How I Would Learn Spanish If I Could Start Over Again

How I Would Learn Spanish If I Could Start All Over Again

Summary: I learned Spanish in my vocational trainings and in South America. But if I hadn’t been given that chance, I would learn it differently. In this article, you will get a step-by-step guide of how you can learn Spanish from a beginner’s (A1-A2) to an upper intermediate level (B2).

Spanish was the first foreign language I learned to a proficient level. And to be honest, I was handed everything I needed for fluency – I didn’t have to find resources, figure out the best methods or organize my time by myself.

Here’s a little summary of my Spanish story:

At the age of 16, I began learning Spanish in my 2-year vocational training as a foreign language correspondent.
Then I spent a year in a fishing village in Ecuador, where I could completely immerse myself into a new culture and familiarize myself with Ecuadorian Spanish.
In my 3-year job training as an interpreter, I refined my Spanish by speaking, reading and writing about topics related to economy, politics and history, building a broad specialized vocabulary.
And just when I thought: “Now I’m really proficient!” – I embarked on another year abroad in Uruguay and realized how much my Spanish sucks in that region.
BUT: After switching coffee for mate and being the only non-native in an apartment with 12 people from different Latin American countries, I became confident.
Now I’m working as a translator and interpreter for Spanish – and the great thing is: With all the new texts and topics I deal with on a daily basis, I never stop learning.

In short: I never had to think about what’s the best way to learn Spanish. I was always given a curriculum or found myself in an environment where I would automatically pick it up.

But further down the line, I self-studied some other languages and wondered: With what I know now, how would I learn Spanish if I could start over again – without going abroad or being an interpreter?

So, let’s dive in!

1. The Beginner's Stage (A1-A2): Let's Build the Framework

For me, learning the basics of a language doesn’t mean memorizing some phrases to talk to the waiter on your yearly vacation in Spain. If you do this, you can maybe start a conversation. But you won’t understand the answer.

Instead, the beginner’s stage is about 2 things for me:

Building a solid framework: Learning how to use basic tenses, express needs, ask questions, getting a basic idea of the language.
And thereby, overcoming the sage where learning feels hard.

What do I mean by “overcoming the stage where learning feels hard?”

See, a couple of years ago, I wanted to have another creative hobby and began to draw. But if you want to create a masterpiece, you have to learn the basics first: You need to learn how to draw a circle or a background before you can move on to learn about composition or the details.

Only drawing circles and background sucks.

But if you keep going,

what you’re doing is getting more creative
your framework (i. e. your basics skills) is in place, so your brain can focus more on the fun part instead of getting the techniques right
you’ll see a faster progress because knowledge grows exponentially. The more your brain knows about a topic, the more dots it can connect and the faster it’s able to process new input.

So, here the 4 steps I would take in the beginner’s stage:

1. Use A Guided Course or App For Some Time Every Single Day

If you’re just starting out with a new language, you might find yourself overwhelmed by the mountain of unknown stuff in front of you. Getting a guided course helps you transform that blurry, intimidating pile of work into actionable steps.

In this stage, I’d simply download a course of language app that helps me

build a new habit: Using a course for 20-30 minutes everyday for 30 days is a fantastic way of building a new habit.
learn some basic vocabulary like greetings, how to present myself etc.: Every single course will provide you with these basics.
figure out basic grammar structures: I’d use a course or app to find out how basic grammar rules and sentences structures work. BUT: I would not rely on the app alone to practice these.

Here are some features you should look out for in an app:

dialogues and texts that have a lot of context (not just random words)
an audio function
in the best case, a spaced-repetition function for new vocabulary

2. Reinforce The Basics

Having your frameworks in place is key. Especially in Spanish, with all its tenses, it’s crucial that you don’t have to think about the conjugation of basic tenses later on when studying more complicated tenses such as subjuntivo or subjuntivo pasado.

That means – even if it’s boring: practice your grammar.

Even though many apps have repetition and practice functions, they’re often not enough for us to really internalize new structures. Many courses give the same example sentences where you have to fill in the right verb form, multiple choice exercises or repetitive tasks – but often, we just complete them to get to the next level of the app and not really to use these structures in real life.

Here’s what you can do instead:

Get a notebook and write down 5 sentences in different tenses every day: You’ll notice a lot sooner what you’re struggling with when you try out new structures for yourself – but you’ll also internalize them sooner.
Copy texts by hand: Choosing words to fill in gaps in an app is a fast task. Copying texts by hand, however, is a slow task. It helps you pay attention to details you might overlook otherwise.
Translate a text of your course from Spanish into your native language and then back into Spanish: Translating into your native language helps you check if you understood the original text. Translating it back into Spanish is hard, but it activates that passive knowledge.
Copy 5 sentences from your course and change them from affirmative into negated and questions sentences.

3. Dabble in Some Additional Input

While letting myself guide through a course, I would use podcasts, series or any additional input on the side to listen to.

I would start out dabbling a little bit in that language, watch some Youtube videos, listen to music – just to get a feel for the language. I personally think that, in the beginner’s stage, it’s not too important if that input is tailored to your needs.

What dabbling does is this:

It helps you reinforce what you learn in the course: If we hear words in different context, we’re more likely to remember them
It helps you get used to the natural sound of the language
It gives you input that you might not need or understand right away, but when you come across that same words later on your journey, you’ll have that AHHHH! moment: You’re more likely to remember that word because you’ve already heard it before and your brain labels it as important.

4. Start Customizing

I know, I know – the beginner’s stage is not the time to deep-dive into customized content yet. But a little bit is still important, because ultimately, you want to at least present yourself, say where you’re from, what you’re doing etc.

Here’s what you could do to personalize your vocabulary:

Writing is a great way to personalize content. Ask yourself questions like:

How would I present myself? How would I describe my job? How would I describe the circumstances I’m in?

Write it down in Spanish and look up the words you need – in the beginner’s stage, there’s not much you can do wrong if you look up words. (Words like “city”, “school” and so on are mostly the same in each context). I would, for example, need to look up words like “small”, “town” and “cats”, “freelancer”, “translator” or “travel”, because that’s what I would need to describe myself in a nutshell.

In my free e-book, which you can download below, you’ll get a list of different dictionaries you can use for different stages, so make sure you don’t miss that 🙂

2. The Intermediate Stage (B1-B2): Learn From the Inside Out

This is the stage where I would focus more on input than on structures. In the Intermediate stage, you’re stepping away from the stuff everybody has to learn and start opening yourself up to broader sources of content.

This can be overwhelming.

The key here is to focus on input that’s most relevant to your life and gradually expand towards broader topics.

I call this Learning From the Inside Out.

Here’s what I would do:

1. Absorb Input Relevant To Your Life

Think about some topics you’re interested in and then find

books
blogs
Youtube videos
podcasts

that revolve around these topics. For example, if you’re building a business, type in “crear un negocio” in Youtube and see what kind of content shows up. It doesn’t matter if you fully understand that content (you won’t). But you’re automatically going to pick up the words you’ll need to talk about this topic. For instance, if you’re watching business-related content, you’ll be likely to learn words like “crecimiento” (growth), “desafío” (challenge) or “afrontar” (to face): Universally useful words in contexts that are relevant to your life.

Again, in my e-book down below, you’ll find a number of resources you can use for this stage.

2. Reproduce That Input

Just as in the beginner’s stage, only consuming input isn’t enough. We also have to activate it.

Great ways of activating input are, for instance:

writing small texts with the words you learned
taking conversation classes (for example with iTalki) and talk to someone about the topics you’re interested in

That’s literally it.

3. By Reproducing, Notice what Structures You're Lacking

As you’re reproducing input, you’ll notice very clearly what frameworks you need to use the words you’ve learned. For example: If you’re talking about past experiences, you’ll need different past tenses.

The thing here is: Learning grammar can be boring. But if we connect learning grammar with something relevant, for instance, talking about our life, it turns from a tedious obligation to a useful tool to tell a story.

In my e-book, you will find a list of all the grammar tenses you’ll need in Spanish, together with some writing prompts to practice them.

4. Make it A Habit

Ultimately, have in mind that language learning is a marathon, not a sprint.

Staying consistent is key here. Set out like 30 minutes every single weekday for a period of 3 months to half a year and trust the process – and I promise you, progress will come naturally.

Feel free to download my free e-book with all the resources you need to get from A1 to B2 in Spanish here: