Study Spanish better

If you're trying to learn Spanish at home on your own it can sometimes be difficult to decide what you should be concentrating on at any given time. After all there seems to be so much that you could do, particularly if you're at the beginner or intermediate level. Even if you are following a course, such as Learning Spanish Like Crazy, you sometimes need to sit down and analyse your weaknesses so you can be more effective in your studies. To work out what your actual weaknesses are it helps to break down the language a bit. Think of it like this: Listening and understanding You may think your big problem is understanding Spanish when it is spoken to you, but in fact perhaps you really need to concentrate on your listening skills. The two require different skills, but are entwined nonetheless. 3. Listening Listening is the process of hearing the sounds that are spoken rather then interpreting them. When you have no Spanish knowledge then the spoken language sounds like an alien jumble of sound, impossible to interpret. The sounds are unfamiliar and it is impossible to distinguish words or phrases. To cap it all everyone seems to be speaking at maximum velocity! After a while of listening to the sounds, Spanish begins to become less busy. Although you will be unable to understand what is being said you may begin to be able to make out individual phrases. 4. Understanding While listening is a question of becoming used to the sounds, understanding what is being said in quite a different skill. Once you have learned some vocabulary, however simple, and can speak some simple phrases you'll begin to understand some of what is being said, even though it may be individual words. Initially you'll find it difficult to keep up because your brain isn't used to decoding Spanish so fast and you may experience the odd sensation of understanding what has been said a few seconds after it was said! Formulation and performance Just as in the example of listening to and understanding Spanish, speaking Spanish also combines two distinct skills. The first is finding the words to express an idea; the second is to perform them. 3. Formulation Formulation is a question of finding a phrase to express an idea. You may find that you need to express yourself in a slightly different way when you lack vocabulary and may need to fall back on a phrasebook or dictionary at first. As your vocabulary increases you'll find that many phrases stick and you can use these as a model for producing new phrases. To start with you'll need to spend some time thinking of what you want to say and how to express yourself, but as you become more proficient at Spanish and internalise it you'll be able to speak without thinking hard about it first. 4. Performance Deciding what you are going to say is great; it's the hardest part of speaking Spanish. However, you also need to know how they should sound and reproduce them accurately; if you know a native Spanish speak them ask them to correct you whenever you make a mistake. You may think that correct pronunciation is optional providing the people you are speaking to understand you, but it has another benefit; you'll be able to understand out words and phrases that you hear better because the model of the word carried in your head is more accurate. When you pronounce Spanish correctly you also train your mouth muscles to move correctly. Because Spanish sounds are different from English the mouth is used in unfamiliar ways to produce the sounds; it takes a while for your mouth to become used to this, but practice will ensure that your mouth adapts. Conclusion When you're learning Spanish it helps to identify what you're weak at to enable you to focus exercises to improve it. By sitting down for a few minutes every couple of weeks or so and planning what you aim to improve and how you are going to improve it you will find that little by little your Spanish improves.