Tips: How to Learn Spanish Fast

Here are three tips to help you learn Spanish quickly. In a nutshell, they are: Create a habit... select a program... and listen to Spanish in the background. Now for the details:

Create space in your life for the habit of practicing Spanish. 

Fifteen minutes every day is a better start than an hour once a week, because you are more likely to do it! Spend a little time right now to reflect on how to include learning Spanish in your life.

Here are some possible times to study Spanish:

• Before doing your email
• During one of your breaks at work, or during lunchtimes
• Right after dinner
• With your first cup of coffee... hey, that gets it done early!

If none of those work for you, you get the idea... tie in your time to learn Spanish with something else you do every day. If you try a time and you find that you don't do it then, no problem, just choose a different time.

We tend to do things that have become habitual, and this one simple tip could easily make the difference between success and failure in your learning Spanish!

Select a program that you like, and you will be more likely to stick with it.

For suggestions, see my comparison chart of different Spanish programs. These have free demos you can try.

The point here is that you need a systematic way to learn. The programs I have rated highly emphasize conversation and let the grammar come along with it naturally. This is way more fun, and more effective for learning, than to hit the grammar right away. Some community classes are okay but many are not really going to help you learn to speak Spanish.

Listen to Spanish in the background.

This helps you learn Spanish faster because you'll be immersing yourself in the language to a degree and picking up little bits. It can also help keep you motivated.

When you're at home, there might be Spanish television programs, or see what you can find on youtube.

You could listen to Spanish when you're out and about by listening to parts of the program you are using or to Spanish music in your car. Or by having mp3s on an ipod or other portable player. Rocket Spanish is specially good for this... the link takes you to my review of this programs.