Speak Spanish

Learning to speak Spanish certainly isn't a simple skill to acquire and impatience and frustration are experienced by lots of students as they work hard to master the language. Let's look at alleviating the frustration by speeding-up the learning process with these five simple steps you can take to help you speak Spanish quickly.

1. The most important step can often be the step most neglected. The corner stone of your Spanish studies is not to just sign-up on a good Spanish course, but to stay with it for the duration, at least one year. Mastering the Spanish language is going to take an investment of your time, so commit to signing-up for a good Spanish course with at least two classes a week for at least one year. It may seem like a long time but it isn't really, a year soon passes and your Spanish really will reap the benefit.

2. Achieving fluency in Spanish is very difficult indeed, and speaking Spanish like a native speaker will take years! For me, I set myself the goal of being able to communicate effectively in my day-to-day life here in Barcelona. Although my Spanish isn't fluent, I can speak Spanish confidently with the locals and I rarely have to resort to English. I have an extensive Spanish vocabulary covering most aspects of daily life, and building such a large vocabulary is key to effective communication. Aim to learn 5 new Spanish words each day, and a good way to do this is to list your interests and your regular day-to-day activities and to learn 5 Spanish words each day from one of them.

Canny: Load up the Amazon website in your browser and search for a handy little book called: Palabra por Palabra By Phil Turk. It's a really useful little book containing lists of Spanish words covering many topics and it will help you add greater variety and depth to you Spanish vocabulary.

3. Here's a really smart tip to help you learn to speak Spanish quickly. Comics and teenage magazines are far easier to read than newspapers because the Spanish isn't as advanced. I used to love Marvel comics when I was a child so I read Marvel comics in Spanish and it really helps. Other useful reads in Spanish are the Sunday supplement of La Vanguardia, and a free Spanish newspaper called ¡Qué! and both of these are easy reads and they'll really help you with your Spanish. If you can't find these, checkout the website of the Spanish newspaper El Periódico, a daily newspaper and the Spanish is much easier to read than many other Spanish newspapers, especially El País. Worth checking out:

http://www.elperiodico.com/

4. I absolutely love music, I'm a very keen amatuer musician and one of my favorite ways to help me to learn Spanish quickly is to listen to Spanish music. You Tube is a tremendous resource for Spanish study and to help tune-in your ear to the Spanish language, why not listen to Spanish songs on You Tube? Canny is to open-up another window in your browser so you can search for the lyrics of the song so you can read them while you listen. It's a fun way to learn Spanish, just enter the following phrases into YouTube:

Spanish Music, Music In Spanish, Spanish Music Videos

Or search by artist: Shakira, Enrique Iglesias, Carlos Santana, Luz Casal, Gypsy Kings etc.

Hint: Have your favorite Spanish online translator open in another window so you can translate Spanish words and Spanish phrases.

Smart: Read the comments to the video too, you'll find lots of useful Spanish phrases there as well.

5. Whilst studying Spanish, reading Spanish and listening to Spanish are all very important, speaking Spanish regularly is the most important of all. And speaking Spanish as often as you can with native Spanish speakers is so important but if you're not living in a Spanish-speaking country or have Spanish-speaking friends it may be hard to do this! So how can you find native Spanish-speakers? The Internet once again comes to the rescue! Try these search phrases:

Spanish English Exchange

Spanish Teacher Online

Online Spanish Conversation

Spanish Conversation Practice

Hint: SKYPE, a software application that allows you to make telephone calls over the Internet, may well be a very useful tool to download.

These five savvy steps will help you to learn to speak Spanish quickly, they've worked for me and I have no doubt that they'll work for you. But they'll only work for you if you put them into action and I promise you they are well worth the effort. ¡Buena suerte!