Quickest way to Advanced-mid Spanish

[GrayM]

Hello all. I’m considering a career change, and a medical interpreter certificate would be beneficial to me. To even begin the process of obtaining that, I would have to speak Spanish at the advanced-mid level on the ACTFL scale. What is the quickest route to get there?

To give a little background about myself, I graduated with a degree in Spanish Language and Literature five years ago. When I graduated I spoke spanish at the intermediate-high/advanced-low level per the ACTFL scale but I feel like my language skills have slipped since then.

My fiancé is from Guatemala, but she is way to critical of my Spanish to actually help. I tend to be a visual leaner and have started reading “The Little House on the Prairie” books in Spanish. That seems to be improving things (my fiancé agrees) but I would love more suggestions.

Thanks for your time!

Gray

[golyplot]

That depends a lot on your time and resources.

Quickest is probably some combination of full time immersion with intensive tutoring and studying. But that's generally not an option for most people.


Anyway, I think the real secret to language learning is that there is no secret. What you do matters a lot less than how much you do it. What you really need is dedication and perseverance. The rest is just a matter of figuring out what works for you.

[Querneus]

In the opinion of golyplot, me and many other people here (although not all), speed in language learning is mostly a function of how many hours you actually spend studying, reviewing, doing exercises, getting exposure by watching movies/TV/the news, talking to people, etc. If the language has similar vocabulary, that's usually a big advantage (and you do have it by coming into Spanish from an English base, a Mandarin monolingual speaker would have a harder time).

Studying Spanish full-time and actually sticking to it for most of the day would give you the largest gains, but that is often not an option. So otherwise try to replace much of what you do every day with language learning, to an extent where you still feel sane so you can keep going for the long term. Best not to get too frustrated about the pace either, taking two to four years (or even more depending on how much you study) to reach the mid-intermediate level is normal, especially if it's your first time learning a language.

I think romantic partners usually make bad language teachers or tutors, but they're good for getting to know a culture better (by explaining it in English) and to get more incidental exposure (in your case, whenever she does things like talking to her relatives or posting in Spanish online).

[iguanamon]

Given your prior background in Spanish, I would suggest continuing to getting back into reading books- novels; biographies; non-fiction; the daily news in Spanish; blogs; twitter; facebook. Also, you should start watching a television series on a regular basis and listen to something on a daily basis. I would add in formal study of grammar. I would recommend the Gramática de uso del Español B1-B2 course. It's reasonably priced and helps a learner to get a better grasp on grammar. GDUDE is monolingual. The FSI Spanish Basic Course has grammar drills galore. Either of these two courses combined with reading, listening and speaking/writing.

You don't mention your time frame, but I don't think there's much you can do to accelerate the learning process. Hopefully, your previous knowledge will return as you spend more time with the language. I agree with the previous posters. There's no defined formula. The more time you can spend with Spanish, the more that will come back to you. Then, you can advance beyond where you were through a continued combination of study and daily language use. Being consistent and persistent are key components in any language-learning process.

I lived with a native Portuguese-speaker and we spoke Portuguese with each other as our language. We met in Portuguese and she did not speak English at the time. So, Portuguese was our default language. It felt awkward for both of us to speak English with each other. It can be difficult to switch languages with a significant other. There can be frustration on both sides, especially when there's a big imbalance in skills. If you two can negotiate time to speak only in Spanish with each other around the house, as long as it doesn't harm your relationship, it will help. If not, there are always language exchanges and online voip tutors.

[Querneus]

By the way, after reading iguanamon's post, I realized I somehow completely skipped the second paragraph of your opening post. If it seemed to you like I was condescendingly talking to you as someone with no experience learning Spanish, that's because I genuinely (but mistakenly) thought you were just beginning to study it, and I meant no condescension.

[GrayM]

Thanks for the replies! After doing some more research, it appears that I’m eligible to take the interpreter class and test based on my college course work.

Obviously I still need to work on my Spanish. I have access to all five levels of Pimsleur through their app for $20 a month. I’m blowing though three or four of lessons a day as a refresher and continuing to read in Spanish.

I was probably a little hard on my fiancé. While she is certainly not the most patient teacher, she is supportive and we’re making a point to speak in Spanish a little each day.

Thanks for the replies.