Spanish Learning Tips

SPANISH LEARNING TIPS

Like every other language, Spanish has grammar rules that sometimes discourage students to continue or either start their learning process. If your are not taking formal lessons in a Spanish School and want to kick off your process leaving grammar on the side, you will need a little bit more patience and way more self discipline in order to do the trick. It’s not impossible but it’s definitely harder. That said, It is known that grammar is not for everyone, so that’s why we have written down a few tips that will make your learning process quite a bit easier and more enjoyable if you are clearly not a grammar fan:

1) Listen to music in Spanish.

* There are some Spanish singers and composers that actually sign very clear and have good diccion (not reggaetoneros, of course). First, what you can do is get the song or play it on Youtube or on your favourite streaming platform, search for the lyrics, and print them out. Search for their meaning and then look up for the pronunciation on Google. Even though it is not the best pronunciation available, it’s a start. You can always compare the pronunciation in the song to what Google shows you, this will give you a better idea of what a word should sound like, even though is not perfect. 

* Play the song and try to sing along. If the song is too fast, you can slow it down in the configuration bottom on the right side of YouTube. It’s not recommended to slow it down too much because the sound gets distorted and the pronunciation is not gonna be helpful. 

* Record yourself reading the lyrics and listen to yourself as much as you can. Words that come a little more difficult need to be underlined in your handout and then you will need to record those in a different audio. Take the time to compare them to what you’ve found on Google and the song you have chosen. 

* Create a glossary of the new words you’ve found and try to use them in sentences that might be helpful on a daily basis 

2) Watch series, movies or clips in Spanish with your language subtitles 

* Choose your favourite series and start by watching short dialogs without subtitles, make and effort to remember if you know any of those words in Spanish. Play the same scene with subtitles on. You might find that in those scenes there are conjugations that might be more advanced that what your Spanish level allows you to understand, so just put them aside and carry on with the other words. Write words down, record yourself reading the words and then change your tv or platform configuration to Spanish. Compare the sound of the words you read with the movie clip, and record again. 

3) Go to Language exchanges 

*In order to become more fluent and loose the fear of making mistakes, one of the best experiences that will motivate you to learn Spanish is going to language exchanges. Local schools like Valley Spanish School, have implemented different activities which reinforce the teaching process and this one is one of the best ones. In this kind of events you will meet people, probably will make new friends, will train and definitely improve your listening and speaking skills. The methodology is quite simple but efficient. You sit down with a language partner, the school should provide a speaking topic and from there you should be able to elaborate depending on your level.  What we recommend is to look for an event that has and academic purpose not just a social one, because sometimes the speed of the conversations can be overwhelming and this could lead to frustration. 

Note:

*Prepare a topic before hand to discuss in which you are particularly interested in. This will make your interaction way more productive and will give you space for asking more questions to the tutor that moderates the session.

So, here are some pointers that could help you start your Spanish speaking journey. It’s not an absolute truth but form our experience these will help students regardless of their level if made with regularity and commitment. 

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