Figuring out how to learn Spanish on your own can be hard! Just like any other language, learning Spanish is easy as you only need to be committed to learning and practicing consistently.
Here, we compiled a list of the best ways to learn this language efficiently and make you speak like a native within a short time.
10 Steps to Learn Spanish
1. Find a conversation partner
If you are not sure on how to learn Spanish, then try starting off with a conversation partner! Learning a new language is fun when you have a partner to learn with. A language partner will create a challenge and a willingness for you to learn. This will immensely assist in improving your skills. If you don’t have any Spanish speakers around you, you may seek a language partner online who will assist you. While communicating with them daily, you tend to gain a better understanding of the language. Having a language partner will undoubtedly help you in your vocabulary, pronunciation, as well as understanding the Spanish culture. When you start spending time with your language exchange partner, you will be amazed at how quickly your progress will be. You might even form a life-long friendship with them.
2. Practice with grammar books
With so many verb conjugations, grammatical gender, and the similarities between their irregular verbs and their infinitive, Spanish grammar can be quite complicated. Spanish has many more grammatical difficulties and rules than most other languages, which can even make it more difficult to learn.
For instance, the gender-specific nouns, usually the feminine nouns use la, and must end with -a. However, there are some complicated cases, in which a word might end in -a, and their gender will be masculine, and another word might end in -o, and their gender will be feminine.
Most masculines nouns ends with -o,-n, -r, -s, and -pa such as:
- perro – dog
- camión – truck
- celular – cellphone
- Íngles – English
- papá – dad
Most feminine words ends with -a, -dad, -sión, and -ción like:
- amiga – friend (girl)
- Navidad – Christmas
- televisión – TV
- acción – action
Another example is, el clima – “the weather”, is a masculine noun, while la radio – “radio” is a feminine noun.
To be able to understand all this better, practicing with grammar books is the way to go. There are a lot of Spanish grammar books out there to assist you, and one of those is Hugo Spanish in 3 Months. This excellent grammar book is best for learning the basics (past, present, and future tenses) prepositions, popular phrasal constructs, and explanations related to plurals and gender. It is full of short explanations, exercises and you can easily find all the answers at the back of the book
3. Watch movies and videos in Spanish
Watching Spanish movies with subtitles in your native language is also an efficient way of learning Spanish. By watching those movies, you easily learn key phrases and new vocabulary. Most of those actors and actresses in Spanish movies are native speakers, so you get to learn from them easily. Here are 3 Spanish movies on YouTube that can assist you in learning the language.
“Regresa”
“El Brindis”
“Nubes Rojas”
4. Learn Spanish vocabulary
As you learn Spanish, you must ensure that you memorize terms and phrases. This will help you choose different vocabularies to use in any situation you find yourself in. Some examples of basic terms that should learn include:
| English Vocabulary | Spanish Vocabulary |
| Hello! | Hola |
| How are you? | ¿Cómo estas? |
| Goodbye | Adios |
| You’re welcome | De nada |
| I am hungry | Tengo sueño |
| How old are you? | ¿Cuántos años tienes? |
| I am # years old | Tengo # años |
| Good morning | Buenos días |
| Good afternoon | Buenos días |
| Good night | Buenas noches |
5. Travel to a Spanish speaking country
Traveling to a Spanish-speaking community, especially the Latin American countries, is another great way of understanding the language. Living in a community where everyone speaks Spanish will not only assist you in learning quickly but will also give you real-life practical experience, as you will need to engage in communication every time. The more Spanish you hear each day, the easier it becomes for you to understand it in any context.
5. Travel to a Spanish speaking country
Traveling to a Spanish-speaking community, especially the Latin American countries, is another great way of understanding the language. Living in a community where everyone speaks Spanish will not only assist you in learning quickly but will also give you real-life practical experience, as you will need to engage in communication every time. The more Spanish you hear each day, the easier it becomes for you to understand it in any context.
6. Find an online tutor
The most effective way to become fluent in Spanish is to work one-on-one with a private tutor who can instruct you at your own pace, develop individualized lesson plans for you, provide pronunciation guidance, and meet with you on a daily or weekly basis. This method of guided learning is the most effective of all others for a beginner or someone that wants to advance in the Spanish language. This is because you get to learn what you require at the right time, and you do not mix up everything that you learn.
AmazingTalker is an online language learning platform that teaches Spanish and all other languages in an effective manner. They have a large variety of wonderful, native-speaking, dynamic, and dedicated Spanish tutors for every aspect of Spanish that you want to improve, including speaking, listening, Mexican Spanish, Spanish from Spain, and others.
AmazingTalker’s APP available on:
7. Watch the News in Spanish
Watching the news in Spanish can greatly benefit Spanish learning listeners, as you are training your ear to understanding a faster pace of Spanish. You can start of by watching old news clips on Youtube, where you can pause the videos, rewind, and listen to it more careful.
Listening to the news will allow you to pick up on “formal” Spanish words and also pick up a couple of “informal phrases”!
8. Listen to Spanish Podcasts
There are a number of great Spanish podcasts out there that are perfect for beginner, intermediate, and advanced level learners. Practicing Spanish with podcasts, will improve your Spanish listening skills.
The most basic podcasts for Spanish learners, start off by repeating a phrase or explaining a topic in very simple vocabulary. Recommended beginner podcasts include:
9. Use Spanish Phrasebooks
Phrasebooks are a fun and practical way to read! They are a quick reference for useful words and phrases, that actual Spanish learners will want to learn! Its main benefit is being able to study on the go, and learn wherever you are.
Lonely Planet offers a great phrasebook that is suitable for travelers visiting Spain or Latin America, that also converts to a dictionary!
10. Practice thinking in Spanish
What language is your internal voice in? Is it in your native language? Try pushing yourself to think in Spanish! By doing so, you are immersing yourself in the Spanish language and automatically thinking in the Spanish language. This will significantly improve your Spanish and the way you speak!
Start learning and speaking Spanish today
The rules of Spanish grammar, the various conjugations of the verb, and the infinitive can make learning Spanish a little bit challenging at times, but when you follow the top ten steps/ways highlighted above to effectively learn Spanish, understanding the language can be very simple and straightforward.
Now that you are aware of the various ways in which you can begin learning Spanish, why don’t you get started right away so that you can quickly become fluent in the language? To improve your listening, speaking, reading, and writing skills in Spanish, you should get started by making a booking with an online Spanish tutor on AmazingTalker!
