Learning Spanish? Here are 6 tips to help you.

Do you want to start learning Spanish? Learning a new language is a great challenge. There are a lot of new things and it is hard to know where to start. Today I will give you some suggestions that will help you do it more efficiently.

1. Start with learning Spanish pronunciation.

Spanish has some particularities that are hard for non-natives. People usually want to start with simple grammar and miss this step. However, the best way is to start is reading and saying the proper sounds in every task you do,
because that makes you think. If you don’t do it now, you might find it difficult to learn when need it in the future. You will have the ability to improve on other things instead of getting stuck in the basics.

The good news is that you can easily practice this with a language exchange partner at Bilingua. One way you can make it easier to remember is to associate the sounds with similar sounds in your native language wherever possible.
Besides, when you do this, your partner will be more engaged in the conversation because they will be learning at the same time as teaching you.

Extra tip: The most difficult points about pronunciation are the trill R, G and J, and C and S. You can’t expect to pronounce them perfectly the first time, so be patient and keep practising. Practice makes perfect.

2. Don’t try to memorize all the verb tenses in a week.

Learning Spanish means you have to learn a lot of verb tenses. If you try to memorize them in the beginning, you will get bored, even frustrated, and eventually you will forget many of them. For a start focus on the present. Yes, it is hard to talk about things using just the present, but you can keep it that way at the beginning for practice. Once you feel more comfortable with the present, you can start to look at other tenses.

Extra tip: Remember to learn about irregular verbs. You will come across them very often, so know the basics of how they work in the present, as this will help you with the other tenses.

3. Learn useful phrases.

When learning Spanish, the worst thing you can do at the beginning is not to learn useful phrases. Between the most structured lessons, you can also have a go at phrases for different everyday situations, such as introducing yourself to people, asking for the time, and asking for, or giving, directions in the city.

Extra tip: You can pick a very specific situation each time, so as not to overwhelm yourself with too much vocabulary.

4. Reintroduce yourself to your favourite books and movies in your new language.

According to the stereotype, Spanish speakers aren’t able to speak English very well, which has to mean they are spending most of their time reading books and watching movies, rather than practicing speaking. One way to get used to the sounds and the structure of Spanish speech is to read and to listen to a lot of content in Spanish. It is even better and easier when you start watching a movie or reading a book that you have already read in English or your native language before. That way, you already know the plot and have basic idea of what happens, and this will make your reading experience smoother. If you jump straight into something new, you will most probably struggle with the vocabulary, making it difficult to enjoy what you’re reading or watching.

Extra tip: Interviews are much easier than movies. Movies are a good option for advanced students, but as a beginner, you might not catch much. If you don’t have any other option, choose a movie you think you can enjoy even if you don’t understand anything at all. That way you won’t get bored, and you won’t leave it after 15 minutes.

5. Don’t be afraid of grammar.

Ok, learning Spanish grammar is not fun. But you need it. So go through it slowly. Spend some time on the theory, and then change to other more interesting activities like listening, writing or doing exercises. But never neglect to give grammar some attention too.

6. Things to ask your language exchange partner.

If you are a beginner, and you can’t have long conversations, you can try reading aloud. Ask your partner to correct your pronunciation. You may not be having a conversation with this exercise, but you will be receiving feedback that only a native can give.
Ask them to focus on correct your grammatical genders (masculine/feminine) and number (singular/plural) mistakes. It is very important that one day this becomes an automatic. So it’s a good thing to focus on from the beginning.
Ask them about websites, videos, and other resources you can check in Spanish. When you search in Google, you are doing so as a language learner, but they do it as natives. The pages they will recommend will likely be different and more valuable to your learning than the ones you find in your researches.

About the author:
Miguel Bratos is a freelance content writer from Spain who also teaches Spanish to foreign learners by Skype. He likes reading, writing and has practiced a lot of hours of language exchange when he was studying English. He has a blog about the freelance writer career as writer and copywriter of spanishwriterpro.com.