Spanish For Beginners: Best Beginners Guide to Learning the Spanish Language!

The obvious disadvantages of a bachelor's degree are that it takes three or four years to earn one and, depending on the country, can be very expensive. There are faster, cheaper ways to get your Spanish to an impressive level. If you don't have the time or desire to get a full degree in Spanish, consider a shorter course in a language school. Many schools offer intensive programs, which can be a great way to gain the kind of immersion I described above. Middlebury College in the U. Remember I said that you don't need to travel to a Spanish-speaking country to gain immersion!

I can't give advice on specific schools, because it obviously depends on where you are. Read online reviews and try to talk to former students to see if you can learn a bit about the programme and decide whether it suits your learning style before you sign up. With classroom learning, you generally move at the pace of the slowest learner. That's why small class sizes are better — and best of all is a class size of one. One-on-one tutoring is often surprisingly close in cost to group lessons in a classroom. If you can afford it, I highly recommend seeking a one-on-one tutor.

The cost of lessons is very reasonable, with tutors available from just a few dollars per hour. Different Spanish teachers have different styles; don't be afraid to shop around and try a few different teachers before settling on one that you like. In-person Spanish lessons aren't necessarily better than online lessons; it's very convenient to be able to have lessons from your own home.

Study Spanish: 10 Methods to Learn Fluent Spanish

In fact, while learning Mandarin in Taiwan I ended up switching from in-person to Skype lessons with the same tutor. Even though we lived in the same city, it wasn't worth the effort and travel time to meet in person.

And no one in my area speaks Spanish! How can I practise? Death to your excuses, I say! There's a still a way: If you're reading this, you speak English. That means there's a lot of Spanish speakers who'd like to practise their English with you. In return, many of them would be happy to let you practise Spanish with them. If you can find a Spanish-speaking language partner in your city and can meet up in person, great.

You can also find thousands of language exchange partners to help you practise Spanish for free. A language exchange can be structured any way you want. You might just want to casually converse with your partner about whatever comes to mind, switching languages at a predefined interval e. Or you could work through a series of structured exercises or language games together. It's up to you.

Many people end up becoming good friends with their language exchange partners — even visiting each other in their home countries! A language exchange doesn't have to be one-on-one. The popularity of Spanish as a second language means that most major cities have meetup groups that are just for Spanish speakers who want to learn English and visa versa.

Some meetup groups are more open-ended, open to speakers of all languages. The best language exchanges avoid this problem by adding some structure, for example you may play some language games together or be given specific conversation starters or topics to talk about. If there are no Spanish language groups in your area, go ahead and create your own. Anyone can create a group on Meetup. Learning a language is a marathon, not a sprint, and learners sometimes struggle with motivation.

One great way to solve this problem is to join a language learning community. If you surround yourself with other people who are on the same journey as you — whether they're learning Spanish or any other language — you'll all be able to support and encourage each other in pursuit of your shared goal.

Learning communities can be offline or online. If you're having classroom lessons, then I hope your class feels like a learning community! You're all in it together, so why not help each other out and support each other? Online communities can be powerful too.

Teach Me Spanish: A Step-by-Step Guide for Beginners

At Fi3M we run a regular event called the Add1Challenge , where people from all around the world commit to have a minute conversation with a native speaker of their new language after just 90 days of study. Our participants have seen great results. Mnemonics isn't an entire study method in itself, but it's still a powerful tool that every language learner should be familiar with. Check out my list of Spanish reading resources for ideas on where to start. Keep a virtual Spanish-English dictionary so you can look up new words as you read.

By now you should have a sizable repertoire of you-specific vocabulary, enough for a short, simple conversation in Spanish about one or two topics that interest you. Studying less often means you have to spend more time in each study session reviewing what you learned last time.

1. My Favourite: Study Spanish by Speaking From Day One

You also risk falling out of your routine and giving up on your language mission. So keep up the daily studying! Even if you can only commit to a few minutes each time. On your Anki deck, you can add words or phrases. Phrases give you context for the words along with correct examples of how to use them. Ideally, aim for three conversations this week. You should schedule as many face-to-face conversations either in person or on Skype as you can fit into your schedule.

This week is all about maintaining the healthy study habits you set up last week. Follow the schedule you set for yourself, and see how it works. Tweak your schedule so that it works for you. Speaking should always remain top on your list. After all, your goal is to learn how to speak Spanish. Follow the schedule above, and you will surprise yourself with your progress.

Around two thirds of any given conversation, article, song, podcast or article in everyday use is made up of just words. No matter what route you take to learning Spanish, just be sure to do what works for you. Benny Lewis Founder, Fluent in 3 Months. Fun-loving Irish guy, full-time globe trotter and international bestselling author. Benny believes the best approach to language learning is to speak from day one. There was an error submitting your subscription. Email Address What language are you learning? Click here to see the comments!

The jump in popularity of Thai as a foreign language has led to an explosion of fun games and exercise ideas on the web to help hone your Thai skills. Now, how do you compete with that as a busy adult? Even if you squeeze in an hour a day of Spanish radio into your daily life, it would still take you 8 years to get the equivalent amount of language exposure. Who has the patience to spend 8 years learning Spanish? With the right method and motivation, you can learn Spanish in months, not years. There are many expats who have lived in Spain or Latin America for years, and guess what?

These people have the perfect environment to learn, they can hear Spanish everywhere when walking down the street, and every friend or acquaintance is someone they can practice with. But somehow, none of this seems to help. Simply being there and listening is not enough. As an adult, we have to learn languages actively.

Most of us want to go from beginner to fluent in as short a time as possible, and passive listening is simply too slow. Listening to radio, TV, movies can be useful at a later stage. Increasing the amount of Spanish you hear will speed up your progress when you are already at a conversational level more on this later. But when it comes to learning Spanish as a complete beginner, there are far more efficient methods. Maybe you have friends who are native Spanish speakers, or maybe you are dating or married to one!

If that person is the reason you wanted to learn Spanish in the first place, it may seem like a good idea to practice with them from the beginning. A good place to find them is Meetup. For example, I went to this one in my hometown. The basic idea is to find a Spanish native speaker who is trying to learn English.

You meet in person or have a Skype call where you split your time practicing both Spanish and English. The easiest way to find a partner is through online exchanges like My Language Exchange and Conversation Exchange. These days it is far more convenient to find a Spanish teacher online, which believe it or not, can be even more interactive than being face-to-face. You take your lessons via Skype from the comfort of home and on your own schedule. This is how I personally learned Spanish. We only hire the best teachers through our rigorous 4-step selection process.

1. !
2. .
3. Thornless Roses;
4. Best Way to Learn Spanish for Beginners - The Complete Guide.
5. .
6. Institutionelle Verankerung des Performance Management (German Edition);
7. !

In addition, we do all the work for you and match you up with a teacher that fits your schedule and your goals. You can also try out the first lesson for free. Unlike most companies that offer free trials, we do NOT ask for your credit card upfront I personally hate it when they do that. Click here to learn more. Of course, there are plenty of people who have learned Spanish without a teacher. Doing a language exchange or going to a meetup is certainly better than not speaking at all. But it will take much longer to learn, and you may be tempted to give up in the process.

The idea is to get a brief introduction to Spanish, with the goal of familiarizing yourself with:. This helps you acclimatize to learning a new language, and gets you used to listening and speaking right away. Start with a free audio course or one of the popular apps. Here are some examples:. You probably only need about 30 minutes a day, and this introductory stage should last no more than 2 weeks. Afterwards, you need to STOP using these resources because although they are fine as an introduction, they are slow and inefficient.

Try to get your pronunciation right from the very beginning. When you hear the Spanish recording, make sure you repeat it out loud. At first, repeat each word slowly, syllable by syllable until you can mimic the sounds almost perfectly.

Study Spanish: 10 Methods to Learn Fluent Spanish

If necessary, record yourself speaking and listen back. At this stage, the goal is to build a solid foundation for yourself in terms of basic grammar, vocabulary, put your thoughts into complete sentences and be confident enough to talk to people. At the end of this stage, you want to be able to have basic conversations that involve exchanging information, asking for things, talking about work, family and your interests.

Using a textbook might seem old-fashioned, but it is still probably the best way for a beginner to learn the grammatical rules of Spanish. The reason why a textbook is effective is because it teaches you in a structured way.

It takes you through a progression that slowly builds on each concept, step-by-step. For each chapter of the textbook that you go through, study the dialogues, and make sure you do all the practice exercises. Ideally, you should try to find additional exercises online related to the concept you just learned. So for each concept you learn, you need to be practicing it with real people. You can use a combination of friends, meetups, or language exchanges to get your practice in.

At this point, you are not having full conversations yet nor should you try to. Try practicing phrases, and some short dialogues or scenarios. But nevertheless, you should aim for hours per week of speaking practice. When you learn with a teacher, you get step-by-step guidance and speaking practice all in one package. You even get homework, just like in school. This is a big advantage over someone who is just studying on their own.

Being able to practice what you learned immediately through speaking is another advantage. For example, you might spend the first half of a lesson going over the conjugations of the Imperfect tense, and then spend the second half the lesson practicing it verbally through question and answer, storytelling, and other fun exercises. It might be tempting to immediately work your way through a textbook from cover to cover, but this will just overload you with information.

A lot of people make the mistake of diving too deep into the grammar, without making sure that they fully understand and have practiced each concept before moving on to the next. Focus on memorizing the most useful words that will make it easier for you to practice speaking. If you master these types of words, your speech will come out more naturally, and it will make you sound more fluent than you actually are at this point. This can give you a much-needed boost of confidence because at this stage it can still be scary to be out there talking to people.

This stage is all about expanding your horizons. Some may choose to improve their Spanish even further to the advanced levels, but for many people, this is this level where you can fully enjoy the rewards of being able to speak Spanish. Based on the two options from the beginner stage, we can make a few adjustments for the intermediate level:. In order to move into the intermediate stage, speaking becomes even more important. By now you should now be ramping up your speaking practice to a minimum of hours per week. Whereas you were previously practicing short phrases or dialogues, you should now be pushing yourself to have more full-fledged conversations now that you know more vocabulary and grammar.

If you are learning with a teacher, you should know them pretty well by now, so you can have deeper conversations about more diverse topics. Your teacher can also start to speak a little bit faster to help train your ear. This is the stage where active reading and listening start to shine. You know enough Spanish now that you can really take advantage of movies, TV, radio, podcasts, books, and articles. Reading and listening at the same time will get you the best results. Try to find material that is interesting to you. This way you can enjoy the process of listening and reading, which can become a source of motivation.

Try your best to understand it, pay attention to the grammar and vocabulary, and the context that they are being used. A big part of going from beginner to intermediate is significantly increasing your vocabulary. Using flash card apps like Anki or Memrise can really help commit them to memory. You can practice in short 5-minute chunks while waiting for the bus etc. A textbook is not mandatory at this point.

Of course, there are always more advanced grammar concepts to learn, but they tend to be used very sparingly in everyday conversations. You look up the meaning and then create a new flash card in Anki. The next today, the flash card pops up and you review it. What you are learning now is more incremental and takes longer for everything to click in your mind.