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In my last article I wrote about the elements of Spanish grammar that my personal tutor and I went over during the Spanish lessons I took whilst in Antigua, Guatemala. In this article I want to talk about the conversational lessons that I attended at the same school.

During my two weeks at the school I spent Monday to Friday from 9.00am to 12.00pm studying Spanish grammar on a one to one basis with my tutor. The afternoons were devoted to different kinds of conversational lessons. These included talking in Spanish with various different tutors on a one to one basis, participating in group conversations and playing different types of word games.

Conversational lessons benefit the student in a number of different ways. In my case having conversational lessons each afternoon gave me the opportunity to put into practice the Spanish grammar that I had learnt during that morning. It is always a good thing to try and practice any new Spanish you have learnt, straight away while it is still fresh in your head. You might want to think about constructing certain types of typical sentences that help you remember different aspects of Spanish grammar better.

Speaking, listening and becoming accustomed to spoken Spanish is an essential part of the learning process and of course, having a conversation with someone allows you to do all of these things at the same time.

When you first start to have conversations with people in Spanish you will probably find the whole experience quite gruelling, especially if your vocabulary is limited! This is completely normal. Don’t forget that you are used to speaking in your first language every single day without even thinking about it and to suddenly change this habitual action is no easy task! The thing is that you have to keep practicing. It is like anything, the more you practice the better you become.

One of the great benefits of having conversational lessons is that you can take as long as is required to have the actual conversation, plus, your teacher can make sure you are speaking correctly. In real life situations this is often very difficult if not impossible to achieve. Often people will not have the patience to wait while you try to get your words out or not bother to correct you if you say something that isn’t quite grammatically correct.
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There is no reason why anybody shouldn’t be able to learn Spanish by themselves without having to attend language classes or take private lessons. There are certainly ample learning resources in the form of textbooks or online material that can guide you through the entire learning experience. The question is which method of learning works best for you! In this article I explain why I decided to attend classes at a Spanish school in Guatemala even though I had previously studied most of the material they were about to cover via some form of self-study!

After spending about a month or so in Mexico I decided it was time to head further South into Guatemala via Belize. Mexico was my first experience of being in a Spanish speaking country and trying to communicate using the Spanish I had learnt from a text book back in the UK. Not only was the Spanish I learnt in Mexico invaluable but the entire experience taught me a lot about different learning methods and in particular the benefits of learning via cultural immersion.

Although I had done some previous self-study in the UK one of the biggest problems I encountered when trying to communicate in Spanish in Mexico was not knowing enough vocabulary and not being able to structure my sentences properly. I was putting words together but in the wrong order or I was using verbs in the completely wrong tense, or just using a verb in its infinitive form because I didn’t know any better!

These are some of the reasons why I decided that I needed to do some repeat studying. I basically felt that I had forgotten a lot of the things I had previously studied! This type of problem is of course a very common one. Nobody can be expected to learn and retain absolutely everything they have studied. To forget things is completely normal!

There are many reasons why we might forget the things we learn. Many of these reasons stem from bad learning techniques. I talked about some of these things in more detail in an earlier article, but generally speaking using a variety of techniques (written, oral and listening), and using different types of quizzes and exercises generally works better than just reading from a textbook.

One of the things I could have done was to spend more time each day by myself with my head in a book going over Spanish grammar and trying to learn and remember more Spanish words. Even though I could have used a number of different techniques to best achieve this, the idea still wasn’t very appealing! Something that was much more appealing and logical, especially as I was already immersing myself in Latin American culture was to attend classes at a Spanish school run by local Spanish speaking teachers.

I am not suggesting that attending language classes will work better than self-study. As I said before this really depends on the individual! There are however some real benefits of having someone teach you Spanish face to face rather than trying to learn entirely by yourself.

The obvious advantage of being taught by a real person is that a person can talk back to you and answer your questions if you don’t understand something. A real teacher can explain things in more than one way or in a way that makes you understand better. Textbooks cannot change the way they explain things based on who it is that is reading the book!

Another great advantage of being taught by a real person is that you can put what you have learnt, into practice immediately. You can get instant feedback on whether or not you have understood something correctly.
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In my last article I talked a little bit about the benefits of learning about Spanish / Latin American culture and how it can help you with your Spanish language studies. I then went on to talk about my early experiences of trying to communicate in Spanish to the locals of Tijuana in Mexico. It was at this point that I realised that learning Spanish was probably going to take a lot longer and require more effort than I had previously anticipated!

In this article I want to talk about the benefits of learning Spanish through direct exposure with native Spanish speaking people. If you had to, you could probably learn the Spanish language without ever picking up a Spanish textbook! It might take a very very long time but eventually through direct contact and social interaction with other people who already speak the language it could be done. The basic human desire to communicate would prevail.

Learning Spanish through mimicking how someone else speaks the language will mean that you end up speaking Spanish in exactly the same way as they do! On the whole this might not be a bad thing but you don’t want to pick up any bad language habits or speak in an incomprehensible accent. On the other hand you do want, to be able to understand what native Spanish speaking people are saying and you also want them, to be able to understand what you are saying! In this sense a little bit of mimicking is probably a good thing.

Not being understood is a common frustration that many students suffer when trying to communicate with native speakers of Spanish. A lot of the time the Spanish spoken may be 100% grammatically correct and yet people still do not seem to understand it. This may be because the Spanish is spoken in an accent that is completely foreign!

Trying to communicate to a native speaker of Spanish, wherever it might be in the world makes you realise just how important pronunciation is! Not only do you need to know new Spanish words, you must also make sure that you know how to pronounce them correctly. I mentioned in one of my early articles how important it is to routinely do this early on in your studies. Of course if you are in another country and people don’t understand you, this will force you, and therefore train you, to speak clearly and correctly right from the start!

As I travelled through Mexico I really tried to speak to as many locals as I possibly could. Don’t shy away from communication in Spanish just because you know it is going to be a struggle. The more practical experience you can gain from both speaking and listening the better.

My early conversations with people were only very basic ones. Mainly because if I attempted to show someone that my level of Spanish was better then it really was then I knew I would be shooting myself in the foot. If people think you can communicate well, then they are far less likely to make an effort to speak slowly and clearly. In the beginning this is exactly what you need people to do!

Typical conversations that I would have with people were mostly about asking for things in a shop or restaurant, asking for directions to a place I wanted to visit or talking about journeys. Immersing myself in the country I was in meant I had to talk about these things just to survive. They were also the types of conversations that were short and not very complicated! I would prepare myself for the entire experience before hand. I knew exactly what I was going to say before saying it and I knew what types of answers I was likely to get from people.
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In this article I want to talk about what happened to me during my early attempts at trying to communicate in Spanish with the native Spanish speaking peoples of Central America. After spending six weeks ploughing through a basic level Spanish text book and learning as much Spanish vocabulary as my memory would permit I thought I was ready to take on the Spanish language for real!!

I actually started my trip through the Americas in the U.S. I spent some time in San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego before heading south to the Mexican border on route to Tiajana. Although I didn’t actually converse with anybody in Spanish in the U.S I did learn a lot about the Spanish conquest of this region before the English took over!

You might be wondering what that has to do with learning Spanish! Well, the point is that learning Spanish shouldn’t just be about learning how to communicate in Spanish. One of the best ways to keep yourself enthused about your studies is to immerse yourself in all things Spanish. Learning about Spanish history for example and in my particular case about the Spanish conquest of the Americas is a great way of adding substance. It kind of validates and gives purpose and added reason to why you are learning the Spanish language in the first place.

This might all sound a bit deep but the truth is that cultural immersion really can help you to understand certain things about the Spanish language that you might not be able to gain from a textbook alone! Plus, if your anything like me you’ll simply love learning about Spanish history and the conquest of the Americas as a matter course.

Before I went to the U.S I didn’t realise just how much of the Americas that the Spanish were originally in control of. Their rule extended the entire Pacific coast from Southern Argentina right the way up to modern day Alaska. I also didn’t realise that the names of some US cities are actually Spanish names! San Francisco (Saint Francis) Los Angeles (The Angles).

The further south that you go in the U.S the more Spanish influence there is. In Florida and L.A, Spanish place names are common and some road signs are even translated into Spanish.

So, with a little Pre-Columbian history under my belt and my self study crash course in Spanish I caught a bus south from L.A direct to the Mexican town of Tijuana just over the U.S / Mexican border. To start with I didn’t really get much of a chance to test my Spanish out on anyone. The taxi drivers, the owner of the hostel I stayed at and the bar staff at all the bars I went to all seemed to want to talk to me in English! This wasn’t that surprising however! Tijuana has a reputation for being a bit of a party town for young North Americans looking for a good weekend!
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