6 Methods to Learn Spanish that ACTUALLY WORK

Spanish is the language that I learned the fastest. It only took me about six months to start communicating freely on a basic level. And in only about a year, I was already teaching Spanish as a foreign language to others and getting paid for that. Not because I'm gifted, not because Spanish is easy, but because I used these six specific methods that made all the difference and I'm going to share them with you. Spanish is actually my third language. I was born and raised in Kazakhstan, so Russian is my mother tongue, and I learned English in school and in university. So I didn't really start learning Spanish until I was about 20 years old. So no personal tutor, no exchange year abroad, or Spanish-speaking friends to talk to every day, just strategy and persistence. Now I speak Spanish freely, I live in Spain, and well, those of you who follow me on YouTube will know that a few days ago I even uploaded a video in Spanish. So if you want to see it after I finish this, please. And nothing, it's just to show that I'm not lying to you. But be careful, I didn't learn Spanish in Spain. When I started learning Spanish back in the 2000s in Kazakhstan, things were very different. Free access to the internet wasn't really a thing, and I only had a 30 minute limit per day in a local library to access the internet resources. And for the book in class, we used This Beauty. It was a glorious mix of Cuban, Mexican, Spanish, and the Spanish from Spain without really explaining which one's which, written by a group of Soviet authors, and the texts that we had to read and translate and retell and whatnot were very, let's say, localized. Some example topics could be the cosmic conquests of the Soviet Union or the victory parades, or diplomatic relations between the USSR and Spain, stuff like that. With all of that, I must've sounded like an alien to the native speakers, but look, I made it work. And here's how. By the way, these six methods are totally applicable to other languages as well. It's just that it was Spanish in my case. Method that worked, number one, less vocabulary, more mastery. Yeah, you heard me right. I just said less vocabulary. I know this might be very controversial and a lot of people will probably disagree with me on that, but this method really worked. Learning too many words from the get-go can be counterproductive. Whenever we start learning a language, new words is something that's being thrown at us in huge quantities. We're often asked to learn three, five, four topics a week, and we're given 70 words on the family topic, and then we move on to food with another 50, and then there's another set of words on colors and all that in such a small period of time that we don't really have the time to practice them, so what I think works better is to learn 20 words on a given week, but learn them to the point when somebody wakes you up at night and you're able to say those words, you're able to translate them from and to your language, and you've had enough time to really practice them, to apply them. Instead of trying to learn 500 and not retain even 20. Now, everyone has their own limit and capacity, and you more or less know when it starts to feel overwhelming, so when you feel like enough is enough, I think I'm not memorizing anything, if you have a chance, slow down the rhythm for a week or two and really just concentrate on practicing the worst that you've learned so far before moving on to a new set of words. Method number two, talk to yourself. Yeah, really, and I know it sounds very awkward, but this is a must. When I started off with Spanish, I had absolutely no one to talk to and to practice my Spanish skills with, so I did it at home alone, I would come back from university and just tell myself what I did today or what I'm going to do, and of course, I tried to apply the words that I learned recently, but really just anything, 15 minutes of an internal monologue, and then when I had to talk to someone, when I finally had a speaking buddy or friends in Spain, it was so much easier because I already kind of broke the ice, my mouth was already used to saying those Spanish words out loud to myself, to my cat, I'm pretty sure my cat became fluent in Spanish at the time, so then it was easier. If you start off right away with other people, that is, of course, better than nothing, but you can feel really shy. I don't know about you guys, but I didn't feel shy talking to myself. I know a lot of people say it's awkward, but I think it's more awkward to go out there and talk to other people from the get-go when you really haven't practiced too much yet, so absolutely talk to yourself, tell yourself about anything. If there is a Euro championship going on right now, talk to yourself about the last match that you've seen, just any topic that interests you. I honestly recommend this method. Method number three, 15 minutes a day is a non-negotiable. You absolutely have to find 15 minutes every day and do a little bit of Spanish every day. You choose what it is, if it's grammar or reading a text or reading an article, something, but it has to be 15 minutes at least every day. The advantage of setting that 15-minute goal per day is that you don't get overwhelmed about thinking, okay, I need to do something for an hour, I need to practice my Spanish for an hour, sit down for an entire hour and do those exercises, do that grammar, that thought alone is dreadful. Having that one-hour situation just hovering over you is terrifying, so just do 15 minutes and it's super easy to find 15 minutes even on your busiest day. Plus, sometimes you'll find yourself going over 15 minutes, of course. You start and then you get really into that and all of a sudden an hour passed or maybe even two and there go your 15 minutes, but then you probably wonder, well, 15 minutes is too little. What if I just do 15 minutes? Will that be efficient at all? Yes, 15 minutes is still better than nothing. You're 15 minutes better than you were yesterday. So I would highly recommend having that little goal every day and you'll see, maybe you go over 15 minutes, but 15 minutes is the charm. Use what you've learned right away. Don't let that new vocabulary or that new grammar just sit in your notebook and try to apply it from day one. I remember, actually, my math teacher back in school used to tell us, we've just done these new equations or learned this new formula, now go home and just redo everything that we've just done in class. It took us 30 minutes here, but if you go home and just replicate what we've done, it won't take you more than five minutes, but this way you'll really make sure that it sticks. And that advice was life-changing. Those exercises, formulas, and equations were really there weeks after only because I came home from school and just replicated what we did in class. So I applied the same to learning Spanish whenever we learned new vocabulary or a new grammar rule at university. I would come back home and just redo the exercises that we've just done in class, go through the vocabulary right away. And the percentage of the words that were staying in my brain instead of disappearing into the eternity was much higher than when I didn't. So yeah, the golden rule is to apply them on the same day that you learned them. Just get back home, read those words again, say them again, and it will change the game. Method number five, repeat and redo exercises. Just like with words, grammar needs constant repetition. Sometimes we feel like, oh my God, I'm so happy we're done with this grammar rule. I'm so excited to move forward. Don't do that. What I did back in the days was going back to the exercises that we had done a month ago and redo them again. Same applied to the texts, those Soviet diplomacy texts that we had read and translated and created dialogues for. I would reread them again. And this way I would remember, oh yeah, that's true. That word, I almost forgot to actually use it in my Spanish now. So that would refresh the things that I'd learned and refresh the grammar rules that I'd learned. And it also felt kind of satisfying now that I knew how to do those exercises and what that text was about. So I felt a huge level of accomplishment going through those texts again. But remember, practice makes perfect and it's totally fine. If you go back and do the same exercises, you absolutely need to move on at some point and do something new. But repetition is what makes it stick. That's why I applied it to words, grammar rules, and texts. Method number six, limit your resources. That is another controversial one. I'm pretty sure. But my advice is to limit your resources or let's say your main resources to one or two. That book that I showed you at the beginning, the fact that I only had that book as my only resource to learn Spanish was a blessing in disguise. And I didn't understand it at the moment, but actually what happens was that I was so concentrated on that one Bible and I wasn't distracted by any other resources nearly because there were none. But right now with the internet and YouTube and Instagram reels and whatnot, we're receiving so much information and so many things and words and sentences and phrases here and there that it's easy to get absolutely distracted and overwhelmed with the amount of the information coming in. That book, again, I'm going back to that book. I basically learned it inside and out. I could open a page and I knew all the words on that page. I knew all the grammar rules. And I know for a fact that if I had to learn Spanish right now with all the information that's available with all the different books that are available out there now, I would hop from one to another, maybe get frustrated, maybe get overwhelmed, and that would not have been efficient. So I am kind of happy that I learned Spanish back then when there were no other distractions. So my recommendation is, of course, you will get information coming to you anyway. We live in a digital world where you just can't hide from that information and you'll get the reels, you'll get the shorts on YouTube, and you will see a hundred new phrases a day. And again, probably you won't remember many of them just because there are so many of them. So my recommendation is to limit your resources to, let's say, one book that you can follow, a structured book with methodology and grammar and exercises written by professionals. That always works. Trust me, apps don't work in the same way, at least in my case. And then having one or two additional resources, let's say your favorite YouTube channel or your favorite person that you follow on Instagram, and then just making sure that you follow all of their posts, all of the interviews of that one celebrity, for example, that you chose for yourself, a Spanish celebrity. Once again, you'll still be getting information. It's unavoidable, but at least if your focus is on one to maximum three resources, it will be more efficient. Bonus tip. This one isn't really a method, but I highly encourage you to do that. And that's celebrating success and rewarding yourself for important milestones. You've watched a movie entirely in Spanish, treat yourself. You've learned a set of new words, treat yourself to your favorite dessert. You know what works for you, but make sure to recognize your own efforts and to celebrate that, because here's the truth. Most people will never even start learning a new language, and you did, and that alone is worth celebrating. So there you go. These six methods helped me tremendously take my Spanish to a very decent level in a matter of just six months. If I could do that back in Kazakhstan with no one to practice Spanish with and at the very maximum 30 minutes of the Internet access every day, imagine all the amazing things that you can achieve today. If this video helped, make sure to give it a thumbs up, subscribe to this channel if you aren't subscribed yet, and tell me in the comments what methods worked for you when you started learning Spanish or another foreign language. I would love to learn about them and exchange our experience.