Learn Spanish - Fast!

Learning Spanish involves training your ear and your mouth; the fastest way to fluency is to listen and imitate.

You’ll find as you progress that it’s much easier to understand what people are saying than to speak yourself. When you get to that point it can be a little frustrating because people will often assume you can’t understand them just because you can’t speak well (immigrants to the US also have this problem, by the way, so don’t assume they don’t know what is going on just because their English is broken).

One of the best ways to train your mouth and your ear at the same time is by reading a Spanish book out loud. Of course, you first need to know what sounds letters and syllables make – but once you know the very basics, open up a book and start to read it. Don’t worry that you’ll be butchering the language – better in the privacy of your own home than out on the street. So, don’t be shy and speak in soft tones. Read loud and clear as if you knew what you were talking about.

The best books to read are children’s books because they have pictures, use simple words, and are fun. Sometimes they also have a rhythm or rhyme to them that make reading easier because you get a better idea of what it’s supposed to sound like. Although children’s books are probably the best place to start, find anything that interests you. When I was starting to learn Spanish I opened up a book that was a couple of hundred pages long and started to read. Of course, at first I didn’t know what was going on, but amazingly, by the time I reached the end of the book my comprehension was at about 70%. It helped that I was already very familiar with the English version of the book.

Learning by reading isn’t something you could really do so well in a non-Romance language like Korean. You could read Korean all day long once you learned the alphabet and still not understand. The difference with Spanish is that, since it is so close to English, you will start to pick up meanings with your eyes and ears.

I like to joke with my friends that learning Spanish is easy – if you don’t know a word, you can just make it up and you’ll probably be close. So many words have the same root that as you read the Spanish version you’ll pick up the meaning. For words like educacción (education) and gramática (grammar), it may take a little while before you notice that they are the same, but it will come. For other words such as camisa (shirt), and zapatos (shoes) you’ll need a dictionary.

But don’t get bogged down by using the dictionary for every word. That is back to book learning and it is slow going – you’ll never remember them all. Instead, try to get into a rhythm and pace where you are reading. It’s a lot like reading music – you don’t know what the ink you read is going to sound like until you get there. You’ll be slow and stumble over some words and have an easier time with others. But, try to keep a steady pace and make a game of it and see if you can keep a pace.

To improve your pronunciation when you do this, I recommend (and it was recommended to me by someone) that as you read you keep a pencil in your mouth sideways – just bite it horizontally and keep it back there as you read. Its uncomfortable, but will help with your pronunciation and accent.

Do this everyday for several minutes and you’ll be on your way to learning Spanish very fast!