PT= Positive transfer.

NT= Negative transfer.

What do PT and NT mean to you and why should you care?

Making the distinction between the two means everything if you want to speak Spanish.

They represent a fork in the road on your Spanish journey. The fork leads you to two very different places.

One road is a graveyard of Spanish hopes and dreams, the other opens up a whole new world for you.

Here are two dictionary definitions.

Negative transfer – noun psychology.
The obstruction of or interference with new learning because of previous learning.

Positive transfer – noun psychology
Rapid learning in a new situation because the stimuli or responses required are similar to those learned in an earlier situation.

Most Spanish classes focus on negative transfer.

I believe this is a grave mistake.

Negative transfer means focusing on mistakes.

Attention to errors doesn’t promote confidence or fluency. Instead it creates hesitancy and fear.

Secondly, focusing on negative transfer leads you to study very small points of grammar.

It’s minutiae.

You’ll invest lots of time in study and make big efforts for very small gains.

For example, in the confusing world of academic Spanish you will be bombarded with the differences between:

  • Por vs. para
  • Ser vs. estar
  • Indirect object pronouns vs. direct object pronouns
  • The gender of nouns and adjectives

You could waste a year or more on those subjects and still not hold a conversation.

Wouldn’t it be better to actually speak Spanish instead of struggling with all the mistakes you could make in Spanish?

If you apply the positive transfer Spanish you can begin speaking Spanish on day one.

Here’s the definition of positive transfer Spanish.

Positive Transfer – noun psychology
Rapid learning in a new situation because the stimuli or responses required are similar to those learned in an earlier situation.

You can spend a lot of you Spanish learning time in the positive transfer zone.

You tap into positive transfer Spanish when you uncover the English Spanish words and phrases that are most similar.

Here are two ways to activate positive transfer right away.

Positive Transfer Activation 1 – Words

30-40% of English words come from Latin.

Where do most Spanish words come from?

That’s right, a third of our words come from the same place as most Spanish words: the good old ancient Romans.

You can uncover thousands of Spanish words almost exactly like their English translation

They just need a little twist. Words that end in -ity in English usually end in -idad Spanish

  • University – Universidad,
  • Eternity – eternidad,
  • Possibility – posibilidad,
  • Capacity – capacidad,

And words that end in -tion in English end in -cion in Spanish

  • Revolution – Revolución,
  • Constitution – constitución,
  • Reservation – reservación,
  • Activation – activación

Positive Transfer Activation 2 – Language Patterns.

Here are two language patterns that easily transfer from English to Spanish.

Just like in English, you can talk about the future in Spanish by saying
“I am going to,” which in Spanish is, “voy a:”

Voy a comer.
I am going to eat.

Voy a invitar a mi profesor a la fiesta.
I am going to invite my teacher to the party.

Voy a visitar a mi amigo mañana.
I am going to visit my friend tomorrow.

As in English there’s also a pattern in Spanish for speaking about
something that you just did. In English we say, “I just + (verb) “while
in Spanish you say acabo de + (verbo)

It works like this:

Acabo de comer.
I just ate

Acabo de hablar con mi amigo.
I just spoke with my friend.

Acabo de aprender a hablar del futuro en español.
I just learned to speak about the future in Spanish.

Acabo de aprender más español con Marcus.
I just learned more Spanish with Marcus.

All in all there are thousands of words and many language patterns that easily transfer for English speakers.

Traditional classes will have you slaving over the negatives like direct and indirect object pronouns vs. direct object pronouns, por vs para and ser vs estar.

I didn’t even enjoy indirect object pronouns when they made me diagram sentences in English (in high school).

A child does not learn to speak by studying object pronouns or diagramming sentences.

If you choose to go the path of positive transfer, you’ll have thousands of Spanish words you can use right away. Plus you can make thousands of Spanish phrases from these easy language patterns.

And here’s a wonderful irony.

If you choose the positive path you’ll speak to learn instead of learning to speak. As you speak Spanish, the more difficult parts of Spanish start to fall into place as you use the language.

Isn’t that ironic – you’ll have a better more intuitive feel for the negative transfer Spanish without trying than the people who slaved over it without ever learning to speak.

Here’s a special package to jumpstart your Spanish with 3013 positive transfer words and patterns to make 88,000 Spanish phrases.

Jumpstart your Spanish