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Traditionally taught Spanish courses do not equip you to developing a degree of fluency. This is the most common quote from my Spanish students. Mostly very well educated adults, in a corporate setting.

From my experience training professionals in some of the best companies in the world, the following are the best practices to speak Spanish, and my approach.

1. Speak it.

Read a dialog aloud between you and your instructor. Don’t worry about not understanding the content… or the pronunciation. Just read it aloud. Get used to feeling weird listening to yourself speaking a different language. Who cares?

2. Re-read it.

Read what you just said it (for yourself). Take more time to read it at your own pace trying to get the gist. Realize that when we speak we get the general idea, and do not process every single word to make sense of what is being said.

3. Understand why it is said the way it is said.

This is the grammatical part that most of us are not particularly eager to study. By learning the logic behind it, we can start making sense of the pattern and start building our own short sentences.

4. It is a life-learning project

As a native Spaniard, English is my second language and I am learning every day. Take advantage of every opportunity to get exposed to Spanish. Listen to TV, software, radio, read papers. Don’t worry about not understanding the content. How long does it take to master the basics? For my dear friend and student, Alan, a U.S. attorney working for a top Mexican law firm, basics is a very high basics. I mean, every person’s expectations are different. Accent? What accent?

5. It is easy. To give up. Absolutely. But it is a shame because when you reach a certain level, a level you feel comfortable with, you start seeing the world not in a different light, but in multiple lights.

It is doable and like anything that is worth it, it takes practice, patience and will. The more you invest, the better focus you will gain of this multicolor and multi-lingual world. Enjoy it.