I can make myself understood in Spanish–often give directions on the subway in NYC, have casual short conversations with Spanish speakers I encounter–but I would love to perfect my ability --well, at least get farther along. Suggestions?
Can you get a Spanish newspaper? And watch the news in Spanish every night?
My kid found that she her Spanish improved significantly when she was forced to use it speaking. Is there any place where you could do some social speaking in Spanish?
My SIL learned a lot of English by watching tv. Maybe watch some Spanish language tv/Youtube? You could speak along with the actors, especially if you can get subtitles.
If you don’t mind spending money and aren’t self conscious, I would recommend using italki. It’s an app where you can hire ~30 min session with a teacher. There are tons of people out there for various price points. I have not done it in German because I’m too shy/self conscious for a 1 on 1 session. But at your level, it might be for you.
I love Easy German. They have easy Spanish too. The YouTube videos they have Spanish and English subtitles. But it’s usually 1-2 people who go out in the streets and ask random people various questions about life, culture, etc. they are very fun. They also have podcast for easy Spanish. I assume it’s like the German. They have two people just chat for 30 minutes about random topics. Their lives, culture, little gripes, etc. mostly fun. Sometimes they talk about political stuff, but they don’t really want to go there. It’s to help people learn the language.
You can get a lot for free - the videos and the podcasts. For roughly $5/month you can get access to worksheets for the videos. For $8/month you get that plus transcripts for podcasts. And for $30/month you can do the video chats. German has 5-6 available time slots per week. Not sure about the Spanish. And I think any level you also get access to their discord server where you can chat online with them and other people.
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I agree with others that you need to use a language to learn it well.
One option would be to travel to a location where Spanish is the primary language. You might need to specifically ask to stop them from switching to English.
Another option, perhaps way less expensive, would be to watch TV shows and movies in Spanish. Watching the news has the advantage that if you first watch the news in English, then in most cases you are likely to have some clue what they are talking about which might make it easier to understand the Spanish.
You might want to make a habit of getting together with others and just speaking Spanish for a meal on a regular basis. There is probably some advantage if at least one person who participates speaks Spanish fluently.
One daughter took a semester abroad in high school at a Spanish speaking high school in a Spanish speaking country. Later she did some volunteer work (on a 90 day visa) in Spain.
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@ClassicMom98 that site looks great.
I was in a pilot program in my working-class hometown that I got a weekly Spanish class starting in second grade, all through high school. In seventh grade we spent a month in Mayaguez, PR with same age Puerto Rican students, and in high school we had a grand tour of Spain. Plus in my late 20s I spent a year in Mexico.
My Israeli friends have an inlaw from Argentina and in the summer of 2019, I really enjoyed speaking with her.
I really have to pursue this. The woman who occasionally cleans my apartment, who has become a great friend, is from the Dominican Republic. I resolve to habla espanol with her when we have lunch together.
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You are lucky you have friendly people to practice with. That is key! Practice and don’t be afraid to make mistakes.
Nobody in my city speaks German. Plenty speak Spanish, but I wanna learn German. I would make a good German. And French is mostly because we would love to live in Quebec, and it would be very useful there. So it’s really just a hobby for me I guess
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I like the free resources BBC offers.
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Reading made a huge difference for me. When she found out I was studying Spanish, my Cuban neighbor gave me a huge pile of old Harlequin romance novels in translation. She said that it is difficult to find books that are written at a grade school reading level but can hold the interest of adults, and in her experience (she is a Spanish teacher) there is nothing better than novelas rosas!
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My parents were immigrants from Croatia and I spoke fluently as a child. After my last visit to Croatia in 2019, I realized my language skills were pretty bad.I found a reading/language class on Zoom. Which really surprised me because it is a fairly obscure language. I have been taking class for the last 9 months and my language skills are so much better than they were. I think consistently speaking and reading is the key. Also, I have much more confidence than I did before.
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We had fun brushing up on our Spanish by watching Gran Hotel with subtitles. I was conversational at one time but don’t use it often enough even though we live in AZ with a lot of Mexican and Spanish speakers around us. They prefer to practice their English with us.
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When my D was in HS, one of the things her foreign language teacher recommended was changing the language of movies we watched/using subtitles. My sister-in-law is not a native English speaker, and they always have CC on their TV and my brother said it really helped her learn English.
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