Words and photos by ASA Barcelona alum, Thomas Kato.
When I moved to Barcelona for my study abroad program last fall, I came with the goal of becoming fluent in Spanish. This was rather naive of me, considering I had never had a full conversation with someone in Spanish. I had technically studied Spanish in middle and high school and been around the language through soccer and work, but I wouldn’t have even considered myself conversational.
Over the course of my semester abroad, I was exposed to the language everywhere: in class, going out, and at home with my host grandma. Over time, my confidence grew, and the more risks I took speaking Spanish, the more I was rewarded. I have become comfortable speaking Spanish, even to complete strangers, and I am more motivated than ever to keep improving.
Here are some tips that I’ve learned from my time in Spain for learning a new language. They may not all work for you, but I hope that you will be able to take away something that helps you in your process of learning a new language!
Before I traveled to Barcelona, I started listening exclusively to Spanish music. You won’t understand everything, and that’s okay. The goal is to get a feel for how words sound and how sentences flow. Simply familiarizing yourself with hearing a language is a huge first step. Also, it doesn’t have to be music; you can watch shows, listen to podcasts (Duolingo has a great Spanish one for beginners), whatever gets you familiarizing yourself with the sound and flow of the language.
Ordering coffee or getting food are simple interactions that can only go a few ways, so once you do it a couple of times, you’ll start to pick up on whether they’re asking you if you want a receipt, a bag, etc. This simple but regularly done interaction helped me to build confidence in speaking Spanish, even if it was the same few sentences each time.
Unfortunately, not everyone is willing to be patient with you as you work through sentences. It is important to make friends with people who can help you and will work with you to hold a conversation. I was lucky enough to do a homestay program with a lovely woman named Margarita, who didn’t speak any English. As a result, we would have to work together to understand each other, and she would speak slower or explain things in different words to help me understand and improve my Spanish.
To be completely honest, a lot of my language improvement came from my Spanish class. I was able to learn the grammatical phrases and vocabulary I needed to practice in the real world. I would highly recommend signing up for a language class when you study abroad.
While I was in Barcelona, I met another study abroad student. He was half-Mexican and didn’t speak Spanish at home, but he still spoke with what I would have considered fluent Spanish. However, when I asked him if he was fluent, he said “I don’t really look at it as if you’re fluent or not—everyone speaks at a different level, and if you can communicate, you can communicate.”
His words stayed with me. As someone who had constantly worried about whether my Spanish was “good enough,” I feared I’d never fit in with native Spanish speakers no matter how long I spent in the country. But like he had said, not being fluent doesn’t delegitimize what you have learned when it comes to speaking a new language. Seeing this point of view earlier might have given me more confidence to practice my Spanish more often.
With the Spanish that I knew while I was abroad, I was still able to meet some amazing people I never would have otherwise. I hope sharing some of my experiences will help you or encourage you to study abroad because it is an incredible experience that is more than worth doing if you can.