How to Become a Successful Spanish Learner
So you have decided to learn Spanish (or any language) but don’t know where to begin! Does this sound familiar? There is a lot of different advice online and from different people it is hard to know which to follow. Should you focus on learning vocabulary, or grammar? Should you start watching the news in Spanish? Should you throw yourself in the deep end and set up a language exchange with a native speaker? In this blog post we will give you 8 tips to get you started on the right track to get you speaking Spanish as soon as possible.
1) Set short term, realistic targets
When learning Spanish try to draw up a plan of what you aim to learn or be able to do in one week, 2 weeks, one month, 3 months and so on. Make your plan as specific as possible so that you know exactly what you are going to achieve and by when. This helps you measure your progress and makes sure you are staying on track.
For example, you may decide to spend one week on learning the present tense and irregular verbs, the next week the future tense and the following 2 weeks vocabulary and phrases for shopping or ordering food and drinks.
Here are some sample objectives:
- Aim: to listen to a podcast every morning.
- Aim: to spend one week learning the present tense verbs.
- Aim: to take one lesson with a tutor each week.
- Aim: to be able to have a simple conversation with a Spanish colleague within 4 months.
2) Be consistent – plan your study time
Some people start out learning Spanish full of enthusiasm and think that they will be able to spend 2 hours a day on it. However, once you get into it you will probably find that this is difficult to stick to and they start missing a day here and there and start to fall out of the habit. The best thing is to think realistically how much time you have available during the week to focus on learning Spanish. Once you decide when and for how long you are going to learn Spanish, make sure you stick to this. For some people, getting up an hour earlier in the morning is the best time for them to learn. Other people prefer to study for one hour before going to bed. Work out when you study best and when you will have the time without interruptions and try to stick to this as much as possible.
3) Build Spanish into your daily life
Try to incorporate your learning of Spanish as much as you can into your day-to-day life. This could be writing your shopping list in Spanish, changing your computer or phone settings to Spanish, writing a diary in Spanish, reading the news or your horoscope in Spanish, following a Spanish recipe. This helps to make sure you are using Spanish regularly as this is the best way to ‘make it stick’ long term.
4) Watching a Spanish TV show or film on Netflix
There are many good Spanish TV shows and films on Netflix you will enjoy watching whilst at the same time improve your Spanish. Watch with subtitles on so that every time you see a phrase that you think is worth learning, note it down. This means you will learn the most up-to-date Spanish that natives use all the time. Try the Chrome extension, Language Reactor which displays dual-language subtitles.
5) Treat yourself
Focus on your achievements and what you can now say and understand in Spanish. Don’t worry about making mistakes – this is natural and how we learn. Think of ways that you can treat yourself once you have grasped a certain aspect of Spanish. For example, treat yourself to a Spanish meal once you have learnt the numbers 1-1000. Buy yourself a new item of clothing once you have learnt all of the vocabulary for clothes.
6) Find ways to enjoy learning
There are so many different ways to learn Spanish it is easy to find a method that suits you and your learning style. Some people have been to known to learn a language from scratch just by watching TV shows and films in the target language. Other people prefer to study grammar books or listen to podcasts. Whichever method or combination of methods you choose, if you enjoy what you are doing you will be much more likely to continue learning and become a successful Spanish student.
7) Learn the 2,000 most-used words
By learning the most common words in a language first this puts you on a firm foundation to build on and learn more complex parts of the language. Start by learning the most used nouns, verbs, adjectives, question words, pronouns and prepositions. These are the basics of the language that you just cannot get by without knowing. The Anki App – the best flashcard app to learn languages and is a great way to learn key vocabulary.
8) Speaking practice
Make sure that once you reach a certain level and you have learnt the 2000 most used words in Spanish you put this all into practice by finding a native speaker or a tutor to talk in Spanish to. This way they can correct your pronunciation and stop you getting into bad habits from the beginning. They will also encourage you to keep learning and praise the progress you have made.
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