After thinking my learning Spanish days were over, my friend and hairdresser made a generous offer to let me stay in the house she recently remodeled close to her family who lives outside Morelia. It tempted me to take up the language challenge again.
I have been delighted to find that a lot of my previous learning was still there waiting for me. And, I was determined to start speaking ... however, I decided that I would ease into it with self talk ... talking to my self about myself and my own life (the relevance thing).
Beginning with this idea, I rather blundered into something that seems to be working ... journaling in Spanish. Here's the process which combines the power of relevance with instant feedback and speaking
Write Spanish ... Check and correct ... Speak out loud, repeating if possible
1. Inside Google Translate on the Spanish side, I write, in Spanish, something about my day. Generally, just a sentence or two, making adjustments until the English on the right side says what I want it to say. If I don't know the Spanish for a word I want, I put the word in (parenthesis.)
2. After the Spanish seems to be what I want to say in English, I switch the languages so the English is now on the left and Google Translates corrects the Spanish. (Google may not be perfect, but it's still better than I am.) This is the instant feedback I need.
3. I look at each of the changes GT made and, if they are acceptable, I copy that Spanish into a file so I can read it out loud. I send this to myself on my phone so I can read it out loud while I'm walking. This usually adds to other thoughts I can speak out loud ... in Spanish.
This seems to be building my flexibility for forming sentences in Spanish and is pushing me to add relevant vocabulary words to my memory.
