dreams

I've just started learning Spanish, on my own, fairly intensively but without direction or instruction, about 7 weeks ago. Maybe I'll get online and post about that sometime soon. — I hope to have more than just a diary of my experiences in learning a second language, but a resource for learning things like language.

About a month ago, I decided to constantly surround myself with the language. There must be something to immersion that makes it so quick, right? I understand it may be that people learn quicker in immersion because they have less reason to use their primary language, and when you learn a second language your brain is actively shutting down pathways in your primary language. I think that whole experience is the big problem in learning a new language. Anyone can sit down and rote memorize a list of words , or (with a little more difficulty) conjugations, etc etc. But "thinking in the language" requires not thinking in your own language: You require the experience to do it.

So I have been surrounding myself with spanish radio in my car, chat friends from friendsabroad.com , Univisión etc etc etc. Even my alarm clock is set to spanish radio. That is where things get interesting: I have noticed that sometimes, just as I am waking up from the radio, but before I am fully conscious, I do not go through that translation stage. Either I recognize the words and I understand those words (as they are, in spanish), or I simply do not understand the words. But if I recognize many words in a sentence, I really understand at the sentence level, without translation! The experience is thrilling. However, because of that, it is short lived. As soon as I am really understanding many words together, I start waking up more from the excitement.

When I am waking up from this excitement, I might then begin translating words to ensure that my understanding is correct. I might hit a wall, just a couple words I do not know; whatever the reason I begin to wake and the most amazing transition occurs. Even as I know the remain words being spoken, I begin to see them as alternates to english words. I begin translating into my language. I slow down, I cannot keep up this translation at the speed required. I lose the sentence, the meaning. And suddenly, it is a foreign language again. This happens "right before my eyes."

I have heard of when people have their first dream that is in a language: I am not yet there, for certain!
I wonder if anyone else has similar experiences?