My husband and I moved here from Phoenix last November and have also been taking classes at the same school, albeit the location on C/ de Sardenya! The discovery I'm making as far as learning Spanish in Barcelona is that 1) although we were exposed to a lot of Spanish in Phoenix, it's a very different regional dialect(right word?), a lot of the words are different, idioms are completely different, and the accent is completely different - so the Spanish we are used to from Phoenix has not been as much a head start as we though it would be, and 2) it has taken a while to start to hear Catalan vs Spanish, as at first I was always trying to force my brain to translate what people were saying, when often they were speaking Catalan. So Barcelona is definitely a challenging place to learn Spanish. But we're getting there - we can do what we need to do in shops and restaurants, but just not to fluency yet.
I appreciate your experience and POV. I keep hoping that once I'm living in Sicily FT, it will click. Of course, I know that's wishful thinking. My plan has simply been to use a variety of approaches. ChatGPT though... yikes. Way out of my comfort zone with that - lol!
This post really resonates with me, as I have been "learning"Spanish for almost 2 years. It's been a slow slog. I am determined to keep on with it. It helps to know I am not the only person who finds the task daunting. I started on my own, then spent one month in Medellin, Colombia (Spanish immersion classes), now spending one night a week in a Spanish class. I am making progress. Good to know I am not alone in this struggle, thanks for sharing
My husband and I moved here from Phoenix last November and have also been taking classes at the same school, albeit the location on C/ de Sardenya! The discovery I'm making as far as learning Spanish in Barcelona is that 1) although we were exposed to a lot of Spanish in Phoenix, it's a very different regional dialect(right word?), a lot of the words are different, idioms are completely different, and the accent is completely different - so the Spanish we are used to from Phoenix has not been as much a head start as we though it would be, and 2) it has taken a while to start to hear Catalan vs Spanish, as at first I was always trying to force my brain to translate what people were saying, when often they were speaking Catalan. So Barcelona is definitely a challenging place to learn Spanish. But we're getting there - we can do what we need to do in shops and restaurants, but just not to fluency yet.
I appreciate your experience and POV. I keep hoping that once I'm living in Sicily FT, it will click. Of course, I know that's wishful thinking. My plan has simply been to use a variety of approaches. ChatGPT though... yikes. Way out of my comfort zone with that - lol!
This post really resonates with me, as I have been "learning"Spanish for almost 2 years. It's been a slow slog. I am determined to keep on with it. It helps to know I am not the only person who finds the task daunting. I started on my own, then spent one month in Medellin, Colombia (Spanish immersion classes), now spending one night a week in a Spanish class. I am making progress. Good to know I am not alone in this struggle, thanks for sharing