If you live in the UK or the US and you’re finding it difficult to move forward with your Spanish it’s probably due to one of these three problems:
1. Lack of Immersion
2. Pronunciation and Accent Differences
3. Grammar and Verb Conjugations
To help in this blog post I’m going to go through each one in more detail and give you an actionable solution that will get you moving again!
1. Lack of Immersion
Limited Daily Exposure: Unlike in countries where Spanish is spoken, if you’re in the UK or US you will have limited opportunities to practice Spanish in your daily lives. This lack of immersion makes it harder to develop fluency, particularly in listening and speaking
There are a few solutions to this problem;
(i) Listen to Spanish music
(ii) Watch Spanish movies, series and documentaries
(iii) Turn your Sat Nav onto Spanish
(iv) Turn your hand to some Spanish cooking
Cultural Disconnect: Without frequent exposure to Spanish-speaking cultures, learners might struggle to grasp idiomatic expressions, cultural nuances, and the informal language that are crucial for conversational fluency.
Solution: Search out local connections. Easy to not do but soooo worth the effort when you do. I’m talking about local Spanish cafes, book stores that stock Spanish literature, Spanish-speaking neighbours and local cultural events (food & drink events are great for this)
2. Pronunciation and Accent Differences
Sound Differences: Spanish has phonemes that do not exist in English, such as the rolled “rr” and the distinct “ñ” sound. Mastering these can be challenging for English speakers.
An easy solution for this, that does require some discipline is regular practice. It took me years to roll my rr, literally years (I was a very slow learner) but I got there in the end.
It might sound boring, but learning the Spanish alphabet is the way to build confidence with these letters too. I’ve got a great video lesson to help you with this you can watch it here.
Regional Accents: Spanish has a variety of regional accents (e.g., from Spain, Mexico, Argentina), which can confuse learners and make it difficult to understand spoken Spanish from different regions.
Listening to music from different countries is a solution to this problem; listen to: Fito Paez, Jaoquin Sabina, Juanes and Celia Cruz to start with.
3. Grammar and Verb Conjugations
Ahhh the grammar, the verbs!
Complex Verb Conjugations: Spanish verbs are conjugated differently based on tense, mood, and subject, which is more complex than in English. Mastering these conjugations requires significant practice and memorization.
My solution is highly effective to solving this problem. I’ve got a really great activity to help better understand and practice the different conjugations but it’s top secret and only available to my students – lo siento!
Gendered Nouns and Agreement: Spanish nouns are gendered (masculine or feminine), and adjectives and articles must agree in gender and number with the nouns they modify. This concept can be difficult for English speakers to grasp since English does not use grammatical gender in the same way. Yes, so this can be tricky to get your head around, especially as some pesky nouns (that’s a person, place or thing) can break the “rule” and throw you off kilter.
My solution to this problem is to laser focus your learning on something you’re actually interested in. For example; fishing…erm, not sure why as I’m not a fisher but let’s run with it anyway…
The word for fishing is la pesca, I’m going to write this in the middle of my piece of paper, then around it I’ll add everything I associate with la pesca, the place, scenery, weather, equipment, what I eat and drink, and this way as I’m learning about something I’m actually interested in it’s much more likely to stick!
That’s what I did; I learnt about scuba diving while I dived in Colombia, I learnt about white water rafting while I rafted in Venezuela and I learnt about wine tasting while I well, ran a travel agency that specialised in wine tours in Mendoza, Argentina for 12 years. You get my point though right!?
So there we go, solutions to some of your language-learning problems. Now you can get on with compiling that list of Spanish Nextflix documentaries 😉
Watch the lesson on YouTube below;
