5 Tips To Help You Learn Spanish

The First Tip is to set a goal to make no less than 1 million mistakes. Many people are afraid of making mistakes when learning a foreign language. If you are serious about learning how to speak this wonderful language, then you have to accept the fact that making mistakes is part of the learning process. The more mistakes you make, the quicker you learn.

If you are not making mistakes, that's probably an indication that you are not making the effort to learn.

When I first started learning Spanish I joined a small group of adults being taught by a native. At the time I took the position that I was going to be quiet and avoid making mistakes until I learned enough to participate. It took me many wasted months to find out that it doesn't work that way and that it works the other way around.

In other words, once you start participating and making mistakes that's when you will really begin learning how to speak Spanish. Not the other way around.

So go ahead and make no less than 1 million mistakes. Making mistakes isn't something that should embarrass you. Making mistakes is something that will help you learn Spanish.

The second tip is to stay motivated no matter what. There will come a time (actually it may happen many times)where you feel that your progress is stagnating or that you are losing motivation for some reason. That's when you must find a reason to stay motivated.

If you feel that you are losing motivation try planning a trip to a Spanish speaking country. Since you will want to get the most out of your trip this should give you the incentive to study.

The third tip is to date a native Spanish speaker. Of course this only applies to single people. Since you will have the opportunity to practice your Spanish with a native speaker this should really improve your Spanish speaking skills. You'll also want to impress him or her so this will be another reason to stay motivated.

Tip number 4 is to master the basic vocabulary and grammar of Spanish. Unless you are learning Spanish to lecture to a bunch of PHDs there is no reason why you need to know 50,000 different words in Spanish.

We all want to learn Spanish as fast as possible, and there is only a limited amount of time to each day (and to life for that matter) so why spend so much time learning vocabulary words that you will hardly if ever use.

That's also a very inefficient method to learn a language. Have you noticed that a three or four year old Latin American child may speak Spanish better than you or I will ever speak Spanish? And yet the child may only know a thousand words or less in Spanish. But that child knows a thousand words that are used in everyday conversation.

Do yourself a favor and learn the basic vocabulary and grammar of Spanish. And after you have learned that then you can spend time trying to learn Spanish for lecturing to a bunch of rocket scientists.

Tip Number 5 is to Learn Spanish the same way you learned English (or your native Language). Although I am numbering this tip number 5, it is probably the most important tip.

Many people try to learn Spanish by learning to read and write it first. Actually, it is more common for people just learning Spanish to put equal emphasis on reading and writing Spanish as speaking it. This is a big mistake. Imagine trying to teach a baby how to read and write before the baby is able to speak. It would seen so unnatural.

Another problem with putting too much emphasis on reading and writing Spanish in the early stages of learning the language is that you will (without even realizing it)pronounce the Spanish words the way they would be said in English.

So learn to speak Spanish and hear Spanish before you learn to read Spanish and write Spanish.