Learn Spanish Yourself

Teaching yourself Spanish can be frustrating when you discover that behind the flowing elegance of its characteristic sound is a convoluted system of grammatical rules. Teaching yourself Spanish involves memorisation that can easily become mind-numbing.

English is often structured completely differently. Spanish is a language where even nouns without genitals have gender! It is a language where verbs follow complex rules involving gender, quantity, and tense, yet the most commonly used verbs disregard these rules anyway.

Then again, English has its own bizarre characteristics that seem arbitrary. By way of example just consider how English words are spelled! Actually you might be better off learning the basics of Spanish by concentrating on speaking Spanish rather then later on figuring out the logic behind what you hear and say.

In the course of finding out how to learn Spanish you might balk at the irony of the dullness involved in mastering a thing of such striking beauty. You might be amazed at how Spaniards (or Mexicans, Cubans, Argentinians etc. for that matter) speak with such rapidity and lack of second thought.

Spanish is the 2nd most spoken language in the world, and that’s only in terms of native speakers. That equates to a whole lot of people who don’t always think their language is the most beautiful thing, people who live and breathe just like anyone else.

In fact, in many ways, Spanish is not as difficult as English. Just think about how Spanish sounds for example: aside from having to practice few lispy and throaty consonant sounds, Spanish phonetics are pretty easy for, an English speaker. To add to that, words are spelled out exactly as they are pronounced. There are no silent letters to worry about, or letters that vary in pronunciation from word to word. Just remember that the accent is also an important part of how a word is spelled.

Maybe you’ve been dreaming about the day when you could finally be able to talk to Gael Garcia Bernal or Penelope Cruz in their native tongue. Or perhaps it’s enough for you to just hold a simple conversation. Learning Spanish may have its difficult moments.

But remember that no language is inherently more difficult than another. It’s all a matter of perspective! You can learn to speak Spanish, especially these days where there are accessible online resources to help you every step of the way.