Did you know that when you are learning a new language such as Spanish, you actually begin to create your own system for understanding and using this second language? Linguistic professors call this “interlanguage.”
A scary fact is that only 5 percent of foreign language students completely learn their second language, while the other 95 percent accomplish various levels of proficiency. There are also 5 things that you wind up doing when learning Spanish without even knowing you are doing them.
The first thing is that you project features of your first language onto your second language. Mistakes with word order are an example of this. In English we obviously say “crazy musicians.” In Spanish it would be “musicos locos.” When I speak Spanish, sometimes I make this mistake and say “locos musicos.” Oh by the way, my wife is a linguistic expert and she did a study of how I learned Spanish while living in Mexico the past 18 years. A bit embarrassing for me, but I think it could help you understand the process of learning a second language.
In the next blog posting we can talk about some of the other 4 things that go on while you study.
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