Over the last few months I have had numerous recommendations to check out the One Semester of Spanish Love Song.  "Hilarious"…." You’ve Gotta See This"…. "its sooooo funny"

Well I finally got round to checking it out…and I am glad I did.

Watch this clip courtesy of YouTube and see what all fuss is about. 

And just so there is a learning point to this video - see how much of what Mike says (sings) you can understand.

It is a great demonstration of how to speak Spanish, there are some Spanish numbers and of course lots of words in Spanish.

Utterly brilliant…

Have you ever met someone from another country who speaks really good English and you find that they have a very "English" name like Sarah or David?  And when you think about their country of origin their name does not appear to be typical of that country’s language?

Ever wondered why that was?

Well there are a number of reasons why it could be the case:

Why People Use Names Other Than Their Own From Other Countries

1.   One of their parents was a native English speaker and so they have two names (my mother certainly did - her mother was English and Father was from Kashmir and her name was Valerie Rabya)

2.   Their parents might have liked the name and wanted something different from what was usual in their country when they were born.

3.   They might be a spy and living under a psuedonym (possible but rare these days)

4.   They might be undergoing an identity crisis (still possible but also rare, though not as unlikely as the "sleeper" option)

5.   They might be using the English equivalent of their name

6.   They are using an English name because their own is either too difficult to pronounce for the average English speaker or they have just got tired or trying to explain it.

Whilst this last option is a common reason for non-native speakers to use a native name, I am meeting more and more people who go under different  versions of their own name when they are in different countries.

Why would they do this?

Assuming a Spanish Identity Makes You More Spanish

Well one great reason is that just as you might log on to different forums and social networking sites under different names and be "someone else" - or is that just me? - then by going under the Spanish version of your name, you can begin to become "more Spanish".

For me, "Miguel" is the Spanish Equivalent of "Michael".  Now when I am "Michael" (from Manchester maybe) and I am trying to ask for a drink in a bar I will speak with an obvious gringo accent, I will order my words like an Englishman, I will think like an Englishman.

However, when I am Miguel (perhaps from Madrid or Mexico), my accent and pronunciation is better, I think latino, I structure my sentences like a Spaniard or a Chilean - I become more Spanish.

Now this might seem a little odd but it really does work.  They more "latin" you feel, the more likely you are to do "latin" stuff, which includes speaking the language more latin and it starts with what we call ourselves.

Call it acting if you like but our ability to speak Spanish is closely allied to the image we have of ourselves as a Spanish speaker.  Now if I continue to call myself "Michael" then my image is still closely linked to my Englishness.  But when I call my self Miguel, my self image is much more aligned to my "Spanish-ness".

In terms of behavioural psychology, our performance in anything we do in our lives is closely related to the identity we have about the way we perform.  So for example if you play golf and you have a 22 handicap this is going to be linked to the way you perceive and believe yourself to be as a golfer.   If you want to shift your performance then you have to shift the way you perceive and believe yourself to be.  A great way to do that is to start with changing what you call yourself. 

Now changing your name to Tiger Woods is not going to automatically turn you into a Masters Champion.  However if you carry the identity in your mind that you are "like" Tiger Woods, then you will start to "be" a little more "Tiger Woods-ish" and your performance will improve, even if it is just a little.

When You Become More "Spanish", Your Spanish Gets Better

And the same can and will work as you strive to learn to become ever more fluent in Spanish.

Whilst you carry round the identity of someone who is English (or American or Australian etc) then you will think, speak, talk and act like an English person (or American, Australian etc).  Shift that identity just a little by using the Spanish equivalent of your name, and "becoming" more Spanish, then you will see an improvement in your use of your new language.

So why not try it?

If you haven’t a clue what your Spanish name is then why not have a look at this forum post about Spanish names and their English equivalents.  You will find loads of examples.  Yours might be there, I know mine was. 

Either watch this short video or read the article below to find out how you can help guarantee achieving your New Year’s Resolution if it is to learn Spanish

Happy New Year to you and welcome to 2008. I trust you had a good 2007 and I hope that 2008 will be even better for you. So January 1st 2008….another year…..a fresh start. It is time to think about what we want to do in the next 12 months if we haven’t already done so. After the possible excesses of last night it is perhaps time to set your New Year’s Resolution. Will it be giving up the demon drink (especially if you are still hung over from last night)?

Do you want to lose weight or exercise more?
Perhaps your New Year’s Resolution is to give up smoking?

You might have several goals that you want to achieve this year and one of them might be Learning Spanish.

Of course this site is dedicated to those of us who want to learn or are actually learning Spanish so I am going to focus on that as I talk about Resolutions for the New Year. However what I am going to tell you will apply to just about any goal you have set for yourself at the beginning of the year. Chances are, unless you follow these recommendations I am about to share with you, you will FAIL in achieving what you have set out to achieve.

The Two Ways To Set A Learning Spanish Resolution Now if you have set Learning Spanish as your New Year Resolution then there are two possible situations:

   1. You have never learnt Spanish before and you want to give it a go
   2. You have tried learning Spanish in the past and want to start again.

Either way congratulations on setting a worthy and laudable goal. There are many great reasons to pick up Spanish as a second or third language. Now how have you set your goal? Have you set an outcome resolution or a process resolution?
Let me explain.

If you have said as part of your New Year’s Resolution that you want to learn to speak and understand Spanish, then that is an outcome you want to reach. You want to be able to converse in Spanish and understand what is being said to you. If however you have said that you want to learn some new Spanish every single day then that is a process goal. You have defined the process of doing something every single day as part of your resolution. Many people set their New Year goals as outcomes and this is one of the reasons why you will find that within a matter of weeks, maybe even a matter of days, they will have given up on their intentions. Most People Lose Momentum and Stop In the First Week! On January 1st everything begins, the Learn Spanish program is purchased, the MP3 player is loaded up, the TV set is tuned to the local Spanish Station and you might even consider buying Enrique Iglesias’s latest Spanish album.

You start listening to the lessons, watching Spanish movies and absorbing everything Spanish.

Then after the holidays you go back to work and you vow to have your MP3 player on as you travel to and from work.

Everything is going really well for the first few days and then around about 5th or 6th of January you leave the Ipod at home.

Then it is the weekend and you need to spend some time with the family or your friends and so the last thing you want to do is learn! You will definitely get back to working on your New Year’s Resolution on Monday.

Monday comes and because you have not instilled the habit you once again leave the MP3 player at home but you vow to get started again when you get home from work.

A busy day at work leaves you exhausted and so you collapse in front of the TV and watch the DVDs you had for Christmas and promise that you will get started again tomorrow.
And just like the film title, tomorrow never comes…

And this is pretty much the experience for the majority of people who set New Year’s Resolutions.


Set Your New Years Resolution as a Process Goal

Now it is very important to know what you are trying to achieve which is why knowing the outcome of your resolution is vital but the most important part is having a plan, or a process to get there.

Having just outcome as your focus can be a demotivator because it will appear to be such a huge task if you just express it in one bite and therefore very easy to give up.

This is why your New Year’s Resolution should be expressed as a process.

If you want to learn Spanish as your New Year’s Resolution then I suggest that you express it as a process. Vow that every day for the next 366 days (this year is a leap year) you will learn some Spanish.
Over a whole year, if you did something every single day then you be quite proficient in the language after all that.

Now the key to this approach to making your resolution real is that you must identify what is the absolute minimum you will do every single day.

Just like our friends who set only the outcome goal you are likely to start the New Year spending possibly hours every day immersing yourself in your Learn Spanish program but like them, this will slowly get less and less.

You Need to be A Learning Spanish Tortoise

Remember the story of the hare and the tortoise who had a race. The hare sped off right from the start, got tired and complacent and was beaten by the steady and regular effort of the much slower tortoise.
Life will get in the way of your goal, things will interrupt the process and you will get distracted. However the key will be to do something towards Learning Spanish every single day. Just plod along with regular effort like the tortoise.

You must know exactly what that is so that in your own mind you can legitimately say to yourself “Yes I did some Spanish today and I am on track to fulfilling my Resolution”.

Your minimum might be just 5 minutes of a podcast. It could be learning just one new word or watching 5 minutes of Spanish TV. You might just browse a Spanish language newspaper or magazine for 5 minutes.
It does not really matter what it is as long as it is easy, takes just a few minutes and can legitimately be seen as an activity to support your resolution to learn Spanish.

Learn Some Spanish Every Single Day, No Matter How Small

What you will find by doing this is that you will still keep the momentum of learning something every single day and these short, sharp snappy activities will allow you to deal with being busy, tired or just distracted.
Over time the momentum you will create by doing this will become a habit and you will start spending more and more quality time, knowing in the back of your mind that you have an easy option if things crop up.
One thing I have found that has helped me is to keep a track of when I apply myself to my New Year’s resolution. I will simply make a mark on my calendar every day I do something. After a while the urge not to miss a day grows because it would be such a shame to break a winning streak of consecutive days marked off.

So in summary then:

   1. Set a process goal as part of your New Year’s Resolution to Learn Spanish
   2. Work out what your absolute minimum is going to be
   3. Keep track of your daily effort

Try it because just these simple steps really do work! Do let me know how you have got on and I look forward to hearing about your Spanish Learning success.

++++++++STOP PRESS ++++++STOP PRESS++++++

It has taken longer than I expected but my free report is now up online and ready for you to download.

All you need to do is go to http://www.learn-spanish-free-right-now.com/

It is 56 pages dripping with great reviews, ratings and screen shots of the best resources I used during my 33 days of learning to speak Spanish.

I am extremely proud of it and I know it will be an extremely valuable resource for anyone who is learning to speak Spanish.  I shall be updating it because I have barely scratched the surface of the great free stuff that is out there.

So visit the download site, get hold of your copy and let me know what you think.

I know, I know I promised that I would give you a free report on all the great free learn Spanish stuff I used to get to the standard I did after just 33 days.

Well I am pleased to announce that I have finished it, that’s the cover on the left.  I have put together 56 pages of reviews and links to the best resources I used.  It is far from comprehensive because there are literally thousands of sites out there and I have not got to them all.

However what I have found is really remarkable.  Special mention must go to the podcasts from Notes in Spanish, Coffee Break Spanish and Edufone.  Check those out if you have not already done so and can’t wait for my free report.

I can’t let you have it just yet (hope to have it up by the end of the week though) because I am still sorting out some link problems but as soon as it is ready I will let you know.

You can of course register for it at www.learn-spanish-free-right-now.com and as soon it is ready you will get advance notice.

Well today is the last day.  I haven’t done anything new today, just reviewed what I have learnt so that I could demonstrate it. 

Rather than waffle on here about how things have gone (I think they have gone really well) I think the best way to assess my progress is to hear me speak some Spanish.

If you have been following this experiment for a while, you will know that I have been putting together a daily video that I have posted up on You Tube to record both the thoughts I have had and the ideas I have developed to help me learn a language more effectively.

Today is no exception and I have just this minute finished a 6 minute video of me rambling on in Spanish. 

It is easy to forget your own progress when you are so close to it and so as I was adding the subtitles to the video so non-Spanish speakers could  understand what I was talking about I suddenly realised that I had learnt quite a bit of Spanish.

In fact I was quite impressed (even if I do say so myself) about both the amount I have learnt and the sophistication of the words and phrases I am now able to comfortably use.

This is the start of my journey and because of the pressure of achieving in these last 33 days I have rushed a little bit in some areas.  Now I am going to relax a little and consolidate what I have learnt and then start moving forward to greater proficiency in Spanish.

Fluency here I come!!!!

Just one more day to go.  It seems like it was only yesterday that I started all of this yet it feels like I have been learning to speak Spanish for years now!!!

I have been discovering somereally interesting things about Spanish, how to learn a language and about myself too.  I thought today I would give you an overview of some of the things I have found to be really beneficial when it comes to learning a language, Spanish in particular.

I haven’t gone into great depth with these just yet but wanted to give you a taster of some of the ideas that have worked for me.

Here they are: More on How To Learn Spanish Free Right Now - Day 32

Well just 3 days left of my learn Spanish experiment, including today.

I thought I would just jot down some thoughts on how I feel my attempt to learn as much Spanish as I possibly can in just 33 days has gone.

It has been More on How To Learn Spanish For Free - Day 31

Today I had another long car journey after a busy day spent delivering another seminar to a client.  Of course I used the opportunity in the car to listen to podcasts galore - new ones and old ones.

Whilst I was listening something struck me that I hadn’t really noticed before. More on How To Learn Spanish For Free - Day 30

Yesterday was another one of those long days when I had to be up early so that I could get to a client on time to deliver a 3 hour seminar.  Then I had a long 4 hour drive to my next destination.  By the time I settled down to learning some Spanish it was late, I was tired and even though I wanted to learn I found the going tough and eventually gave up and had an early night.

All was not lost yesterday though because I had More on How To Learn Spanish For Free - Day 29