One of the best ways to gauge how far you've gotten along in language studies is to speak with someone that either doesn't speak your native tongue, or speaks so very little of it, they really can't help you very much.
I just finished a conversation with my very first language partner, a Colombian man I credit with giving me a solid start in Spanish. We'd get on MSN messenger or the phone and I would listen to him talk about politics or science or food or whatever. I understood precious little of what he was saying, but the listening was great ear training. All he asked in return was that I teach someone else English. Fast forward five years, and he's gone on to study Russian and Italian while I've been focusing on Chinese. Still, Spanish is the only language we share, so we conversed entirely en Español.
Any speaker of any language will tell you that if they don't practice, they lose their skills. I have a friend, native-born in the Republic of Georgia who, after living for well over a decade in the US and spending time with Russians, says that his English and Russian are now better than his Georgian. Also, a few weeks ago, I interviewed the first full-blooded Chinese player in the NFL, Ed Wang. He was born in the US but raised in a Chinese speaking home. I asked about his fluency in Chinese and he said that after leaving his parents' home, it fell off some, but that it returns after spending some time around them.
This conversation that I just had a few minutes ago...it made me realize that I'm frequently too hard on myself on the gains I've made in any language. I haven't studied Spanish actively for a while, but I can't discount the fact that I can have a 30 min conversation with a non-English speaker with no aids whatsoever.
What HAS suffered though, is my vowel pronunciation. Since speaking more Mandarin, they've become entirely too throaty for the relatively shallow Spanish pronunciation, which definitely slows me down some.
It also made me realize that my retention rate may be higher than I know.A year off Spanish and my conjugation is a bit slow, but I still flow decently.
I just finished a conversation with my very first language partner, a Colombian man I credit with giving me a solid start in Spanish. We'd get on MSN messenger or the phone and I would listen to him talk about politics or science or food or whatever. I understood precious little of what he was saying, but the listening was great ear training. All he asked in return was that I teach someone else English. Fast forward five years, and he's gone on to study Russian and Italian while I've been focusing on Chinese. Still, Spanish is the only language we share, so we conversed entirely en Español.
Any speaker of any language will tell you that if they don't practice, they lose their skills. I have a friend, native-born in the Republic of Georgia who, after living for well over a decade in the US and spending time with Russians, says that his English and Russian are now better than his Georgian. Also, a few weeks ago, I interviewed the first full-blooded Chinese player in the NFL, Ed Wang. He was born in the US but raised in a Chinese speaking home. I asked about his fluency in Chinese and he said that after leaving his parents' home, it fell off some, but that it returns after spending some time around them.
This conversation that I just had a few minutes ago...it made me realize that I'm frequently too hard on myself on the gains I've made in any language. I haven't studied Spanish actively for a while, but I can't discount the fact that I can have a 30 min conversation with a non-English speaker with no aids whatsoever.
What HAS suffered though, is my vowel pronunciation. Since speaking more Mandarin, they've become entirely too throaty for the relatively shallow Spanish pronunciation, which definitely slows me down some.
It also made me realize that my retention rate may be higher than I know.A year off Spanish and my conjugation is a bit slow, but I still flow decently.
