of communicating in the language.

As a new resident of Central America last summer, speech I heard in Honduras was so unintelligible to my ears that it made me question whether Hondurans spoke the same language I had studied for four years!

But now, I know the ear needs to develop familiarity with the way the language sounds in real life verbal conversations and communications.

And I have learned that this requires a lot of exposure and time. And patience. And faith.