15 Steps to Learning Spanish (or Any Other Language)

1. Find people who speak Spanish, who will allow you to hang around them. AVOID ENGLISH SPEAKERS.
2. Listen to your new friends talk and understand nothing. Feel dumb.
3. Still laugh or at least smile when they laugh. It’ll help you relax and no one wants to hang out with someone, who is not having fun with them. Try to understand things through context, which can go a surprisingly long way.
4. Listen to the Coffee Break Spanish podcast.
5. Watch Spanish movies with English subtitles.
6. Go to a language exchange (you can find them at meetup.com or the couchsurfing) or try to get some one-on-one time with someone speaking Spanish (cough Tinder cough). Also make sure this person doesn’t speak good English or is under-confident, so that you don’t end up switching to that.
7. Feel isolated and lonely but still, AVOID ENGLISH SPEAKERS.
8. Hang around more Spanish speakers in groups. Understand more of what they say, but fail at finding the words to contribute to the conversation in time before the subject has moved on. Think, “Oh damn, if they could just know how interesting I really am!”
9. Watch Spanish movies with Spanish subtitles.
10. Keep feeling dumb and lonely.
11. Get upset that you are not 6 years old and cannot absorb languages like a sponge anymore. Then get angry at your parents for not hiring a Spanish nanny for you when you were little. Swear to yourself you will do that for your children. THEY SHALL NOT ENDURE THIS ABUSE!
12. Speak to your boss on the phone in English and think, wow this is so effing easy!!
13. Watch Spanish movies without any subtitles.
14. Hang around Spanish friends, trip over words, take too long to get out what you’re saying, and be annoying but endearing at the same time.
15. Realize it’s a life-long struggle, but keep at it because you are understanding another world in a way you could never otherwise.

And it’s so worth it.

If you are looking for language partners to improve your foreign language skills you can find one for free at swaplanguage.com. Additionally, you can join our weekly free live Spanish and Danish lessons. Grammar, vocabulary and culture, taught by native speakers.

At an asado in Buenos Aires (the girl craning her neck desperately trying to understand the people talking)