Hey!
I hope you read the previous articles and set your mind to go abroad. But now comes the tricky question. A university or an internship? I know most language students will choose a university as it’s easier to improve your language proficiency. However, if you select an internship, there are ways to get better at the language you’re studying too. I’m about to give you 12 tips on how to improve your Spanish (I’ll be talking about Spanish, but you can apply it to any language obviously).
Tip number one. Switch your phone to Spanish. If you haven’t done it yet, do it. It might seem like a minor thing, but we spend a lot of time on our phones every day. Be it Instagram, Facebook, UofG Abroad Blog… we do use it substantially. Having your phone in Spanish will help you learn basic vocabulary and expressions like añadir= to add, almacenamiento = storage, editar perfil = to edit a profile, sugerencias de Siri = Siri’s suggestions, tiempo = weather…. etc etc etc. Seeing these words every day, they will get to your head and trust me, you’ll never forget them. I switched my phone to Spanish about 2 years ago and every now and then I find it difficult to remember the ‘phone-vocab’ in English or Czech.
Two. Live with Spanish people. I know you want to live with your friends, I know it’s hard to choose strangers over them. Nevertheless, there is no better way to pick up local expressions than by living with natives. When I was in Scotland, I lived with James (a charming Scottish guy) and my language skills and confidence built up noticeably. If you feel too attached to your friends to do that, you can always compromise. Live with your friends but share the flat with Spaniards too.
Disclaimer: This year I decided to share a flat with my boyfriend. Contradictory to what I’m advising you to do, right? It’s because after two long years living apart (I was in Scotland and he was in the Czech Republic) it seemed like a good idea. Priorities. But we do talk to our Spanish landlady on a daily basis. You can also talk to your neighbours!
Three – Blablacar. You need to get somewhere and you want to get there cheaply, am I right? #students… The best app you can use is Blablacar. You share a ride with other people who are going to the same destination. You save money, the planet, time and meet people. The first day I arrived in Seville I used this app (for the first time) and got picked up by a lovely Spanish guy from Jerez. Luckily, he studied all over the world so he didn’t have a strong Andalusian accent. We were chatting for the full ride and became friends. We’re still in touch, go on trips together and sometimes we meet and exchange languages.
Four. Speak Spanish as much as you can. When you go to register at the police (they don’t speak English at most places in Spain anyway), when you order in a restaurant and when you go shopping. Especially when buying food, pay attention to all the labels, this way it will stick to your mind. You can also practise speaking Spanish with your non-native friends. It is usually easier because you don’t feel that intimidated (at least I am whenever I speak to natives). The better your friends are the more enriching it is for you of course. I was lucky that one of my ‘best-friend-colleagues’ speaks Spanish fluently. Her level is C1/C2 and we agreed on chatting in Spanish, both personally and via Messenger. So far so good.
Five. Prepare your English lessons thoroughly. I mean, you would have to do that anyway. Maybe you’re teaching when to use present simple, maybe some new vocabulary or phrasal verbs. Make sure you know the Spanish translation too. I always try to explain new words and grammar in English and then the students tell me the Spanish meaning. Just to double-check they know what I’m talking about. Sometimes they use a word I’ve never heard so we kind of swap roles and they teach me some Spanish. They love that.
Six. Watch Spanish TV series. I don’t even know why I didn’t do that before. I watched some Spanish films occasionally, but that was it. I guess I thought it’d be too hard for me to understand. However, after watching three series of Cable Girls in Spanish with Spanish subtitles, I am able to watch dubbed Friends in Spanish without any subtitles… and actually understand! I’d say watching a TV series you know by heart is a good idea to make sure you know what’s going on…and who wouldn’t know Friends, right? Nonetheless, you will have to get used to their high-pitch Spanish voices (especially Rachel’s and Ross’s uugh). Another good Netflix series is El Ministerio del Tiempo. It’s about time-travel in Spain, so if you forget the time-travel part, you learn some Spanish history too.
Seven. Read books in Spanish. Buy a kindle and download your books there. I know it’s not paper, I know it doesn’t have that paper smell but…! It’s environmentally friendly and you get to carry around thousands of books in one tiny gadget. On top of that, there’s a dictionary you can download and whenever you’re not sure about a word, just tap on it and the meaning will pop up. All the words that you look up are then added to ‘Vocabulary Builder’ where you can revise them as flashcards. You can also mark them as ‘Mastered’ if you don’t want them to show up in your Vocabulary Builder anymore. I’m currently reading Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen and I’ve never seen such an accumulation of past subjunctive. Yaay.
Eight. Register on a language exchange website and find a pal there. A handy website worth mentioning is mylanguageexchange.com. Thanks to this website, I met Regina – a sweet Spanish girl who has travelled around the world and speaks loads of languages. Fun fact: Her boyfriend is Italian and whenever they’re together, they speak Itañolish (of course it’s not a real word, she made it up) – a mixture of Italian, Spanish and English. I feel sorry for their future kids though.
Nine. Join a sports club. Or a chess club. Just any club. For example, my boyfriend became a member of a local athletics club. We befriended the owner of the club and his girlfriend. Great folks. Welcoming, easy-going, open-minded…and fortunately their accent is not that harsh either. Although Alvaro (the owner) makes jokes all the time and sometimes we don’t get it because of the language barrier… but then it’s actually even funnier. He’s like a Spanish version of Chandler.
Ten. Download DuoLingo and/or Babel. I always recommend DuoLingo to anyone learning a foreign language. My boyfriend’s been using it for about 5 months now and most of his knowledge comes pretty much from this app. And he’s good. As for the other app, I haven’t had the chance to use it yet, but a close friend of mine praised it so much I had to list it here at least. I’d say DuoLingo is great if you have little to no previous knowledge and Babel is for advanced students. Oh and a tiny wee note: DuoLingo is for free whereas Babel isn’t.
Eleven – Couchsurfing. When travelling and looking for accommodation, use this app. It’s similar to Airbnb, but this one’s even better…it’s gratis. People from all around the world register with this app and offer their place to us – homeless people. You can see recommendations from other travellers too, so it shouldn’t occur that the person is a murderer. Even if, at least he’s a local and you get to practise some Spanish before you die.
Twelve. Join societies that meet up to practise Spanish regularly. The best combo – a glass of sherry and a bunch of Spaniards. Next week, I’m going to try that for the first time, so will let you know how it goes!
P.S. If you work at It Sounds Fun, each English teacher is given a Spanish assistant, so you might do some bonding there too!
If you want to know why I chose an internship over a university, check out this video. I hope this helped to calm down all the interns. Any more queries feel free to drop me a message on Facebook or Instagram.
This article was originally written for the University of Glasgow and published on their blog.
Have a good one,