Can you really get fluent in Spanish if you’ve never learnt it before? It seems unlikely now, but by the end of your exchange trip you will be amazed at how far you’ve come. Follow our five tips to make learning easier.
Don’t sweat the strangeness
When you first start learning Spanish, there’s a lot to take in about the nature of the language. Like the idea of nouns having a gender. (What’s so feminine about an apple anyway?) Other confusing things include the accent marks and the way verbs change depending on who’s doing the action. It’s easy to get totally stuck, but remember you don’t have to grasp everything before moving on. Learn some real words and phrases, then return to the grammar theory. It will all make a lot more sense once you have some context.
Learn little and often
Educators have known for over a century that if you study “little and often”, you remember more than if you cram all your studying into one big block of time. So why not make a habit of studying every day? 20 minutes a day is the same time commitment as two hours 20 minutes per week, but, crucially, it’s more effective than just sitting down to study for over two hours. It’s also easier to find 20 minutes in your day than it is to find longer periods free.
Stay glued to your phone!
Maybe people say you spend too much time on your phone. Now you have the perfect excuse! Your smartphone is a fantastic tool for learning Spanish because there are so many great apps out there. Use the “dead” moments when you’d normally pick up your phone anyway to do a bite-sized piece of Spanish learning.
If it doesn’t make sense, find out why!
When you’re bombarded with new Spanish vocabulary and grammar, there will be lots of things that don’t make sense. Why does "mas" sometimes have an accent, and sometimes it doesn't? Why do we say lo siento and not yo siento? Sometimes you just need to accept the weirdness and push on, but often asking why can help you both understand and remember. Your host family will probably be delighted to answer your questions about their native language, and if not, there’s always Google.
(To answer the two questions above:
1. Because the accent gives different meanings to the word "mas". "Más", with accent, means "Plus". And "mas", without accent, means "but".
2. We say lo siento because lo means “it”. When you’re saying sorry in Spanish, you’re really saying “I feel it” or “I regret it”. Yo lo siento would be equally correct, but Spanish-speakers don’t always bother with the yo because the end of the verb tells them who’s doing the action.
Talk to native speakers
Nothing will boost your Spanish learning more than real conversation with native speakers. You’ll get a sense of how real people talk and use the language that can’t really be picked up from any book or app. Make the most of your time with your host family by doing as much chatting in Spanish as possible. It might be awkward at first because you have to keep asking for help or stopping to look things up, but you’ll be amazed at how fast you start to feel fluent.
