How to Not Waste Time Learning Spanish
Updated December 2021
Is this the year that you will finally put a plan together and start learning Spanish? After all, you are planning to spend some time in Mexico someday, right?
Then you’ve come to the right blog. If you are considering living in or spending extended time in a Spanish-speaking country someday, the time to start your practice is now.
First, what is your plan? Which methods or tools work best?
Most efficient methods:
According to a survey of over 2,500 students conducted by Rocket Languages, a language teaching website and program, students who achieved intermediate level perceived some methods more effective than others.
On the survey’s 1-5 scale, those reaching a three or above were:
Private tutoring - 3.88
Immersion classes - 3.72 (but what is an "immersion" class?)
Online courses - 3.45
Speaking Spanish out loud - 3.45
Practice writing - 3.23
Practice with a study partner - 3.17
Having set study times - 3.17
Reading Spanish books - 3.05
I always suspected that entertaining videos, listening to music in Spanish or watching films with sub-titles were too good to be true. Those methods came in at the bottom of perceived effectiveness in the survey, tristemente (sadly).
Building enough vocabulary and basic grammar to move on to reading, speaking and writing is the first step. While numerous vocabulary-building sites exist, here are a few basic sites to get you started with learning vocabulary as a beginner.
Digital Dialect - game-based vocabulary building
Quizlet - helps you tailor your vocabulary to your interests and the subjects you think you will most likely be talking about.
Duolingo - free - Probably the most popular beginner site, Duolingo uses games and peer competition to motivate learning.
Pictolang - helps you associate vocabulary word with picture rather than translate it from English.
Readlang will also send you daily vocabulary flashcards, enhanced by giving you a sentence so you can see the word in context.
Spanish Dict - This standard tool has added many new features for learning. It’s good for much more than looking up words. You can translate whole phrases and use the audio feature for pronunciation (it’s not perfect but it’s good enough for beginner level.)
Grammar
YouTube has a number of good sites for basic grammar if you don’t want to buy a program. I’m old fashioned and most liked Professor Jason. He’s soothing and thorough. If you do a Google search, such as “Spanish grammar exercises, you will find exercises to do to test your understanding. Testing is critical (Studies show that you learn three times more from testing than studying). Don’t leave it out.
You must practice speaking a second language asap.
Finding opportunities to practice speaking is trickier for beginners. While you should start speaking practically from day one, like a baby does, the problem is that sometimes it's hard for babies to get anyone to listen to them. At this level, you will need to attend Spanish language exchange clubs or hire a tutor to make any progress in a timely fashion.
iTalki is great place to find “community tutors” at a less expensive rate. Once you can keep up a conversation, you can graduate to free language exchange, offered on a number of sites (My favorite is clunky mylanguageexchange, which has the biggest inventory of older students.) Once you begin to connect to others through Spanish exchange practices via Skype or Zoom, you will see where a second language can take you and how exciting cultural exchange can be at any age.
Repeat, Repeat, Repeat.
One of the big mistakes I made was listening to too many types of speakers. My pronunciation/accent was terrible. Find one podcast or Youtube channel in Spanish that features a speaker you want to emulate, with the accent you want. It doesn’t matter what they’re talking about. Use pause to repeat what they say, word by word if you have to, over and over (and over). This was suggested by the instructor of the Youtube Channel Español Automatico. In just a month, my practice partners told me my accent had improved radically.
"How much do I need to study?"
According to the Rocket Spanish survey, students rating themselves as intermediates spent more time studying. Beginners spent 2.78 hours a week on average. Intermediates spent 3.56 hours on some form of study and advanced speakers spent 5.27 hours a week. It’s interesting to note that advanced speakers spent considerably more time studying. Now that I’m a more advanced speaker myself, it’s easy to understand why.
Once past the excruciating baby-talk stage, you will begin to feel more gratified by your progress. The better your conversations get, the more motivated you will become. Nothing breeds success like success. Now that I see the incredible difference it makes in my world living in Mexico, I am much more excited about studying than I used to be.
Break up study into 30 minute blocks.
If you ever learned to meditate, you probably found that you couldn't just sit down for an hour the first day. You needed to build up your practice over time. Like meditation, you will find the more good study sessions you experience, the more motivated you'll be to 'stay on the cushion." Experts say consistency and repetition are key in memory-based learning. Start with a half hour and build up to 90 minutes, taking breaks every 20-30 minutes.
It will become much more fun as your level goes up.
Once you are an advanced speaker, you can use tools that are more enjoyable, such as easier books and certain movies. By capturing and study vocabulary from the movies, you can make it an active rather than passive learning experience.
You can access variety of mediums and read articles that are interesting unto themselves on adult topics. Your practice sessions with practice partners will become more interesting as you are able to explore more topics together.
I didn’t start learning Spanish until I was about 56 years old. Most of my relationships in Mexico today are with folks who don’t speak any English. Spanish will change your life in Mexico and it’s never too late to learn.
Related links:
Don’t forget to check out my Spanish Website of the Week page!
10 surprising reasons to learn Spanish when you're over 50.
About the author:
Kerry Baker is a partner with Ventanas Mexico which provides insight and resources to those considering expat life in Mexico. "If Only I Had a Place' on renting in Mexico in preparation of your expat journey. Avoid the pitfalls, take advantage of the opportunities with this book on renting. She also wrote “The Mexico Solution: Saving your money, sanity and quality of life through part-time life in Mexico, and co-authored The Lazy Expat: Healthy Recipes That Translate in Mexico.