5 ways to learn Spanish verbally
Are you interested in learning Spanish? Are you in love with Latin culture? Spanish is the language of Romans, and it is the world’s second-most spoken native language after Mandarin Chinese. Around 75% of modern Spanish vocabulary is derived from Latin, including Latin borrowings from Ancient Greek. How fascinating! I mean, who wouldn’t want to experience such a great culture.
Without further ado, let's dive into the top 5 ways how you can learn Spanish verbally!
Start an audio/video learning program
There are plenty of resources available online, you can start learning with any of these and set goals from the very beginning. Now, you necessarily don’t have to pay for any of these lessons or programs, you can also learn for free on YouTube, Coursera or other free platforms.
There are various channels available on youtube like ButterflySpanish, Spanish101, Culture Alley, and many more. Start streaming these lessons from today and keep learning.
Listen to podcasts, Spanish music, dialogues.
Podcasts are a great way to take an audio lesson in Spanish. Nowadays, the quality of these podcasts is very unique and inclusive. You can stream these podcasts with the help of any music streaming platform like Spotify, Saavn, and others. Along with this, you can also start listening to Spanish music to immerse yourself in the language. Start with slow songs, and develop your interest in Spanish music and culture. Immersion is the key to learning any language. So, make sure that you completely surround yourself with that language. This also includes watching movies, TV shows, and plays in Spanish. A great way, in the beginning, could be watching these with subtitles. This is a great way to inculcate the language within you.
Focus
Focus on pronunciation.
Learning any language verbally requires you to be perfect in pronunciation. After all, pronunciation is like the ‘holy grail’ of languages. If you’re not saying it right, then you’re not on the right track. Moreover, it can have a bad impression on people who are already fluent in Spanish. So, make sure you pay considerable attention to pronunciation skills. When learning Spanish, pay attention to hard words and their pronunciation. See videos of other people talking in their native language and closely observe their pronunciation and expressions while doing so. In Spanish, there’s this rolled “r” sound that most people struggle with, “R” Fuerte is one of the hardest sounds for English speakers to master. For being a good speaker of Spanish you need to learn these few sounds to improve your accent, for this you must take extra lessons exclusively for pronunciation.
Find a partner or teacher
Learning a language is futile if you don’t have someone to talk to you in that language. It can be a native speaker of Spanish or someone like you, who is learning it. You should have a person with whom you can practice with. Having a tutor is a huge plus because the teacher can guide you specifically on what you are saying is either right or wrong. You could also be part of a Spanish learning group on any social media, which connects Spanish learning fellows from all over the world.
Practice time
Speak
The most important way to master spoken Spanish is to actually speak in it, all the time. Forget speaking in English for a while, and just talk in Spanish. Set clear goals for yourself, for example, “I’m going to speak in only Spanish for the next 21 days.” Your goals can of course vary, although it’s a popular belief that if you do something for 21 days, you form a habit of doing that thing and then it just becomes a part of your life. The point is that you should keep speaking in Spanish, talk to people, converse with them, find an online partner to learn with and speak with him/her on call. This will help you develop an accent in Spanish. You can also repeat dialogues from movies and shows to strengthen your pronunciation according to different situations.
The key here is to immerse yourself in the language as previously stated.
You have to absorb the language, own it and live it. Talk in it, sing in it, dream it, do everything you can to master the spoken word. And, if you do all this, within no time will become a very good Spanish speaker!
Buena Suerte!
