How to improve your Spanish whilst enjoying yourself
Some people find it hard to study a language at home (after a long day or after a 3 hour Spanish lesson), and others just want to learn more and more and become better every day.
To improve your Spanish without even realising, there are a couple of things you can do daily, which will help both your listening skills and your vocab range. All of the things that are about to be mentioned start being difficult and boring, but as soon as you get the hang of them, you will notice a difference in your Spanish.
Listen to Spanish music
We all listen to music at some point in the day…whether it is when you are on your way to work, sunbathing at the beach or getting ready for bed. Instead of playing songs from your own country, or in your own language, there are millions of types of music in Spanish you can listen to. Look for playlists online, or ask a native Spanish about their favourite Spanish bands. This also means that when you go to a Spanish club you will be able to sing along to every song they play, and get into the Spanish culture!!
Download podcasts in Spanish
There are lots of podcasts particularly made for people learning Spanish, ranging from basic to fluent level. Research these and try to find something you enjoy listening to. You might be the type of person that likes to listen to podcasts in the morning, or maybe you are interested in a certain topic (related to your studies, politics, history- there are so many types of podcasts)! This will improve your listening skills and at the same time you will learn about how to speak in Spanish about things you like.
Watch TV in Spanish
You can always start by watching films in Spanish that you’ve already seen in your native language, and so you will then know what is happening, and won’t find it as hard to understand. You can also start by putting subtitles (IN SPANISH, because if they are in English you will not listen to the audio and just read the writing), and as time goes by get rid of them.
However, the best way to enjoy watching Spanish TV is to watch similar programmes that you would watch in your country as most the time, there will be a Spanish version of them.
Last thing: Spanish people speak quicker than other Spanish-speaking countries. For this reason, you might want to watch their well-known ‘telenovelas’ (ask someone to recommend one to you), but then you risk getting a different accent and learn words that would not be used in Spain- nothing wrong with that, it just might not be what you want!
All the above techniques are useful no matter where you are in the world, so there are no excuses to stop yourself from improving your Spanish. Listen, sing and watch as many things as possible IN SPANISH, and you will be fluent sooner than you think!