A friend of mine diligently studied Spanish for months before a trip to Mexico. But right after flying to Guadalajara, she went out for dinner and discovered that she couldn’t understand a word anyone said, nor could they follow her halting attempts at speaking Spanish.
All too often, when people go through an experience like this, they give up quickly. Possibly you can relate to this. Maybe you had some Spanish in high school and decided you didn’t have a knack for languages, perhaps you had an experience like my friend’s, or maybe you don’t think you could remember all that vocabulary and all those verb endings.
But no matter how poor you think you would be at learning to speak Spanish, the chances are excellent that you can do much better than you think. As an American living in Mexico, I have seen other Americans who don’t even try to learn Spanish, but I also have seen many people speaking Spanish surprisingly well not long after moving here. Sure, they do make errors but they can communicate, and the Mexican people are typically very gracious and patient when we foreigners try to speak their language.
Why Do People Think They Can’t Learn to Speak Spanish?
Often it does go back to bad experiences in high school or college. Academic courses are not really designed to get you speaking Spanish. They start you out with grammar and with learning to read and to write. Speaking is just a part of the curriculum, and with quite a few students in each class, there just isn’t much opportunity for practicing conversation. Also, even if speaking is emphasized, the environment tends to make many students self-conscious and timid. It’s nothing like chatting with the friendly people you might meet on a vacation trip.
But a vacation isn’t guaranteed to teach you Spanish. As my friend found, it can be overwhelming to listen to Spanish all around you. You may be lucky if you understand just a few words here and there. The idea that you can go to another country and just “pick up” the language is not very realistic unless you are under about 12 years old.
Another issue is that we often think we aren’t intelligent enough to do something like learn a new language. Or if we have any gray hairs, we may think we are too old. But research shows that motivation is way more important than age in learning Spanish.
What Works in Learning Spanish?
There are several ways you can develop a speaking ability in Spanish, and even basic skill at speaking Spanish will get you a long way in communicating. You could take an adult education course offered through a college where you live, but it may well have the same problems mentioned above: that it is going to focus on grammar and not provide enough speaking practice. Besides, it may not fit your schedule or budget, and you have to allow for time going to and from class.
Better choices exist now via the internet. There are many Spanish language computer programs. Some are downloadable, while others you would order for prompt delivery, often from well-known internet retailers like Amazon.com. There are also online Spanish classes. There are free websites to help you learn Spanish. If you have the time and money, there are immersion classes in Spanish in probably every Spanish-speaking country in the world. So while it can be quite a task to sort through these options, they do exist. Don’t give up on speaking Spanish… it can be so worthwhile, whatever your reasons for wanting to learn it!
