The "talking to yourself" advice is actually a very good one I've done myself both with a couple of languages (one of them being English). It helps strengthening your "brain muscle" by getting used to construct more complex sentences on the fly and practicing pronounciation with a more elaborated context (not just repeating isolated words or groups of words).
@@jimmyyeates5260 Yeah but I figured he wanted to express the can part. I only mentioned it because it’s a common thing I see with English as a second language speakers. My friend will say stuff like “did you went to the store” instead of “did you go to the store”
I'm Mexican-American. Both sets of grandparents spoke Spanish, but never taught it to my parents since they weren't allowed to speak it in school growing up. I wish I would've tried to learn Spanish from them before they passed. One of my biggest insecurities is not knowing Spanish. Going to give it a go. Thank you for your videos!
So I’m 61, and I bet I’m your parents age. My father was German and 50/60 years ago they felt it was detrimental to learn 2 languages at once. BIG MISTAKE. My father always said it was his biggest regret not to teach me German.
I have the exact same experience as a Tejano. the american teachers hit my grandparents for speaking Spanish and forced them to change their first names when they went to school. they didn't want the next generations to experience the same trauma. now I'm learning Spanish to preserve our culture and heritage. I also want to preserve our regional dialect because there aren't any studies on it (to my knowledge) and I fear it might be vulnerable. overall I can't recommend learning Spanish enough. we must embrace our own culture and reject american assimilation.
I've been learning Spanish for 6 years, but in the last year I've made a huge jump in my comprehension levels.... and I think it's because I finally realised that learning a language isn't an intellecutal exercise... it's much more like learning to drive a car... when you first start to learn to drive it's so awkward... and you have to think of everything and none of it works... but after you've done a lot of driving you can suddenly drive, while listening to a podcast, arguing with your partner and texting your friend that you're going to be late... you learn to drive by doing a lot of driving... every day... a year ago I encountered "Story Learning" or Input-based learning and it just clicked... you learn a language by hearing it and reading it... that's how we got good at our own native language... but I do agree with Elysse that you should start speaking as soon as possible... until you've tried to force your 30k word vocab out of your mouth through your 500 word Spanish vocab you haven't really learned anything....
@@oumietouray9476honestly you could read Spanish children’s stories, or watch Spanish cartoons, those usually have simple language so as a beginner it would be good for listening and comprehension
High school Spanish was the best experience of my life. One year of Spanish in my senior year gave me a foundation that has lasted for decades. And la Senora Choplin gave me insights into Mexican culture and etiquette that have served me so well.
As a native Mexican I tell people to imagine Lego blocks. You have your core blocks in the sentences and you just change the end or the beginning of your block sequence. Change colors, mix and match and so on as you get better in the language. The most basic structure in all Spanish is always: Who? What? When/Where/Why? Subject, Verb, Context-in case it wasn't clear above. Spanish is hard to learn for people with language background where there is no articles (particle users are fine) and verb placements don't have defined gender, tenses or placement structures.
Many decades after a failed attempt to learn Spanish in high school, I am 15 days into duo lingo, and I have already leaned some 300 words, and I am starting to grasp gender, which is memorization and recognition of making the gender agree, such as in, "una nina." Another tip is to listen to the way the words are spoken, and imitating the accent. This is particularly important with French, because the French speakers "throw away" so many of the letters when speaking. To an American ear they sound lazy, but that's what it sounds like, so you have to just go with it. Making yourself sound like a native speaker is definitely important, and not worrying about being an accurate reader of letters on a page.
I don't think it matters that much when you start speaking. It's not that I think it's harmful at the beginning, I just think it's a waste of time. Some people find it motivating to speak right away and some find it motivating to wait until they have at least some instincts on how to self-correct. I definitely waited, but it wasn't an anti-social or psychological thing, I just wanted to use my time effectively.
I totally agree with ur standpoint, for me start talking at the very beginning it's pointless. Cuz at that phase of ur Journey u have no words to articulate urself well. So if I'll start talking at that time I would repeating the same statments over and over again.if I'll talk at the very beginning it would be benefical in one case if ur trying to practice ur pronouncation. Otherwise u need to exploit this phase to work on assemble ur vocab. and to not brood way too much over when ur gonna talk!
@@diederdas27 Okay? I literally said in my post that it's different for everyone and not to stress too much about when you start speaking. It was the woman in this video who presented her opinion as a broadly applying fact. I think the idea that people who wait are just waiting the "perfect moment" so they don't have to deal with social embarrassment is just a small group in the language learning community and most people are just waiting until they have a few hundred hours of exposure under their belt so the time they do speak is more effective.
@@diederdas27 of course, but if youre a complete beginner theres literally no point in trying to speak unless youve learned some basic vocab first. Im currently trying to juggle korean and spanish, its hard to speak if you dont know words lol. The best thing to do is get your vocab up and then its more encouraging when you actually try speaking, i remember trying to speak korean really early on and it just made me feel bad because i couldnt properly form a sentence when i didnt have enough words.
As people who speak Spanish, one piece of advice I can give is to listen a lot, Spanish has the characteristic of ignoring its own grammatical rules if it doesn't sound good to us lol, so listening and understanding how we construct sentences is a good idea.
would you recommend watching tv shows in spanish or listening to spanish music? i wanna do that but there are so many different spanish speaking countries so they don’t all sound the same. do you have any advice for that?
@@lanitakovac Choose a dialect to start, whether Spanish-Spain or Spanish-Latin America, and try to start with that one. As you progress and understand, you can learn about the different types of dialects that exist. Listening to music or watching a series is always a good idea, whether the series you plan to watch is dubbed into Spanish or its original language is Spanish. The idea with "listening" is that you are like a child learning his native language xd, you listen, repeat and continue es un idioma muy bonito aunque a veces pueda parecer complicado, buena suerte!!
I could not agree more over the uphill battle Spanish 101 in school was. I'd not thought of this until now, but even English grammar classes in school made me feel like I may as well be learning Latin. There are so many excellent points in this video and I'm so happy to have found it. Thank you for posting Elysse!
Excellent tips. And very relateable. 1. Talk from day 1 2. Talk to native speakers 3. Pick a dialect 4. Use stories to learn 5. Deprioritise grammar 6. Don't try to memorise every word you encounter 7. Learn through categories (i.e. subject groupings) 8. Self Study > Classroom Environment. #3. Totally agree. I have this hodge podge of Spanish, Colombian, Mexican vocab. And I realise they don't all travel. Pick a lane. Orale?! Dale / vale. #4. Yup, it'll come eventually. I started with ridged grammar expectations from learning German formally. Relax a bit about grammar, and make mistakes. #6. I have been guilty of this. I dont need to know the word for nail varnish on the daily. So why bother trying to remember it. #7. This particularly suits people who think in a certain way. #8. You tailor your learning to what you need. You do mention a couple of the following in the video, but others things I would say are: #9. You will make mistakes and look foolish. Embrace it. You provide a good example in the video (embarrassed vs pregnant). I didn't know either of those words until just now. And I could totally envisage myself getting this wrong. #10. On tenses, in addition to the present, simple past and infinitive you mention in the video, future is easy via tomorrow + present. Not perfect, but it works. (tomorrow I go to the beach). Same as past (yesterday I go to the beach). Not pretty, but works. you say it wrong enough, you'll eventually learn the correct future & past. #11. Videos with subtitles. .......even songs.....soy el fuego que arte to piel....soy el agua que mata tu sed, es castillo...etc. Great fun.
I watched this video before school today and I was so happy you posted again. I kept refreshing my feed everyday and this morning I finally saw a new video :) I love watching your videos, thank you so much! Your advice is so helpful to me, as I’m currently learning French and Spanish. Viele Grüße aus Deutschland!
¡Gracias por todo! Esto es muy útil. Estoy aprendiendo español ahora y a veces me siento asustado y frustrado con mi camino para hablar español con fluidez, pero este video me da paz!
Yeah I took 6 years of middle school/high school Spanish…I got straight As and I’d still say I really started to learn Spanish when I started immersing with Netflix haha
@@dabreadwinna80 I watch shows for adults in Spanish like La Casa De Papel but I wouldn’t recommend that to a beginner. It will be quite painful because you will have to stop every two seconds to look up words. I recommend starting with very easy content to listen to that’s made for beginners in Spanish (think Dreaming Spanish UA-cam channel or even mp3s of graded readers or even use an app like Speechify to have graded readers read out loud to you in Spanish) Then you can work your way up after that to kids shows in Spanish on Netflix that have less complicated vocabulary and speak slower (annunciate more) and then finally you will be ready to enjoy adult shows in Spanish on Netflix with very little stress. Hope that helps!
This was so helpful! Your tips helped me center myself on where to begin. I took Spanish classes years ago in school, and want to get back into the swing of things to learn Spanish fluently. But I was having such a hard time feeling overwhelmed, and not really knowing where to effectively start. Now I feel like I can develop more of a routine. Thank you so much for sharing!!!
Thank you sm!! I've been studying spanish for awhile now but i feel like i've been making zero progress. Definitely going to try speaking to myself more often.
@@fabian1019 that’s cool, i was just kidding cause you were watching a video to learn how to speak your own language xd, do you speak any language other than Spanish
@Ahmedkhaled-ii7ln well, yeah, it doesn't make a lot of sense that I was watching that video 😅😅 Just intermediate english, and because of Spanish I can understand a little of Portuguese
In my humble opinion, making these mistakes is the most crucial part of learning. I started studying Spanish 5 years ago, I’ve received a certificate of biliteracy, a 5 on the AP Spanish test, and can comfortably hold a conversation with people. I’m by no means an expert, and there were a lot of ways I could’ve improved the way I learned and studied, but if I had to restart, I wouldn’t do it any other way. Making mistakes and learning how to learn builds so much foundation that can’t be taught. As long as you stay curious, keep learning and trying to improve, the progress will be so great and so worth it.
I took two college classes of Spanish and they helped me a lot I basically started learning seriously 4 years ago. I stopped taking Spanish to focus on my degree but really “upped” my Spanish speaking in day to day life which made my progress any rocket Yo quería aprender la lengua porque mis suegros son mexicanos y no saben inglés. Yo no me podía comunicar con ellos y era bien importante a mi para aprender la lengua. Todavía estoy aprendiendo pero cada día me mejoro. I wish I could go back and tell myself the subjunctive is a thing (I just found out) and that it’s important. Thankfully it’s actually been very easy for me to just adjust that. I kept feeling stuck and wasn’t sure why until I stumbled across the subjunctive, though I used it and heard it already just wasn’t sure the “why” behind it. I wish I could also tell myself to not be nervous about speaking to strangers in Spanish that people actually (most of the time) appreciate it and are impressed. Talk more, as said in this video. I only made REAL progress when I started speaking in Spanish. Translating at food banks and speaking with my Muñeco’s family.
Great tips. You have vocalized some of the things I have thought about not overwhelming your brain. I will narrow my study to learn what is most useful, for the time being.
I was lucky enough that my highschool spanish classes were story-based learning so I actually learned really fast! One thing I would add is podcasts and singing along to songs! There are lots of podcasts out there for all levels and a lot of them come with transcripts and exercises
También estoy por hablar desde el inicio del aprendizaje. Sólo he estado aprendiendo el español por 3 años, y de estos 3 años, lo hablé por 2/2.5. No estoy segura de que nivel yo alcance hasta ahora. B2 pero no tengo ni idea cuando me debería considerar a mi misma como la que hable con fluidez. Hago voluntario al jardín comunitario como interprete (porque no hay nada que está en juego), pero aún voy mejorando mucho. A veces, encuentro que tengo un vocabulario más amplio que mi colega estadounidense-latina pero ella habla con mucha más naturaleza, incluso cuando comete errores. Opino que puedo decir que hablo el idioma porque manejo la vida cotidiana bastante bien sin el inglés, pero falto el sentido de naturaleza/comodidad. Todavía gasto energía en construir mis pensamientos y ideas en español y en cuanto a ciertos temas me cuestan hablar con rapidez. Así que no pienso que tengo la fluidez en el idioma, pero asimismo mis habilidades de comprensión y la cantidad de temas de cual puedo tener una conversación, son más altas que el intercambio intermedio que me uní y que los recursos hechos para el estudiante. Dado todo esto, quise saber ¿cuando supiste que alcanzaste un nivel avanzado en español? Qué opinas de los exámenes/certificados de fluidez; son utiles o necesarios? Cuales son las señales que te dieron la sabiduría a reconocer cuando dirías alguien habla con fluidez? Al hablar con fluidez, todavía te cuesten ciertos temas o oraciones? Ósea, con respeto al hablar fluidamente, alguna vez has tenido que pensar en como expresarte? O sencillamente la diferencia entre fluidez y no, es de “qué digo” en vez de “cómo se lo dice”? Porfavor quiero escuchar más sobre este tema porque me quedo estancada en el abyss muy ancho entre “se puede hablar español lo suficiente para cualquier propósito” y “se puede hablar con la verdadera fluidez y parece que tiene otra mente que existe por dicho idioma”.
i took 4 spanish classes in uni (which is equivalent to B1), it was productive but stressful. whatever ive learnt, i can still remember most of it including conjugation and the speaking practice in class was enjoyable but the listening/written/oral tests were so stressful
Elysse, eres la mejor! I find my progress is that freakin terrible but this video of yours truly inspires me to start over. My goal is to be as fluent like you jaja
I think this is wonderful advice. I am very early in my journey and can already agree with some of the stuff that you are saying, like not going grammar crazy. I do grammar and when I am tiered of it I leave it and do something else like listen to stories and then come back to grammar. I have started talking to myself and have planned a month from now to start doing meetups no matter what - so that it is motivating and as a target and will also stop me from keep delaying due to fear of embarrassment. I really agree about learning in context and also about dialect. I now only study Spanish from Spain because that is where I want to live and being in London Spain is accessible to me. I am going to give Jiveworld a go.
My maternal Language is portuguese, and since um a kid my parents put me on English courses and my process with English was very slowly, this courses take so long and it can be so frustrating. It was a very passive way of learning, once I enter college I ve decided to travel and spent some time in BC. It was revealing for me, my english developed so quickly. Mas não foi é uma língua que continuo praticando ativamente, consumo muito conteúdo em inglês mas não escrevo e falo muito pouco. Ese año empecé a estudiar español y estoy encantada con esta lengua. Estoy estudiando por conta própria, leyendo mucho, escuchando, es muy similar con portugués pero sus similaridades pueden confundirnos un montón. Pero ese trabajo más activo en que puedo sentir el progresso es tan gratificante. Muchas gracias por las tips !!
I had to take Spanish for a quarter in seventh grade and it was a horrible experience for me. It was just to get me interested in taking first year Spanish the following year. The teacher taught using immersion and instead of getting me interested, it made me never want to study Spanish ever again. I do see immersion as a valid teaching method for those taking languages for a longer period. C’est la raison que j’ai décidé d’étudier le français au lycée.
Thank you very muchI completely agree with you that speaking Spanish from day one is essential. I taught myself Spanish for nearly a year, but I struggled to have a conversation. When I started speaking with native speakers on Italki and Lingoda, I saw a significant improvement in my learning. Using the language to communicate with others is incredibly motivating. It inspires me to learn more and excel in my learning.
Thanks, those are some really good tips - especially speaking to yourself, reaching out to natives, and focusing on learning from a particular dialect or region.
Thanks for the tip about Jiveworld, I'll check it out. I only started learning Spanish 4 months ago. I've already learnt another language to fluency as an adult, so I'm an experienced language learner. However, I'm always on the look out for good Spanish content.
Love your accent and attitude. One tip is to start learning Spanish and go to Spain for a month, then go back to Mexico or Colombia, and everything will sound in slowmo, and you will just get it super quick! I agree with your so many points, although I tend to learn a lot more dialects when learning a language, in the end, though sticking with one. I m a native Spanish speaker, but learned French and Portuguese in high school. Saludos!
needs based is how i decide if I want to bother incorporating a new english word into my native vocabulary as well. If I cant imagine a single scenario where my life/ ability to express myself would improve if I add this word then I let it pass me by but if I think it can enrich me to start using it I will promptly use it in a sentence to myself and thats usually enough to get it into the roster.
If anyone is considering taking any language class in school, ask around and find out how the teachers are. I actually really enjoyed high school Spanish but, in my case, the teachers werent native speakers (they had learnt it as a second language and then got a degree in uni) so they were really passionate and understood the struggle. But my uni German profs were just awful. One of them was born and raised in Germany but got a Ph.D in German in the United States and i will never understand why you would do that 😅 that has nothing to do with her teaching, its just something that bothers me 😂
El español es una lengua muy cohesionada. Los hispanohablantes no tienen problemas para entender su lengua hablada o escrita. Lógicamente hay matices según las zonas pero la unidad de la lengua española es impresionante. También dentro de cada país hay matices según las zonas.
As a Mexican, I think I would NEVER pick up Spanish if I wasn’t a native speaker, just like German, I find it to have lots of minute details that can drive one crazy. I don’t know how one manages to speak it fluently, but I praise those people heavily.
im a Dominican that grew up in the us and didnt speak Spanish growing up. i've had a hard time learning because of all of those small details. they dont stick in my head. all of my life i've been able to understand around an a1/a2 level but i can barely speak. i'm trying to actually learn it again. i've gone through many phases of trying
muy interesante lo que comentas. Soy de Argentina y tengo un inglés fluente como tu español. Qué genial escucharte en inglés y responder en español porque sé que vas a entender jajajaja. Claramente lo que decís no me pasó en español, pero sí en el aprendizaje de inglés- Pero nunca lo había visto de ese modo. Ahora que voy a aprender italiano, voy a tener en cuenta tus recomendaciones. Abrazo!
@01:42 -- I can top it! Over the summer in Punta Cana, I asked the guy selling cigars on the beach if he had any "perros cubanos" instead of "puros cubanos." 🤭I was very embarazada. 😁
I'm learning Spanish with a combo of Duolingo and the Comprehensible input method of the Dreaming Spanish channel. Seems like the best of both worlds. Duolingo is gamified spelling and grammar learning and Dreaming Spanish is awesome for vocab and accent recognition. Started 2 months ago and I've already finished sections 1 and 2 on Duo. Spanish is my 5th language
Thank you so much for these tips. I first began learning Spanish in High School and my experience was not good. It was just learn vocab and how to translate verbs repeat everyday and listen to a speaker everyday and my Spanish teacher kept right to the book. I couldn't speak sentences just phrases here and there, and I couldn't figure out how to put my own sentence together as well as remembering vocab was difficult and listening to a native speaker I could never keep up at all to respond. I was like, what did you say ? These tips you gave will hopefully help me finally learn Spanish. Its been almost 20 years since High School Spanish for me and I was going to try to learn as I was taught in High School as thats all I knew. However, after I watched your video I feel like I will be able to actually learn it this time and looking forward to doing so more as I wasnt looking forward to repeating how Spanish class went in an unhelpful, unmotivated, boring unindividualized way to learn. I'm extremely excited to try your tips and follow your advice. Thank you. (If you're wondering I had Spanish in USA). Maybe other schools did better, but Im actually learning Spanish because its spoken in the area I live a lot and more people are hired because they speak both English and Spanish. I want to be able to use Spanish in my community and I actually will be focused on Mexican Spanish. I also want to learn it because I want my kids to begin learning it and my husband would benefit from learning it for his work too. I want my small family of four to be able to speak Spanish fluently and understand it. I don't want my kids to struggle like I did in high school, and this way, they will already know Spanish. Thank you for all the advice and suggestions.
It's surreal how your Spanish pronunciation sounds so native and you sound like a high class Mexican girl. I speak Spanish, I just ran into your video and I got curious.
I would have added : use comprehensive input method from day one it is the most useful thing everrrr start listening to native speakers early on so your brain is used to the sounds and the speed of the language ( even if you just understand a word from time to time ) when you are board try watching movies or listening to music just immerse yourself in the language
comprehensible input method is defined as you knowing most of but not all of what you are hearing, but yes, immersing yourself is useful (but she does a really good job of leading you on without ever giving any input on getting started, so a fraud basically)
Tu español es sumamente bueno, cuando vi tus reels en instagram juraba que eras mexicana, im mexican, living in new zealand and trying to learn english, portugues and french
12:03 I would second the suggestion that learning a foreign language in high school or college, basically learning it with classes that aren't personalized is surely the worst way to learn. I had a similar experience with my french classes in high school, we were clubbed with middle school students, the classes were in general for 11-20 yr olds and I was very much excited to learn a new language and to say that the generalized teaching method with the clinical approach of just mugging up whatever you are taught did not sit well with me would be an understatement. I was learning french for almost a year with 2 classes a week and still couldn't form a coherent sentence. After a year, I concluded that maybe french is really difficult to the point that I cannot learn the language ever so next year I dropped out of the class. After 5 years, now I'm actually willing to learn because the language keeps popping up in my life every now and then.
How would you implement grammar into studying? My routine for the last 13 months consisted of most of the things in this video and I was noticing exponential growth up until a few months ago. I feel stuck/limited. When trying to form new sentences in conversation it's clear I don't understand the grammar. Words in context isn't enough. And taking time away from my routine to try and study the grammar seems to have slowed everything down all together. I was just happy that I understood in real time the start of the video without looking at the subtitles. (But who can focus on subtitles with Elysse on the screen😍)
Yo estoy aprendiendo español, no es muy difícil para mí, porque hablo portugués y la gramática es parecida. Entonces, cuando leo un libro, comprendo. Tu video tiene valiosos consejos, pero para mí empezar a hablar es el gran desafío, porque comienzo a mezclar portugués con español. Aún así, sigo intentando aprender.:)
I absolutely love your language advice! I have some coworkers from Mexico (and now best friends/family) that work abroad at my cousins farm that I work for. They came in 3 years ago and they speak zero English, and I was speaking German at the time. I started learning some broken resemblance of Spanish to communicate with them at work, and I have felt that I make zero progress. I have to say that I absolutely love JiveWorld and LOVE those sound bites! And to immediately need to be speaking in my case, I would say that both speaking on day one and speaking to natives is incredibly helpful. I still freeze sometimes and have some speaking anxiety, but they know me well enough now to say "hey, what were you actually saying before you stopped" and we all work together. Learning Spanish has been one of the most important and enriching and exciting things in my life and I will never regret the day that I become fluent.
I completed 3 quarters of online Spanish through local community college. Got all “A”s. But online Spanish was terrible for listening and speaking. Now I am focusing on listening and speaking rather than intensive grammar study. I bit the bullet for two months of Babbel live classes (just started those). An expensive investment but investing in your own skills is always worthwhile.
Back in middle school I legit chose French over Spanish (those were the only two choices) because I couldn’t roll my R’s. I then proceeded to learn three other languages before recently getting to Spanish. I figured out how to do the RR, and this is the most fun I’ve had studying a language. Wish I didn’t wait so long to learn Spanish, that’s my regret 😂
I have been learning English for 5 years in an institute, but it didn't work as much as I wanted but now I am totally fluent in English, but it was because of me! I found a method called cause and effect. If you want to improve your speaking, start immersing yourself in English! Trust me, it'll work because it worked for me. I had my English exam yesterday, and I was a hundred percent sure that it was gonna be easy (it was), I didn't even study for it. So in summary, start immersing yourself if you want to be fluent. Or if you want to improve your writing start reading a lot. We call input to what we consume. Those things that your brain keeps, and we call output to our pronounciation, our brain creates learning patterns when we consume the language!
I really appreciate the tips you shared especially the one about talking to yourself because I actually do this as a English speaker lol Thanks for the great video.
I know when I've heard people say speak from day 1 they literally meant have convos immediately. When I tried that with Mandarin (lang I'm currently restarting), it caused my speaking anxiety to worsen. Add a horrible lang partner and I was afraid to even talk to myself... 😫 But I definitely agree with just saying a few phrases to yourself. With the lessons... I was broke broke. 😭 However there ARE ways to learn stuff for the free, you just gotta look for them. And I'm 5 years in, finally decided on Colombian dialect. 😂 But lately I've been intrigued by Peruvian Spanish so who knows--it could change. 🤣 Great tips!! I'll be sharing!
I’m married to a Mati e Mexican. We have been together for 13 years and I’m just now learning the language. Our kids only speak English so I’m learning and also teaching them at the same time.
My Spanish trauma is that I grew up in a predominantly Puerto Rican American neighborhood, went to a bilingual Spanish/English elementary school, took Spanish in middle and high school (including AP Spanish sophomore year) and came out of ALL OF THAT with basically an A2 level of Spanish. The methods and textbooks they used were clearly not the best way, I should’ve been near fluent with all that. 20 years later, I’m willing to give it another go once I’ve hit B1 in German, seeing as I’ve already got a foundation I’m hoping it’ll be less painful. Plus, Netflix and UA-cam and podcasts didn’t exist when I was a teenager. Should be a BIT more approachable this go round.
i'm learning english and i think this is valid advice for english learners too i should've known this when i started my english learning journey on which i have spent 100+ years i can't never go back so i shall stay at a low intermediate level forever
I feel like I'd definitel learnt Spanish better if I just picked another language at school (had to pick something other than English, had Russian, Latin, French and German as options) because it's not just that that kind of learning never worked for me (self-diagnosed ADHD person here) but also my Spanish class was like Harry Potter's defense against dark magic; we had different teachers every second semester because one decided she wants to teach at another school, one beat my classmate up, one couldn't handle the annoying, loud kids (neither could I), so I got a normal, proper teacher who tried to help us prepare for graduation in the year of the graduation (got a 3, or a C if you're American). Got accepted to university but wasn't accpted to the spanish special seminar and so got the language on hold for three years. Now I'm a young adult with a BA in English studies, goal is to become a translator, need second language certificate for master's degree, learn Spanish for a year while getting the certificate, tring to undo the damage high school did to my language knowledge xDD i feel like we are destined to suffer if we study Spanish, even though it's a beautiful language
Amazing! I´m not fluent in Spanish. But Spanish is pretty close to portuguese. So I don´t have a problem to communicate to spanish speakers. As a native portuguese speakear I would learn english diferent too. I´m fluent in english. But I had a hard time to understand and pick up some sounds in english. If you want to learn a language you should learn the same way you learned your native language. First getting used to the sound of the language. That´s hard in the beginning. But with time and dedication you can achieve success.
Excellent tips to learn languages, they are very useful, what also helps is the constan interaction in conversational courses..At Global Spanish and Portuguese, students can practise and develop speaking and listening skills by being part of conversations with friendly native teachers :)
Hmm yeah these different situations which were you have really familiar for me because I currently learning Turkish and I sometimes really fear to talk with different people and fear to make different mistakes but that normal so yeah that really wonderful that you have such progress in this language
This is so true. Speak. I also wish i'd paid attention to whether vocab was used in just spain or just LA. Obviously the teacher warned us about a few things, don't say this if you go to south america and we thought, when are we going to south america, as if. I am going to retire to Spain and speak spanish with a words of Catalan thrown in to be local! Not random, as the locals do. Occasionally say 'vol' instead of vuelo, or occasionally say merci instead of gracias. I'm going local but not specific to one tiny precise postcode. A region. Areas between Valencia and Alicante
Hey! I think that a great way to make us practice more our Spanish and other languages is to speak in that language and leave subtitles in English and that specific language. I learn much faster that way and I think you should do it :)
I manage mexican workers at my job. I started just speaking words and phrases from day and when it was super broken and wrong. I didn't care, I just corrected it. Anyways, I have no desire to learn spanish, but, I'm going to go for it. Day 10 today. I'm understanding Esta/es Verb endings, spanish seems like it stacks a lot.. And, about 500 words. I did study German pretty intensely but it for only 7 months, 5 years ago.
For me, the hardest thing is I never "specialized" in one region, so my Spanish is a big mix of that from Andalucia (where I first studied), Mexico, Chile, Peru, and Argentina.
The speaking thing is so funny, especially with how "comprehensible input" has become a meme in language learning circles. There is also "Comprehensible Output" which comes from Canada (where people learn French and English together all through school). The theory states that people learn language when they try to convey a message and fail, but get feedback (both internally and externally) to correct the error. I know you know this, but I suspect that there are many learners who do not understand that input without output leads to incomplete learning and long lasting errors, even in the context of immersion!
not necessarily a trauma, but during high school I went to a real small school. genuinely small, less than 100 students. all our classes were mixed amongst grades so our studies remained at about a freshman level at most. because of this, despite taking three years of spanish, i made essentially no progress. what i did learn and retain was mostly from self study outside of class and even then, not having that in class time to practice with my peers really stunted what could've been actual proficiency.
i think you should start speaking once your learn pronunciations! which i learned day 1 (kinda bc i’d already been exposed to spanish before like the LL and J) but i think it’s just important to start pronouncing correctly
honestly i'm grateful for my school spanish classes. not that they were good - i've learnt more in six months of (somewhat passive) home study than 3 years of school classes - but i struggle with motivation to start languages. once i'm past the phase where i can barely introduce myself, i'm fine, but the fact that school forced me to get past that really helped
I would like to share something; When I first interested in learning Spanish, I decided to take look at it on Duolingo, because you know, it is easy to do. And I learnt how to say ''where is my blabla'' within an hour. And after I learnt how to use it, I wanted to write it down to my notes on my phone. But I figured out that it wasn't on me. And I went to the living room of our house and asked my mother ''Donde esta mi telefono?'' which was by accident. Omg, I still remember this moment and it was very surprising for me. By the way, my mother tongue isn't English
¿No es parecido aprende español que aprender inglés? ¿Aprenderte algunos verbos y como formular oraciones? Eso es lo basico pero creo que es un buen inicio 😅
wish I could sub to a lesson on any platform as a russian :/ basically learning spanish atm to finally move out of my country for good guess I'll try looking for a local offline course, hopefully we still have good teachers who have not fled yet
my grandparents speak spanish but they know english too, my parents are also fluent in spanish. My parents didn’t really teach me and my brothers. well sometimes they do but only certain words. me and my brothers always ask them to just speak it in front of us so we learn better but they don’t always do. one of the main reasons they didn’t teach us that much is bc my oldest brother is hard of hearing and they want us to learn ASL so in case we ever need to interrupt for him. i really want to learn spanish since i’ve always wanted to learn it and i wanna be in duo language some ether teachers are really nice and i have so many friends in them. i’m starting off on duolingo but i want to learn spanish from mexico but they only have it from spain. i’m gonna use it for the start but does anyone know if they have it from mexico? i’m committed to learn this
Nice!! here are my key takeways: - Speak from day one, even if it's just small phrases. Don't be afraid to make mistakes! - Talk to yourself in Spanish to get comfortable with the language. - Record yourself speaking Spanish and listen back to identify areas for improvement. - Take online speaking lessons with native speakers. - Learn a specific dialect of Spanish instead of trying to learn general Spanish. - Learn Spanish through stories, such as podcasts or audiobooks. - Focus on learning the most common verbs and conjugations in the present, past simple, and present progressive tenses. - Don't try to learn every word you encounter. Focus on vocabulary that is relevant to you. - Learn vocabulary by category or topic, such as family, travel, or food. - Avoid studying Spanish in high school (in the United States) if you are already self-learning. Self-study and then consider university courses.
As a person that's just starting out, I've been told to avoid Chilean spanish. Native speakers have told me Chileans are very hard to understand, it makes learning it 10x more difficult. This kinda sucks to hear because I'll be stationed in Chile next year and wanna learn as much as I can asap.
Lo que pasa es que hablan muy rápido y además cambian las últimas letras de algunas palabras, esas dos cosas sumadas las hace difíciles de entender... Pero eh... Sigue siendo español 👉👈
I have had a conversation with Chilean and could say that it isn't that hard. Just relax and try to understand the context. Additionally, mostly they are really nice people and could repeat more slowly and clear if you're struggling.
You may have a different perspective once you immerse yourself and fall in love with what discourages other people. Let us know how it goes after a few months =) 5:08
I definitely count living in Florida as spending time in a Spanish speaking country (some say Florida is great because it’s so close to the U.S) but because the cultures are so blended here I really don’t know what dialogue to pick. I wish there was a course in South Florida Spanish 😂
I moved to Florida a couple of years ago and feel like I need to learn, that’s why I’m watching this video! I wish I could take South Florida Spanish as well!
I’m trying to learn Colombian Spanish specifically from the paisa region because that’s where my husband and his family is from. But I’m really struggling to find resources to learn this dialect
Preply is brilliant. You can choose a teacher specifically from Colombia (and then choose someone from Medellin, for example). I also found translating music from a particular region helpful to pick up phrases and vocabulary
Try out Soundbites and start learning REAL, natural-spoken Spanish on Jiveworld 🌟 go.jw.app/elyssespeaks
0😅😮😮😮😮:53
It is different the spanish in Spain that spanish of México. I live in Spain and my city IS the place for laerning perfect spanish or castellano
Im studying to be a journalist, so Jiveworld is perfect as far as learning Spanish stories! Do you happen to have a discount code for membership?!
The "talking to yourself" advice is actually a very good one I've done myself both with a couple of languages (one of them being English). It helps strengthening your "brain muscle" by getting used to construct more complex sentences on the fly and practicing pronounciation with a more elaborated context (not just repeating isolated words or groups of words).
I’m learning english and I’m pretty happy that i could understood 90% of the video❤❤❤
Congratulations!!!
Congrats :)
Hey just to help you it would be “could understand”. Once the first verb is conjugated then the next one doesn’t need to be.
@loganjohnson4642 or take the could out and have "I understood" to be fair I didn't even notice till I read your comment
@@jimmyyeates5260 Yeah but I figured he wanted to express the can part. I only mentioned it because it’s a common thing I see with English as a second language speakers. My friend will say stuff like “did you went to the store” instead of “did you go to the store”
I'm Mexican-American. Both sets of grandparents spoke Spanish, but never taught it to my parents since they weren't allowed to speak it in school growing up. I wish I would've tried to learn Spanish from them before they passed. One of my biggest insecurities is not knowing Spanish. Going to give it a go. Thank you for your videos!
Wishing you the best on your learning journey! I’m starting as well! god bless.
i am in the same position as you. wishing us both luck!
My boss gets upset whenever me or other coworkers speak Spanish.
So I’m 61, and I bet I’m your parents age. My father was German and 50/60 years ago they felt it was detrimental to learn 2 languages at once. BIG MISTAKE. My father always said it was his biggest regret not to teach me German.
I have the exact same experience as a Tejano. the american teachers hit my grandparents for speaking Spanish and forced them to change their first names when they went to school. they didn't want the next generations to experience the same trauma. now I'm learning Spanish to preserve our culture and heritage. I also want to preserve our regional dialect because there aren't any studies on it (to my knowledge) and I fear it might be vulnerable. overall I can't recommend learning Spanish enough. we must embrace our own culture and reject american assimilation.
I've been learning Spanish for 6 years, but in the last year I've made a huge jump in my comprehension levels.... and I think it's because I finally realised that learning a language isn't an intellecutal exercise... it's much more like learning to drive a car... when you first start to learn to drive it's so awkward... and you have to think of everything and none of it works... but after you've done a lot of driving you can suddenly drive, while listening to a podcast, arguing with your partner and texting your friend that you're going to be late... you learn to drive by doing a lot of driving... every day... a year ago I encountered "Story Learning" or Input-based learning and it just clicked... you learn a language by hearing it and reading it... that's how we got good at our own native language... but I do agree with Elysse that you should start speaking as soon as possible... until you've tried to force your 30k word vocab out of your mouth through your 500 word Spanish vocab you haven't really learned anything....
What can I read as a beginner
@@oumietouray9476search up
Spanish comprehensible input
@@oumietouray9476honestly you could read Spanish children’s stories, or watch Spanish cartoons, those usually have simple language so as a beginner it would be good for listening and comprehension
That's a great comparison!
Makes sense
High school Spanish was the best experience of my life. One year of Spanish in my senior year gave me a foundation that has lasted for decades. And la Senora Choplin gave me insights into Mexican culture and etiquette that have served me so well.
Glad it worked for you!
Same here
As a native Mexican I tell people to imagine Lego blocks.
You have your core blocks in the sentences and you just change the end or the beginning of your block sequence. Change colors, mix and match and so on as you get better in the language.
The most basic structure in all Spanish is always: Who? What? When/Where/Why?
Subject, Verb, Context-in case it wasn't clear above.
Spanish is hard to learn for people with language background where there is no articles (particle users are fine) and verb placements don't have defined gender, tenses or placement structures.
Gracias amigo.
Many decades after a failed attempt to learn Spanish in high school, I am 15 days into duo lingo, and I have already leaned some 300 words, and I am starting to grasp gender, which is memorization and recognition of making the gender agree, such as in, "una nina." Another tip is to listen to the way the words are spoken, and imitating the accent. This is particularly important with French, because the French speakers "throw away" so many of the letters when speaking. To an American ear they sound lazy, but that's what it sounds like, so you have to just go with it. Making yourself sound like a native speaker is definitely important, and not worrying about being an accurate reader of letters on a page.
@@successbassey6675 Vamos amigo, tu puedes!
I don't think it matters that much when you start speaking. It's not that I think it's harmful at the beginning, I just think it's a waste of time. Some people find it motivating to speak right away and some find it motivating to wait until they have at least some instincts on how to self-correct. I definitely waited, but it wasn't an anti-social or psychological thing, I just wanted to use my time effectively.
I totally agree with ur standpoint, for me start talking at the very beginning it's pointless. Cuz at that phase of ur Journey u have no words to articulate urself well. So if I'll start talking at that time I would repeating the same statments over and over again.if I'll talk at the very beginning it would be benefical in one case if ur trying to practice ur pronouncation. Otherwise u need to exploit this phase to work on assemble ur vocab. and to not brood way too much over when ur gonna talk!
Okay but that’s just your opinion. Other people’s brains work differently, and neither options are better or worse than one another
@@diederdas27 Okay? I literally said in my post that it's different for everyone and not to stress too much about when you start speaking. It was the woman in this video who presented her opinion as a broadly applying fact. I think the idea that people who wait are just waiting the "perfect moment" so they don't have to deal with social embarrassment is just a small group in the language learning community and most people are just waiting until they have a few hundred hours of exposure under their belt so the time they do speak is more effective.
@@diederdas27 of course, but if youre a complete beginner theres literally no point in trying to speak unless youve learned some basic vocab first. Im currently trying to juggle korean and spanish, its hard to speak if you dont know words lol. The best thing to do is get your vocab up and then its more encouraging when you actually try speaking, i remember trying to speak korean really early on and it just made me feel bad because i couldnt properly form a sentence when i didnt have enough words.
i definitely find it motivating especially when paired with native input!
As people who speak Spanish, one piece of advice I can give is to listen a lot, Spanish has the characteristic of ignoring its own grammatical rules if it doesn't sound good to us lol, so listening and understanding how we construct sentences is a good idea.
would you recommend watching tv shows in spanish or listening to spanish music? i wanna do that but there are so many different spanish speaking countries so they don’t all sound the same. do you have any advice for that?
@@lanitakovac Choose a dialect to start, whether Spanish-Spain or Spanish-Latin America, and try to start with that one. As you progress and understand, you can learn about the different types of dialects that exist. Listening to music or watching a series is always a good idea, whether the series you plan to watch is dubbed into Spanish or its original language is Spanish. The idea with "listening" is that you are like a child learning his native language xd, you listen, repeat and continue
es un idioma muy bonito aunque a veces pueda parecer complicado, buena suerte!!
@@moon_light3019 muchas gracias!! i’m proud that i understood the last sentence lmao. i hope i can learn as much as possible and can one day be fluent
I could not agree more over the uphill battle Spanish 101 in school was. I'd not thought of this until now, but even English grammar classes in school made me feel like I may as well be learning Latin. There are so many excellent points in this video and I'm so happy to have found it. Thank you for posting Elysse!
Excellent tips. And very relateable.
1. Talk from day 1
2. Talk to native speakers
3. Pick a dialect
4. Use stories to learn
5. Deprioritise grammar
6. Don't try to memorise every word you encounter
7. Learn through categories (i.e. subject groupings)
8. Self Study > Classroom Environment.
#3. Totally agree. I have this hodge podge of Spanish, Colombian, Mexican vocab. And I realise they don't all travel. Pick a lane. Orale?! Dale / vale.
#4. Yup, it'll come eventually. I started with ridged grammar expectations from learning German formally. Relax a bit about grammar, and make mistakes.
#6. I have been guilty of this. I dont need to know the word for nail varnish on the daily. So why bother trying to remember it.
#7. This particularly suits people who think in a certain way.
#8. You tailor your learning to what you need.
You do mention a couple of the following in the video, but others things I would say are:
#9. You will make mistakes and look foolish. Embrace it. You provide a good example in the video (embarrassed vs pregnant). I didn't know either of those words until just now. And I could totally envisage myself getting this wrong.
#10. On tenses, in addition to the present, simple past and infinitive you mention in the video, future is easy via tomorrow + present. Not perfect, but it works. (tomorrow I go to the beach). Same as past (yesterday I go to the beach). Not pretty, but works. you say it wrong enough, you'll eventually learn the correct future & past.
#11. Videos with subtitles. .......even songs.....soy el fuego que arte to piel....soy el agua que mata tu sed, es castillo...etc. Great fun.
I watched this video before school today and I was so happy you posted again. I kept refreshing my feed everyday and this morning I finally saw a new video :) I love watching your videos, thank you so much! Your advice is so helpful to me, as I’m currently learning French and Spanish. Viele Grüße aus Deutschland!
that’s wonderful 🫶 thanks for looking out for my videos 😇
¡Gracias por todo! Esto es muy útil. Estoy aprendiendo español ahora y a veces me siento asustado y frustrado con mi camino para hablar español con fluidez, pero este video me da paz!
Soy hablante nativa del español y déjame decirte que lo estás haciendo muy bien, mucha suerte! 😊❤
Bit of a weird reply but having only just started learning, I’m pleasantly surprised and happy that I understood your comment
Yeah I took 6 years of middle school/high school Spanish…I got straight As and I’d still say I really started to learn Spanish when I started immersing with Netflix haha
my exact situation!
How did you do it? Can you break it down ...like a show you like or how you actually learned from Netflix for a beginner?
@@dabreadwinna80 I watch shows for adults in Spanish like La Casa De Papel but I wouldn’t recommend that to a beginner. It will be quite painful because you will have to stop every two seconds to look up words.
I recommend starting with very easy content to listen to that’s made for beginners in Spanish (think Dreaming Spanish UA-cam channel or even mp3s of graded readers or even use an app like Speechify to have graded readers read out loud to you in Spanish)
Then you can work your way up after that to kids shows in Spanish on Netflix that have less complicated vocabulary and speak slower (annunciate more) and then finally you will be ready to enjoy adult shows in Spanish on Netflix with very little stress.
Hope that helps!
This was so helpful! Your tips helped me center myself on where to begin. I took Spanish classes years ago in school, and want to get back into the swing of things to learn Spanish fluently. But I was having such a hard time feeling overwhelmed, and not really knowing where to effectively start. Now I feel like I can develop more of a routine. Thank you so much for sharing!!!
We can help you to learn Spanish fluently, we offer conversational courses with amazing native teachers! :)
Thank you sm!! I've been studying spanish for awhile now but i feel like i've been making zero progress. Definitely going to try speaking to myself more often.
it’s a simple step but it helps :)
Let us help you! :)
I'm a native Spanish speaker, but I think these tips are gonna be useful to learn other languages as well.
I thought the same, mate.
Why did you watch the video bro? Xd
@Ahmedkhaled-ii7ln why not? 😅 the thing is that I like to watch how other people learn languages
@@fabian1019 that’s cool, i was just kidding cause you were watching a video to learn how to speak your own language xd, do you speak any language other than Spanish
@Ahmedkhaled-ii7ln well, yeah, it doesn't make a lot of sense that I was watching that video 😅😅
Just intermediate english, and because of Spanish I can understand a little of Portuguese
Your advice makes so much sense. I have the same takeaways looking back how I learned English.
Useful video and great tips. Thank you, Elysse. After two months of hiatus, thank you from the heart🙏
In my humble opinion, making these mistakes is the most crucial part of learning. I started studying Spanish 5 years ago, I’ve received a certificate of biliteracy, a 5 on the AP Spanish test, and can comfortably hold a conversation with people. I’m by no means an expert, and there were a lot of ways I could’ve improved the way I learned and studied, but if I had to restart, I wouldn’t do it any other way. Making mistakes and learning how to learn builds so much foundation that can’t be taught. As long as you stay curious, keep learning and trying to improve, the progress will be so great and so worth it.
I took two college classes of Spanish and they helped me a lot I basically started learning seriously 4 years ago. I stopped taking Spanish to focus on my degree but really “upped” my Spanish speaking in day to day life which made my progress any rocket
Yo quería aprender la lengua porque mis suegros son mexicanos y no saben inglés. Yo no me podía comunicar con ellos y era bien importante a mi para aprender la lengua. Todavía estoy aprendiendo pero cada día me mejoro.
I wish I could go back and tell myself the subjunctive is a thing (I just found out) and that it’s important. Thankfully it’s actually been very easy for me to just adjust that. I kept feeling stuck and wasn’t sure why until I stumbled across the subjunctive, though I used it and heard it already just wasn’t sure the “why” behind it. I wish I could also tell myself to not be nervous about speaking to strangers in Spanish that people actually (most of the time) appreciate it and are impressed. Talk more, as said in this video. I only made REAL progress when I started speaking in Spanish. Translating at food banks and speaking with my Muñeco’s family.
Preach! I got onto my fourth language before this started to hit home and I took this advice seriously.
Great tips. You have vocalized some of the things I have thought about not overwhelming your brain. I will narrow my study to learn what is most useful, for the time being.
I was lucky enough that my highschool spanish classes were story-based learning so I actually learned really fast! One thing I would add is podcasts and singing along to songs! There are lots of podcasts out there for all levels and a lot of them come with transcripts and exercises
Muy buen video! Como maestra de Español me ayudó mucho ver tu punto de vista y tu experiencia. Gracias!😘
También estoy por hablar desde el inicio del aprendizaje. Sólo he estado aprendiendo el español por 3 años, y de estos 3 años, lo hablé por 2/2.5. No estoy segura de que nivel yo alcance hasta ahora. B2 pero no tengo ni idea cuando me debería considerar a mi misma como la que hable con fluidez. Hago voluntario al jardín comunitario como interprete (porque no hay nada que está en juego), pero aún voy mejorando mucho. A veces, encuentro que tengo un vocabulario más amplio que mi colega estadounidense-latina pero ella habla con mucha más naturaleza, incluso cuando comete errores. Opino que puedo decir que hablo el idioma porque manejo la vida cotidiana bastante bien sin el inglés, pero falto el sentido de naturaleza/comodidad. Todavía gasto energía en construir mis pensamientos y ideas en español y en cuanto a ciertos temas me cuestan hablar con rapidez. Así que no pienso que tengo la fluidez en el idioma, pero asimismo mis habilidades de comprensión y la cantidad de temas de cual puedo tener una conversación, son más altas que el intercambio intermedio que me uní y que los recursos hechos para el estudiante. Dado todo esto, quise saber ¿cuando supiste que alcanzaste un nivel avanzado en español? Qué opinas de los exámenes/certificados de fluidez; son utiles o necesarios? Cuales son las señales que te dieron la sabiduría a reconocer cuando dirías alguien habla con fluidez? Al hablar con fluidez, todavía te cuesten ciertos temas o oraciones? Ósea, con respeto al hablar fluidamente, alguna vez has tenido que pensar en como expresarte? O sencillamente la diferencia entre fluidez y no, es de “qué digo” en vez de “cómo se lo dice”? Porfavor quiero escuchar más sobre este tema porque me quedo estancada en el abyss muy ancho entre “se puede hablar español lo suficiente para cualquier propósito” y “se puede hablar con la verdadera fluidez y parece que tiene otra mente que existe por dicho idioma”.
I feel like I failed a song on Guitar Hero when a native speaker switches to English with me after attempting to speak Spanish with them
I'm 54-years-old and I'm just starting to try to learn Spanish. Gotta say so far it's daunting! 😬
Im 14 and ive been wanting too learn for so long, thanks for the tips :)
same here bestie ❤️
i took 4 spanish classes in uni (which is equivalent to B1), it was productive but stressful. whatever ive learnt, i can still remember most of it including conjugation and the speaking practice in class was enjoyable but the listening/written/oral tests were so stressful
Elysse, eres la mejor! I find my progress is that freakin terrible but this video of yours truly inspires me to start over. My goal is to be as fluent like you jaja
I think this is wonderful advice. I am very early in my journey and can already agree with some of the stuff that you are saying, like not going grammar crazy. I do grammar and when I am tiered of it I leave it and do something else like listen to stories and then come back to grammar. I have started talking to myself and have planned a month from now to start doing meetups no matter what - so that it is motivating and as a target and will also stop me from keep delaying due to fear of embarrassment.
I really agree about learning in context and also about dialect. I now only study Spanish from Spain because that is where I want to live and being in London Spain is accessible to me.
I am going to give Jiveworld a go.
My maternal Language is portuguese, and since um a kid my parents put me on English courses and my process with English was very slowly, this courses take so long and it can be so frustrating. It was a very passive way of learning, once I enter college I ve decided to travel and spent some time in BC. It was revealing for me, my english developed so quickly.
Mas não foi é uma língua que continuo praticando ativamente, consumo muito conteúdo em inglês mas não escrevo e falo muito pouco.
Ese año empecé a estudiar español y estoy encantada con esta lengua. Estoy estudiando por conta própria, leyendo mucho, escuchando, es muy similar con portugués pero sus similaridades pueden confundirnos un montón. Pero ese trabajo más activo en que puedo sentir el progresso es tan gratificante. Muchas gracias por las tips !!
im venezulan and im trying to lean spanish so i can surprise my grandmother for her 70th lol
Hows your journey coming
Really? How is it going?!
I had to take Spanish for a quarter in seventh grade and it was a horrible experience for me. It was just to get me interested in taking first year Spanish the following year. The teacher taught using immersion and instead of getting me interested, it made me never want to study Spanish ever again. I do see immersion as a valid teaching method for those taking languages for a longer period. C’est la raison que j’ai décidé d’étudier le français au lycée.
Thank you very muchI completely agree with you that speaking Spanish from day one is essential. I taught myself Spanish for nearly a year, but I struggled to have a conversation. When I started speaking with native speakers on Italki and Lingoda, I saw a significant improvement in my learning. Using the language to communicate with others is incredibly motivating. It inspires me to learn more and excel in my learning.
Thanks, those are some really good tips - especially speaking to yourself, reaching out to natives, and focusing on learning from a particular dialect or region.
Thanks for the tip about Jiveworld, I'll check it out. I only started learning Spanish 4 months ago. I've already learnt another language to fluency as an adult, so I'm an experienced language learner. However, I'm always on the look out for good Spanish content.
Love your accent and attitude. One tip is to start learning Spanish and go to Spain for a month, then go back to Mexico or Colombia, and everything will sound in slowmo, and you will just get it super quick! I agree with your so many points, although I tend to learn a lot more dialects when learning a language, in the end, though sticking with one. I m a native Spanish speaker, but learned French and Portuguese in high school. Saludos!
needs based is how i decide if I want to bother incorporating a new english word into my native vocabulary as well. If I cant imagine a single scenario where my life/ ability to express myself would improve if I add this word then I let it pass me by but if I think it can enrich me to start using it I will promptly use it in a sentence to myself and thats usually enough to get it into the roster.
If anyone is considering taking any language class in school, ask around and find out how the teachers are. I actually really enjoyed high school Spanish but, in my case, the teachers werent native speakers (they had learnt it as a second language and then got a degree in uni) so they were really passionate and understood the struggle. But my uni German profs were just awful. One of them was born and raised in Germany but got a Ph.D in German in the United States and i will never understand why you would do that 😅 that has nothing to do with her teaching, its just something that bothers me 😂
I agree, we have passionate, friendly and native teachers from Latin America that love teaching.. they can help a lot...
El español es una lengua muy cohesionada. Los hispanohablantes no tienen problemas para entender su lengua hablada o escrita. Lógicamente hay matices según las zonas pero la unidad de la lengua española es impresionante. También dentro de cada país hay matices según las zonas.
As a Mexican, I think I would NEVER pick up Spanish if I wasn’t a native speaker, just like German, I find it to have lots of minute details that can drive one crazy.
I don’t know how one manages to speak it fluently, but I praise those people heavily.
im a Dominican that grew up in the us and didnt speak Spanish growing up. i've had a hard time learning because of all of those small details. they dont stick in my head. all of my life i've been able to understand around an a1/a2 level but i can barely speak. i'm trying to actually learn it again. i've gone through many phases of trying
@@SWilla00946 wish you the best! Language learning is a long process, just keep listening and reading and you’ll succeed!
muy interesante lo que comentas. Soy de Argentina y tengo un inglés fluente como tu español. Qué genial escucharte en inglés y responder en español porque sé que vas a entender jajajaja. Claramente lo que decís no me pasó en español, pero sí en el aprendizaje de inglés- Pero nunca lo había visto de ese modo. Ahora que voy a aprender italiano, voy a tener en cuenta tus recomendaciones. Abrazo!
High school Spanish was the best experience of my life.
@01:42 -- I can top it! Over the summer in Punta Cana, I asked the guy selling cigars on the beach if he had any "perros cubanos" instead of "puros cubanos." 🤭I was very embarazada. 😁
I'm learning Spanish with a combo of Duolingo and the Comprehensible input method of the Dreaming Spanish channel.
Seems like the best of both worlds.
Duolingo is gamified spelling and grammar learning and Dreaming Spanish is awesome for vocab and accent recognition.
Started 2 months ago and I've already finished sections 1 and 2 on Duo.
Spanish is my 5th language
Thank you so much for these tips. I first began learning Spanish in High School and my experience was not good. It was just learn vocab and how to translate verbs repeat everyday and listen to a speaker everyday and my Spanish teacher kept right to the book. I couldn't speak sentences just phrases here and there, and I couldn't figure out how to put my own sentence together as well as remembering vocab was difficult and listening to a native speaker I could never keep up at all to respond. I was like, what did you say ? These tips you gave will hopefully help me finally learn Spanish. Its been almost 20 years since High School Spanish for me and I was going to try to learn as I was taught in High School as thats all I knew. However, after I watched your video I feel like I will be able to actually learn it this time and looking forward to doing so more as I wasnt looking forward to repeating how Spanish class went in an unhelpful, unmotivated, boring unindividualized way to learn. I'm extremely excited to try your tips and follow your advice. Thank you. (If you're wondering I had Spanish in USA). Maybe other schools did better, but Im actually learning Spanish because its spoken in the area I live a lot and more people are hired because they speak both English and Spanish. I want to be able to use Spanish in my community and I actually will be focused on Mexican Spanish. I also want to learn it because I want my kids to begin learning it and my husband would benefit from learning it for his work too. I want my small family of four to be able to speak Spanish fluently and understand it. I don't want my kids to struggle like I did in high school, and this way, they will already know Spanish. Thank you for all the advice and suggestions.
It's surreal how your Spanish pronunciation sounds so native and you sound like a high class Mexican girl. I speak Spanish, I just ran into your video and I got curious.
It's really motivating for me as I'm dedicated to mastering spanish
I would have added :
use comprehensive input method from day one it is the most useful thing everrrr
start listening to native speakers early on so your brain is used to the sounds and the speed of the language ( even if you just understand a word from time to time )
when you are board try watching movies or listening to music
just immerse yourself in the language
"... when you are bored, try watching movies..."
LOL!! My wife caught me watching Peppa Pig en español.... I had LOT of explaining to do. ;-)
@@JohnFisk-OHS-78
A mí, me gusta bop esponja jajaa
comprehensible input method is defined as you knowing most of but not all of what you are hearing, but yes, immersing yourself is useful (but she does a really good job of leading you on without ever giving any input on getting started, so a fraud basically)
Tu español es sumamente bueno, cuando vi tus reels en instagram juraba que eras mexicana, im mexican, living in new zealand and trying to learn english, portugues and french
12:03 I would second the suggestion that learning a foreign language in high school or college, basically learning it with classes that aren't personalized is surely the worst way to learn.
I had a similar experience with my french classes in high school, we were clubbed with middle school students, the classes were in general for 11-20 yr olds and I was very much excited to learn a new language and to say that the generalized teaching method with the clinical approach of just mugging up whatever you are taught did not sit well with me would be an understatement. I was learning french for almost a year with 2 classes a week and still couldn't form a coherent sentence. After a year, I concluded that maybe french is really difficult to the point that I cannot learn the language ever so next year I dropped out of the class. After 5 years, now I'm actually willing to learn because the language keeps popping up in my life every now and then.
How would you implement grammar into studying?
My routine for the last 13 months consisted of most of the things in this video and I was noticing exponential growth up until a few months ago. I feel stuck/limited. When trying to form new sentences in conversation it's clear I don't understand the grammar. Words in context isn't enough. And taking time away from my routine to try and study the grammar seems to have slowed everything down all together. I was just happy that I understood in real time the start of the video without looking at the subtitles. (But who can focus on subtitles with Elysse on the screen😍)
From where you are you'd benefit from an online tutor. I have one from Preply and she is Colombian and a great person to help me.
Yo estoy aprendiendo español, no es muy difícil para mí, porque hablo portugués y la gramática es parecida. Entonces, cuando leo un libro, comprendo. Tu video tiene valiosos consejos, pero para mí empezar a hablar es el gran desafío, porque comienzo a mezclar portugués con español. Aún así, sigo intentando aprender.:)
quiero aprender portugués pero tengo miedo de hablar portuñol 😭😭 el portugués brasileño es hermoso ❤️
I absolutely love your language advice! I have some coworkers from Mexico (and now best friends/family) that work abroad at my cousins farm that I work for. They came in 3 years ago and they speak zero English, and I was speaking German at the time. I started learning some broken resemblance of Spanish to communicate with them at work, and I have felt that I make zero progress. I have to say that I absolutely love JiveWorld and LOVE those sound bites! And to immediately need to be speaking in my case, I would say that both speaking on day one and speaking to natives is incredibly helpful. I still freeze sometimes and have some speaking anxiety, but they know me well enough now to say "hey, what were you actually saying before you stopped" and we all work together. Learning Spanish has been one of the most important and enriching and exciting things in my life and I will never regret the day that I become fluent.
ahhh don’t worry you’ll get it! :) and im glad you love JW!!
I completed 3 quarters of online Spanish through local community college. Got all “A”s. But online Spanish was terrible for listening and speaking. Now I am focusing on listening and speaking rather than intensive grammar study. I bit the bullet for two months of Babbel live classes (just started those). An expensive investment but investing in your own skills is always worthwhile.
Back in middle school I legit chose French over Spanish (those were the only two choices) because I couldn’t roll my R’s. I then proceeded to learn three other languages before recently getting to Spanish. I figured out how to do the RR, and this is the most fun I’ve had studying a language. Wish I didn’t wait so long to learn Spanish, that’s my regret 😂
Great tips! And for showing yr own levels along your journey was very relatable
I have been learning English for 5 years in an institute, but it didn't work as much as I wanted but now I am totally fluent in English, but it was because of me! I found a method called cause and effect. If you want to improve your speaking, start immersing yourself in English! Trust me, it'll work because it worked for me. I had my English exam yesterday, and I was a hundred percent sure that it was gonna be easy (it was), I didn't even study for it.
So in summary, start immersing yourself if you want to be fluent. Or if you want to improve your writing start reading a lot. We call input to what we consume. Those things that your brain keeps, and we call output to our pronounciation, our brain creates learning patterns when we consume the language!
I really appreciate the tips you shared especially the one about talking to yourself because I actually do this as a English speaker lol Thanks for the great video.
As someone who started to learn Spanish, I hope your tips will help!
check out the mini course from the YT channel "spanishwithpaul", it helped me a lot.
I need to learn English too, if you want, I can help you learning Spanish and u can help me teaching English 🙂
I know when I've heard people say speak from day 1 they literally meant have convos immediately. When I tried that with Mandarin (lang I'm currently restarting), it caused my speaking anxiety to worsen. Add a horrible lang partner and I was afraid to even talk to myself... 😫 But I definitely agree with just saying a few phrases to yourself.
With the lessons... I was broke broke. 😭 However there ARE ways to learn stuff for the free, you just gotta look for them. And I'm 5 years in, finally decided on Colombian dialect. 😂 But lately I've been intrigued by Peruvian Spanish so who knows--it could change. 🤣
Great tips!! I'll be sharing!
Both Colombian and Peruvian are great because they are considered to be the best spanish amoung the other dialects.
@@holi9440by who?😂
I’m married to a Mati e Mexican. We have been together for 13 years and I’m just now learning the language. Our kids only speak English so I’m learning and also teaching them at the same time.
My Spanish trauma is that I grew up in a predominantly Puerto Rican American neighborhood, went to a bilingual Spanish/English elementary school, took Spanish in middle and high school (including AP Spanish sophomore year) and came out of ALL OF THAT with basically an A2 level of Spanish. The methods and textbooks they used were clearly not the best way, I should’ve been near fluent with all that.
20 years later, I’m willing to give it another go once I’ve hit B1 in German, seeing as I’ve already got a foundation I’m hoping it’ll be less painful. Plus, Netflix and UA-cam and podcasts didn’t exist when I was a teenager. Should be a BIT more approachable this go round.
Yes, I agree, the methodology is very important. And of course, the influence of teachers that motivate...we can help...
I would learn a foreign language through Immersive translate over and over again. It is such an incredible app for language learning.
i'm learning english and i think this is valid advice for english learners too i should've known this when i started my english learning journey on which i have spent 100+ years i can't never go back so i shall stay at a low intermediate level forever
i don't know much about the levels but i feel like you're much higher than a low intermediate (coming from a native english speaker)
100+ years?? Lol, what you wrote sounds great to me. Definitely beyond low intermediate.
I feel like I'd definitel learnt Spanish better if I just picked another language at school (had to pick something other than English, had Russian, Latin, French and German as options) because it's not just that that kind of learning never worked for me (self-diagnosed ADHD person here) but also my Spanish class was like Harry Potter's defense against dark magic; we had different teachers every second semester because one decided she wants to teach at another school, one beat my classmate up, one couldn't handle the annoying, loud kids (neither could I), so I got a normal, proper teacher who tried to help us prepare for graduation in the year of the graduation (got a 3, or a C if you're American). Got accepted to university but wasn't accpted to the spanish special seminar and so got the language on hold for three years.
Now I'm a young adult with a BA in English studies, goal is to become a translator, need second language certificate for master's degree, learn Spanish for a year while getting the certificate, tring to undo the damage high school did to my language knowledge xDD i feel like we are destined to suffer if we study Spanish, even though it's a beautiful language
You have super solid content. Thanks!
Amazing! I´m not fluent in Spanish. But Spanish is pretty close to portuguese. So I don´t have a problem to communicate to spanish speakers.
As a native portuguese speakear I would learn english diferent too. I´m fluent in english. But I had a hard time to understand and pick up some sounds in english.
If you want to learn a language you should learn the same way you learned your native language.
First getting used to the sound of the language. That´s hard in the beginning. But with time and dedication you can achieve success.
Excellent tips to learn languages, they are very useful, what also helps is the constan interaction in conversational courses..At Global Spanish and Portuguese, students can practise and develop speaking and listening skills by being part of conversations with friendly native teachers :)
Hmm yeah these different situations which were you have really familiar for me because I currently learning Turkish and I sometimes really fear to talk with different people and fear to make different mistakes but that normal so yeah that really wonderful that you have such progress in this language
This is so true. Speak. I also wish i'd paid attention to whether vocab was used in just spain or just LA. Obviously the teacher warned us about a few things, don't say this if you go to south america and we thought, when are we going to south america, as if. I am going to retire to Spain and speak spanish with a words of Catalan thrown in to be local! Not random, as the locals do. Occasionally say 'vol' instead of vuelo, or occasionally say merci instead of gracias. I'm going local but not specific to one tiny precise postcode. A region. Areas between Valencia and Alicante
Great advice lov, thankyou x
Thank you, subscribed and just downloaded Jiveworld 🔥
I like the font that you use here. I just I'm a reader & designer & teacher now
it’s called Brixton!
Hey!
I think that a great way to make us practice more our Spanish and other languages is to speak in that language and leave subtitles in English and that specific language. I learn much faster that way and I think you should do it :)
Good advice in this video, thanks
I manage mexican workers at my job.
I started just speaking words and phrases from day and when it was super broken and wrong. I didn't care, I just corrected it.
Anyways, I have no desire to learn spanish, but, I'm going to go for it. Day 10 today.
I'm understanding
Esta/es
Verb endings, spanish seems like it stacks a lot..
And, about 500 words.
I did study German pretty intensely but it for only 7 months, 5 years ago.
GIRL IM BROKE
😂😂😅
Bro thank you so damn much as a no sabo kid who wants to learn Spanish so bad this video is just what I needed this shit is amazing
“No sabo”? 🤨 you mean “no hablo”?
For me, the hardest thing is I never "specialized" in one region, so my Spanish is a big mix of that from Andalucia (where I first studied), Mexico, Chile, Peru, and Argentina.
Speak from day 1 is the most important one !
The speaking thing is so funny, especially with how "comprehensible input" has become a meme in language learning circles. There is also "Comprehensible Output" which comes from Canada (where people learn French and English together all through school). The theory states that people learn language when they try to convey a message and fail, but get feedback (both internally and externally) to correct the error.
I know you know this, but I suspect that there are many learners who do not understand that input without output leads to incomplete learning and long lasting errors, even in the context of immersion!
not necessarily a trauma, but during high school I went to a real small school. genuinely small, less than 100 students. all our classes were mixed amongst grades so our studies remained at about a freshman level at most. because of this, despite taking three years of spanish, i made essentially no progress. what i did learn and retain was mostly from self study outside of class and even then, not having that in class time to practice with my peers really stunted what could've been actual proficiency.
i think you should start speaking once your learn pronunciations! which i learned day 1 (kinda bc i’d already been exposed to spanish before like the LL and J) but i think it’s just important to start pronouncing correctly
honestly i'm grateful for my school spanish classes. not that they were good - i've learnt more in six months of (somewhat passive) home study than 3 years of school classes - but i struggle with motivation to start languages. once i'm past the phase where i can barely introduce myself, i'm fine, but the fact that school forced me to get past that really helped
I would like to share something; When I first interested in learning Spanish, I decided to take look at it on Duolingo, because you know, it is easy to do. And I learnt how to say ''where is my blabla'' within an hour. And after I learnt how to use it, I wanted to write it down to my notes on my phone. But I figured out that it wasn't on me. And I went to the living room of our house and asked my mother ''Donde esta mi telefono?'' which was by accident. Omg, I still remember this moment and it was very surprising for me. By the way, my mother tongue isn't English
do one for french and german pllllls
¿No es parecido aprende español que aprender inglés?
¿Aprenderte algunos verbos y como formular oraciones?
Eso es lo basico pero creo que es un buen inicio 😅
Wow, great suggestions - muy bien idea
wish I could sub to a lesson on any platform as a russian :/ basically learning spanish atm to finally move out of my country for good
guess I'll try looking for a local offline course, hopefully we still have good teachers who have not fled yet
Thank you for sharing these tips!
5:30 AAA SHE KNOWS
my grandparents speak spanish but they know english too, my parents are also fluent in spanish. My parents didn’t really teach me and my brothers. well sometimes they do but only certain words. me and my brothers always ask them to just speak it in front of us so we learn better but they don’t always do. one of the main reasons they didn’t teach us that much is bc my oldest brother is hard of hearing and they want us to learn ASL so in case we ever need to interrupt for him. i really want to learn spanish since i’ve always wanted to learn it and i wanna be in duo language some ether teachers are really nice and i have so many friends in them. i’m starting off on duolingo but i want to learn spanish from mexico but they only have it from spain. i’m gonna use it for the start but does anyone know if they have it from mexico? i’m committed to learn this
Nice!! here are my key takeways:
- Speak from day one, even if it's just small phrases. Don't be afraid to make mistakes!
- Talk to yourself in Spanish to get comfortable with the language.
- Record yourself speaking Spanish and listen back to identify areas for improvement.
- Take online speaking lessons with native speakers.
- Learn a specific dialect of Spanish instead of trying to learn general Spanish.
- Learn Spanish through stories, such as podcasts or audiobooks.
- Focus on learning the most common verbs and conjugations in the present, past simple, and present progressive tenses.
- Don't try to learn every word you encounter. Focus on vocabulary that is relevant to you.
- Learn vocabulary by category or topic, such as family, travel, or food.
- Avoid studying Spanish in high school (in the United States) if you are already self-learning. Self-study and then consider university courses.
As a person that's just starting out, I've been told to avoid Chilean spanish. Native speakers have told me Chileans are very hard to understand, it makes learning it 10x more difficult. This kinda sucks to hear because I'll be stationed in Chile next year and wanna learn as much as I can asap.
Lo que pasa es que hablan muy rápido y además cambian las últimas letras de algunas palabras, esas dos cosas sumadas las hace difíciles de entender...
Pero eh... Sigue siendo español 👉👈
I have had a conversation with Chilean and could say that it isn't that hard. Just relax and try to understand the context. Additionally, mostly they are really nice people and could repeat more slowly and clear if you're struggling.
You may have a different perspective once you immerse yourself and fall in love with what discourages other people. Let us know how it goes after a few months =) 5:08
I definitely count living in Florida as spending time in a Spanish speaking country (some say Florida is great because it’s so close to the U.S) but because the cultures are so blended here I really don’t know what dialogue to pick. I wish there was a course in South Florida Spanish 😂
Hii Melanie
I moved to Florida a couple of years ago and feel like I need to learn, that’s why I’m watching this video! I wish I could take South Florida Spanish as well!
is the same with me . I learned English so easily that i dont know how to teach others so well
One time I ordered 7up by saying "dame le siete up por favor". The guy gave me a blank look and replied "seven up?"
NPR is good for learning English so Jiveworld, sounds legitimate!😊
I’m trying to learn Colombian Spanish specifically from the paisa region because that’s where my husband and his family is from. But I’m really struggling to find resources to learn this dialect
Preply is brilliant. You can choose a teacher specifically from Colombia (and then choose someone from Medellin, for example). I also found translating music from a particular region helpful to pick up phrases and vocabulary
@@OurSpaceYogamy biggest annoyance with her video here is that she doesn’t even give you anything to start learning on so lmao.