Spanish for busy people

I love writing posts and placing them on my very own blog (yeah, this one!). Somehow, the teacher comes out of me this way – and a teacher is what I want to become. Yes, all the tips and advices I give here are fully (well, most of the time) tested by me or my students at my training school. This helped me inmensely in the past as I always try to find better, more effective, and funnier ways to learn Spanish.

But after writing this blog for more than half a year, I began getting comments like: “Cool tips Ramses, but not useful for me” or: “Yeah, your advices would work for me, if I weren’t that d*mn busy“. And everytime I’m like “huh!?“. I mean; I’m a very, VERY busy person. I try to get at least 7 hours of sleep each night, but that doesn’t always happen. I try to always prepare myself for my college classes, but that doesn’t always turn out that well. I want to spend more time on adding sentences to Anki, but every day I look back and think: “Dude, what the… only five sentences added!?“. Add my natural laziness to this and you’ve got yourself a person who actually needs 34 hours a day instead of 24.

So to the people who like reading this humble blog but think they’re too busy, ask yourself: have you put Spanish in each and every crack of your life? What are you currently doing in your native language that could be done in Spanish? How serious are you anyway?

Have you put Spanish in each and every crack of your life…?

You know, when I began studying Spanish I though that 2 to 3 hours a day were enough. Ha, wrong! It’s enough if you want to be able to speak or read a little in a few years, but not for the serious learner who wants to be fluent as soon as possible. Now, it depends how much time you need to get better (some people just pick it up faster than others, which also has to do with interest), but remember: You. Don’t. Need. To. Study. PERIOD. And with studying I mean buying something like a Teach Yourself Spanish in 3 months-book or a Learn Spanish grammar while eating tacos-book and cram it day after day. All you need to do is getting yourself entertaining (native) materials, use them and get the heck fluent.

Now, just playing a movie over and over again or reading a book for the ninth time this month won’t get you fluent. Sure, you’ll need to look up stuff, add these things to your SRS and such (with other words: comprehensible input). Along with repetition (you know, watching that movie over and over again, reading that book for the ninth time in a month or chain-watching your favorite telenovela) this will get you fluent. The best part is, that repetition can be done everywhere. While you’re commuting, working, eating, relaxing, walking, driving, making love, etc. you can listening to music, audio books, podcasts, DVD rips, etc. (although I’d only listen to music while making love, hehe).

What the… why are you still using you native language!?

Sure, there are situations where you need to use your native tongue or a language other than Spanish. Think about work, school, your significant other. Those are pretty important things and sometimes they don’t blend well with Spanish. But other than that: why the heck are you still using English, Dutch, German, whatever language you use? You can already speak/read/write/understand it well, so why the heck bothering using it 18 hours a day? Wouldn’t it be more logical to replace that language by Spanish?

I’m repeating myself, but oh well: reading a book? Get the Spanish version. Watching a movie? Watch the dubbed version in Spanish. Reading a newssite? Get the Spanish version. Reading religious texts? Get. The. Spanish. Version.

It’s so easy, so easy to get everything in Spanish. Why not use it? Replace your native tongue, Spanish is your native tongue from now on. The only thing you need to do it learn it.

How serious are you anyway?

Who are you kidding? Yes, it’s impressive to speak Spanish really fast and sounding like a Spaniard… to someone who doesn’t speak Spanish. You know you’ve reached your goal when you tell a Spaniard you’re not a native and they can’t/don’t want to believe you because of you ass-kicking Spanish skills.

I mean, why are you learning Spanish? Ok, there may be some occasions where you only want to learn a bit, but overall you want to become fluent, don’t you? Only learning Spanish half and then expecting to rule in the hispanosphere will let you sound like crap and put you in some pretty embarrassing moments. And yes: people will laugh at you and don’t mind telling you that you suck.

There’s no such thing as a busy person

Everyone is busy nowadays, and still: people are learning Spanish and other languages and becoming fluent. No, they don’t attend classes. No, they didn’t go college for year and years to become fluent. No, they’re no superhumans. They just spent a sh*tload of time with that particular language while doing other things. If they can do it, why can’t you? Remember: put Spanish in each and every crack if your life, keep it there, and you’ll be fluent. No Doubt. About. It.