How to practise Spanish outside of your lessons (Part 1)
LikeLearning Spanish might be challenging at first, but as every single activity you do, it gets easier over time, and even (if you are just a little bit creative) entertaining, and thus the more you use it and enjoy it, the better.
If you want to compare it with anything, learning might share similarities with muscles. Picture this: you see this big guy at your gym, and he is huge, he walks to the weights, and now he lifts 100 kilograms, the first thing that you might think is "Today is not his first day at the gym". You know that he had at least come here for the last year a minimum of 4 times a week, and your brain works in the same way as the muscles of that man.
When you learn anything, in order to create knowledge, your brain uses the brain cells to process all the new material you are feeding him with. To improve the "data" handling and storage they connect with each other, but in order to generate this connection, the brain cells must go through the same process as the muscles of that hypothetical gym guy, they must go through a hard training session, some rest and repetition to grow.
Now you might think "I wish I could do it at least 4 days per week too”, and here you will find the answers as some traditional ways to train and improve your Spanish language:
-Consuming media in Spanish: My favourite personal way to learn Spanish (and the one you would probably also love the most) is with TV shows, movies, memes, YouTube videos, etc... This is how I got most of my English knowledge, the only cons about this method is that sometimes you will find yourself consuming rubbish content, and also perhaps will lose track of time quite often, so I would recommend to stick with one medium, either a movie, or either a TV show or either a book, if you don't finish one before starting another one, you will end up being a blob on your sofa/bed just scrolling or repeating "un capítulo más y luego duermo", just like you would do it in English.
-Music: One reason why Latin culture is spreading all around the world these previous years is because of the catchy songs and famous artists that you will find in Spotify's top 100 global: Bad Bunny, Rauw Alejandro, Daddy Yankee, Rosalia, and more.
Using music to learn Spanish certainly will be easy, since finding songs are easy, but I must say that most of them use slang in their lyrics, and if you want to start slowly, the right way to do it is with the oldies but goodies: Los panchos, Eydie Gormé, Los Angeles Azules, etc., (more recommendations in future blogs) legends that had nothing to envy to modern day musicians, and with a big plus: you will have lyrics full of emotions, things that will definitely give you a nice journey through well written lyrics.
With these options you can say that you’re a good beginner in the language, there are others options more that you can easily add to your routine, and if you think that you need more in order to fulfil your expectations, you can check them in the second part, in which you will find 3 more interactive ways to improve your Spanish, outside your lessons