Hola? Is that word ringing any bells? Hmm. You better start studying.
Get free textbooks and study material.
Free, or nearly free; library sales often offer great books for 50 cents or even less. Browse the available books for Spanish textbooks, study guides, or even children’s Spanish vocabulary books. Check with your local schools (elementary, highschool, and college) for outdated textbooks that they are discarding. You can also go online for lots of free resources:
Study with friends.
Find people who are also interested in conversational Spanish and set up a regular study group. Pick a method:
- You can all use the same textbook or other resources, so you’re all learning the same thing at the same time.
- Or you can all use different learning resources and use your group meeting to teach each other what you’ve all learned.
You may find you cover more material with the latter method, but you’ll get more focused practice with the first method.
For the first weeks, focus on learning the fundamentals of Spanish grammar and building up your vocabulary; that means you’ll be doing a lot of memorizing and not a lot of conversing at first. Hang in there, though. Soon you’ll be able to put together simple sentences out of the words and grammar you know and spend your group study time in conversation, which will reinforce what you’ve learned.
Look for Spanish-speaking activities, events, and communities.
Visit a Spanish church and just soak in as much as you can. Don’t worry about understanding all of it, but focus on picking up a word here and there and trying to follow the general flow of the speaker.
Go to events for the Latin community and just take part. Again, you won’t understand everything, especially at first, but the more you participate, the more you will pick up. And don’t be afraid to strike up conversations with people around. Don’t take up too much of anyone’s time, but politely converse for a moment or two in the Spanish you know. Most people will be happy to see someone making an effort to learn their language and will help you learn a new word or two.
Keep on learning.
Conversational Spanish takes time to learn fluently. The more you study, memorize, and learn, and the more often you can immerse yourself in the Spanish-speaking culture and community, the more you will learn and feel comfortable conversing in Spanish.
Keep adding new words to your vocabulary and find groups to meet with on a regular basis for focused study. You might also find a native Spanish-speaker who is willing to exchange Spanish speaking lessons for English speaking lessons. This is a great way to really work on your conversational skills and make a new friend. Put up an ad on your local college’s bulletin board or website to find someone who might be interested.