Can i become fluent in spanish

I am at the beginning of my journey when it comes to learning Polish, though. These are all excellent tips, total immersion and being in the environment really gets it off with a bang and I love the sink or swim aspect of being there and trying all the combinations that you have given. Excellent post! I would looooove to learn Spanish. I was able to pick up a small amount traveling purely by conversing with waiters and asking them questions — after a couple weeks I could get around ordering food and drink and paying the bill in Spanish but that was about it.

Thanks for sharing your tips! I learnt Spanish in school a long time ago but I lost it all. If you cannot immerse yourself in it by living in the country or having a partner speaking the language , it is really hard to keep it up. These are all really good tips, make me decide to try another Spanish language course. My family is planning on spending the summer in Granada Albaicin. Hello Miles, yes of course, I have plenty of suggestions. How interesting. Honestly I should say you kept very motivated into spanish after your first experience.

Because we are already bilingual and Olesa de Montserrat very close where I do live it is very catalan spoken.

Your post is excellent. Yes, since living in Andalusia now 9 years I have gained a good understanding of the different accents. Cadiz is the most difficult one by far. I have been working on learning Spanish on my own. Visiting Spain definitely helps! I have found a couple of apps that I love as well. Thank you for sharing these helpful tips! I have a Spanish exam in a few months that determines a great deal of my degree so it was destiny for me to find this!!

I would suggest asking your neighbours for reputable companies and contacts and use them. If you wish to find english speaking ones you will limit the search greatly. I think it is best to find the best person for the job rather than a person who speaks good english who may not know the local area.

Since last five years i was planning to learn a foreign language and my first priority was Spanish. Happy to see a blog on Spanish language. You keep it very interesting through out the story. I am deeply inspired by your writing skill. Thanks for sharing. Your email address will not be published. Molly began writing about Spain in Based in Andalusia. Molly is passionate about Mediterranean lifestyle, historic sites and Spanish food. Living like a local in Spain since , she is fluent in Spanish.

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Development by Browse. Travel to Spain Being able to travel to Spain once or twice a year was a huge motivator. Become an Expat Moving to a Spain or another Spanish speaking country made cultural immersion far easier. Make Spanish friends Being in Cosmopolitan Barcelona it would be easy to make lots of International friends immediately. You can even have classes online from a Spanish person.

Such as this Spanish course This talk about broadening your perspective through language explains how learning about other cultures can refresh your ideas. If you have chance do watch the video: Listen to Spanish Have fun while learning Spanish. False friends in Spanish Make mistakes. It takes a while to actually gain character in your new language.

On top of that, you may have adopted incorrect sentence structure and vocabulary by listening to other English speakers who spoke the language incorrectly. For the brave, try to avoid living in big cities and instead opt for small towns or rural areas.

Also, look out for opportunities in the American Embassies in your country of choice! Talk about variety in vocab and verb tenses! Your Spanish romance vocabulary will also get a big workout, especially during those special little love-oriented holidays! All of this is invaluable for your fluency and language development.

Keep a small notepad or journal by your side at all times. Whenever you have a moment, try to write out your thoughts with five to 10 full Spanish sentences. Writing regularly like this is a great way to get creative, express yourself and improve your fluency in Spanish.

One day you can write about how you feel, the next about the food you ate. Another day you can write about a discussion you had or will have with someone. For this technique, try to use vocabulary you already know and slowly incorporate new words that you hear while watching your television shows or listening to your audiobooks.

Remember, habla habla habla talk, talk, talk. Try to do this in private spaces where you know no one can hear you at first. Perhaps your safe space will end up being in the car , in the shower or in your bedroom. Try looking in the mirror when you do this, and then record yourself from time to time to hear your progress. Others will shout out loud that the only way of becoming fluent is by starting to learn grammar as soon as possible hello, high-school teachers with no experience in teaching languages!

Some others, thankfully, will reckon grammar is important when it needs to be, and unnecessary when it gets in the way of improving your Spanish. As said in a past FluentU post about learning grammar in a foreign language , grammar is a side dish, not the main course.

I also love the metaphor of grammar being the glue that lets all the language components stay together. Glue is important, but so are the other components of your learning journey. First and foremost, you should learn how to learn Spanish grammar.

You also need to understand its importance, its place in your path to fluency. I always tell my students grammar is the skeleton of a language. I did something similar back in July, when I decided to become fluent in French from my living room. It seems like every time people start talking about foreign languages, someone tells the story about how the only way to learn a language is to go to the country. Immigrants do it all the time especially the ones from Western societies who are sometimes referred to as expats.

The reason some people have more success with languages while living in the country is due to a change in approach, rather than anything special about being in the country. I experienced this firsthand when I moved to Italy. Living in the country changed the way I learnt Italian in two important ways:.

For me, fluency means being able to function more or less as a native speaker would in everyday situations. This means:.

Your deadline will depend on how much time you can put aside to study each day. To find out how to enjoy the process, you might find these posts useful:. The 11 easiest languages and how to make any language easy. This is important because a year feels very far away, which makes it easy to find excuses to keep putting off learning Spanish.

No worries! After graduating from university, I got an internship in Mendoza, Argentina. The internship I got was supposed to be at an English-speaking wine magazine, but once I arrived it turned out that I was supposed to speak Spanish. Mendoza is quite a touristy place, where travelers come to see wineries, do whitewater rafting and hike in the mountains.

Hostel owners and tour guides obviously speak English. I was terrified. Every time I wanted to ask them for anything I had to go to my room, compose the sentence with a dictionary, and come back to recite what I had learned. I had to come up with a backup plan. The company agreed to send me to a Spanish course at the local language school for 3 weeks, and come back to work for them afterward. It seemed impossible at first. Because the Spanish course was only 3 weeks, I had to make the most of it.

Luckily for me, there were no other beginners, so my classes had to be individual ones. However, even with a private tutor, nothing is guaranteed. Before I even started the course, I equipped myself with some Spanish coursebooks.

If I can learn some things myself, why would I pay for someone else to tell me the same thing? Every day after my class I was researching and studying all the necessary vocabulary and grammar, so I could discuss it with the teacher the next day.

For vocabulary, I got a thematic dictionary , but you can make your own thematic dictionary out of a regular one. This was I got the most out of my teacher. Every afternoon I read some bilingual books from the local library and watched tons of Argentinian TV.

There are a lot of brilliant books that are written in a way you can understand, with an English translation on another page. After only 3 weeks, I had to actually start working and using my Spanish skills. I must have looked no better than Bridget Jones at the Austrian ski resort, but what could I do? I had to go shopping, I had to organize things for myself, and I had to interact with the local community. I finished my internship after 7 weeks and flew to Mexico.

Upon arrival, I could freely speak to my Mexican friends in Spanish. We were all surprised how quickly I learned Spanish, but it just goes to show that a lot of work and having a good system pays off. You must consciously lock yourself outside your comfort zone and not allow yourself to step back inside it for a while.

Technology makes everything possible these days. Stream some movies, download podcasts, books, do anything to have contact with the language. Yes, seriously. Many languages have words that share a common Greek or Latin root. Thanks to Latin, understanding its grammar structure and origin of many words, learning any foreign language is now easier. Fluency and accuracy are two different things.

When I lived in Italy , I became fluent in Italian, but far from being accurate. I might not have been always accurate in Italian, but at least I can speak. Talk, make mistakes, and ask people to correct you. But learn words first, before you master your grammar.

Embrace your mistakes. Also, take advantage of the fact that the teacher is there for you. These days, there are plenty of language exchanges online. You can learn through Skype. My favorite site for finding natives is italki. As you can see in my Mexican dictionary , there are many differences between Spanish spoken in, for example, Mexico and Argentina.

I have first-hand experience with both places and can vouch for them being legit. Remember, every new language is easier to learn. English basic grammar is less complex, so acquiring new rules might be challenging at first. I think your tips apply to every other languages, not just Spanish.