If you want to learn to speak Spanish fluently, the key thing you have to know up front is that practice and patience are key. To speak Spanish fluently requires time and effort, but the good news is that you can have a lot of fun along the way! There are few things in life more satisfying than noticing your progress in terms of gradually becoming more conversationally fluent in Spanish, or any other language for that matter.
Logically, the best way to learn Spanish and to improve your spoken Spanish is to sign up for Spanish classes, whether that’s online Spanish courses or whether you decide to study Spanish in Madrid or any other Spanish-speaking city. By working with a teacher, you’ll be able to receive immediate feedback on your Spanish speaking skills and make the right adjustments.
Besides learning fluent Spanish in the classroom, whether online or physical, you can also improve your fluency in Spanish by following a few tips to learn Spanish fluently. In this post, we’ll outline three useful tips that you can follow to improve your skills and to help you speak the language in a more natural way.
While you might be thinking “I want to learn to speak Spanish fluently”, it’s important to understand that your listening skills are just as important as your Spanish speaking skills. In order to pronounce the words correctly and to achieve the right pronunciation, your brain has to know what these Spanish words sound like. And, the best way to build up a bank of Spanish sounds in your head is to listen to the language.
This can be a fun process. If you want to find interesting people who speak Spanish fluently and who you can learn from, why not search for podcasts or radio shows in the Spanish language? If you are interested in a particular sport, for example, there will surely be a Spanish language podcast or radio show on that topic which you can download and listen to. While it might be a little overwhelming at first, you’ll be surprised at how quickly your ear tunes in and starts to understand what’s going on.
Before achieving Spanish language fluency, you’ll have to pass through an intermediate stage where you can hold a conversation but where you do make mistakes. Don’t worry, though! This is a totally normal part of the language-learning journey, and the exact same thing actually happened when learning your native language.
The golden rule is that the best way to improve Spanish speaking skills is by practising, and this requires bravery and a willingness to make mistakes. It’s better to say the noun or verb that you think is right, than to say nothing at all. Only with this approach can you move closer to fluency in Spanish.
Once you’ve reached the stage where you say to yourself “I want to speak Spanish fluently and I’m willing to make mistakes along the way”, it is important that you surround yourself with people who are willing to correct your Spanish speaking skills when you do make those aforementioned mistakes.
If learning and practising a language alongside friends, relatives or co-workers, a common issue is that people don’t want to correct each other. It’s human nature to not want to hurt someone’s feelings by telling them that the sentence they just said was only 95 percent correct. However, it’s vital to practise with people who understand that pointing out and explaining mistakes is the best way to learn to speak Spanish fluently in the end.
Of course, the teachers at IH Madrid are experts in this and in finding that right balance between promoting confidence and identifying the mistakes which need to be corrected. This is the method that has worked so well for so many, who can now say that they speak Spanish fluently.
