Your Colombian Wife and Learning English

[DFWGuy]

I am just curious and would like a random pole on how people have approached helping their new Colombian wife learn English. I have talked to people who go from one exterme to another.

I have heard the following:

1. I will not speak Spanish my wife will have to learn English (Still haven't heard anyone this worked out well for?)

2. My wife will learn English simply by watching the television. (Court still out on this one as well).

3. I will send my wife to school. (This is the approach that I have taken and will give you my results at the end).

4. Time will solve all of our problems in 4 or 5 years they will learn.

5. Other ---

Okay I spoke little to no Spanish when I got married. I studied both books and took a couple of classes. While I still use terrible Spanish and mix up my verbs all the time I seem to be able to communicate most things and we do well at home.

I paid for my wife and step-daughter to go to one of those intensive 3 hour a day classes in Cali. They attended for almost 7 weeks before coming to the states. My opinion on these is I wished I had saved the money I felt like they really learned zero from these.

My daughter gets English eight hours a day at school. My wife is on her 5th English class here. She was going 5 nights a week for 2 1/2 hours a day Monday-Friday.  I have seen some improvement from these but considering she has over 250 class room hours since she got here it doesn't seem to be a good investment for this.

Now it appears that the best tools seems to be simply having them in an environment where they speak English. I know that when we visited with my family at Christmas my wife spoke and learned more English in the 8 days than I felt like she got from all of her classes.

I know that everyone is different. I know that the amount of effort that you put into something makes a difference as well.  My wife is 7 months pregnant and is not working outside the house. That may change later this year.  She watches Spanish television and we occasionally watch English television together with the subtitles on.  Her circle of friends has grown but they are all Spanish speaking.

It seems that the harshish approach seems to get the best results but in the least palatable way. I know that one of my daughter's sisters got married to a guy who spoke no English and still speaks very little Spanish. Out of necessity his wife has learned English and in about 18 months is reasonable fluent?  

I suppose if your only interested in results this seems to have the best results. We try to speak English at home to help them learn but we all seem to slip back into Spanish and this seems to be difficult to change.

I would like to know:

1. What your approach was.
2. How long did it take before your wife was proficient.
3. What you would have done different if you knew then what you know now?

[Pete E]

... in response to Your Colombian Wife and Learning English, posted by DFWGuy on Feb 1, 2002

I don't speak spanish although I have a fair vocabulary.My wife spoke some english when I met her fortunately.Thats a whole lot better than no english.We have always communicated in english.At first we had to go to the electronic translater alot.We almost never do this any more.If one of us doesn't understand a word we give examples untill the person gets it.Even if I studied very hard my spanish would never surpass her english unless we were living in a latin country.Then she wouldn't need english and I would need to learn spanish,just the opposite of living in the US.
I think its very difficult learning a language unless you are living in a society where you have to use it.The older you are the harder it is,its much easier for kids.So I think its very tough for a guy living here to learn spanish or a woman living in Colombia to learn english.It gets much easier when the person moves to the society of the language they are trying to learn.Two of my friends who spent about 8  months in Colombia over the last 2 years have fair spanish from using it there.
My wife and step son have been here 23 months.My step son speaks and understands english better than my wife although he knew none when he came here and she was maybe 10% in english.He is in a bilingual class where they teach in english but can explain in spanish if they need to.
My wife went to adult education through the school district for 9 months.The classes were large and she learned very little even though she went 3 hours a day.She then went to a private school for 6 months.It was better than the adult education even though it was 1-2 hrs a day.For the last 10  months or so she has had a private tutor.Even though she sees him only 2 hours a week it is more effective than the 2 schools.He has a phonics/pronunciation program she just finished.He said when she finished that she would be able to learn from everything  she saw,newspapers,signs television.He was right.The tutor must be very good to be that effective.This guy is.He used to work for Berlitz,who he thinks is the best of the schools because of their teaching method,but he thinks his methods are much better.He told me this confidently when we first talked to him,and he was right I think.He things most teaching methods are very poor and reinforce errors.This particular guy is a genius who writes movies and TV programs in his spare time.He knows about anything you mention.If I ever get on do you want to be a millionaire he will be on my call list.Also,he speaks no spanish and said he wouldn't use it if he did,its counterproductive switching back and forth between languages.Not every tutor you will find will be this good.I would say if you can afford it private schooling is much better,at least here.
So how is my wifes english now?I would say 50-60%.The one element she is missing is being in an envirement,like work,where she has to use it alot.She interviewed for a job today.I think work will speed up her english more than study at this point.She does watch 2-3 hours of spanish TV and news every night.I haven't been able to get her away from it.She loves her novelas and spanish news has much more latin news than english news.Colombia gets talked about every night.If she didn't do this she would learn quicker,but its important to her.We do watch movies that are english only,but if a DVD has subtitles in spanish we will turn them on.If she works she will get enough exposure to english,even with this company that is very latino oriented.She was interviewed in both spanish and english,she needs both to work there.
What would I have done different?Get her in private school faster and encourage her to work,even if volinteering her time maybe,doing something to get exposed to more people and english.I never wanted her to get a full time job and still don't.But 20-30 hours a week would be good for her.
For the guys that say it important that the guy learn spanish,this is true,it would help alot,but if you have no background in it its difficult to do here,and not absolutely neccesary.So anybody motivated to try and learn spanish I say good for you go for it.For guys who don't know spanish and haven't learned much(like me)I would say don't let that delay your trip to find a wife a miniute.Its very valuable,but not indispensible.

Pete

[Pete E]

... in response to Re: Your Colombian Wife and Learning Eng..., posted by Pete E on Feb 1, 2002

I think the thing that will hold a womans english back more than anything is to have a husband who speaks spanish and they talk only in spanish.Its to your wifes disadvantage,at least in terms of learning english, if your spanish is good unless you are very disciplined about speaking english also to her.
Of course the same could be said about a woman who speaks to her husband in english.It isn't helping my spanish but is helping her english.I told her if we lived in Colombia I would have to learn spanish.But we don't,we live in the US and she needs to learn english.Its not fair,just the way it is.I used to work with a guy from Holland who was really down on people who lived in the US and couldn't speak english.He said it comes with the territory,you must speak the language of the country you live in or you are hurting yourself.He had no use for anybody that thought society should be changed to accomodate those who don't know english.He said "I learned it,they can too."

Pete

[Jeff S]

... in response to Your Colombian Wife and Learning English, posted by DFWGuy on Feb 1, 2002

I spoke more of my wife's language (not Spanish) than she did of mine when we met and were married. Like you, I was understandable in her language but hardly fluent - we had many laughs with each other's grammar. I encouraged her, and she dod take several years of ESL at the local community college. It took her several years (2-3) to get where she was comfortable talking with native American speakers. These days we're both pretty comfortable with each other's languages and can click back and forth between the two. It worked out pretty well but if I had it to do over again, I'd encourage her to have more English speaking friends. She had none the first few years but palled around with other women about her age who were from her country. When I suggested we do more things with English only speaking couples, she would get really shy and worry about her accent, so I let a lot of it go. I think it depends more on how outgoing your wife is. My wife wasn't but I the type that has no trouble giving a foreign language the ol' college try, even if I butcher it. It works OK, since I'm pretty fluent in three languages and can make myself understood in a couple more.

-- Jeff S.

[Edge]

... in response to Your Colombian Wife and Learning English, posted by DFWGuy on Feb 1, 2002

When I first met my wife she spoke about zero English, although her two sisters can speak pretty well.  We communicated because I had been studying Spanish and we could communicate in Spanish.  I continued to study and improve in Spanish from talking to her almost every day.  When we got serious about her coming here, the pendulum started to swing the other way.  The emphasis started to become  her learning English.  She found an Institute in Cali where she went 2-3 times/week for around 3 hours each day.  Her motivation level was high and she likes to learn, so she was doing well.  I would say she went for around 8-10 months before she came here.  For about those last 6-8 months we mainly used English when we talked on the phone so she could practice and would use Spanish when she was tired of English or needed to discuss something important.

One thing people have to realize is it takes effort for them to translate the English into their native Spanish in their mind.  Just like us trying to do the same in Spanish.  Sometimes the head starts to swell and enough is enough.  Sometimes my wife has had enough English, which I can understand.  

Our plans are for her to start taking an ESL class.  At this moment, she is still learning English because that is how we communicate.  She also is still motivated and spends some of the day studying at home with the computer and some workbooks she has.  She will ask me from time to time to help her.  At this point, she could not probably work somewhere where she would have to speak and understand alot of English.  She watches almost all of her television shows in Spanish so that is why I feel I need to talk to her in English, so she continues to progress.  She is progressing this way, but slowly.  She can carry on a decent conversation with someone so I would say she has made reasonable progress in 15 months since she started.  Much of this issue is the same as us learning Spanish, your motivation level has to be high or you are not going to progress.  So the question is how to get the girls motivated??

I have always said that I think it is important for a guy who is serious about marrying a latina to learn their language.  It makes it easier to find one and then get the relationship going and communicate well.  After that, our emphasis has been on her learning English, so my Spanish has suffered.  I am starting to concentrate on it again.

3. What you would have done different if you knew then what you know now?

I probably would not have done anything different.  The Spanish television shows is kind of a tough call.  I am sure she would learn more faster if all the t.v. she had was English.  But I put myself in her shoes.  She was pretty adament that she had to have some t.v. in Spanish, so I went along with her on that one.

You might consider trying to steer the conversations back into English with your family even when you slip into speaking Spanish.

[L Attico]

... in response to Re: Your Colombian Wife and Learning Eng..., posted by Edge on Feb 1, 2002

I am in PR right now