How I learned Spanish for Mexico and Spain

Hola a todos, Jason aquí. So yeah I wanted to make a quick video about how I learned Spanish for traveling Mexico and Spain. Now before I start anybody who knows anything is going to tell me or leave a comment about the Spanish is different between the two countries and it's true there are differences but what I can say is that at a beginner level where I am now and probably will be for quite a while the Spanish that I'm learning and using is pretty interchangeable between the two countries in different areas but I'm not going to get into that the differences because I'm not an expert but what I will say is how I've been learning and basically this is like I've had some pitfalls I've found what's useful and what really wasn't and yeah this might help out someone who is looking to travel to Spain or Mexico and this is how I did it. So I started to learn Spanish about a year ago before traveling to Mexico and the first thing I did from recommendation on other YouTube videos was I tried a program called Rocket Languages and the thing is I used that for quite a while and then discovered that the program was actually geared more towards Spanish from Spain so not like Latino Latin Spanish and it's fine because it was a good introduction but then when I got to Mexico and started to try to use some of what I had learned there were words that weren't used there so I would say anybody who's planning to go to Mexico specifically Rocket Languages is probably okay at the very beginning but after that yeah not so much. So another program I tried was Babbel and I still have Babbel on my phone I still use it from time to time truthfully probably not as much as I should. It's good the problem with Babbel and actually I would say the problem with any of those types of language programs is that really relies on your memory so you do different like learning games or learning programs and it's up to you to just like force that information into your memory. It's important that as you do the lessons you speak out loud so just reading through it isn't going to help at all so there's little challenges there that you need discipline and like I said you really need to keep reviewing to force it into your memory. The next program or app that I started to use and this is one that I still use today is an app called Drops and it's language drops and you can actually choose which language you want to learn but I chose specifically Mexican Spanish for in Mexico. So the thing I like about Drops it's a very short so it's five minutes so I try to do it five minutes a day there's definitely days I miss but what I do is I use Drops while I'm having breakfast or my morning coffee typically and I'll sit down and I'll just play these little games and yeah build my vocabulary slightly. So it's not overly complicated but it has helped me to learn more words. As far as the lessons go the best way I found for me and I would definitely recommend for anybody is to get an actual Spanish teacher and for me I found a fantastic teacher Adriana. It's really good because she's in Mexico she speaks Spanish but she's also fluent in English it's also good because you know we start the lesson and she will start speaking Spanish to me and just like in an immersive situation I need to do my best to speak Spanish to her but it's great that she's fluent in English because then you know if I stumble I can say in English I'm trying to tell you this or how do I say whatever and she can explain to me in English as well what she's trying to teach me and then you know we repeat the Spanish words. Having a Spanish teacher is good because she's able to tailor the lessons for me so when I'm traveling you know my life is doing specific things and she asks me you know what are you doing this weekend and I tell her and then she'll tell me how to say what I said to her in English how to say it in Spanish. It's great because as we're working together she'll also use flashcards and she'll hold up flashcards and show me you know what a noun is or what a verb is and how to change those nouns or verbs you know or descriptive words and how to change them depending on you know whether it's a you know speaking about myself or someone else or how to combine words for whether they're masculine or feminine so these flashcards in her teaching system has been really good so yeah definitely for me I made the most progress when I actually got a Spanish teacher. I would say as well the thing is getting a Spanish teacher I thought would be very expensive something that you know I wouldn't know if I could keep up with but surprisingly it actually isn't and what I would say is the hurdles of trying to use different apps and spending time on those and paying for some yeah getting the teacher the best results in the shortest time and the cost is definitely worth it so anyway that's how I've been learning Spanish and I will continue to do so still learning not an expert but I hope this helps you especially if you're planning to travel to Mexico or Spain or another Spanish country all right thanks for watching