How to Improve Your Spanish

The top 4 excuses for not speaking Spanish well, and how to eliminate them

How can I go from being a beginner to an intermediate-level student? Is it possible to stop being an intermediate-level student and become an advanced student? How to improve your Spanish without hiring a personal tutor? All students have asked themselves these questions at some point. It is logical, since we all want to know how to speak better in Spanish.

Excuse 4: “I’m too old to remember new words.” 

How to Improve Your Spanish has nothing to do with your age.

It doesn’t really matter if one is thirty, fifty or seventy years old. Children learn very quickly and that is why we think that we are too old to learn. Here I suggest a simple, motivating solution that works.

Solution:

Divide a sheet of paper into two parts vertically, right and left. When you read or hear a sentence with a new word or with a structure that you tend to forget, write it in Spanish on one side of the sheet and in your language on the other side. I am using this technique to learn Hungarian, and it works very well for me. Here’s a photo:

An easy technique on how to improve your Spanish. Sentences in two languages, each one in one column.

Don’t use long sentences. Study the list every day and keep adding new phrases. After a few days, you will see that you already know some sentences so well that you no longer need to study them. In this way the list is alive, and your vocabulary is continuously growing.

Excuse 3: “I don’t have time.”

It is true that it is not easy to find time for everything. However, we must admit that we all have our priorities when it comes to spending our free time. How to improve your Spanish has a lot to do with how to manage your time.

What if we get up half an hour earlier every day and study Spanish during those 30 minutes? If you think that this suggestion is not valid, I offer you another option: Do not watch any silly videos on your mobile until you have studied Spanish that day for at least 30 minutes.

Excuse 2: “Learning Spanish is too expensive.”

How to Improve Your Spanish does not mean how to pay for more lessons.

It is true that it can be very expensive, but it is also true that there are many free or very cheap options. For example:

– Do a search on Google and YouTube for free materials. You can also use podcasts, of course.

– Work with a private teacher once a month. Make a work plan with homework for the whole month with your teacher.

– Use the option that I describe here: Force yourself to speak better in Spanish!

Excuse 1: “Speaking Spanish is very difficult, I can read and understand it, but I can’t speak it.”

How to Improve Your Spanish is the same as How to Speak Spanish Better.

How can we eliminate this very logical excuse? Here I offer you some ideas, and I suggest you read them slowly, thinking about each one to see if you can use it.

– Be humble, accept reality and recognize that laziness is a problem too. Speaking Spanish requires effort, but it is possible to do it if you work regularly and do what the teacher tells you.

– Write a text in Spanish every day. Then write the same text in your native language in a translator and compare the two texts in Spanish, your original text and what the translator gives you. What have you learned? Take notes and try to use what you have learned in your next text.

– Prepare written presentations for your Spanish class. Do not read the text during the class, try to read it several times before so that you can present it orally without reading or reading very little.

– Look for an application that allows you to do an exchange with a person who speaks Spanish.

– Force yourself to speak in Spanish. More information here: Recordings.

In conclusion, it is true that there are difficulties, that the obstacles are real. However, we must admit that there is a wide variety of possibilities, and we just have to sit down, reflect and choose the right path. Millions of people speak Spanish as a foreign language, why can’t you?

© Pedro Fernández Fanjul www.spanishwithpedro.com Preguntas o comentarios: spanishwithpedro@gmail.com