Introduction:

Spanish is a Romance language that originated in the Iberian Peninsula of Europe. Today, it is a global language with nearly 500 million native speakers, mainly in Spain and the Americas. It is the world’s second-most spoken native language after Mandarin Chinese, and the world’s fourth-most spoken language overall after English, Mandarin Chinese, and Hindi. Spanish is a part of the Ibero-Romance group of languages of the Indo-European language family, which evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin in Iberia after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century. The oldest Latin texts with traces of Spanish come from mid-northern Iberia in the 9th century, and the first systematic written use of the language happened in Toledo, a prominent city of the Kingdom of Castile, in the 13th century. Modern Spanish was then taken to the viceroyalties of the Spanish Empire beginning in 1492, most notably to the Americas, as well as territories in Africa and the Philippines. When you don’t have to immediately come face-to-face with a native Spanish speaker, the whole process becomes infinitely more relaxed. Learning at home allows you to absorb and practice spoken Spanish more naturally than ever. Your study buddy can be the house pet. Simply pour yourself a drink in your favorite mug and find a comfy study spot on the couch or bed. It’s not only totally possible to learn Spanish at home—it’s as easy as rolling out of bed.

You can be well on your way to becoming a polyglot without ever leaving your front door.

• Get yourself a conversation partner 

Speaking is a skill that is developed only through talking, speaking, and repeating! There is no shortcut to learning to speak fluently. Hence we strongly recommend finding a conversation partner for yourself possibly, a Spanish native speaker around you in your neighborhood, if not, you could explore online resources such as language exchange programs, Meetup or italki( you can get a teacher as a conversation partner)

• Do your best

Everybody isn’t blessed with enough money and time to take Spanish language classes or a trip to Spanish. Let this not deter you! It doesn’t mean you can’t start somewhere. 

Enroll in a free online Spanish language course on an app such as Duolingo, Busuu, Multibhashi to get started. A quick glance at words or phrases selected for the day while waiting in the queue, watching television, in the washroom, while on the bus, or review of new grammar topics like Spanish pronouns while at the airport, may yield wonders in the long run without your knowledge.

• Make a Mini Spanish at home

Label every bit of furniture, kitchen objects, study table occupants, with a post-it bearing the object’s Spanish name so you start thinking in Spanish when you look at common objects. This activity will help you transition into speaking Spanish much sooner than you think!

• Take online classes

In order to take your Spanish learning to the next level we recommend you to take online classes preferably live, so you can clear your doubts, speak with the trainer, your classmates, which not only help you to learn the language thoroughly in terms of reading, writing, word pronunciation, but will also aid you to train your ear besides grant you an extra edge to get confident to speak the language soon. 

• Build a smarter vocabulary for yourself!

Instead of capturing single words and meaning, we recommend you capture phrases that will enable your brain to remember more than one word at a time 

Example. Instead of capturing Auto (“car”), try to capture the word in a phrase like mit dem Auto fahren (“to go by car / drive a car”)

• Host a Spanish-speaking student

Speaking of Spanish-speaking immigrants and exchange students – you’re in a unique position to help them and yourself. How? Think about it: just like you, when these expats arrive in your country, they’re new and confused. By offering up your time to show a newbie around, or registering your home as a homestay location with a local university or language school, you’ll be able to help orient new ex-pats, introduce them to your city and practice your Spanish while you’re at it.

• Bonus Tip

Another very good and interesting way to learn any language is by watching online videos, movies, talk shows in your target language.

In this case, we recommend you either watch a Spanish movie with English subtitles or watch an English movie with Spanish subtitles very closely, like a project! While you watch the Spanish movie with English subtitles we recommend you try to ape the accent of Spanish speakers in the movie, talk show, or the video to get a hang of the way they are talking. Repeat play and practice as many times as required to get the right accent and dialect. It will help you learn the local pronunciations, where stress is applied to words, or where it’s allowed to stop for a breather between words. This will help you capture the native way of talking Spanish. In the beginning you basically maybe just behaving like a child copying his mother while she talks, sometimes taking gibberish but eventually it will come through. Once you are done copying the accent to your maximum possible level, you can go ahead and look at the Spanish transcripts to know exactly what they were talking about, and then you can try to talk in the same accent using the Spanish words. This time the practice is stronger.

So don’t wait, start learning Spanish now only at the comfort of your home.