15 Secrets to Easily Acquiring a Language

It’s not too late (as an adult) to learn Spanish!  

 

Most adults who want to learn Spanish as an adult have had a Spanish class in high school or college, but claim that they can’t remember anything!  Others have been exposed to Spanish through work, travel, or on the street, but still feel like they can’t communicate with confidence. As adults, we often come to new subjects, especially academic subjects, with apprehension, doubt, and fear.  Most likely, these dislikes, fears, and doubts are driven by past memories of Spanish classes that actually taught this right-brained activity of language acquisition as a left-brained academic subject, complete with text books, grammar quizzes, and superficial memorization of theme word lists.

Fortunately, by remembering and implementing the way that children learn their first language, we can let go of the fear, have fun, and acquire a second language with ease!  I mean, when is the last time that you saw a two year old stressing about grammar rules or cramming for a quiz? It just doesn’t work that way.  And your brain just doesn’t work that way, either.  Your brain is hard-wired to acquire language through understanding comprehensible messages, and hearing these messages repeated in various contexts, in personalized settings.  It is a holistic, right-brained approach.  And it’s only natural!

Try these 15 helpful hints, that we follow and encourage in all Core Fluency Spanish classes, for a fun, easy, and successful approach to natural language acquisition:

1. Open yourself to the reality that you can acquire a new language with ease.
2. Relax!  Language acquisition happens naturally, just like when you learned your first language.
3. Laugh, have fun, and be silly.  Play and laughter lower the fear factor, and you’ll be able to let the learning happen and long-term memory build.
4. Take breaks, move around the room.  Physical activity makes you feel better and increases long-term memory.
5. Don’t try to memorize, analyze, take notes, or cram.  You will forget this information, as this is Left-Brain style learning.
6. Act out the words and use gestures, to physically link your body’s muscle memory to language.
7. You must hear the language spoken, repeatedly, A LOT before you can expect to produce, or speak.
8. Forget about – and don’t stress about – producing sentences or correct pronunciation right away.
9. What you are listening to and reading must be 100% comprehensible.
10. Tell the teacher if your don’t understand anything, so that everything is comprehensible.
11. You have to first build comprehension.  You will never speak a language if you don’t understand it first.
12. Get personal:  the more the conversations, stories, and readings in class are about YOU, the more you’ll remember and acquire.
13. Contribute details (in English) to the stories.  The more you make the stories in class your own, the more you will remember them and the more you will be excited about retelling them and using the vocabulary!
14. Read as much as you can.  Don’t look up every word in the dictionary.  Get in the flow of reading.
15. Language will naturally emerge when you are ready.

1. Travel.  Interaction with locals is key to gaining fluency in pronunciation, slang, useful phrases, tone of voice, and timing.
2. Find a song that you love that is in Spanish, with simple lyrics.  Download the lyrics, understand them, and put the song on repeat.  Listen, dance, and eventually sing along!
3. Make friends abroad.
4. Have a love relationship with a native.
5. Live with a family in another country instead of a hotel.
6. Host a student in your home.
7. Watch movies with the subtitles and voices in Spanish.
8. Read another novel, that is at least 70% comprehensible to you, to build fluency, and to learn new vocabulary!

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