Documenting my language learning journey: How I taught myself Spanish!

¡Hola!

Flashback to 2017 when it wasn’t chaos, you might remember listening to DESPACITO everywhere you went. Despacito is one of the reasons why so many people now listen to Latin music (Spanish language music). This song brought this Latin wave and swept all the major music charts in the United States and the world. Now, if you didn’t already know this, MONEY HEIST, a Spanish crime drama was one of the most watched shows on NETFLIX in India.

I think it’s safe to say Spanish music and shows are widely popular.

I was probably in class 8 when I first listened to a Spanish song and I've been listening to the music every since. This might be dumb but the urge to understand and sing the songs was probably the reason why I wanted to learn the language.

Now that we have the why covered, let’s move onto the how.

Spanish is one of the easier languages to learn. If you are fluent in English, learning the language won’t be difficult for you. The alphabets in English and Spanish aren’t majorly different. So, you can start using Duolingo right away.

I started learning Spanish about 1.5 years ago using the app Duolingo .When I started learning Spanish, I wasn’t very consistent in doing my exercises daily. I think that was my biggest flaw. After probably two months of un-consistent exercises and broken pronunciation; I decided to learn with sincerity. 1.5 years later, my pronunciation is better and I can actually understand, read and speak Spanish. To be honest, all it took was 10-15 minutes worth of exercises every day for me to be able to do this now.

If you want to learn the language faster, I suggest you give it an hour. Duolingo has speaking and listening exercises too. So, the app definitely helps with the pronunciation.

Moreover, I think watching Spanish shows and listening to Spanish music will help you the most. Shows like the Money Heist , Narcos and Elite are some of the most popular Spanish shows and both of them are available on NETFLIX. With hits from Luis Fonsi's Despacito, Enrique Ingleasis' Bailando, Ricky Martin's Livin' la Vida loca to Shakira's Chantaje, J Balvin's Mi Gente and the iconic Bella Ciao; there's just a lot of great Spanish music to listen to. Access my Spanish Playlist Here , might help you grasp Spanish faster and Spanish music will definitely help in keeping you interested in the language!

Resources that will help you learn Spanish-

1. YouTube Tutorials - Link

2. Duolingo - Link

3. My Spanish Playlist - Link

Also Read our article on "Learning Arabic from scratch"

After probably five to six months of studying Spanish diligently, you might be able to understand some of the words and lyrics from the songs without actually looking at the lyrics. That's what happened with me and honestly, there's nothing more rewarding than to see some of your hard work finally pay off.

You can start learning Spanish right away!

¡Buena Suerte!