The Best (and Worst) Ways I’ve Tried to Learn Spanish
A year in Spain taught me more than the green owl ever could.
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:
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.
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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