Keith's Ten Ways to Spanish Fluency
From my book, So You Want to Learn Spanish?:
2. Practice what you have learned each day for at least 30 minutes. Experts say that if you expose yourself a hundred times or more to a new word, grammar point, idiom, song or whatever, that you will truly have learned it. It will be integrated into your long term memory. If you read aloud, do verb drills, talk to your dog or cat, use a software program, play some interactive language games or something that forces you to use your brain in the other language, you’re going to make great progress. I've had students post vocabulary cards throughout their home and physically move throughout their dwelling picking up things, sitting down, turning on and saying what they are doing – in Spanish – each step of the way. This commits names of objects to memory. As you try to remember words, you can recall your actions to help trigger the words you need. I even have soap (jabón), shampoo (champú) and conditioner (condicionador) dispensers labeled in Spanish in the shower! This forces you to remember to use the language day in and day out.
Practice, practice, practice. It seems like anything you do in life you must practice at it. Learning a language is no different. If you expect to get good at it, you must spend some time to practice it.
Think of practicing as your brain's way of building up its muscle. When you go to the gym and lift weights or swim some laps, you are developing muscles and organs. Lifting weights develop your muscles and coordinated muscle groups to work together in harmony. Swimming allows your lungs, heart and overall cardiovascular health to improve. Spending at least 30 minutes to speak, read, and/or write in another language will grow your mind too.
You will find that other things will develop along with learning a new language. Your mind will improve your critical thinking and reasoning skills, memory recall will quicken, speech and verbal articulation will enhance and above all else, self-confidence in going out in public and speaking in that foreign language. As humans, making public fools of ourselves is something to be avoided. Practicing your Spanish every day will help you avoid a "mi culpa" (my fault) moment.
It is important to discover ways to make practicing Spanish fun. It has been said that when children play, they are actually working. They are working to improve their cognitive and physical abilities in order to function as an adult in a much larger world. Children have fun playing and in doing so, it improves their learning. Find ways to do the same when you practice. Make learning fun and enjoyable!
One tip is to pair learning Spanish up with another fun activity that you enjoy doing. For example, if you like photography, research Spanish-speaking photographers and read articles in Spanish regarding their work. Look up and write your own step-by-step process of producing the best picture possible in Spanish. Familiarize yourself with the Spanish vocabulary of photography. Seek out ways to practice talking about photography to others who speak Spanish. There are countless ways to incorporate learning a language with another enjoyable activity or activities (why limit it to just one). Life is way too short to make learning Spanish a drudgery and disconnecting it from real living. The more you find ways to make Spanish come alive through practice, the better at it you will become. Practice hard, practice for at least 30 minutes (longer if you can), but do practice. You will see the results come in spades as time passes.
Find other ways to practice Spanish in my book, So You Want to Learn Spanish?, on sale now. See below for more details.
Also, if you haven't noticed I am giving away 10 free, autographed copies of my book for those who register to win. See the details at the side panel of this page.
~Keith
Keith's 10 Ways to Spanish Fluency can be found in So You Want to Learn Spanish? by Keith Walters
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