THE BEST WAY TO LEARN SPANISH
GET EXPOSED TO NATURAL SOUNDİNG LANGUAGE
It’s a bit hard to imagine oneself in a tapas bar starting a conversation with the sentence "Hey man, there is an elephant in the zoo"."
If you wonder what is the best way to learn Spanish, this site will help you understand some key principles of language learning so you can make an informed decision and get off to a good start.
First, let me describe you a very common situation of how people go about learning a new language.
Imagine John, one his dreams is to learn Spanish to live and work in Spain. So he decides to enroll in a course. He thinks to himself, “ok let’s learn a bunch of words and grammar rules and let’s hope for the best”
So here we go, in his first lesson he learns some basic words and verbs, and starts to write up sentences such as:
I eat apple
The apple is red
There is an elephant in the zoo
By the end of the third lesson, he starts questioning if this way of learning will really help him to start a life in Spain. No wonder! it’s a bit hard to imagine oneself in a tapas bar starting a conversation with the sentence "Hey man, there is an elephant in the zoo".
The purpose of these sentences is exemplifying a grammar point but have no real utility or insight into how native speakers use the language.
This way of teaching is called the grammar + words approach and has a strong focus on single word memorization and the study of grammar forms and rules.
Using isolated phrases, stripped of their natural emerging context, is a way to simplify or control the rather erratic behavior of grammar and the result is that learners end up being exposed to highly unnatural sounding language.
But is this really the best way to learn Spanish? Can this approach really keep us motivated to keep learning?
So what is it that keeps us motivated to learn a language?
Simplifying native speech for beginner learners. Is it good?
THE KEY TO UNDERSTANDING NATIVE SPEAKER CONVERSATIONS
Real-world interactions should not be simplified or slowed down for beginner Spanish learners, instead, focus on learning the flow and sound of the language should be a priority.
If you are a beginner learner of Spanish my advice is to not listen to simplified, artificially sounding Spanish dialogues. Listening to people talking very slowly will do you no good because it doesn't prepare you for how people native speakers talk. It would just slow down your learning progress.
You need to trust in your abilities to work out meaning from context, even if you only understand 1% of what is said. Imagine you are on a train in Madrid and the inspector comes asking for tickets. If you pay a little attention you may be able to pick up how to say 'ticket' in Spanish when the inspector utters the sentence "billetes por favor." So if you can work out the meaning by yourself in a real life situation, you can also do it in any other learning environment.
The problem with listening to native speakers is, (yes, you guessed it) they speak very very fast!
Once in Madrid John is down to experience a lot of frustration. It is clear that being surrounded by native speakers increases the chances of being exposed to Spanish, but everybody who has been in this situation knows how frustrating, and at times demotivating, can be when you are in the middle of a group of Spanish friends cracking jokes at each other.
Everybody laughs, except you. You may even know many of the phrases and slang words they are using (if you could only saw them in the written form..) but simply cannot identify them in spoken speech. So you just sit there, smiling and pretending you understand. Kind of sad…
So, how can a beginner dissect these fast conversations?
You cannot deal with this frustration by learning more words and grammar but by learning to identify and produce the sounds, intonation, and rhythm of Spanish. This is, by training yourself to learn by ear.
Ear and mouth muscles training is paramount if you want to diminish the initial frustration of learning a new language.
How can Flipspanish help you?
In Flipspanish we want to help you to learn faster and better by:
* exposing you as much as possible to real native conversations.
* showing you how to train mouth muscles to replicate the Spanish sounds and rhythm through listening drills, mimicry and voice recordings. This will help you feel comfortable when speaking Spanish and become fluent faster.
* doing fun and engaging activities together with memorization techniques for you to learn common phrases and words occurring in natural conversations so you can learn to interact in an array of communicative situations.
* using online tools and technology to aid interaction. For example, I will ask you to record yourself saying something in Spanish and then send it to me so I can respond to you.
* getting you to do things with the language. We learn not just by receiving something but by doing something with it. A lot of our activities are task-based. The idea is to give you opportunities to create something using Spanish. For example, a video of yourself describing your hometown, a podcast talking about your favorite holiday place, explaining your favorite recipe to other learners or even publishing it in a Facebook cooking group.
If you want you can get a taste and try this learning approach, I propose you to try our free e-course: 'Introduce yourself in Spanish and sound like a native'. Whether you have zero knowledge or have some Spanish formal training, you can try this free course and get a sense of this highly effective way of learning.
✓ Listen to real native speaker conversations.
✓ Learn to mimic the Spanish sounds and rhythm and understand native speakers better.
✓ Techniques on how to memorize and use common expressions and words from a range of communicative situations.
✓ Fun and engaging activities to learn grammar in a natural way.
✓ Using online tools (voice messaging, etc) to aid oral interaction.
✓ Task-based activities: Create videos, podcasts and more in Spanish!