of course those studies helped me understand the basics of Spanish but I soon realized that I could understand Spanish if I watched a video I could understand but if someone asked me a question I couldn't respond it was very frustrating and I know this probably happens to a lot of you who can understand for example what I'm saying in this video but can't respond fund it's very frustrating so I started trying to find alternative ways to supplement or to go with my studies in University one of those ways was practicing my listening I started watching
videos I started listening to a lot of music in Spanish I started watching movies and also listening to podcasts so that's how I started understanding more phrases and More Words complex words in Spanish but I was still missing a fundamental a very important piece speaking of course there are many many Spanish speakers in the U.S to practice with and I have family from Mexico so I had many people to practice with but I like many language Learners many of you probably were so embarrassed to speak Spanish with native speakers especially with my family because I
was ashamed I made a lot of mistakes and I learned that it's normal to make mistakes and we have to get over it and just go just practice so I had to start practicing with my family and I started taking conversation lessons online with tutors so I Code Practice my speaking so that's how I started improving really my Spanish but what changed my life with language learning was when I studied abroad in Spain for the first time about five years ago one year after I began studying Spanish I got the opportunity to come to Spain
and study Spanish that totally changed my perspective about languages because I realized that if you don't practice with people with native speakers you will never achieve fluency because you need to practice your speaking skills and you need exposure exposure like you need to listen to that language being spoken in a slow speed like this at the beginning and later in a more advanced speed so I realized that I needed to practice a lot more listen a lot more so when I went back to the US I started really practicing with my family I gave up
the shame and said I'm going to do this I'm going to become fluent in Spanish so up until now six years later I have been studying Spanish every day so now obviously I'm not reading grammar or textbooks now I read books in Spanish listen to many podcasts in Spanish and obviously I live in Spain so I practice my Spanish every single day now I'm fluent in Spanish I can say that confidently but before at the beginning of this process I was ashamed and I couldn't talk to people in Spanish I couldn't respond to people in
Spanish so that's kind of an overview of how I learned Spanish about three years ago I started studying Portuguese as well and I already knew how to study a language I knew the basics of what you need to do you need to study grammar and vocabulary but what's more important is practicing listening yeah practicing listening like you are now watching movies listening to music and practicing with native speakers so again I found a tutor from Brazil to practice my conversation with and now we can say I have a intermediate level in Portuguese I can hold
a conversation yeah so that's how I became trilingual it has been a long journey and it's been difficult I had many moments when I wanted to give and stop studying Spanish and stop practicing with people because I was ashamed I was so shy and ashamed of my accent of my pronunciation of my mistakes of my basic vocabulary but what happened with time I really tried to stay motivated and keep studying and with time I gained fluency and confidence to travel the world and speak Spanish and give classes in Spanish now I teach Spanish so that
just goes to show that practice makes better never perfect you may watch my content on Instagram and see that I make mistakes in Spanish but that's something that we have to accept as language Learners so what's the moral of the story what can you learn from my language learning Journey well here I have three lessons that I learned in six years of studying languages that you can apply to your language studies today so let's get into three lessons three learning lessons from language learning lesson number one you need to find your why why do you
want to learn English I can tell you that my why for learning Spanish was to be able to speak to my family to be able to have a conversation with my grandparents abuelitos in Mexico and that is my main why my other why was to be able to travel the world and to challenge myself to challenge myself to travel and speak with people and gain confidence speaking a second language so reflect on that take a moment to think why do you want to learn English how will learning English benefit your life maybe you'll get a
better job make more money right maybe you will travel the world or maybe you even want to move to an English-speaking country the United States United Kingdom find your why there are so many reasons to learn English and you have to throughout the process remember why are you doing this because you will get to a point where you're tired and you're exhausted and you feel like you're not advancing in your English studies remind yourself why you're doing it and keep going keep studying don't give up lesson number two practice practice practice practice it is so
important that you practice your speaking skills with native speakers or with other language Learners you need to exercise your mouth and actually try to produce language we can't always receive I mean watch your videos and read without actually saying and taking everything we have in our brain out producing language we need to actively engage age English it sounds easy right but I notice with many of my students and in my own case that the hardest thing about practicing is not actually speaking it's getting over the fear and the shame of making mistakes we are so
ashamed of saying something wrong or saying something that sounds dumb or saying something that makes someone laugh at us that we block ourselves we don't allow ourselves to practice that's a problem try not to let your shame and your embarrassment keep you from advancing remember practice makes better never perfect so with time you'll improve and you will gain confidence and you'll learn words and you'll learn to speak confidently and fluently but you will never speak perfectly I have studied Spanish for six years and I come from a Mexican family and I don't speak Spanish perfectly
that's okay at some point we have to accept our level and accept ourselves and applaud be happy and be proud of ourselves for the work that we put in so practice and get over the fear of making mistakes trust me okay so lesson number three you need to develop consistency and dedication motivation is not enough to learn a language motivation disappears like that yeah one day you wake up motivated you're happy you're ready to study maybe the next day you think I don't want to study anymore I'm not advancing at that point you need to
remember to be consistent we need consistency we need to study every single day or expose ourselves every single day to English I don't want him to think that you need to read a textbook every day or read a chapter in a book every day honestly studying can be watching a video in English on YouTube or it can be watching an episode of Friends on Netflix or listening to a podcast in English 5 minutes 10 minutes a day 20 minutes a day if you can you don't need to read a textbook every day you don't need
to study grammar every video it's not a Sprint it's a marathon it's not a Sprint you don't need to rest to learn English you don't need to try to learn English quickly in one month in two months you need to jog right it's a marathon you need to do a little every day and with time you'll improve and become so much better fluency true fluency in English is achieved over time so be consistent and dedicate yourself to learning a little bit every day you don't need to worry about learning quickly learning in a rush make
English a part of your life you don't need to move to the US or move to the UK like I moved to Spain to truly learn English you just need to have English in your life a little bit every day thank you so much for joining me today I hope that you enjoyed the first episode and were able to understand the main ideas not every word as I said and I really hope that you can apply these free learning lessons to your English Journey remember I will be here every week to support you and help
you practice your English listening if you're interested in a free study guide created by me you can click the link below this study guide has videos and resources and tips to improve your English a little bit every day remember practice makes better and you can find much more language learning content on Instagram and Tick Tock at M language see you next week
