Talk from day 1: the more you talk, the more confidence you will have. Talk to another person or yourself. It doesn’t matter if you have mistakes, you will eventually learn from them. It’s interesting how Spanish students just read or listen and don’t speak. We must speak from day one, every word we learn we must pronounce it. Because the truth is that if we do not repeat what we hear, if we do not create conversations with us or with others, we will not know how to use the words we are learning, and we will be stuck when we really need to converse. Because we never strengthen that knowledge.
Surround yourself with Spanish: think about all the things you like: music, videos tutorials, books, the news, so you should listen and read as much as you can in Spanish. The truth is that being immersed in Spanish is what will help us much more to move forward. For example if you are always listening to English, even if you are trying to learn Spanish, you will never speak Spanish well. You have to start thinking like a native, how do natives learn? The natives have to learn because otherwise they cannot communicate, they must strive to learn. That’s why you have to make all the things around you in the Spanish language.
Produce in Spanish: you have to think and write in Spanish as much as you can for example: make your list of the market in Spanish, your agenda, your letters or even a diary or an agenda that you want to take with the events or activities of the day. This is another very practical way to learn Spanish because you are going to try to create sets of words in sentences or paragraphs that you should then try to understand.
Set goals: they don’t have to be big goals, they can be small goals. Goals you can achieve, but don’t forget to reward yourself when you reach any of these goals, this will keep you motivated. This is the most important step and if you do not have attainable goals, you will get frustrated in the long term. Because you will feel that you have not achieved the level you want, so you will start to be disappointed of your progress all the time and you are going to give up.
Repeat: I know what you are going to say: “I already knew that” but not only repeat at the moment of the learning, you also have to repeat later. For example: before going to bed at night or very early in the morning, this will help you ensure everything you learned. Try to remember after studying which are the words you learned and which are the ones you didn’t learn. Make a list and with those words that you don’t remember, separate and review these words much more, and don’t just trust your memory, write down everything.
Patience and perseverance: you have to know right now that to learn a language there are no shortcuts, even though working hard may help you to accelerate the process, it is still a process so you will have to arm yourself with patience and a lot of constancy. And one cannot exist without the other, this will not be an easy path, it will require a lot of patience and of course a lot of perseverance in order to obtain adequate results. If you try to do it as quickly as possible, you will end up not learning anything well and you will end up frustrated again.
Relate to natives: believe me this is a great way to learn the correct pronunciation and improve your hearing, preferably if you are going on a trip to a country that speaks Spanish. Because each country has its own accent. And the best way to learn Spanish is if you speak directly with a native, even if you are a beginner, this the best: because from the beginning they will give you the proper pronunciation. And if you are advanced you will have the ideal opportunity to practice, because the natives speak very fast and with their own slang, which only they know.
