u/Fun_Perception_239

I moved to Spain and really wanted to improve my Spanish (TL). I started with italki, didn’t find a match went to preply and recently went back to italki for conversation practice. TBF: After using both over the past 6 months, it’s been super useful for me. My progress on preply has a little more consistent and then I use italki for conversation practice.

Here’s a brief summary of the challenges and strengths of each that i’ve come across. 

Preply (the good):

• Managed to find my tutor pretty quickly, and love her teaching style.
• Subscriptions catch a lot of heat and I get why, my hours nearly expired on me the first month, but I actually quite like this system.
• In my general life i hate AI as I feel it’s rotting my brain. But, in this case was pleasntly surprised.

Preply (the not so good)

• Far too many pushy notifications. I get it already and too many of those are trying to push me into upgrading my package. 
• User interface feels kind of complicated.

 

Italki (the good):

• Took me a couple of tries (my first go at italki didn't stick) but I've found a teacher I'm happy with
• It’s quite flexible so I can plan it around my other subscription which is nice. 
• I feel there’s less of a close relationship with my tutor so just in case I felt like a change, it wouldn’t bother me so much having to change tutors.

Italki (the not so good)

• The AI fish I have to feed: it feels really infantalising. I’m a grown adult, i don’t need a tamagotchi. 
• Almost every teacher has five stars. I found it quite difficult to actually pick a tutor but in fairness, did get their eventually.

 

I must say that learning on both has been a broadly positive experience. If there was a gun to my head and I had to pick one, preply edges out italki for me. But for now will probably continue with both until finances get tight.

A few months ago I left a post about my lack of progress and just wanted to say I’m starting to feel like i’ve begun to crack it.

Quick summary: I’ve been learning spanish in earnest for around 7 months (or so) with a tutor but much longer if we’re counting textbooks. TBH i was having serious doubts about whether i was even cut out for learning a language.

A little bit of extra context: I was originally trying to learn through YouTube, textbooks and a little bit of duolingo. I assumed when I found a tutor on Preply that progress would be immediate. I was wrong but to be fair, I think I was the issue. 

It was an upward hill battle for most of the time when I was learning the basics and I’d be constantly switching back to English. Around a month ago my tutor insisted that we do the entire lesson in Spanish. I hated this at the beginning. I felt completely unprepared and froze like a deer n the headlights. 

This was the turning point for me. Being forced to do full lessons in Spanish, with no English to fall back on, was the single thing that finally broke my plateau.

The other day I was at the cerveceria and had my first meaningless bit of chit-chat in Spanish. As a native-Londoner, meaningless chit-chat is a national pastime. My first time being able to do this in Spain has made me feel much more at home and given me the confidence to keep going.

Saying that though, an entire day operating in Spanish means I still get home completely exhausted. I’d love to hear if there’s any tips for getting through this or if the exhaustion ever really passes. 

+ for anyone else who’s struggling, there’s definitely hope out there.

Not looking for “just speak more”. I’m talking more personal/ odd advice for overcoming the feeling when you keep practicing but your language speaking practice seems to have stalled.

My comprehension has massively improved but I’ve been stuck at the same speaking level for a while now.

Looking for your most unhinged techniques for getting back in business.

Last weekend my girlfriend's mum asked me something simple and I understood maybe half of it. I knew what I wanted to say. I just couldn't get it out in time, so I smiled and nodded and her mum smiled back and I have no idea what I agreed to.

The thing I'm realizing is that immersion gives you input, not automatic speaking ability.

I hear Spanish every day. I understand more than I can say. But when someone turns to me and expects an answer, my brain tries to build the perfect sentence and nothing comes out.

The only thing that has helped is starting before I feel ready. I say the messy version and figure it out as I go.

Comprehension improves with input. Speaking improves by tolerating imperfect output.

For people who've lived abroad or done immersion: did speaking eventually click, or did you have to train it separately?

Long story short, I moved to spain pretty suddenly and felt like I was getting nowhere with Spanish. I've got a Spanish girlfriend who was very patient as I was making 0 progress. On my best day I'm cracking A2, at worst I've been kicked in the head by a horse.

About a month or so ago, I started taking two sessions a week of 50 minutes and honestly I've never had a teacher who made me feel this comfortable being wrong.

She's incredibly patient and I never feel patronised. A few things I love:

1. She never corrects me mid-sentence, which helps with confidence.
2. I really enjoy talking to her so no longer dread when lesson time comes.
3. If i'm having an off day she never seems to run out of patience.

It probably sounds like such a small victory but last week I bought cigarettes, exchanged pleasantries with the guy behind the counter and didn't freeze once.

When you found your tutor, how did you know they were the one?