On our journey of learning a new language, we all find ourselves at a point of our learning process in which the most important thing is being able to communicate with the ones around you. Forming an opinion, expressing yourself, or just having basic conversation with people in your day to day life. Beyond accents, regional slang, and whatever other difficulties that may come about, the main purpose of learning a language is to be able to communicate and express yourself.
So today we bring you this blog post hoping it helps you to learn conversational Spanish.
Is there a magical recipe to get better?
Really no, we have to learn to accept that we are all different, and we process information in different ways – so you have to find what works for you as an individual.
Tools that could help you:
- Try to discover if your approach should be more visual or auditory, and use your skills to implement the language in a way to use the most of your abilities.
- If you are more of a visual person try to read while you’re listening to an audiobook in Spanish to relate words with sounds. Then try to read the book to yourself to make your mouth and muscles used with the new sounds they’re producing.
- On the opposite end, if your approach is more auditory listen to music in Spanish while reading the lyrics, then afterward try to read those lyrics to yourself. You could use a website like Lyrics Training to fill in the lyrics of songs while listening to them.
- There’s also plenty of places nowadays like apps and web pages in which you can practice talking with native speakers, some of them with audios that you can send or audio calls. And many of these apps have the option to record yourself saying a word or phrase that is going to be reviewed by native speakers, and they can tell you what they think about it and if there’s something to correct or improve.
- Another key of improving your conversational skills is to include the language in your everyday life, make it natural and part of you, using the advice we gave you above but also trying to relate to it, if you’re going somewhere, being outside, at your home, or in a shop buying food, just think, how would I say this in Spanish, how would I ask this in Spanish, what’s the name of that in Spanish. And even if right then you don’t have anyone to really practice with, you’ll be making all those words and phrases more familiar to you so when the time comes to actually speak Spanish with someone you won’t freeze.
- Get a private Spanish tutor to help you practice your speaking and listening skills. Having a private Spanish tutor will help you greatly if you don’t have anyone to practice with. To improve your pronunciation in the dialect that you’re learning, get a tutor familiarized with that accent and it’ll make things much easier for you. See our Spanish conversation tutors here.
- Create your own Spanish phrasebook personalized for your own needs, with the words and phrases you use the most. If you have a tutor they can also help you by adding the new things that you’re learning in your lessons. Make sure to go over your new words in your phrasebook with a native Spanish speaker, as I have had my notebook reviewed and there are times I was wrong. Then I also play games with my phrasebook with someone else, where they will say the word in English or Spanish and I have to say the word in the opposite language. This helps with improving my vocabulary and I imagine it can do the same for you.
- If you speak English, there are hundreds of shared words with the Spanish language, some of them are similar or even the same, so use that to your favor. Learn what these words are since they will be easier to remember. Also learning connectors is a great technique to be more conversational in Spanish and natural when speaking.
- Never lose sight of what motivated you to start learning Spanish, and when you feel frustrated come back to that. Try to enjoy the learning process and be passionate about it.
What to avoid:
- Don’t compare your progress with other people, we are all different and our times to process and learn all vary from one person to another, and that’s not a bad thing.
- Don’t put pressure on yourself trying to learn Spanish fast, take it easy and enjoy it because that’s what makes you absorb all the new knowledge.
- Don’t suffer for it. If you find it boring, tiring or tedious, approach it differently, try to make it fun like it was a game. If you hate it, you’ll never learn.
- If you have some of your native language accent coming through when speaking Spanish, that’s normal! You could improve it with time and practice if that’s what you want, but always remember that the key to learning Spanish is to be able to communicate with others. So don’t stress this!
- Don’t be hard on yourself if you commit mistakes, that’s normal and it helps you learn, every mistake is a chance to improve and it gets you closer to your goal.
About the Author:
Specializations: Spanish Tutors on Zoom
Bio: 28-year-old graphic designer and writer with 7 years of experience, passionate about communication in all its aspects as the main tool to forge links. I consider myself a detailed, patient, and empathetic person, so even if you consider yourself a difficult student, I will know how to guide you to reach the level of Spanish you need for whatever activity you have in mind. As a student of Literature, I always had the same love for books and their stories, as well as for the Spanish language and its formation. I believe that the best way to learn is to be passionate about what you are learning and that is what I always want to achieve with my students. I have worked with children, adolescents, and adults, so I have knowledge about the different learning stages that a person can go through and the different strategies to approach them.
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