Fifty Ways to Have Fun with Your Bad Spanish
—by—
Judith D. Schulten
Copyright 2013 Judith D. Schulten
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Table of Contents
Introduction
Who Are You?
How do I know? Who am I?
Why it’s Not Too Late to Start Now
Free Your Thinking To Enjoy Your Spanish
Fifty Ways
Para Terminar
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Appendices
Introduction
Do you know a little Spanish? How did you learn it? Maybe you took a class, or traveled in a
Spanish-speaking country. Maybe you’ve worked through a beginner textbook, or you’re
interested in people who speak Spanish.
Have you ever wanted to go beyond these first steps and learn to enjoy the Spanish you know?
You can decide to use and enjoy the Spanish you have right now. It will be a great adventure.
You will meet new people. It will make you feel young and exhilarated. It will exercise your
brain. You will travel intelligently. You will enjoy life more.
I’ve been speaking Spanish, more or less well, for a long time. Here’s what happens: A friend
greets me with, “Hola. ¿Qué tal?” I reply,”Bién, muy bién.” Then the conversation abruptly
changes to English as my friend apologizes that he or she once knew some Spanish and liked it
but has forgotten it all.
What a wasted opportunity. How many entertaining conversations, how many laughs could I
have had by now with friends who gathered their courage and plunged into bad Spanish with
me?
In most parts of the US, we are a bilingual country. Because of this, and because knowing a
decent amount of Spanish is helpful in many jobs, Spanish classes seem to be on every corner.
But I don’t hear many Americans enjoying an ordinary conversation in Spanish. It seems too
daunting to learn the verbs and idioms. They use only whatever small amount of Spanish they
might need and give up their hopes of using it in real life.
This is a waste. Just think of all the practical, everyday reasons to limber up your Spanish in
today’s global world. It would be an advantage at work, at school, and in public. You would
enjoy knowing enough tourist Spanish for a trip. Even beyond that, let me offer six other
advantages you may not have considered:
1. It’s a portable skill.
Everything else you might do in your leisure time has requirements. You’ll need special
equipment, special places, suitable partners, particular times, fees and dues. Even something as
seemingly simple as playing bridge demands cards, partners, arrangements to get together, and a
card table.
Not so with knowing Spanish. Everything you need lives in your mind. If your house burns
down with everything in it, you can still speak Spanish. If you’re confined to bed, you can still
speak Spanish. You always have whatever you’ve learned and that’s all you need. You’re always
ready to have a conversation.
I’m driving my husband to the airport for a golf trip. In addition to his suitcase of clothes, he has
two pairs of golf shoes, a GPS, a range finder, a golf umbrella, extra golf balls, and a forty-pound
golf bag with fourteen clubs.
Leaving him and his gear, I realize once again that, without an ounce of equipment, I’m always
prepared to enjoy Spanish, wherever I may be, whenever I want.
Going lightly through the world like that is pleasant to think about.
Meet my friend Cyrena.
She walked the 500-mile Camino to Santiago de Compostela, thinking, “I am carrying
everything I need on my back. I am free.” That’s the way I feel knowing Spanish.
2. Speaking Spanish keeps you young.
Consider this: By the time you’re an adult, you’ve learned how to act and what to say. You’re
not embarrassed or uncertain or terribly self-conscious anymore. You’ve settled into being
sophisticated. It gets a little boring.
Now, try to understand a speaker of Spanish and respond anywhere near appropriately. It will
make you feel young in a sense you thought was over. Being unsure of yourself is young. Being
scared is young. Being nervously alert to another person is young. You will feel exhilarated and
alive when you get through an exchange in Spanish. It will make you humble to have been off
balance. That will make other people see you as approachable and friendly.
3. Using another language is work for the brain.
Yudhijt Bhattacharjee cites various studies of bilingualism that demonstrate advantages beyond
the obvious practical benefits in our globalized world. He concludes that keeping two language
systems constantly in mind “…forces the brain to resolve internal conflict, giving the mind a
workout that strengthens its cognitive muscles.”
In The Secret Life of the Grown-Up Brain, Barbara Strauch writes, “…bilateral use of brain
power [such as bilingualism] may be the key ingredient in the power and creativity of our
middle-aged brains.”
When you operate in two languages, fresh little pathways will appear in your sluggish gray
matter. These days we all live such an improbably long life. We must constantly stir up the little
gray cells.
4. You can enjoy the guilty pleasure of showing off.
Americans are still impressed with one of their own speaking another language. If you know
Spanish, you’ll find opportunities to show off. It’s an antidote to the humbling experiences you
will have in abundance.
For example, getting on the plane, I carry La vida entre costuras, a big novel that’s nothing more
than a beach read. Still, I stand out from the crowd of James Patterson readers.
In the restaurant, the Colombian chef comes to our table, and ends up talking only with me
because only I speak Spanish.
With my family in Costa Rica, a surfing accident sends us to the hospital. They make sure I go
along: “ We might need someone to speak Spanish.”
On a trip to Spain, my friend turns to me, “Ask if this bus goes downtown.”
5. It’s exhilarating to feel yourself a citizen of the world.
Now you can talk to people you wouldn’t have thought about or been able to talk to before. Now
those people view you differently. Now the world is a friendlier place. Now you understand
better another part of the world. All because you speak a little Spanish.
Now you can travel confidently. Now you can eat more adventurously. Now you can get off the
tourist path in Spanish-speaking countries. Now you can be a more attractive American traveler.
6. You feel the quiet pleasure of competence.
You have the private satisfaction of owning a skill. Whenever you have a conversation in
Spanish, understand an ad, scan the Spanish edition of “People” magazine, or eavesdrop on
conversations in public, you savor a small moment of accomplishment.
It’s an immensely satisfying, life-long adventure that is constantly new and constantly
challenging. To know a little Spanish, to give yourself a little push to use it in a little way will
give you a big reward. Tell yourself, “I want to have fun with my bad Spanish!”
Who Are You?
Who are you, reading this? You’re someone who knows some basic Spanish. You don’t need to
speak Spanish for your job and you already have a busy life, but you’d like to be able to enjoy
what you know. Every so often, you resolve to study seriously. Meanwhile you seldom dare to
attempt a conversation in Spanish; you seldom feel confident using it. You feel frozen at a low
level of competence. You no longer expect to break through to real enjoyment of your Spanish.
You can lift yourself to another level simply by being bold with the Spanish you have right now.
You’ll improve. You’ll be thrilled to watch yourself communicate in another language. That will
energize you to keep trying. You’ll begin to feel comfortable in Spanish-speaking situations.
How do I know? Who am I?
I’ve been learning Spanish for forty years, and the most important thing I’ve learned is to get out
there with my bad Spanish.
About now, you’re thinking, “Forty years! She must be good.” Well, yes and no. It’s always a
work in progress. I don’t know if I’ll ever understand the jokes or feel at ease in a group of
native-speakers. It’s too late to improve my flat gringa accent. However, I can read Spanish
almost as well as I read English, I can communicate in any conversation, and I’m proud that,
along the way, I earned a master’s degree in Spanish literature.
I’m always working on it, in one way or another. So many times I’ve made resolutions for a
study schedule. Who am I kidding? I know myself from way back. I know I won’t stick to it, and
I’ll feel even more discouraged when I don’t. Much of what I have done is through the back
door, so to speak.
It’s often worked for me to commit myself boldly and publicly to a situation where I must speak
Spanish, and then when I want to back out, it’s too late. I fool myself into speaking Spanish.
Maybe you’re a better person. Maybe a more straightforward approach would work for you, but
maybe my own story will give you some new ideas.
I took my first class out of curiosity when I was in my early 30s. I had three children in school, a
husband who traveled, and a bit of free time. People who knew another language impressed me
as wonderfully intelligent and cosmopolitan. That was my motivation. I was going to be like that.
The first bilingual person I had ever known was the father of my college roommate. A Mexican
businessman, he was completely at home in the U.S. He spoke two languages seamlessly. On his
visits, he would charm us by cooking dinner. One night he burned his hand, and went right on
speaking English as he swore at length and impressively. I definitely wanted to be like that. I
needed to start learning.
Ever since that first class, I have persisted, never letting more than a month or so go by without
working on my Spanish. Along the way I overcame my timidity and fear. I dared to use my bad
Spanish, and, now when someone asks, “¿Habla español?” I reply, “¡Sí!”
Why it’s Not Too Late to Start Now
I know adult language learning from the other side too. For 10 years I taught English to adults
from many other countries. The same principles apply to learning any second language as an
adult. It’s different from the carefree way children pick up a new language. Up to the age of
about 13, it comes easily to their pliable little brains. Adult brains have already decided which
language they’ll use. Any other must be painstakingly acquired by a tired mind that would much
prefer watching a little TV tonight.
It’s not just that adults are past the optimum years for easily learning a foreign language. I
believe adults have so many more fears about language learning than children do. They are afraid
they don’t know enough. They are afraid to speak what they do know. They’re afraid of the large
body of knowledge they believe they must master. They’re afraid they’re too old to learn.
All those fears, all that perfectionism, are in every adult learner. For that reason, when I taught
English to adults, I really wasn’t teaching the past tense of verbs, though that might be the lesson
in the text. I was teaching, “Listen to this joke, then tell it to your neighbor,” “Let’s do the
hokey-pokey,” “Clap the rhythm of this sentence with me,” and eventually they learned the past
tense of verbs in English. They had to be distracted from their fear and self-consciousness before
they could learn.
But for all their fears, adult learners have courage and determination. It’s their great advantage.
They’re afraid, and yet they plunge into the cold water. They’ve faced their fear and done
something hard many times before in their life.
It’s gratifying to see the surprise and delight of people learning English when they succeed in
communicating. I interview Spanish-speaking clients for a social service agency. “Do you speak
English?” is my first question. Most say “no,” but if it seems they might have just a bit of
English, I say, “Entonces, ¡hablamos inglés!” It’s wonderful to see them rise to the challenge.
The formal atmosphere loosens up as we conduct our interview in a combination of their English
and my Spanish. They are proud of themselves for their courage in giving it a try. They have had
fun with their bad English.
I’m writing this book because I believe you can enjoy right now the Spanish you have right now
in your situation right now. You don’t need to wait for the day when you’ve taken another class
or lost ten pounds or cleaned the garage. You need only to gather your courage and venture into
the big Spanish-speaking world. Now, with what you know now. If you don’t start now to use
your Spanish in real situations, you’ll never do it. This is it. Try it. After you say, “Buenos días,”
attempt just one more sentence. Make a comment about the weather: “Hace mucho frio,” or
“¿Hace calor, no?” I guarantee you’ll feel wonderfully alive.
Communication Is All That Matters
Communication is your goal. Communication is all that matters. You aim to understand and to
be understood. Whether you are listening or speaking, reading or writing, you need only to
receive and give meaningful information. You do this by focusing on what is said, not on how it
is said.
Just Two More Thoughts
Before going further, I’d like to discuss two other topics that relate to learning and speaking
Spanish.
First, what if you are completely lacking in basic Spanish? What if you happen to have read this
far and you’d really like to have some fun with Spanish, but you know nothing beyond “Muchas
gracias”?
What is the minimum necessary understanding of the language, and what is the best way to
acquire it?
You need to understand three facts about the language:
1. All Spanish nouns are masculine or feminine. When you learn a noun, you learn “el” or “la” as
part of it. Most adjectives you use with the noun have to be of the same gender and the same
number as the noun: “el trabajo duro” (the hard job) and “los trabajos duros” (the hard jobs).
2. For many people, including me, the verbs are frightening. It’s true that Spanish verbs are
complex, while ours in English are quite simple. It’s enough to understand this as a fact; it isn’t
necessary to know all the verb changes, only that they are there. Knowing a few workhorse verbs
(more on this later, see #7) will take you a long way.
3. Spanish is easy to pronounce once you learn the sounds of the vowels. It is pronounced
exactly as it’s spelled. To see a word—provided you know the few pronunciation rules—is to
know how to say it.
Now, if you know almost no Spanish but want to come along with us, how would you
acquire the basics?
You can work through a textbook, online course, or audio course on your own. The problem with
these widely available programs is that everything depends on you making yourself do the work.
The other way to learn elementary Spanish is to take a class. This is better. A class is a social
situation, and the class will pace your learning for you.
If you take a class, make it a non-credit class. You can find one in a community outreach
program from a college, high school, or city organization.
But, wait! Since you’re doing the work, why not take it for credit? Here’s why: In a credit class,
the other students will be interested only in their grade (“Will this be on the test?”), and, unless
you’re an exceptionally attractive person with a dynamite personality, not at all interested in you.
In an informal class, all of you choose to be there and want to learn. You’re eager to get to know
each other and help each other and enjoy the class together.
Here’s a confidence-building exercise to try before you take your first class: Right now, write
down ten Spanish words you know.
That was easy. Now write ten more. You already know a lot, and you haven’t even started on the
hundreds of cognates. Cognates are Spanish words that are almost identical to English, such as
“continuar,” the verb that means “continue,” and “tradición” the noun that means “tradition.”
Good Spanish is a goal that’s worth the effort to achieve it.
A second point I’d like to make clear before we get to fifty good ideas is that I love correct
Spanish and believe firmly that we should strive to achieve it. In advising “Have fun with your
bad Spanish,” I’m not making a choice between good Spanish and bad Spanish. I’m not saying,
“Who cares about proper Spanish?” Hearing or reading proper Spanish is a joy; people who
know it deserve enormous admiration.
However, if you’re reading this, you don’t have good Spanish. What you do have is bad Spanish.
Your choice, then, is between using bad Spanish and using no Spanish. “No Spanish” is the
default that you’ve been retreating to. You can choose to go up one level from none to bad. With
mindful practice, one day you can ascend to the level of good.
Having fun with your bad Spanish doesn’t mean you can quit studying. It only means you start
today, in whatever way you can, enjoying the Spanish you already know. Everyone—from a tenyear-old to his grandmother—will improve by spending time with a grammar book. Just don’t
wait to start a conversation until you have perfected the subjunctive mode.
Free Your Thinking To Enjoy Your Spanish
Whatever you choose to do, it’s liberating to begin by telling yourself that your Spanish is what
it is and that you’re going to use it as it is. I feel liberated just saying the title of this book. So
will you. “What are you reading?” “A book called Have Fun With Your Bad Spanish.” There.
Now I don’t have to pretend I have good Spanish. I’ve just announced that I don’t. Now I can go
ahead and enjoy myself.
I know this is true because when I started writing this book and telling people the title, I became
bolder about my own bad Spanish. So what if I made an error? Did the other person understand
me? Maybe next time I’ll get through that same sentence more smoothly and correctly because
I’ve just practiced it out loud in a real situation.
That’s the way it works. Having to understand and respond to Spanish in a pressure situation
practically guarantees that you will learn it. Whatever you use will make a home in the mental
mash-up of words, phrases, and rules that you call “my Spanish.”
Fifty Ways
Here, then, are fifty tips, activities, and bits of philosophy for using your Spanish. Some are very
easy and others require a little more knowledge. At one time or another in my own 40 years, I’ve
used them all. They range from making cheat sheets for an elementary conversation to reading a
chapter of Don Quixote in the original Spanish. Use them to make your own Spanish-speaking
experience into whatever you hope for.
1. Put a CD of Spanish music or language lessons in your car.
Arrange to have it come on as soon as you start the car. Don’t let it be a decision you make every
time. Don’t feel you have to pay attention. Just let it be the background. Let your ear become
accustomed to the sound of Spanish.
2. Make a list for yourself of useful exclamations.
In conversation, it’s necessary to affirm the other person and to indicate you’re following the
discussion. In English, we do this without thinking: “Oh, no, not again!”, “That’s great!”, “What
did you say then?” In Spanish, we’re tongue-tied for lack of appropriate responses.
After relying for years on “!Que bueno!” in conversations, I finally made a cheat sheet of words
that show approval or empathy. Now I choose from: excelente, fabuloso, maravilloso, fantástico,
sabroso, rico, chistoso. In bad situations, I exclaim, ““¡Que lástima!” or “¡Que pena!”, and, for
every happy occasion, I rely on the congratulations word “felicitaciones.”
3.
Consider the advice of Stephen Krashen: You’ll never be fluent if you strive for
correctness
Stephen Krashen is the author of many works on teaching English to speakers of other
languages. They include The Natural Approach, a 1983 book which influenced my own
teaching. He emphasizes the importance of listening for what is being said, not for how it’s being
said, listening for information. He urges students to seek opportunity for extended conversations
in which something important—something necessary to understand—is being said.
Krashen is also the person who memorably said you will never be fluent if you strive for
correctness. Instead, you should strive for fluency and correctness will come. Why is this true?
Because to focus on using correct forms requires taking your mind away from the
conversation—away from the communication—and into a space in your brain where you detach
yourself while you work out the correct form. Only then do you go back to the conversation, but,
meanwhile, the flow of communication has died waiting for you. So, first of all, try for
communication in the easiest and most natural way for you. It’s as simple as that. Don’t lose
sight of this goal.
Meet Señorita Persnickita.
She’s the “A” student in every high school class. She knows a good amount of Spanish, but
will not open her mouth until she has mentally arranged a perfect sentence. Loosen up,
Señorita Persnickita. Focus on communication.
4. Learn pairs of words with opposite meanings.
In my classes in English for adult learners, I saw that everyone liked learning pairs of vocabulary
words with opposite meanings, like “good-bad, fast-slow, hot-cold.”
Learning vocabulary in pairs of “opposite” words is useful. Learn “claro-oscuro,” and you have a
better mental picture of the opposites “light-dark” than if you’d learned “claro” by itself.
Opposites can be any part of speech: adjectives, adverbs, nouns, or verbs. A list of opposites is in
the appendix.
5. Shop at a supermarket for Spanish-speakers.
They are beautiful and clean and jolly inside, though the parking lot often looks uninviting.
Browse through the foreign products in the aisles, look in the meat case at the different cuts, then
invent a question to ask an employee. The produce department is the most reliable place to find
someone to talk to. Ask a question in Spanish. The last time I did this, I honestly was looking for
green onions and hadn’t found them. I remembered “cebolla” and I knew “verde,” so I spun out a
longish conversation about my onions.
6. Get the Spanish audio guide at a museum.
You’ll miss the fine points, but after a few minutes, you’ll get the main ideas. You already know
something of the subject matter and that makes it easier. And, besides, no one cares if you didn’t
understand it anyhow.
Have patience with yourself. Let your ear become accustomed to the Spanish. It’s similar to
watching a British drama on TV. At first, British accents and expressions are a jumble, but
slowly it becomes comprehensible. You still have to maintain your attention. Some effort is
necessary. So it is with Spanish.
7. Learn five workhorse verbs.
To English speakers, the verbs in Spanish are quite confusing. We are accustomed to our own
very simple verbs. In the appendix, you’ll find “The Twenty-Four-Plus Ways of “You Were.”
It’s my own list. I made it to show how complicated the Spanish verb system can seem to
English speakers. It details twenty-four way to say “you were” in Spanish, and there are many
more than twenty-four.
You don’t need to know that list. You don’t need to know how to conjugate many verbs at all.
However, here are five verbs so important that, yes, you absolutely need to learn their entire
conjugations:
1) ser—to be, used for a permanent condition. Yo soy mujer. I am a woman.
2) estar—to be, used for a temporary condition. Yo estoy en casa. I am at home.
3) hacer—to do, to make. Juan hace cosas bellas. Juan makes beautiful things.
4) poder—to be able to. Puedo hablar español. I can speak Spanish.
5) tener—to have, and the basis for many idioms. Tengo diez dólares. I have ten dollars.
If you know these verbs, you can use them yourself and -equally important- you will recognize
them when you hear them or see them in any form.
Much more important than knowing the conjugation of verbs is knowing the infinitive. It’s a
matter of vocabulary. For example, “trabajar—to work” is a useful word to know. On a very low
level, your meaning would be understood if you said, “Ayer yo trabajar.” That’s incorrect
Spanish, but you would have communicated the fact that you worked yesterday.
Meet Sr. Perdido.
He’s the defeated-looking person in every beginning class. He’s taken Level 1 Spanish more
than once. Despite his persistent effort, he does not understand the grammar. He becomes
more lost as the class progresses, and decides, “I’m just no good at languages.” Take heart,
Sr. Perdido. Learn a few verbs, rely on the infinitive, get your message across.
8. Apply verb first aid.
If you don’t know how to conjugate the verb, go ahead and use the present tense or even the
infinitive of the verb, as we just did with “trabajar.”
For the past, use a past word like “ayer” or the idiom that means “ago, “ which is “hace” plus a
time period. “Ten years ago” would be “Hace diez años.”
For the future, use “voy a” plus a verb in the infinitive. It means “I’m going to…. “ “I’m going to
study” would be “Voy a estudiar.”
Don’t let verbs intimidate you into refusing to use your Spanish. Do what you can with what you
know and make your meaning clear in another way besides conjugation. But do enrich your
vocabulary by learning many verbs in the infinitive form.
9. Listen to Spanish radio.
It will be mostly music. Try to catch some words. Try to do that for a while before you look
online for the lyrics. I’ve had good luck finding words on metrolyrics.com. Memorize the lyrics
and sing the song to yourself.
I’ve learned the Mexican “Happy Birthday” song. It’s called “Las mañanitas.” It’s long and it
doesn’t seem to make much sense, but I enjoy singing it. Every so often I get a chance to sing it
with other people at a birthday celebration. The words are in the appendix.
If you can find a talk radio program where listeners call in, you’ll get good practice in listening
to different voices and accents.
10. Choose “Spanish” on voice mail.
Maybe not when you’ve been on hold for 20 minutes and you absolutely have to get your phone
bill straightened out. Otherwise, give it a try. Repeat as many times as necessary to get the
information you want.
11. Take a CLEP test.
The College Level Examination Program (CLEP) offers two levels of tests of Spanish. Taking a
test will cost you $80 and can be done almost any time at almost any college or university.
The tests were developed by the College Boards, the people behind AP and SAT. They are
designed to allow college students to test out of taking Spanish 101 and 102, but anyone can take
them for any reason.
Signing up for a CLEP test will focus your energies, give you an immediate goal, and show your
strong and weak areas. No one needs to know you’re taking the test; no one needs to know your
score.
12. Ask permission to practice with native speakers.
This takes some courage. Do it on a day when everything is going well and you feel tough. A
day when your hair looks good. Maybe you’re waiting in a long line by someone speaking
Spanish. Say, “May I practice my Spanish with you, please?” You will probably exchange only a
sentence or two, but it’s a good way to get past the barrier in your own head that says, “You’re
no good. She doesn’t want to talk to you.”
Nine times out of ten when you do this the Spanish-speaker will praise your Spanish warmly and
excessively. It’s just the way they are. And you’ll feel good.
Meet our daughter Sara.
On a Tokyo train platform, she was approached by an earnest young man who bowed and
said, “Please. May I practice my English with you?” “Delighted,” said Sara. He fumbled in
his pocket, produced a blue Bic, and said, “This is a pen.” Since that was the extent of his
English, he thanked her, bowed again, and moved down the platform. That’s what I’m
talking about.
13. Watch Spanish TV.
Not the news. The announcers speak so fast you’ll be discouraged from the start. Watch one of
the extravaganza shows like “Sabadazón” on Saturday mornings on Univision, or follow a
telenovela.
Telenovelas are like our soap operas, with the major difference that they have a beginning and,
about 6 months later, an end. Stay alert to when one is beginning and get in on it. They come on
for 30 minutes, Monday through Friday, mostly in the late afternoon and evening.
My friends Benjamin and Celia both considered this to be the one best way to learn Spanish. It
will accustom your ear to the Spanish of many different people. You can even talk about it with
most Spanish-speakers you encounter. Everyone follows the telenovelas.
14. Learn vocabulary.
Vocabulary has a starring role in language learning. On the one hand, it is the absolute essential
to know, and, on the other hand, if you know enough words you will not need to know so much
grammar.
In the 1980s I picked up a travel book titled Never Make a Reservation In Your Own Name, by
Leonard S. Bernstein. The first chapter made a lasting impression on me. It’s called “Thirty Days
to Learning Italian,” and Mr. Bernstein’s not kidding. He tries to learn rapidly a little of the
language before visiting any country; in this case it was Italy. He spends about a month studying
by himself from a book, then hires a college student for conversation in the time remaining
before his trip. When he arrives, he looks for opportunities to use his (bad) Italian. Mr. Bernstein
maintains that “half the trick of learning a language is learning what not to learn,” so he treats the
verbs very lightly.
But he does learn vocabulary. He says, “The cornerstone of understanding language is building a
basic vocabulary.” If you know the word for what you want, you’ll succeed in communicating.
Maybe you discover you have no towels in your hotel room. It can be amusing to find the
housekeeper and pantomime drying off after a shower. But it’s much easier to pick up the phone
and say, “Quisiera una toalla, por favor.”
Meet my friend Benjamin.
He was once robbed in a Central American country. In telling the story to his friends, he
said, “ There was nothing I could do. They had a cuchara.” His friends burst out laughing.
Why hadn’t he been able to defend himself against robbers wielding a spoon? Now a
knife…a cuchillo…that would have been a different story.
15. Learn vocabulary in categories.
You will remember more of the words you learn if you’ll group them into subject categories.
Important categories include parts of the body, colors, numbers, family words, food, weather,
basic furniture and house words. Think of the activities where you use Spanish and make your
own group of words to learn. When I took my first class, our children made fun of me for using
masking tape and a black marker to put the Spanish word on everything in the house.
16. Follow this rule about mistakes.
If you say something incorrectly and realize it immediately, you can correct yourself right then
and go on. This will help you learn and won’t impede the flow. Self-correct or ignore; don’t
apologize. Just do the best you can. Always use the best Spanish you have right now. Don’t let
The Best get in the way of The Good. Tell yourself, “You’re doing fine. Keep going.”
Meet “mi amiga venturosa” Betty.
Betty learned Spanish so she could hunt bromeliads in Ecuador. Whether it’s recovering
lost luggage in the Quito airport or traveling a jungle river in a dugout canoe, Betty can
communicate. She’ll speak Spanish with anyone, anytime. I have never heard her apologize
for mistakes or for what she doesn’t know.
17. Stock up on useful phrases.
Learn the most common useful phrases. Any tourist book has many to choose from.
First, learn polite phrases.
Por favor and gracias.
Muy amable.—You are very kind.
Hasta luego, Nos vemos—two ways to say good-bye
Perdón—I beg your pardon
Disculpe—Excuse me
Con permiso—When leaving a room, a table or any gathering of people.
These are simple phrases, but important. The Spanish-speaking world takes more time for
everyday courtesies and values them more highly than we do. Greeting someone and saying
good-bye in a courteous way is essential. I have to remind myself of this often when I’m in a
“Let’s just get it done” frame of mind.
Meet my friend, Berta.
She is completely bilingual, a native speaker of Spanish. She reminds me that the formal
“you,” which is “usted,” is always correct and that the familiar “tu” should be used only
when the other person suggests it.
Berta tells a story to illustrate the importance of polite acknowledgement of others: She was
taking her son to the doctor, to a Spanish-speaking doctor. The waiting room was full. When
they walked in the door, everyone in the waiting room greeted Berta and her son, who replied
with their own “buenos días” before they sat down. As they left, they again acknowledged the
other people in the room.
Learn phrases that are hooks to hang many different words from.
Quisiera ____________+ noun or verb infinitive—I would like______ Quisiera dormir. I would
like to sleep.
Me gusta/no me gusta_____—I like__________/don’t like________ Me gusta café. No me gusta
Coca-Cola.
Tengo que _______+ verb infinitive- to have to do something. Tengo que lavar la ropa. I have to
wash the clothes.
Tengo __________+ condition word, such as hambre, quince años - I am hungry, fifteen years
old
Tengo dolor de___________+ body part, such as cabeza—I have a headache.
The questión words: como, cuanto, donde, cuando, quien, por que-how, how much, where, when,
who, why
That doesn’t seem like much. But if you have that much, you can get along, especially if you’ve
been learning vocabulary.
Meet Sr. Grosero.
He’s a busy person. He doesn’t waste time with polite greetings and small talk. And, no
matter who it is, he calls everyone “tu” immediately. #17 is for Sr. Grosero.
18. Collect jokes, ads, and sayings.
I collect jokes and sayings that help me remember not only words but also grammar. A former
teacher would say, “¡No me digas!” when she heard anything interesting, and I think of her when
I need the negative command form of “tu.” I puzzled over the sign “Se habla español,” before I
learned it’s the way you make the passive voice. “Que sera, sera” taught me future tense.
It’s fun to know sayings. “Asi es la vida,” “Otro gallo canta.” Here are two about the importance
of money: “Dolores con pan son menos,” and “Poderoso caballero es Don Dinero.” (With
money, troubles are less. A powerful gentleman is Mr. Money.)
Meet my friend Larry.
He collects slang expressions. His goal is to be able to hold his own in the traditional insult
exchanges of Mexican men. He was thrilled to tell me about a new snappy reply he’d
learned for “¿Cómo estas?” Even after he’d explained why it was so good, I didn’t get
it….but it works for Larry.
19. Volunteer where you can use your Spanish. Start now.
Of course you must constantly learn more words, more names of things. But don’t wait to use
your Spanish until your vocabulary is good. I volunteered at the county hospital when I barely
knew any Spanish. I would show people to where they needed to go, smiling and saying
cheerfully, “Esta bién.” One memorable day, when I was asked to stay with a woman in labor, I
alternated between “Esta bin” and “¡Empuje!”
Our daughter volunteered at a children’s shelter and relied most of the time on the question,
“¿Más leche?” After the first day, you’ll know what you need to learn for that situation.
You will be genuinely useful with whatever Spanish you have as a volunteer in a school,
hospital, civic program, church, nursing home, rehab center. You will be valuable to the
institution as well as to the clients. Whatever your Spanish is, it’s better than their English.
You don’t have to be very accomplished, just willing to try to communicate. Your good will
toward Spanish speakers will be a great help. If you are a kind person, truly interested in others,
you will understand that many Spanish-speakers in this country are humble people, doing menial
jobs. You show respect for them by speaking their language.
Here’s my friend Larry again. A retired orthodontist, he bought a 25-cent Border Patrol
handbook thirty years ago when he realized he had many Spanish-speaking patients. Now he
volunteers on Mondays at a dental clinic where no one else speaks English.
20. Try my shameful, low-down conversation trick.
If it seems impossible to understand what someone is saying, try my good/bad trick.
In my early days of listening to Spanish speakers, I was so nervous and focused on myself that I
understood less than 20%. I was lost and desperate. Finally, I devised a trick to get by: I would
mentally label everything either “good” or “bad,” judging as best I could from the general
context and the few words I managed to snatch from the flow. When I judged the situation
“good,” I put on a pleasant face. When it seemed “bad,” I showed a concerned face
This quick method was surprisingly effective. I used it for an embarrassingly long time. Making
sense of the river of sound which flows past you much too fast is a hard skill to acquire. Those
who learn their Spanish informally—in the street, so to speak—are good at it. Those who learn in
a class aren’t. It’s always been my weakest skill,
One of the first adult-ed classes I took was at Emory University in Atlanta. The Center For
Disease Control is near Emory, and it turned out that many of my classmates were researchers
from the CDC who’d learned their Spanish following native porters into the jungle in South
America. They were fearless about speaking and quick to understand. They made tons of
elementary mistakes and laughed a lot. We always went out for beer afterward and continued
with our incredibly bad Spanish. It was my first liberating taste of throwing grammar to the
winds and communicating any which way I could.
21. Learn how to get the information you really need.
Dividing speech into good/bad isn’t going to help when you have to understand a name, address,
price, involved situation, or anything else important. If I don’t understand necessary information
someone is telling me, I’ll say, “No le entendi. ´iRepita, por favor,” or “Otra vez, por favor,” or,
as a final try at understanding, “Escríbalo, por favor.”
Meet my friend Rolf.
One day in class he passed around his drawing of a most wonderful invention: the
Despaciador. It was a remote control to be aimed at anyone speaking rapid Spanish. The
buttons to press were “Slow,” “Pause,” and “Repeat.” Of course, you can say, “ Más
despacio, por favor,” but wouldn’t it be more fun to have a Despaciador?
22. Join or form a bilingual Toastmasters club.
Toastmasters International has chapters in many countries and has been helping people learn
public speaking for years. The structure of a Toastmasters meeting is a proven success. Everyone
speaks at every meeting. On different occasions, you might make a prepared speech, reply to an
impromptu question, lead a formal part of the meeting, or give your critique of another member’s
speech, all in addition to socializing and small talk.
For three years, I belonged to a bilingual Toastmasters club. Some of the members were trying to
improve their public speaking ability in English and some in Spanish. The business of the
meeting and most of the social exchanges were in Spanish.
If this idea appeals to you and you can’t find a bilingual club to join, it would be worth the effort
to organize one yourself. The variety of speaking experiences in a typical meeting makes you
stay alert and gives you useful practice in formal and informal situations.
23. Find a special-interest friend.
Find a topic you care about, learn the specialty vocabulary in Spanish, and keep your eyes open
for a fellow enthusiast. Our grandson Nick loves to talk about baseball with Mario, whom he
often encounters in the lobby of their apartment building. Mario throws a lot of Spanish into their
baseball conversations. If Nick took my advice, he could learn some Spanish baseball vocabulary
and enjoy his conversations with Mario even more.
24. Take defensive driving in Spanish.
If you have to take a defensive driving class, take it in Spanish. You’re only doing it to work off
a traffic fine or reduce your car insurance You don’t need the information. Might as well listen to
the Spanish and learn some car vocabulary.
Meet Sr. Defensivo.
He was the instructor in my defensive driving class. Of all his students, I was a) the only
woman, b) the only non-native Spanish speaker, and c) the only person over fifty. Sr.
Defensivo seemed to resent my presence, but I didn’t know why. At the end of the day,
when he presented my certificate, he asked, “Are you working for the State?” My shocked,
“No!” must have told him he wasn’t being supervised. When I realized how unwelcome I
had been in his class, I was proud I hadn’t left at the lunch break. And I had learned many
new words for “la policía.”
25. Go to a church service in Spanish.
The music is upbeat, and you already know what it’s about. If you go to a Catholic church, no
one will even notice you.
26. Make a point of listening to conversations you overhear in public.
Try to get the general idea. That woman on her cell phone: Is she talking to a friend or a family
member? Is she trying to get information or just chatting?
27. Talk out loud to yourself in Spanish. Read out loud to yourself in Spanish.
You’ll be surprised how helpful this is.
28. Read a book in Spanish.
Make it easy on yourself at first. Most popular American writers, fiction and non-fiction, have
been translated into Spanish. Choose something you’ve already read. Maybe Los siete habitos de
la gente altamente efectiva, by Stephen Covey, or La firma, by John Grisham.
Reading is the easiest of the four skills of language. Why? No pressure to indicate you’ve
understood, no pressure to understand, all the time in the world to puzzle it out, similarity of
many English words or roots and stems, context to help you. It’s one of the two passive skills,
but, in contrast to listening, where you usually have a real need to understand, reading is much
less demanding.
Also, take advantage of the opportunity all around you to read something in Spanish. Waiting at
the Department of Motor Vehicles (or any government agency), you can read their bulletins in
Spanish. Directions for every new lamp or toaster you buy will be in English and Spanish. Pick
up “People en español” at the grocery store checkout.
The ability to read well is a skill in itself. It is transferable from one language to another. If
you’re a good reader in English, you’ll be good in Spanish too.
29. Follow my procedure to read a novel in the original Spanish.
Most of the Spanish I know I have learned through reading. Nothing else will improve your
vocabulary as well.
After you’ve read John Grisham translated into Spanish, take the next step. Try reading a novel
written in the original Spanish, not a translation into Spanish from English. I can recommend a
murder mystery by the popular Spanish author Arturo Pérez-Reverte, La reina del sur. It is set in
the present day and is about the bad guys from Sinaloa, Mexico, in the drug trade and how our
heroine, The Queen of the South, escapes from them. It was made into a telenovela and is full of
action and intrigue.
Here is how I start reading a novel in the original Spanish:
First, I look at the back cover and the table of contents to see what it’s about. I look all over the
book, at the publication date and at other works by the same author to give me an idea about the
time frame.
Then I start reading the first chapter. I read through one time without worrying about words and
phrases I don’t understand. I highlight everything I don’t know, but I don’t pause. I’m fairly well
lost on this first reading. I stay calm though. If I can, I try to keep the characters straight and
maybe figure out where the plot might be going. I don’t stop to look up words; I just keep going.
I do one chapter at a time.
After I’ve gone through Chapter One for the first time, I start back again slowly. This time, I’m
aiming to understand what’s going on. And the second time through is astonishing. With no
effort, things start to come together. I understand words I didn’t before. I recognize the
characters and begin to get the direction of the plot.
On this second reading, I make notes for myself in the margins. I do three things: first, I look up
the words that are absolutely necessary to my understanding, but only those. It’s fatal to your
advancement in Spanish to be always translating into English. The less you translate and the
more you try to get by in Spanish, the more you’ll progress. For example, in any novel, there will
be paragraphs of description of the landscape, or of food in the market stalls, or of some other
irrelevant thing. I don’t look up those words. I dismiss them, saying to myself, “That paragraph
is about the animals on the farm. OK. Done.”
The second thing I do is to identify every character who seems at all important. The first
encounter with a character usually involves a detailed description. I do look up all those words I
don’t know. In the margin, I write “Fernando.” On a blank page at the front or back of the book,
I write “Fernando, p. 14.” If you’ve ever read a Russian novel, you know you have to make notes
to keep the characters straight. The same is true in Spanish because it’s not your language. Then
I’ll note the action in the margin: “Fernanado encuentra pistola escondida.” I do this in Spanish,
though, because I’m trying not to think in English as I read.
And third, I make margin notes about the progress of the plot, along with a general summary of
the chapter at the start And it’s got to be in Spanish, even bad Spanish, like: “capítulo 1—los tres
amigos, tristes a la muerte de su amigo.”
Making all these notes helps me keep track of the plot and know where I am when I go back to it
after I’ve left it for awhile.
I don’t ever worry about the words I don’t know. This is the one instance where my laziness is a
help. Part of the miracle of the second reading is comprehension of new words. It just happens.
And, if it doesn’t happen, 90% of the words you don’t know aren’t necessary for understanding.
Just read for fun. Reading casually, without using a dictionary, will do wonders for your Spanish.
Right there, you’re doing it. You’re having fun with your bad Spanish. You’re reading Spanish
and getting it.
Meet our daughter Katherine.
Katherine is an English teacher who says, “Remember, reading is reading. If you want to
build fluency in any language, you have to choose books where you’re not just reading
‘dutifully,’ you’re reading for a story you really care about and want to know the ending
to.”
30. Read the short story in Spanish in the appendix.
In the appendix is a copy of a well-known, charming short story, “Una carta a Dios.” It’s neither
easy nor very difficult. Practice your reading with this. It’s about a poor farmer, so the words you
won’t know are farming and crop words. I’ve included a list of the words you won’t know, with
their translation. Don’t look at the list on the first reading. See how well you can understand
without help. See if the miracle of the second reading happens for you. See if you can get the
story by simply putting yourself into a Spanish space and reading it. Look at the word list only
after you’ve done this.
In reading, as in every other way you use it, say often to yourself, “This is having fun with my
bad Spanish,” “Now I’m having fun with my bad Spanish.” That will keep you from fretting over
the gaps in your knowledge. It will keep you from thinking you’ll have fun with your bad
Spanish only sometime in that wonderful future when you’ve mastered chapter twelve in your
grammar book.
31. Write something in Spanish.
Writing well in Spanish is not as common as you might think. When I began graduate studies in
Spanish, I was so nervous that I arrived thirty minutes early for my first class. Several other
people were already there, conversing in rapid Spanish. I was terrified. What had made me think
I could hold my own with these people? However, I stayed and came to realize that many people
who speak Spanish fluently have learned as a child in a Spanish-speaking family. That does not
mean they can read it easily or know the grammar or can write. If you take some care, then your
written Spanish will be as good as that of many native speakers.
What possible occasion would you have to write? You may not even write much in English
anymore. But there is an argument to be made for the fun of writing in Spanish.
Along with speaking, writing is one of the active skills, where you are producing Spanish rather
than absorbing it. But it’s different from speaking. With speaking, listening, and reading, you
should let go and immerse yourself in the present reality. You should strive for communication
and the experience of the moment. You should try to associate Spanish words directly with
objects and actions and situations. You should avoid translating.
It’s different with writing. Writing in Spanish is the best way to polish your rough edges. It is the
time to consider correctness. When you write, you can look up words in the dictionary, consult a
verb book or grammar notes, and carefully construct a correct sentence.
Not only will you be thinking in Spanish but you’ll be thinking about Spanish. This is the only
time it’s helpful to try to analyze the language.
What would you write in Spanish?
Maybe you have native- speaker friends and want to show them the courtesy of a note of
sympathy or congratulations in Spanish.
Maybe you have a foreign pen pal. I correspond a couple of times a year with a 60-year-old
woman in Guatamala. “Estimada Señora,” I begin, and then I labor with a verb book to write a
good letter.
Maybe you’d like having a pen pal. Many listings for pen pals are online. I looked into one
called mylanguageexchage.com.
Whatever your reason, if you write to another person, you should be aware that Spanish writing
is formal and flowery. The opening paragraph does not go immediately to the business of the
letter. Both at the beginning and the end, it’s customary to inquire about the family, express
pleasure in your acquaintance with the person you’re writing, declare yourself eager to be of
service, mention good wishes for holidays that are near, and similar leisurely pleasantries. We
haven’t written like this in English in a long time and it’s all quite elegant. I guarantee that your
Spanish will become more correct if you try it….and, of course, that you’ll be having fun with
your ( improved ) Spanish.
32. Host a person from a Spanish-speaking country.
In my city, as in ninety-one others in the U.S., a non-profit organization called National Council
for International Visitors (nciv.org) provides volunteer opportunities to meet people visiting the
city for conferences. It can be as simple as picking them up at the airport or as involved as
inviting them to your home for a meal.
If you have school children at home, you can host a child their age from a Spanish-speaking
country for a period of about six weeks. Most people enjoy the experience very much. Our
family hosted a boy from Latin America, who went to school every day with our children. He
loved some family activities, such as ice skating, but he wasn’t so sure about others. One
Saturday morning when his chore was to vacuum downstairs, he said, bitterly, to me (in
Spanish), “In America there are no servants. The children are the servants.”
But don’t let this story discourage you. Our experience was rare; your experience will be better. I
guarantee it.
Meet Señora MasTarde.
Her calendar is full. Her To-Do list never ends. She always means to get back to her
Spanish, but not now. Later. It wouldn’t take much of her time to host a student for a few
weeks or a visiting professional for dinner, and she’d have some fun with her Spanish.
33. Form a Spanish conversation group.
Five or six people is ideal. Think of a focus for your conversation. In my conversation group, we
all read the same book in Spanish and talk about it in Spanish. Your group could discuss movies
you’ve seen, which would probably be movies in English but your summary of the plot and
comments would be in Spanish. You could focus on travel, taking a different country each time.
Your group could meet at different restaurants and talk about food.
You do need a focus for the group to prevent it deteriorating into aimless conversation. Even
though it might be in Spanish, aimless conversation will not improve your vocabulary or your
ability to express a difficult thought.
34. Hire a private tutor.
This seems obvious and is easy to do. However, in my experience, it is wise to specify a
particular goal and a specific time in which you and the tutor will be working toward your goal.
Without a set time period and goal, it becomes a social problem when you want to quit. From the
start, remember that you are the customer and it’s your job to maintain control of the lessons.
I have hired tutors for prices ranging from $20/hour to $68/hour. I’ve always had a goal in mind.
Once it was to take a college entrance Spanish placement test, which I’d signed up for just to
make myself study. Once it was to read three famous chapters of Don Quixote. Once it was to
take advantage of a two-week vacation in Costa Rica. Currently, I have a tutor to whom I e-mail
an essay I’ve written in Spanish. The choice of subject and intervals between essays are mine to
determine. I pay him when he replies to my essay with his corrections.
35. Always look for interesting ways to practice Spanish.
Yesterday the butcher, wrapping my pork shoulder, remarked that his wife’s best recipe was for
pork shoulder. “How does she cook it?” I asked, and that’s how I learned his wife is from
Guatemala. Now, if I want to, I can go back and ask if she’d be willing to give me a cooking
lesson in Spanish. It would probably be for just one time, probably in her own kitchen. She’d
earn some money and I’d learn her recipes and practice my Spanish. Look for your own ways to
get out into the community and have fun with your bad Spanish.
36. Learn to tell the story of Little Red Riding Hood in Spanish.
You need only a few words you might not know: Caperucita Roja, el lobo. Spanish fairy tales
begin “Había una vez…,” like our “Once upon a time….”
37. Learn the extremely useful idiom “tengo que . . .”
It means “I have to……” You say, “Tengo que trabajar.” I have to work. “Tengo que limpiar la
casa.” I have to clean the house. “Tengo que salir.” I have to leave. The beauty of “tengo que” is
that you use the verb infinitive; you don’t conjugate the verb but you give a whole sentence of
information.
38. Play with the numbers.
Learn the numbers to 100. Then learn the ordinal numbers: first, second, twentieth, and so on.
Count backwards.
Learn the words for “add, subtract, multiply, divide, percent.” Numbers are so important in
everyday life that it will pay big dividends to feel easy using them.
Practice writing numbers as you hear them, maybe on talk radio. If you have a conversation
partner or Spanish-speaking friend, ask them to dictate telephone numbers to you in Spanish. It’s
surprising that it’s much more difficult to hear, understand, and write down numbers than words.
39. Play with “puedo.”
It means “I can,” and is almost as useful as “Tengo que…. “ It has the same advantage that you
don’t need to conjugate the verb that follows. “No puedo” is every bit as useful, of course.
“Puedo hablar español.” “No puedo limpiar la casa.”
40. Use “quisiera.”
It means “I would like…. “ and is the polite way of asking for something. “Quisiera una cerveza,
por favor.” I would like a beer. “Quisiera ir al cine.” I would like to go to the movie.
41. Read a chapter in Don Quixote.
Establish some credentials. Read one of the famous chapters. Read the one where Don Quixote
attacks the windmills, thinking they are giants, while Sancho Panza keeps urging him to quit and
telling him they are windmills.
Miguel Cervantes, the author of Don Quixote, is the Shakespeare of the Spanish language. I once
said exactly this to a Spanish professor, who informed me coldly that it’s more accurate to say
that Shakespeare is the Cervantes of the English language.
Spanish speakers are extremely proud of Cervantes. He lived at the same time as Shakespeare,
and died on the same day, in fact. Don Quixote is said to be the first novel ever written. It’s
considered to be the finest novel ever written, and not just by Spaniards. The Spanish of
Cervantes is easier for us to read than the English of Shakespeare because it has changed less
since the 17th century.
Reading a chapter will be fairly tough going, but you will be a literate citizen of the world when
you do.
42. Learn a joke in Spanish. Learn to tell it.
My one joke is old and well known and helps me remember two important irregular verbs. It’s
essential to know that my joke is from back in the days when soda from a machine cost ten cents.
Here’s the joke:
A little boy from Mexico is visiting the U.S. He spies a soda machine, comes closer, and sees a
slot that has written over it “Dime.” Happily, he leans over, puts his mouth close to the slot, and
says, “Dame una Coca-Cola, por favor.”
Now, you have to know that “dime” means “tell me.” “Dame” means “give me.” I think of that
little boy whenever I need to use the command form in “tu” of the verbs decir or dar.
43. Memorize a poem in Spanish.
This is like learning a song. The words are beautiful and you can say it to yourself when you
wake up in the middle of the night and can’t go back to sleep.
At the suggestion of my friend Marîa Elena, who taught high school Spanish, I considered the
poems of Gustavo Adolfo Becquer. “Rima 53” is the one I memorized. It tells a standard love
story: I loved you so much and you were rotten to me and don’t you ever expect to be loved that
much again in your whole life by anyone else. The words and rhymes in Spanish roll delightfully
off your tongue when you say it.
44. Find newspapers from Spanish-speaking countries online.
You’ll find a different point of view about world events in El Real from Madrid or Reforma or
La
Jornada
from
Mexico.
Find
your
own
newspaper
at
newspaperworlld.com/language/Spanish.asp.
45. Narrate out loud to yourself or to others, for their amusement, a play-by-play of
what you and they are doing. In Spanish. Of course.
46. Rent a movie in Spanish.
It will probably have subtitles in English, but you’ll be hearing the Spanish and it will help your
ear.
47.
In a gathering of different people, ask out loud, “Does anyone here speak
Spanish?”
Also ask friends. You might be surprised. I had known my neighbor Marty and her family for
more than ten years. Her daughter took care of our dogs when we left town. We chatted when we
met on the street. One day I attended a lecture in Spanish and was surprised to see Marty there.
“You speak Spanish?” I asked. “Yes. I used to teach high school Spanish.”
Now I ask every new acquaintance. Once I asked everyone at a golf cocktail party and found two
people.
48. Use the Internet.
This goes without saying. Explore the possibilities. Keep digging until you find something you
want. It should be free. You can have conversations on Skype, do grammar exercises, write to a
pen pal, read the newspaper from Mexico City, take a class for credit. The students in our
grandson’s Spanish class, for instance, were all connected to Mexican Facebook friends. They
write back and forth in Spanish. Various online services facilitate this sort of informal exchange.
49. Read a cartoon book in Spanish.
The classic cartoons “Peanuts” and “Calvin and Hobbes” are available in Spanish. It helps to
learn the way people really talk.
50. Find a conversation partner
This is it. This is the one best idea I have. This is really the way I learned Spanish.
Finding a conversation partner is the most important step you can take to enjoy and improve your
Spanish. Regular conversation, exclusively in Spanish, with one other person will improve your
confidence and fluency more than any other single thing you can do. It will force you to listen,
understand, and reply promptly and appropriately. It will make you think rapidly on your feet
with no chance to prepare. It will give you a safe place to practice what you know. It will
increase your fluency and confidence immeasurably, and help your vocabulary and grammar
painlessly. You will enjoy it immensely. It’s what’s worked for me.
To summarize, my recommendation is this: The one best way to have fun with your bad Spanish
is with 1) regular conversation, which is 2) exclusively in Spanish, and 3) with one other person.
Why These Three Rules?
1) Regular?
You have already forgotten Spanish grammar and vocabulary that you once knew. Why? You
didn’t use them. Language—even your native language—will fade away if it’s not used. In the
case of a second language that’s not part of your daily life, you will remember almost none of it
without frequent practice. Because it’s not part of your everyday round, you must make a place
for it—not occasionally at a party, not after you’ve had a few drinks, not just a phrase here and
there. Only by immersing yourself in a Spanish-speaking reality for at least one uninterrupted
hour a week will you make any progress.
2) Spanish exclusively?
A curious thing happens when you are listening to another language or trying to express yourself
in it. With even one word in your native language, the spell is broken. A word in your own
language is an enormous, momentary relief. You have been struggling to understand what you’re
hearing, or searching desperately for the correct word for what you need to say. Suddenly you
hear a word in English. Someone has thrown you a lifeline.
Yes, but it is an illusion. You will not progress if you use English words when the going gets
tough. Maintain the pressure to understand and to express yourself in the other language. You
need to learn to think in Spanish. Thinking in Spanish means to associate the word with its object
or idea without an intermediary journey through English.
This is immersion. It’s really the only way. Throughout history, millions of people, displaced
irrevocably from their homes, have learned a new language this way. Surely you, a pampered
American, can decide to place yourself in this uncomfortable position. It’s only for your
conversation hour in Spanish that you must do this.
Meet my dear friend Celia (Que en paz descanse).
I learned the value of immersion from Celia, my wonderful, demanding conversation
partner of nearly 20 years. She insisted on maintaining Spanish for the length of our walks
through the neighborhood. If I lapsed into English out of frustration, she would simply
wait until I’d struggled through to some kind of Spanish. If Celia herself was stumped, she
would persist with, “La cosa que. . . , The thing that….” or with the present tense of the
verb.
Celia also spoke only Spanish to me on the telephone, even on the morning she called to tell
me she’d be unavailable because her 101-year-old mother had just died. It’s hard to know
what to say in English when someone has died, so imagine how hard it was to say
something sincere in Spanish.
So, NO ENGLISH. It seems strange, but total immersion for an extended period is much easier
than if you allow any break into English, even for only one word.
You may feel you’re drowning in Spanish, barely able to keep your head out of water. If you stay
resolutely in Spanish it will get easier. You will begin to think in Spanish, ever so little though it
may be. Even though a word in English comes like a gulp of fresh air to a drowning person, it
only delays the moment when you start to feel you’re surviving in Spanish. The minute you
allow English you have stopped progressing. In fact, you have actually regressed because you
now must start again to get your head back into Spanish.
Make every effort to stay in Spanish. It’s difficult for several reasons. You don’t have an
adequate vocabulary. You don’t know graceful transition phrases like “Every now and then,”
“Above all,” “In spite of that.” How can you communicate with the limited resources you have?
Your key tactic is to find another way to say what you have in mind.
Detach yourself from the English words or phrase you’re trying to translate into Spanish. Do not
translate. DO NOT TRANSLATE. Focus on the IDEA you want to get across, not the way you
can mangle Spanish to mimic the exact English you’re thinking of.
Any language has many ways to get across the same idea. Consider, for example, some possible
ways to ask, “You want fries with that?”
You could say: “Fries?”, “Potatoes?” or just “¿Más?” while making a rolling gesture with your
hand. You could gesture to a photo of fries or draw a quick picture or pantomime dipping a fry in
ketchup and eating it.
You can act out your word or idea. You can draw pictures, on paper or in the air. You can invent
words. Turn an English word into Spanish yourself: “Donde esta el restroom-o?” These are
desperate measures, certainly not recommended by teachers, but they serve to keep you in the
conversation and in Spanish.
3) Only one person?
It seems jolly to form a Spanish-speaking group. It is jolly, and you should try to do it, but it’s no
substitute for your one-person companion. It’s too easy to cheat in a group.
I’ve been in the same book group of 5 or 6 women for 30 years. We meet every Monday from
5:00-6:00 and discuss, in Spanish, a book we’re reading in Spanish. We are good friends and this
weekly session maintains our Spanish. But, in a group, you can get by with doing very little.
Many times in our tertulia I’ve been tired and inattentive and paid spotty attention to the
discussion. No one notices. I smile, laugh when everyone else does, and no one cares. That’s the
way it is in a group. You can avoid carrying the conversational ball as much as you like.
With one conversation partner, you can’t get away with that. Unless you happen to have a
partner who dominates the conversation (and, if you do, that’s not a good partner), you’ll have to
pay attention to what’s said to you and right away say something back that makes sense.
Who would be a good conversation partner?
It may take some time to find a conversation partner. The advantages are so great, however, that
it’s worth the time, worth the search. How can you select a good partner? First, let’s eliminate
some obvious choices.
Who would not be a good conversation partner?
1) A native speaker of Spanish is not a good conversation partner. The nicest people in the world
speak Spanish. They will praise and encourage your most elementary sentences. They’re like a
fond Little League parent, applauding the slightest effort. But, in truth, you are a bother to them.
They must slow down their thought processes to converse with you. Usually they sense that they
must also slow down their speech.
Imagine yourself being approached by an acquaintance who wants to practice English. You
would be irritated and bored, right? So do not make yourself a problem to a native speaker. It’s
especially important to extend this courtesy to a person who is doing a job. .like a waiter,
housekeeper, owner of a small store.
Native speakers also will not understand how difficult Spanish is for you. They won’t even
notice the momentous first time you produce a sentence with a correct arrangement of direct and
indirect object pronouns. Why not? Correctness sounds natural in one’s own language; it’s only
incorrectness that is glaring.
Remember, a native speaker has pride in the language and is wounded by your butchering of it. I
have many examples of this. Once I was chatting with two friends, native speakers, and asked
one of them, “¿Qúe is tu dirección?” The other, though the most genteel woman imaginable,
couldn’t stand it any longer and exclaimed, “¡Cúal es tu direction!” Another time, a teacher from
whom I’d taken several classes told me we’d converse only in English from then on because my
Spanish was so bad it made her depressed.
2) A fellow learner of Spanish on a much different level from you is not a good conversation
partner. One of you will be bored and the other apologetic.
3) Someone who can’t meet with you regularly & conveniently is not a good conversation
partner. It’s like joining a gym. If you can’t make it fit easily into your schedule, you won’t work
out there.
4) Someone you pay to converse with you is not the best conversation partner. This would
almost certainly be a native speaker who would be tempted to turn your time into a grammar
lesson. If grammar and correctness are what you want, that’s fine. If fluency and fun are more
important, don’t pay a native speaker for lessons.
5) Though itʼs not ideal, if you can’t find anyone else, it’s not too bad to trade conversation
sessions with a native Spanish speaker who wants to practice English. Agree beforehand to
maintain the target language during the hour. “Ni una palabra in inglés” and “Not a word in
Spanish.”
That probably eliminates everyone you’ve already elected in your mind to be your conversation
partner.
Who, then, would be a good conversation partner?
1) Someone on roughly the same level of competence as yours.
Sure, you won’t be any help for each other’s grammar, but both of you will feel comfortable.
You need someone who will cheerfully put up with you in the early stages of conversation.
Actually speaking Spanish—even bad Spanish—at length with another person will give you
fluency and confidence.
2) Someone whose schedule is compatible with yours and who agrees with you about the ground
rules.
The most important ground rule is “No English.” Minor ground rules will emerge, especially
about correction of grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation. You want to help each other, but your
goal is to maintain an easy flow of conversation.
It’s true that it’s hard to converse without looking up words in a dictionary. Make notes and do it
later. Don’t interrupt your conversation even to find the key word. it’s part of the fun to have to
communicate without the perfect tools.
Your conversation partner will help you progress amazingly in Spanish, without considering it a
bore, a chore, a job, or a favor to a friend. You are equals.
Meet my admirable friend Don Alberto.
He came from Cuba with little English and less money. He and his wife have raised five
daughters and have prospered here. Many times he has reminded me of his best advice:
“Se aprende hablar, hablando.” You learn to speak by speaking.
Para terminar
This is my story. Every one of these ideas has worked for me. I hope you will be inspired to
think of yourself as a lifetime learner whose joy is Spanish. Accept as your base whatever level
of book knowledge you have now and turn your energy to learning vocabulary, finding a
conversation partner, and constantly seeking opportunities to use your Spanish. If you do nothing
else, do those three things and your Spanish will improve almost without your thinking about it.
So, get out and get going; be a citizen of the world; make yourself useful; impress your friends.
Go ahead and enjoy your bad Spanish. You’ll feel giddy and alive when you accomplish a real
exchange in another language. Do it right now. Use what you have. Right now.
Acknowledgements
Muchísimas gracias to Sara McCabe and Katherine Schulten for their editorial counsel, technical
expertise, and abundant encouragement.
About the Author
Judy Schulten lives in Texas. She has been speaking bad Spanish for 40 years.
For more information about Judy’s approach to language or for guest lecture engagements,
please write to badspanishbook@gmail.com.
Appendices
• Works Cited
• Una carta a Dios
• Vocabulary for Una carta a Dios
• Opposites
• The twenty-four ways of “You were”
• “Las mañanitas”
Works Cited
Bernstein, Leonard S. 1981. Never Make a Reservation In Your Own Name. Chicago, New York,
San Francisco. Rand McNally & Company.
Bhattacharjee, Yudhijit. “Why Bilinguals Are Smarter.” New York Times, Nov. 17, 2012.
Krashen, Stephen and Terrell, Tracy D. 1983. The Natural Approach. Hayward, CA. Alemany
Press.
Strauch, Barbara. 2010. The Secret Life of the Grown-Up Brain. New York. Penguin Viking.
Vocabulary: “Una carta a Dios”
maíz—corn
frijol—bean
aguacero—rain shower
solar—to blow
granizos—hail
cartero—postman
huerta—large vegetable garden
langostas—locusts
aflijas—be afflicted
buzón—mailbox
golpecito—blow
sueldo—salary
se enfadó—became angry
arrugando—wrinkling
puñetazo—thump
Vocabulary: Opposites
In my classes in English for adult learners, I saw that everyone liked learning pairs of words with
opposite meanings, like “good-bad,” “fast-slow,” “hot-cold.”
Here, then are some pairs in Spanish. Most of these are adjectives, but opposites can be nouns
(hombre-mujer), verbs (empezar-terminar), and adverbs (despacio-rápidamente).
abierto—cerrado
ahorrar – gastar
alto—bajo
antes—después
arriba—abajo
bien—mal
bueno—malo
calor—frio
caro—barato
de—a
derecho—izquierda
día—noche
entrada—salida
feo—bonito, bello
gordo—flaco
joven—viejo
lejos—cerca
limpio—sucio
lleno—vacío
más—menos
nada—todo
nuevo—viejo
olvidar—recordar
pasado—futuro
pequeño—grande
prendido—apagado
rico-pobre
seco—mojado
siempre—nunca
sol—sombra
temprano—tarde
trabajar—jugar
verdadero—falso
vivo—muerto
The Twenty-four-plus Ways of “you were”
Spanish verbs are a dense jungle, full of traps for the speaker of English. Take the simple phrase
“you were.” In English this two-word sentence does a lot of work all by itself. In Spanish many
variations exist to do what seems like the same work. They would all be correctly translated as
“you were.”
To translate “you were” from English to Spanish, you must make several fine distinctions all at
once. Which verb you choose depends on:
1) how many people you’re talking to—that is, singular/plural,
2) your relationship to them—familiar/ formal,
3) whether you’re talking about a temporary condition or a permanent one—the two verbs that
mean “to be, “ estar/ser,
4) whether you’re talking about the general past or a completed action in the past—
imperfect/preterite tenses, and
5) whether your tone is decisive or doubtful—indicative/subjunctive mode.
Even more variations are possible if you include the pronoun “vos” used in Argentina, Costa
Rica, and some other countries.
Then there are all the idioms with “tener” that would be translated as “ you were.” For example,
tenía hambre—you were hungry, tuviste sed—you were thirsty, tuvo miedo—you were afraid,
tenías quince años—you were fifteen years old.
Once, to demonstrate to a Spanish-speaking friend the difficulty of the verbs, I made a set of
twenty-four flash cards. Each card had a different Spanish verb form on it. I asked her to look at
each card and translate it into English. Of course, every card could be translated as “you were.”
Here are examples of twenty-four different ways to say “you were” in Spanish, using the
pronoun “tu” in several different tenses. For each one, the meaning is distinct in Spanish but
would be correctly translated into English as “you were.”