1. Building the foundation
Getting familiar with pronunciation and learning everyday nouns and verbs, as well as basic grammar, will give you the skills you need to start putting together simple sentences. This is essential in helping you develop a solid linguistic base and will contribute to developing your confidence. Once you know the basics of the language, you will find it much easier and quicker to progress through your learning.
2. Learn vocabulary
Want to know a secret? Vocabulary is more important than grammar. That’s not to say that grammar isn’t important. It is. Grammar tells you exactly how to how to use vocabulary to form sentences. However, without vocabulary, grammar is of limited use. Lengalia offers you a collection of general vocabulary organised into 7 different levels (A0 - C2) and a collection of more specialised vocabulary to deepen your knowledge in more professional areas. You can learn this vocabulary either in context (sentences and texts) or through our vocabulary trainer. Our collection of vocabulary currently provides you with more than 25,000 words and sentences to learn.
3. Learn grammar rules
Grammar is the set of rules that explains how to use a language. It is the key to unlocking and understanding the language and it is simply not possible to learn a foreign language without having some understanding of its grammar. Once a student has learned basic words, it becomes a lot more important to understand how to connect parts of a sentence. Without an understanding of grammar, it is impossible to formulate new sentences. So, the question then is not whether we should learn grammar but how we should learn it. Our learning paths make sure you learn grammar at the right time, in a way that starts to fill in the missing pieces. You will begin to see the language from a new perspective and each and every lightbulb moment you have will further add to your overall enjoyment!
4. Improve writing skills
Having basic writing skills means being able to get your message across. Once you know how to pronounce Spanish properly (most letters in Spanish only have one sound so this should be quite simple) the best way to develop effective writing skills is to practise writing and have your writing corrected. Our pronunciation course will be just the thing you need!
5. Improve listening comprehension
When we first start to learn our mother tongue, the first couple of years are largely spent listening to our parents and attempting to recreate the sounds they make. We need to understand what we are listening to in order to speak well and so, as we continue to listen and correct our mistakes, little by little we become fluent in the language. Lengalia offers more than 35,000 clearly spoken audios, 65 podcasts and numerous videos at different levels of difficulty, each with their respective transcripts.
6. Speak the language
When should I start speaking Spanish? Well, it depends on you and your specific situation. We recommend you dedicate the first steps of your learning to building up enough vocabulary and improving your other language skills until you have a better understanding of what other people are saying and are able to respond appropriately.
Conversation practice will help you to build confidence. You get the chance to make mistakes… and learn from them. You also get concrete evidence that you are improving and you start living the language, not just learning it.
To do this, you can use one of the many online sites dedicated to bringing together language partners across the world to video call, meet up, chat online, or email (improving your writing skills as well). There are various options available such as Conversation Exchange, HelloTalk, Tandem, Speaky, etc., all of which are free of charge.
We recommend you use Lengalia and also connect with one or more language exchange partners as well. That way, you get the best of both worlds: you learn exactly how the language works with Lengalia and you get to use it informally with your language partner.
7. Master the language
You will also have the opportunity to deepen your Spanish knowledge in different professional subject areas and for specific purposes. To this end, Lengalia offers a variety of courses that will help you learn and expand your specialist vocabulary and the grammatical structures specific to your professional field.
The beauty of language is that it can be used to express an unlimited set of ideas and concepts. Although this requires an understanding of grammar, the good news is that Spanish grammar is not as difficult as most people think. At the end of the day, learning Spanish doesn’t have to be expensive and it can be a really enriching experience too.