6 Tips To Learn Spanish When You Are An Adult

Every Friday night I teach Spanish beginner lessons to adults at my local community center. I enjoy seeing their determination to become bilingual.

Although children have a sensitive period for learning a language, it is never too late for an adult to pick up a second language. Whether you want to travel or retire in a Spanish-speaking country, get a better job, or learn a new culture, I believe that learning Spanish will be a great benefit for you.

Here I share my favorite tips to learn Spanish when you are an adult.

6 Tips To Learn Spanish

Write Short Essays

Spend at least 30 minutes writing basic essays where you can use the grammar rules that you have learned in class. Start writing short sentences and ask someone that is Spanish proficient to check for mistakes. Learn from your mistakes and don’t stop writing!

Watch Movies

Watching movies that you love is a great hack to learn Spanish. Choose a movie that you feel very familiar with the dialogues. At the beginning, you can start watching the movie with English audio and Spanish subtitles. When you feel a little comfortable, I’d recommend switching the audio and subtitles to Spanish. It’s a great way to improve your listening skills!

Listen to Music

Music and singing are great resources to learn a foreign language. Music stimulates memory helping your brain to process new information better, expands vocabulary and improves pronunciation. Baladas, songs of slow tempo are the perfect choice to start with. You can see my recommendations of baladas here. Or you can also start with these traditional nursery rhymes.

Read Children’s Books

The language used in children’s books is simple and facilitates your vocabulary acquisition. I’d suggest choosing bilingual children’s books so you can be able to compare both languages at the same time. I’d recommend you to start with this list of bilingual books that introduce you to Latino traditions.

Cultural Immersion

Culture and language are undeniably intertwined. When traveling to a Spanish-speaking country is not suitable, you can still immerse in the culture through local events and volunteer opportunities. These are great ways to practice Spanish with native speakers!

Don’t Forget The Apps

There are great apps to support your Spanish learning. One of them is Mama Lingua App, a great starting point for adults learning Spanish and for parents wanting to raise bilingual children without having the knowledge. This user-friendly app provides you with audio recordings, translations and phonetic pronunciations of words and phrases that are most used in Spanish conversations.

I like that the Spanish voice is clear, accurate and doesn’t sound robotic. This will definitely help users to feel engaged and focused with each of the 18 categories and more than 900 words and phrases that feature MamaLingua like bathing, feeling and emotions, friends and family, and many others. By learning ready-made answers, you get to increase your confidence in the language.

Today a lucky HispanicMama reader will win a copy of this amazing app! How? Just tell me in the comments what’s your favorite way to learn a language. The giveaway is open worldwide! The winner will be picked from random.org next Friday! Buena suerte!

Disclosure: I was sent a copy of this app for review. All thoughts and opinions are strictly my own.

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6 TIPS TO LEARN SPANISH WHEN YOU ARE AN ADULT

Comments

Mary Williams says

July 8, 2016 at 9:37 pm

I like to travel and talk to people. So I want to improve my Spanish so bad!
Cristina Salazar says

July 9, 2016 at 1:28 am

I know a bit of Spanish 🙁 Can’t have a conversation with my family in Mexico!
Sara B. says

July 9, 2016 at 10:22 am

I’d love to win this! Spanish doesn’t come naturally to me. Thank you.
Laura says

July 10, 2016 at 12:12 am

I’m learning Spanish to help our son become bilingual. My favorite ways to practice Spanish? Conversations with Mexican and Nicaragüense friends! Reading kids’ books in Spanish to my son has also helped a lot.
Lauren says

July 11, 2016 at 8:54 pm

I’d love to win this app for my son! He is HS and struggling. Thanks!
Charlotte says

July 15, 2016 at 5:52 pm

I hope I am not too late for this giveaway. This app looks interesting