Learning Spanish
Spanish language is extremely widespread among foreigners all around the world and it is spoken by 548 million people. It is considered to be the easiest language to learn. However, not all of us have succeeded in learning it, so this article provides some tips and peculiarities which will help to learn Spanish.
First advice is to find your own Spanish-speaking friend to practice writing skills. You can log in any social network for Spanish native speakers such as Taringa!, which is a platform alternative to Facebook but mainly made up of Spanish speakers and kindly ask them to practice language with you. You can discuss whatever you want and it will significantly contribute to your studies. Moreover, you can ask them to correct your mistakes. Believe me or not: nobody refused to do so.
The next tip which I, by the way, like the most is to watch your favorite TV shows in Spanish. Obviously, you can add magazines and books to this list, but it is well-known and boring. Well, I am a huge fan of Spanish TV show Élite, so I really enjoy watching it in original voice work. Of course, I cannot fully understand everything, but at least I enjoy the speech and subtitles are really useful as you can glance at them if you cannot translate the phrase of your favorite character. You can listen to Spanish or Latin-American music and try to define worlds and try to translate them.
As for the vocabulary, some topics may be more interesting for you than others and it’s okay. For instance, if I am interested in international politics I wish to know more worlds from this theme. So, don’t hesitate and make a list of terms you would like to know the translation and you will automatically learn them. Moreover, even if you are interested in animals or shopping, it is also important to know such basic worlds as ‘bear’ or ‘skirt’ in Spanish.
If you ever wrote a diary in the middle school, you can use this funny custom but with one differnce: try to write all you daily notes in Spanish. If you don’t know the worlds – translate them in the dictionary and repeat it until you learn these worlds. Imagine you are Elena Gilbert from Vampire Diaries.
Oral skills are also important, so I recommend to join one of Spanish Vyshka’s communities: from Spanish club ‘Día’ to Latino-American one. There, you can practice your skills not only with other students, who are learning the same language as you do but with natives, which is extremely crucial. Besides, as Spanish is one of the fastest languages, communication with natives will help you to get accustomed to REAL pace and rhythm of the language.
A significant remark is than Spanish language differs among the world and even regions. You are likely to be misunderstood in Cuba or Venezuela even if your traditional Spanish is remarkable. So, my advice is to define the exact state you want to connect your life with or at least the one you are most interested in.
The last but not least is to visit the state in order to dip into the lifestyle of ordinary Spanish-speaking citizens. Besides, you can learn a lot of colloquiums and informal language.
Text by
Sofia Lyakhova