Becoming Fluent in a Second Language as an Adult

My best tips for how I went from speaking very basic Spanish to living every day in Spanish

Learning another language is challenging for countless reasons. And it can be especially daunting as an adult. I could write for days about the different phases I’ve gone through learning Spanish here in Sevilla over the years, and all the things I’ve learned not just about Spanish, but about myself through the experience.

Today I wanted to share a list of the tips that I feel made the biggest difference throughout my (ongoing) language learning journey. I went from only knowing grammar and the basics I’d learned in high school Spanish, to being able to develop real relationships in Spanish.

As a disclaimer, I am by no means perfect at Spanish. There are still days where I may get lost during a part of a conversation, depending on the subject, or where I need someone to repeat something. The perks of living in a region (Andalucía) where the accent is considerably difficult to understand. I consider myself fluent but it doesn’t mean I never make mistakes. I believe there’s a difference between growing up speaking multiple languages versus learning later in life. But that’s a topic to be explored another day.

See below for the six tips that had the biggest impact on me improving my Spanish skills. I’m highlighting everything from a “learning Spanish” perspective but just replace Spanish with whatever language you want to learn if you’re looking to learn a different language.

Photo by Dan Gold on Unsplash

I.

Find an Intercambio

The first time I moved to Spain was for study abroad. I went to the local university, University of Sevilla.

The semester I was here, the school set up a student intercambio program. It was a time before everyone had Whatsapp and social media on their phones. So the way the program was set up was literally based on a piece of paper tacked to a bulletin board in the classrooms hallway.

Can I just take a moment to say I’m so thankful I got to experience pre-digital life. That memory is priceless to me, the idea of writing my name down on a piece of paper, in the “English” column, and wondering which Spaniard would end up putting their name down on the row next to mine in the “Spanish” column. Today this would all be handled virtually.

Anyway, everyone got matched up by the school coordinator, who emailed us the contact details of our intercambios. I was assigned to Pablo, a young architect from Galicia who had moved to Sevilla with his Sevillana wife. Pablo and I consistently met every single week during study abroad and it was the most helpful experience during that time. Side note, Pablo Marta and I are still close friends to this day. I first met them in 2010!

When I moved back to Sevilla years later, I lived with 3 Spanish roommates. One of them had a friend who needed to learn English for work. He was desperate for an intercambio. We agreed to set up weekly hangouts, one hour in Spanish one hour in English. With both Pablo and Rafa, I met with them every single week, and if we missed a week we did 2x the next week to compensate.

Consistency with an intercambio is pivotal. Make sure you find someone who is equally committed as you. If they cancel every other week, then find someone else.

II.

Watch TV and Movies in Spanish, with Spanish Subtitles

This was one of the most crucial points on my language learning journey. I watched Friends, a show I knew and loved, dubbed in Spanish with Spanish subtitles. I will be the first to admit, I’m not a fan of dubbing. If I’m watching a French movie I want the French audio with English subtitles.

But if you want to learn a language, I highly recommend watching dubbed movies and tv shows that you already know and love, at least for awhile.

There are two key parts to this: first of all make sure you pick something you already know or that you know you’ll love so it keeps your attention. And second, a tv show is best because there are often repeated themes throughout the seasons. For example, there’s a few episodes around the main characters breaking up, so you get exposed to a lot of the same vocabulary around that given subject.

I admittedly don’t have the exact source, but I believe it was from the book Fluent in 3 Months, that said watching a tv show in Spanish with Spanish subtitles slowly “trains your brain” to connect the words visually and auditorily.

I can only speak to personal experience here but I legitimately lived that. When I first started watching Friends, the Spanish sounded like literal gibberish. I only knew what was happening (loosely) because I had seen the show so much. So I read the subtitles and did my best. At some point, around season 3 or 4, something started to click. Pieces of the gibberish puzzle were suddenly fitting together in my brain. It was like I was picking up on the rhythms of the accents and the way things were said. Little by little, the sounds I was listening to began taking the shape of words that I was recognizing and learning.

If you’re really dedicated, you can even watch an episode in English first and then immediately after watch the same episode again in Spanish. I did this for the first few seasons of Friends, but as things started to click, I eliminated the “watch it in English first” step. If you take this approach, you’ll better be able to notice the differences in how jokes and slang are translated. It’s almost more useful to see and hear the change, first in English then in Spanish. You start to realize why they replaced it with the joke that they did (obviously most of the times a play on words in English won’t work as a literal translation to Spanish).

III.

Read Children’s and Young Adult Books in Spanish

Another game-changer for me was starting to read in Spanish. I remember a Spanish friend suggested the idea to me. They actually gifted me La Tesis de Nancy, a Spanish novel about an American living in Sevilla. It was HARD. I was so lost all the time. But I was determined to read it so I gave myself the goal of 10 pages a day and I did manage to finish the book.

My second go-around I decided to select a book I already knew, Harry Potter. Any young adult book like this would be a good option, once you feel like your skills are good enough to follow along. If your Spanish skills aren’t too far along, then start with an easier step, popular children’s books.

In the beginning, much like watching tv show, the key is to just read through, even if you’re a bit lost. At the most you can highlight the words you don’t know and go back and look them up later.

When I read Tesis de Nancy, I did try highlighting and looking up the words as I was reading. But, because I was at such a beginner level at the time, I was looking up almost every other word and it really stalled the flow of reading. So I personally think it’s better to just keep reading through, even if you’re lost at times, and if you want look up the words once you’re done reading.

IV.

Listen to Spanish Music

Another helpful tip that will really help with pronunciation and speaking is listening and singing along to music in Spanish. Find Spanish music you like, make a playlist on Spotify and learn the lyrics and sing your heart out! Bonus points if you drive a lot where you live, that’s the best time to practice this. Unless you’re a gifted singer in which case sing away wherever you like.

When I used to live in California and had a 2-hour commute each day, this was how I invested a lot of my commute time. There are lots of popular songs that get played at events here in Spain and you’ll always hear Spaniards singing along. Getting to sing along with them because you know every word is a fun way to impress locals, and it makes you feel part of the group. Give it a go!

V.

Learn the Most Common SPOKEN Words First

This comes from a post I read years ago by Tim Ferriss. I actually read his post after I had become fluent in Spanish, but this particular point resonated with me so much that it stuck with me. I remember reading it and thinking, this is so true! In daily conversations with friends, coworkers, etc. it’s safe to say there are lots of words that are repeated frequently. “Decir” comes to mind, or “no sé qué no sé cuánto” if you want to sound like a local.

Because Spanish isn’t my native language I feel I’m even more aware of the words I tend to use, and therefore when I read this tip, it clearly stood out to me as a very useful one to start with. There are certainly specific words I use in my everyday conversations, and if you memorize those words first, it’s a great jump start to improving your Spanish speaking abilities.

Find a list of the most common spoken words, and memorize those first. And if we’re talking about verbs, don’t just memorize infinitivo, memorize all conjugations of the verbs in all the verb tenses.

VI.

Set Your Default Phone Language to Spanish

This is perhaps the easiest one of all with not much to elaborate on. Make sure your phone settings are in Spanish. You’ll be exposed to a wide range of vocabulary and it helps to your brain to default think in Spanish. The daily exposure, while minimal, has an impact because it’s so consistent.

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That’s a wrap on the top 6 tips that have helped me most learning Spanish over the years. I would love to hear any of your tips if you’ve learned a second language as an adult, what has worked for you?