How to study Spanish & make the most of your time – Episode 105

How to study Spanish & make the most of your time

Podcast episode 105 – SEE ALL EPISODES

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

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Today I’m going to show you the most efficient way of going through a Spanish lesson. This episode is going to save you a lot of time, and headaches.

See also: Maria’s step-by-step Spanish courses.

Today’s question comes from Sylvia, one of my newsletter subscribers. Sylvia contacted me a week ago and asked me: “I’ve just started learning Spanish. I’ve got a course, but I’m not sure how to go through the lessons. I don’t know whether I should listen to the recordings first, or should I focus on the vocabulary and the grammar? Can you help me?”

As a language learner myself, figuring out how to go through a lesson has helped me make really fast progress.

The technique I’ve created works wonders for your conversation skills. It helps you develop your listening skills really fast, and you get to speak the new language from lesson 1. It’s also great for learning new vocabulary, and remembering it.

So, here’s my language learning technique.

I’m going to assume that you have a Spanish language course. And that it comes with all the essential elements of a good course. That’s: audio recordings, conversations, their English translation, vocabulary lists from those conversations, some grammar and pronunciation notes, and drills.

The first thing you need to do with any new Spanish lesson, is listen to the recorded conversations.

At first, you won’t be able to understand very much, if anything, but that’s OK. You’ll improve every day.

Have a look at
Maria’s step-by-step Spanish courses

To develop your listening skills fast, you must listen to the recordings without looking at their transcript or translation. If you look at the text before hearing it, your ear will not get used to the new language, and it’ll take you much longer to understand Spanish.

So, the first thing to do, is listen to the conversation in your lesson. Listen to it twice.

Then, read the transcript and translation. Don’t focus on understanding every word. Just get the gist of the conversation.

Now, play the recording once more. This time, look at the Spanish transcript while it plays. Listen to it at least twice.

And now is where the fun begins, because you’re going to start talking. Play the recording and read out the conversation, along with the native speakers. Speak up, as if you were talking to someone in front of you. The idea is to imitate a real life conversation.

The first time you do this exercise, you’ll be left behind after a couple words. That’s fine. Just let the conversation play, and say as many words as you can. This is an exercise you need to do many times over the next few weeks, but every time you do it, you’ll improve.

The reason why it’s important that you play the conversation while you say it, is so you develop a good pronunciation and intonation. It’d be easier to read out the conversation on your own, but you’d also acquire bad pronunciation habits.

Let’s now move on to the vocabulary. All good Spanish courses give you the list of words and phrases that come up in the conversations. And the best courses also give you the recordings for those lists.

Read the list of words and their English translation. Then listen to the words in the recording, and say them out loud along with the native speakers. Play them two or three times until you’re familiar with most of the words.

If there are any vocabulary drills in your course, this is a good time to do them.

Once you’re familiar with the new words, listen to the conversation one more time. Notice how much better you understand it now.

After that, go through the other sections in your lesson. Don’t skip anything.

If there’s a grammar issue you find too difficult or unclear, make a note of it. Don’t let it slow you down. Come back to it a week or two later. The odds are you won’t find it difficult anymore. As you become familiar with the language, you’ll find it easier to understand the grammar.

Do all the exercises and drills in your lesson. If you get more than two answers wrong, do them once more. It’s a good habit.

Once you’ve gone through all the sections in your lesson, and done all the drills, there’s only one more thing to do. Go back to the conversation. Play it once more without looking at the text. You should be able to understand it quite clearly now.

Have a look at
Maria’s step-by-step Spanish courses

Once you finish a lesson, your next task is to review an old one. Avoid the temptation of starting a new one. Instead, go through the conversation, vocabulary, grammar and drills of a previous lesson.

With languages, most of the learning is done when you review. You’ll often forget the vocabulary and grammar you’ve learned, so you need to give yourself another chance.

Whenever you review a lesson, make sure you say the conversation out loud, along with the recordings. Soon, you’ll be able to keep up with the native speakers. I promise you!

Have a look at
Maria’s step-by-step Spanish courses

To recap, these are the ten steps to follow every time you start a new Spanish lesson:

Step 1. Listen to the conversation without looking at the text.
Step 2. Read the transcript and translation.
Step 3. Listen to the conversation again.
Step 4. Play the conversation and say it out loud.
Step 5. Read the vocabulary list and its translation.
Step 6. Listen to the recorded vocabulary list, and say it.
Step 7. Listen to the conversation once more.
Step 8. Go through all the sections in your lesson.
Step 9. Do all the exercises and drills.
Step 10. Listen to the conversation one last time for today.

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Find out more about my Spanish courses.