Our story goes something like this:
Before coming to Mexico, we had been doing daily half-hour lessons for quite a while, trying to learn Spanish.
We felt like we were making a ton of progress and learning a lot of new words but then we got to Mexico and were struck by the strong arm of reality.
After crossing the border from the US into Mexico, we quickly realized that we were jumping into the deep end without knowing how to swim. We had no idea what anyone was saying!
Whether we were eating at a restaurant, buying something at a convenience store, or getting pulled over by the cops, we were utterly stupefied!
In this video, we chat about the progress we've made, the hurdles we've had to leap over, the struggles we've encountered, as well as our successes.
Watch the full video below.
We use this action cam to shoot our videos.
Check out @wadepaterson's 20 Questions with TangerineTravels.
@sharingeverybite (Maddie)
@shenanigator (Jordan)
(and Laska the Siberian Husky)
Greetings, tangerine travel
It's funny what you say. It reminds me of the Spanglish movie with the actor Adam Sandler. Have you watched this movie ?? In it, a girl of Mexican origin goes to work in the house of an American couple and they have an immense difference as much cultural as linguistic. The difficulty of communication there is quite great.
It's different for me, I'm Brazilian. Even if someone here does not understand anything about the Spanish language, you can travel to a country with that language that will be able to understand at least a little, both the writing and the speech of them, because there are several words very similar between our language.
Good thing you set out to learn. Acquiring more knowledge is always good !!
Thank you and good night!!!!
Its very difficult to learn a language in just a very short period of time. Its needs constant communication to at least inculcate to our memory the basic of a certain language. Or else use the easiest way on how to communicate effectively without even learning a certain language - use a tool, theres so many apps for that in your celphone wether your using android or apple. There is even a voice of every word or sentence you want to utter. 😄
We've been working on our Spanish for quite a while - long before we moved here, so it has been about 2 years.
Thanks for the tips! We have apps like that but should probably be utilizing them more often.
I am a little more than bilingual. I think all you need to do in order to learn well a language is exposure. Even though you guys are in Mexico, you might be spending too much time working on the video, or more generally, with just each other. Try to talk to more people, get a Mexican friend, just get more exposure. If you definitely need to keep on working as hard as you are, then try to talk to each other in Spanish. It will be awkward, and you won't get to the points as fast, but in the long run it is worth it.
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@gustavomonraz Thanks a lot for the offer! We're still trying to decide on our plans for the night but I'll have to run that by Maddie. We generally are ones to prefer smaller crowds and we typically go to bed pretty early - we haven't yet learned to party like Mexicans. Haha. Maddie really does enjoy seeing a lot of DJs though.
I don't know if you need any help with your English (it doesn't sound like you do, to be honest). But if you do, we'd be happy to help you practice your English while you help us with our Spanish.
@capatazche, thanks so much for the advice! Personally, I (Jordan) feel like my biggest problem is lack of vocabulary. Reading in Spanish over the past few weeks has helped tremendously in building my vocabulary.
You're probably completely right about us not getting enough exposure. We'll take your advice to heart. We're definitely going to try to talk to each other in Spanish more often!
Best of luck. I'll start writing my comments in Spanish to help out, lol.
Muchas gracias! Para mi, leendo en español ya es mucho más fácil que hace solo tres semanas. Pero yo todavía necessito apprender de escribir en español.
Mucha gente ya escriben in español en nuestro YouTube.
An so einem schönen Platz auf der Welt, wäre ich auch gerne. :)
Buenas tardes
Me pareció muy agradable su video, que bueno que eligieron México para practicar su español, encontrarán que aqui la gente es muy curiosa hacia los extranjeros, nos encanta escuchar que tratan de aprender nuestro idioma. No duden en preguntar las dudas que tengan y pedirle a la gente que hablen mas despacio para que puedan irlo perfeccionando.
Afortunadamente ustedes tienen la oportunidad de tener una experiencia de inmerción del idioma, lo mejor es oirlo a la velocidad de habla normal para que vallan familiarizandose.
Yo entiendo perfectamente el ingles hablado y escrito pues lo he practicado en internet por mas de 8 años, pero tengo dificultad al hablarlo y escribirlo, tal vez se sientan familiarizados con este detalle.
Una recomendación, traten de hacer videos en español tambien y pidan ayuda para corregir la pronuciación si lo creen conveniente.
Saludos
Buenas noches!
Entiende casi todo de eso, pero creo que no entiendo mucho si algien decirlo a mi en vez de escribirlo.
Sí, tenemos una oportunidad y necessitamos practicarlo cuando podemos.
Don't you French me. Hahahahahahaha.
Laska is so playful. I like playful dogs.
Over 600!. Yaaay!.
To be able to get the best from there and actively communicate with the locals, I think it is better to really pick up the lessons again. You have my support.
I wish you both the best and look forward to seeing you effectively nail this.
It's surprising that she's so playful considering she's already 8.5 years old!
Yes! We're stoked about 600! Our subscribers and views are growing really fast now! We've had something like 50 new subscribers in the last day.
Our biggest problem is our time crunch. We really struggle to do everything that we need to do in a day, so we'll have to give up something in order to learn Spanish faster.
I once read about this excellent way to make more time for yourself. You make of list of things you have to do and put them into one of four boxes:
You then prioritize the list in that order. The hardest thing to do is learning to prioritize "Urgent and not important" below that of "Important but not urgent."
For us, learning Spanish is something that's "Important but not urgent" so it ends up getting pushed to the bottom of the list when we should be prioritizing it much higher.
Yes, I read that too and thank you for reminding me again. Really, I stayed in that part and tried to put things into perspectives on my head. Wow. Your words always mean so much to me and I am thankful.
Really glad you are making the Spanish lessons important now and with how fast you always learn, you will be fine.
Really delighted about the growth and i will do something about it on my post to get more traffic. 50 subscribers a day is huge!. Well done. This is a testament to all the hard work you put in. Duly deserved.
8.5years? Wow!. You are taking care of her very well...she is very strong and agile.
It is always like that when you are in a place where you can't understand what others are saying.
But, staying in such an environment steered up the desire to learn in us, we will want to give it whatever it takes to learn it.
I think you can use your situation for your advantage like this too, steer up the desire to learn in you
Definitely. We want to stay in a Spanish-speaking country long term so there's a strong desire to become fluent in Spanish.
Most people don't enjoy running and they'll make excuses not to run on a daily basis. However, when they have a bear chasing them, you can bet your ass they're going to be running!
Our metaphorical bear is our struggle with the language.
So, start the race, I can see you winning with a golden medal.
Question - why are you trying to grow your youtube audience when you could be uploading to DTube or DLive?
We feel like we're doing a lot to grow our brand on Steem already and we want multiple income sources. In fact, we want to be able to travel without needing any income from Steem and reinvest everything back into the platform. Given the way things are growing, we're hopeful that we'll be at that point within a few months.
When we grow our YouTube channel into something big, that will open up a ton of new possibilities to monetize our brand.
YouTube is the 2nd biggest search engine in the world behind Google and they offer A LOT of exposure. One of our primary goals in our new adventure is to bring as many people as possible to Steem. You can read more about that here and here.
Once we get huge on YouTube, we'll be putting in a lot of effort into bringing 1,000s of users to Steem. If we focus our efforts on Dtube and Dlive, that can't happen because those users are already on Steem.
Good points, and you have fantastic goals. I'm following you so I can watch your progress. :)
Fun. Love your enthusiasm learning a foreign language. I had though time learning Russian but apart from class lessons, I learnt fast making friends who takes me around and help me teach many stuffs. You learn faster if you can get a Spanish lessons teacher and not video lessons and then move out and practice in real life at least 2x a week...
Wish you success and keep it up
Upped
The more knowledgeable is to achieve knowledge is equally benifical for us.
Everything else can end but knowledge cannot end.
And it is very banifiet for us in every turn of life.
It's very very difficult to learn any language but if you try hard And. Make it your vision so you can achieve it. if we set our goal we do any thing but the right thing to achieve these goals
Thanks for the words of encouragement. Hope you enjoyed the video!
nice!
Thanks for watching the video!
Eso es exactamente lo que me pasaría si visitara un país donde hablen inglés.
El español suele ser mas complicado que el inglés, debido a que el español tiene muchos sinónimos. Interesante Post. Bello Perro.
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Hola. Very fun. I ask that question too. When will I ever learn haha? I'm Oatmeal. I was learning Spanish in high school. It was fun. My neighbors in Oregon were Mexicans. I loved them. I was learning Vietnamese in Vietnam for 5 years while teaching English. I love travel too. Thanks for sharing.
the most difficult language to learn is Spanish but it is not impossible, believe me that with practice you will understand it quickly, just a lot of perseverance.
It's very nice to speak both English and Spanish. I'm Japanese. It's difficult to speak English.
Nice post
I have one question...Do Mexicans have influenced by English Language??????
I feel you, similar like you, when i moved to Germany years ago, i tough i can speak Deutsch very well but after arrived here, I have just pointed this and that when I have shopped. In the end I have decided to attend the German course once more.
But that was fun.
Anyway i am new to Steemit and discovered that you have a interesting blog, you have a new follower :)
I didn't have any problems with locals. Been there one week and I met a lot nice people. We used English with some Spanish words :D It was enough :)
Language Spanish very interesting for understand...
I am going to learn spanish with my middle schooler. He will probably grasp it so much easier being young.