Every time we get into a taxi, my daughter corrects my Spanish.

While I rarely hear her speak the language she’s been immersed in for over a year, she certainly knows more than she lets on and doesn’t hesitate to correct Mom. She is often particularly perturbed by my accent. 😂

To be fair, she is learning Spanish in classes every day at school from a native Spanish speaker, whereas I’ve been learning through a combination of methods, including apps, in-person courses, online classes, podcasts, and videos. And it’s brought me quite far. I can speak at a low A2 level and can understand quite a bit more.

I’m not new to language learning. In high school, I took four years of French, including AP French in my senior year. I continued with it in college, taking two more years. That background gave me a slight edge when it came to learning Spanish. Because both are Romance languages, they are similar enough that I can often figure out a Spanish word using my French background. And — not to toot my own horn here — I have a natural aptitude for words and language, making it easier for my brain to make sense of the Spanish language in front of me.

However, learning French as a young student for travel and study is quite different from learning a language for living in a culture.

In the year before we left the U.S. for Spain, I dove headfirst into learning Spanish. Honestly, I wish I’d spent more time on it and started even sooner — and mixed in some other methods.

Duolingo

Everyone knows the green owl. He’s sarcastic, dramatic, and can be more than a little annoying. Despite Duolingo’s flaws (and there are many), it is a good starter for vocabulary. It’s also convenient, working as an app on your phone (with those dreadful reminders to practice) or on your laptop. Duolingo is gamification at its finest. Unfortunately, what it doesn’t do well is dig into grammar and sentence structure.

I did make progress with Duolingo. It just wasn’t as fast or effective as I’d hoped.

Podcasts

There are a whole slew of Spanish-learning podcasts available, but some of them definitely stand out to me more than others. What I like about this method is the ability to change playback speed in Spotify or Apple Podcasts, and as I understand more, I can listen at a faster speed. I’m also a bit of a podcast addict, always listening to something as I walk, clean the apartment, or sit on the couch playing games on my phone. Having something Spanish in my ears is just an opportunity for more immersion.

Some of my favorites include:

• ¡Cuéntame!

• Chill Spanish Listening Practice

• How to Spanish Podcast

• Dreaming Spanish

• Coffee Break Spanish

• News in Slow Spanish

• Un día en español

In-Person & Online Classes

In November 2024, I took advantage of a Black Friday deal at El Carmen Spanish School and purchased six months of classes, held twice a week for two hours each. For about four months, I attended class in person, conversing with other adults — young and old, and those in between — as I learned Spanish. The students came from all over the world: Ukraine, Russia, the United States, Algeria, Kazakhstan, the Netherlands, South Korea, Canada, Ireland … you get the idea. It was a fabulous opportunity to interact with others at my level who shared my passion for learning. I made the most progress with these in-person classes.

When summer approached and I knew I’d have kids home for the break, I switched to an online course. While not quite as effective for me as the in-person version, I still had plenty of opportunities to speak and converse with other students in Spanish.

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What Worked

Building your vocabulary is half the battle when it comes to language learning. While I didn’t get much speaking practice using Duolingo or podcasts, the introduction to new words helped me comprehend more on the streets of Valencia. When you can understand the words you’re hearing, your world begins to expand.

My class attendance helped me improve my speaking confidence and accent. Knowing how to say the words is just as important as being able to understand them. Others need to be able to understand you when you speak. Truthfully, I still struggle a bit with this one. I have a Southern accent, so I speak slowly anyway. It’s often a real challenge to speed up my speech enough for Spanish. Classes also give you a safe space to screw up, say the wrong words, and mess up the sentence structure. No one expects perfection in that setting.

I am never afraid to ask someone if I’m pronouncing a word correctly or putting a sentence in the right order. Most of the time, the person I’m speaking with knows what I’m asking, but I will often stop and ask, “Did I say that correctly?” And they’ll either gently correct me or give me a happy, “¡Muy bien!”

Speaking with my neighbors, classmates, store clerks, and anyone else I run into helps me practice. There is a cashier at one of our local grocery stores who recognizes us every time we check out, and she compliments my improving Spanish whenever she sees us. She throws new questions at me, testing my sea legs, so to speak. And the last time I saw one of my doctors, I walked in with a very natural, “Hola,” and she said, “¡Muy bien! Every time I see you, your ‘hola’ is a little bit better.” Those little encouragements keep me going because no matter how slow my progress feels, I’m seeing the payoff poco a poco.

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I’m probably not telling you anything you don’t already know, but learning a new language as an adult is no easy feat.

We’ve been in Spain for nearly six months (❗️), and I’ve diligently listened to podcasts, taken a class twice a week, spoken Spanish when I can, and immersed myself in the language.

Stil…

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I’m a frequent Amazon user. At first, I didn’t schedule deliveries to our apartment. Instead, I had them delivered to a locker a few blocks from our building because I couldn’t wrap my head around speaking enough Spanish to communicate with the courier.

Soon enough, with reassurances from other Americans living in Spain, I finally got brave enough to start receiving deliveries at home. Most of the time, they hand over the package, ask for your NIE (identification number) if they need it, and they’re done–off to deliver another package. Some of the delivery drivers even speak some English and are eager to practice it on me.

Amazon doesn’t change much from country to country. You don’t even need to open a new account if you don’t want to. You can change the country of your account. (Full disclosure: I opened a new Amazon account just for Spain. I have a Kindle, my daughter has a Kindle, and an Amazon customer service associate told me it would change the availability of books for us.)

As with most things in life, all of this runs smoothly–until it doesn’t.

I recently experienced my first customer service hiccup when Amazon canceled an order I had placed for new headphones. So I did what anyone does: I hopped onto Amazon’s chat, and to my surprise, it defaulted to English. Yay! I thought. This will be easy.

Not so fast, Jen.

The rep told me the Spanish team would have to assist me. Okay, great, I can handle that.

One problem: The Spanish rep noticed that I’d been chatting in English. He asked if I’d prefer to continue in English, and I said yes. Oops! Back to another rep in English, who again informed me that the Spanish team would have to help me. But, he said, you will need to continue the conversation in Spanish, or they will send you back to this team again. “Use Google Translate,” he said when I told him I don’t speak much Spanish.

Knowing I wasn’t getting out of this loop without the Spanish conversation, I whipped out my phone and pointed it at my laptop for translation when the rep came online. Finally, we were getting somewhere, but only after I declined to continue the conversation in English.

Living in a new country and learning a new language requires constant adaptation. Sometimes, it’s easier than others. I wasted almost 30 minutes before I could get to the root of the issue and solve it. If I’d known from the start that I needed to translate to Spanish, I could’ve saved myself a whole lot of headache.

This move continues to teach me empathy. While I am naturally empathetic, it is eye-opening to have firsthand experiences that someone moving to the U.S. must have when they don’t speak the language or understand the cultural nuances. Will has had his own recent experiences with this concept in a different setting.

It is hard to live in a new country. It is hard to learn a new language. But it is also gratifying, and we learn so much about ourselves and others as we navigate daily life in Spain.

I write here about building a life abroad—slowly, imperfectly, and with a lot of trial and error.

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If you’d like to reach out directly, you can find me at jen@jeninspain.com.

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